Fred Leavitt: Ragnar

Friday, April 18, 2025

On the evening of April 9th Matt and Sheena Smith arrived and spent the night with us. On the 10th the rest of the Ragnar team arrived and most of them spent the evening at an Air B&B that Justin rented in La Jolla. Let’s see if I can remember everyone.

Van 1
Fred Leavitt
Crystal Chander
Kyla
Sheena Smith
Ben Leavitt
Kira Palmer

Van 2
Justin Palmer
Alex Leavitt
Matt Smith
Jared Palmer
Shane Walton
Dave Holland (Dave caught pneumonia the week before the Ragnar and couldn't come)

The start time for Van 1 was 5:15am. That meant that we had to leave the house at 4:30. Uggh

Due to difficulty in getting Ben moving at such an unearthly hour, we actually started our run at 5:30am. I don’t know what order Van 2 ran in but we ran in the order I have listed above.

When we ran the “Hood to Coast” in Portland a couple of years ago Justin started the race in a spectacular manner. Virtually everyone who starts these races knows that it is a long race and don’t want to kill themselves out of the gate. Justin decided to give it all he had. It made for a very cool picture of him.

I wanted a similar picture, so I decided to give it all I had out of the gate as well. My picture would have been a good one, but it was dark and while I like it, it just isn’t exactly what I was going for.

I immediately left everyone in my starting group in the dust but obviously I couldn’t keep that pace up for more than a few hundred yards.

By a quarter mile the first people started passing me and by a half mile they had all passed me. About five miles into my run the second group started passing me. My run was almost seven miles

I was kind of bummed at first, according to Ragnar, my runs didn’t have any ocean views but as the day started to get lighter, I had amazing views of the San Diego Bay.

I had no van support on my run but about a mile from the end, my van was able to stop and cheer me on. I got to run through a tunnel and Ben and Kira ran with me for a bit. Van support is always fun.

Justin decided it would be fun to give each other embarrassing “T” shirts to wear. These are the shirts Justin bought for Van 1. They were definitely embarrassing.

After my run I stopped to get gas and while we were stopped a police car came by to ask what was going on. It seems odd to me that the local police would not be made aware of an event as big as a Ragnar.

I’m not sure where Van 2 is but they were apparently enjoying themselves while we were out running.

Ben running in to exchange 5.

Ben handing off to Kira.

Kira completing the last leg for Van 1’s first turn.

Kira is almost done her run.

The first major exchange (Van 1 hands off to Van 2) was at Liberty Station.

I think Van 2 bent the rules a little bit once they took over. Shane went to Costco and bought an electric scooter. He made good time on his leg.

Alex running in from his leg.

On our run, we passed Taco’s El Gordo. They are world famous. We headed back there for lunch and its reputation is well deserved.

My second leg was a bit rough. My knee was quite painful after the abuse I gave it in my morning run, but I was still able to run/walk my leg and make decent time. It was still light enough that I didn’t need to wear a headlight. Thank goodness.

Kyla ran right in front of the Stake Center, so Lisa picked up Mandy and came and met us at the church and helped us cheer her on. They then came to the exchange point at the Catholic Church on Carmel Mountain Rd.

As we neared the end of our night time legs, some supervisor from Ragnar told us that we were in last place and that we needed to modify our last runs. I guess after years of running Ragnars we have all slowed down. We started at 5:30 and to finish at a decent time, say 4:00 pm on Saturday, we would have to average 10:00 minute miles. I think we will be running modified Ragnars from now on or we need to get some young blood.

Van 1 decided to go home, have a decent sleep, and then combine some of our runs the next day. Since the major exchange point was only ten minutes from our house, we slept at our house. We stuck all the girls in the bunk room; I slept in my own bed and Ben slept in my office. The morning was quite relaxed.

Princess Lisa braided everyone’s hair, Kira and Ben played with their niece and nephew and then we headed out to meet up with Van 2. As it turns out, Van 2 ran their legs and then decided to run our legs as well. They did bring in a couple of “ringers” though. Jared’s two boys live in Temecula so they called them to come in and run some of our legs. They were making six minute miles so that helped. They also had the scooter and that helped as well until its battery died.

At this point we were at least an hour from the house Justin had rented so Van 2 decided to just sleep in the Van. They look quite comfortable.

So, instead of Van 2 ending the race for us, Van 1 now had that job. I’m not exactly sure which legs we ran but I think Kyla and Crystal ran together and I think they ran leg 34 but I could be wrong. They were both quite beat up, so they walked much of that leg. Actually, the only person in Van 1 who wasn’t beat up was Kira, she wanted to run her entire eight-mile leg.

Neither me nor Alex were in any shape to run, so Kira ran the first four miles of her leg (I think she took leg number 35) and then Alex and I joined her at her four-mile mark and we walked the rest of the way in. Even walking was hurting me, but it was so fun to walk those four miles with them. We then dropped Ben off so he could run the last few miles of his final leg, leg 36. Since he had no van support I have no pictures of him.

The entire team then joined Ben for the final few hundred yards and we all ran in. It was so much fun.

My kids

My kids again

While the shirts Justin gave Ben and I were quite embarrassing, they were extremely popular. During the entire race people would come up to Ben and I and want to take pictures with us. I have had more comments during this race than I have ever received in anything I have ever done. Hundreds of comments and dozens of pictures. Here is a picture of Ben with his look-a-like.

While that picture is great, Bens’ favorite picture is him as a mermaid with his mermaid friends.

The medals this year were beautiful. Definitely my favorite Ragnar medal.

After we spent some time at the finish line, we all headed back to the Air B&B. It had a hot tub that felt amazing on my throbbing knee.

Mom and Lisa showed up with Alex’s kids who were very happy to see their dad. Alex and Lisa headed back home but they left James with Mom and I so we could visit a little longer. Shane and Justin had ordered a ton of delicious junk food and Shane made it his personal mission to give James enough junk food to make him sick. It didn’t work. James just loved it all.