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.  

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50,000 of your brain cells die every day?

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James & Adelaide

Tuesday, April 16, 2025

On April 4 to April 9 Alex and Lisa went on a cruise and we were happy to watch the kids while they were gone.

On Friday Lisa took the kids to the zoo while I tried to get some work done. They spent the entire day there and loved it. Adelaide was apparently fascinated with the flamingos while James’ loved everything.

Saturday morning we headed to Balboa park where it was Tartan day. Craig and Marilyn are always volunteering there but our dance class was also performing.

From Balbo park we headed to the beach. Unfortunately, we went to the wrong beach. We went to Torrey Pines because we have a parking pass for there, but we should have gone to the lower parking lot because where we went was very rocky. That didn’t bother the kids one bit.

We didn’t stay too long because it had been a long day for the kids and they were getting tired.

On Sunday after church, we headed to the Del Mar beach. It is always sandy, and we stayed until it started getting dark.

James promptly found a sword and started slaying water monsters.

Adelaide played in the water but was a bit leery of the waves and never ventured far from Grandma.

She spent most of her time in the sand.

At one point James got brave and wanted to try boogie boarding but as we got into the surf he wasn’t quite up to laying on the board.

He thought it was much more fun to have grandpa pull him in the shallow water.

And then we had to build a sandcastle and let the incoming tide destroy it. James wasn’t all that into the sandcastle until the tide reached it. Then he was quite concerned.

Monday we took the kids to Legoland. It was a blast. We got there shortly after it opened and stayed until they kicked us out.

James has been there enough that he knew exactly what rides he wanted to do and we did them all. There were no lines, and we went from ride to ride. I think we did Ninjaga four times in a row.

At one point James saw a water fountain and boys were playing in it. He wanted to play as well so Lisa took off his shirt and off, he went. He did that for a while and then he promptly decided that he wanted to lay on the grass and “soak up the sun”. I’m thinking, “we paid a couple of hundred dollars so he could soak up the sun?"

It was pretty funny. It was a long but very fun day.

Tuesday was my day to take off work so while Lisa went to work I did my best to be productive while not letting the kids die.

Wednesday morning, I was watching the kids when Lisa and Alex walked in the door. They were very happy to see their parents. Only once did they get a bit homesick and we quickly distracted them, but they obviously missed their mom and dad.

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Cats only meow at humans! While kittens meow to communicate with their mothers, they stop meowing to other cats as they grow older. Instead, they reserve their vocalizations for their human companions.

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Earthquake!

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Wow, it’s been a while since I have recorded anything in my journal. That’s probably because it has been a crazy two weeks. On Friday evening, March 18th Lisa and I attended the advanced Scottish Country dance class to help prepare us for the big ball on the weekend. On Saturday, Mar 19th, we attended a tutorial to try and learn more dances and then on Sunday, Mar 20th was the big ball. We headed to the Portuguese Hall right after church, and the ball started with a big and very delicious meal. After the meal we cleaned up and started dancing. I wasn’t counting, but there must have been about twenty dances. I knew about a quarter of them comfortably, another quarter of them I made many mistakes but got through them OK, another quarter of them I had no idea what I was doing but tried them anyway and then I sat a quarter of the dances because they were hard and I knew nothing about them and I didn’t want to ruin the dance for someone else.

The ball was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the San Diego Chapter of the Royal Scottish County Dance Society.

In Scottish Country dance you are highly discouraged from dancing with the people you arrive with. It is a social dance where you get to know and meet a lot of other people. It is also not the kind of dance where you have close contact with your partner either, so it is totally comfortable and a lot of fun. Perhaps the best part of the weekend is that I got to wear my new kilt.

A few months back Jodi showed up to our dance class with a bunch of Scottish type of clothing. She looked at me and said that I looked about the right size and she gave me a full outfit. It included everything. The kilt, belt, sporran, kilt pin, a big fat belt and belt buckle, socks, flashes, a Sgian dubh (pronounced skeean doo), a Prince Charles Jacket and vest.

The Sgian dubh is a small knife that you tuck into your hose (socks). It is perhaps my favorite part of the outfit. It is very sharp too.

On April 3rd, Alex and Lisa showed up with their two kids, gave us hugs and kisses along with their two kids and then Friday morning they left on a cruise. We spent five enjoyable (but a bit exhausting) days with their kids and then they returned on Apr 9th.

On April 10th people started showing up for the Ragnar and our Van started at 5:15am on the 11th. I’ll talk more about my time with Alex’s kids and the Ragnar in future posts but today I just wanted to mention that we had an earthquake yesterday. It was small, only about 5.2 on the Richter scale, and caused no damage, but its epicenter was between Julian and Ramona, about 20 miles from our house. I really wish I had been working in Ramona yesterday. As it is, this is the only picture I could find of any damage.

I was sitting at my computer trying to get some work done and suddenly it felt like someone had grabbed our house and gave it a shake. A few seconds later I felt a second shake and then it was over.

We have lived in San Diego for over 32 years and the few earthquakes I have felt have all been so small that when I feel them, I have to ask myself if that was an earthquake. This time there was no doubt. Everything on my desk and shelf shook and I could hear the pictures on the walls rattling. The only thing that fell was a picture standing on my shelf. I did notice that a bunch of my other nick knacks on my shelves have moved close to the edge of the shelf so maybe I should stick them down with something.

It was quite exciting. This was the first time I asked myself if I should duck and cover.

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The average rate of motion across the San Andreas Fault Zone during the past 3 million years is 56 mm/yr (2 in/yr). This is about the same rate at which your fingernails grow. Assuming this rate continues, scientists project that Los Angeles and San Francisco will be adjacent to one another in approximately 15 million years.

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