Anyone willing to help with the Ragnar Relay race?

R

rogerbum

New member
All,

I'm putting together a team for a 24 hour race from Blaine Wa to Langley WA. The race will start on Fri. July 24 and finish on the morning of July 25th. Details on the race can be found at this link. I could possibly use some help in a few areas.
1) I need to find 2 large vans to drive the teams around. Ideally, I'd get vans that could seat 6 with some open space in the back to throw in a couple of air mattresses. Does anyone have recommendations on where to rent such vehicles? The car rental places I've looked at online tend to do mostly minivans. We need something bigger but nothing longer than 20' is allowed (15 passenger vans are OK). It would probably be best to pick up and return the vehicle in Seattle.
2) We need to find 3 people total who can provide volunteer support to the race. At this point the specific duties of a volunteer are a bit unclear but the information I've received is the following
"Volunteer duties and times vary quite a bit. Many volunteer shifts consist of help announce runners, keeping track of teams and runners that have come through, helping set up and take down parts of the course, handing out medals, serving food, assisting runners, serving hot cocoa/coffee, etc. Some jobs (particularly set-up and take-down) may require heavy lifting (no more than 40-50 lbs), but keep in mind several people will be helping. As far as time commitments go, most shifts average around 4-7 hours. "
3) Since the race will last a total of 24 hours +/- a little, it might be useful to have a few places along the way where we could stop and prepare some food or a least borrow some picnic table space. They way things work is that the first van carries the first 6 runners and the second van the second six. Each group of racers will have roughly 4 hours in the van following their racer or running and 4 hours resting in between. The course map is detailed in the race bible on the Ragnar relay site but the vans will swap out at the major exchange locations (listed below). If a C-Brat lives near any of these locations and is willing to help out, let me know in a PM. Note that the race runs 24 hours so there are two exchanges that we will hit late at night or early in the AM - I don't anticipate anyone will want to help out for those.

Legs 6-7 exchange - Bellingham - Blvd Park - mid-day (near lunch)
12-13 exchange - About 6 miles S of Edison on Bayview Edison Rd. (7PM - near dinner)
18-19 exchange - La Connor HS parking lot (maybe around 11PM)
24-25 exchange - Near Cranberry Lake on Whidbey (4-5 AM)
30-31 exchange - about 1/2 mile S of Coupeville on Main street. (7-8AM)
36 - race finish - Langley. (mid day on Sat).
 
We used to run the transport and communications for Westminister Police dept in the Baker To Vegas Relay race. We found that an RV worked well. This give refrigration, bunks, enough room to rest, and transport people in comfort. That plus a large SUV might do you well.
 
Is this 24 hour race a footrace? How many years did you go to school?

I can't help you any, although I do wish you success. I might offer the advice to encourage all the participants to be better community visitors than the snobs - who are for sure the minoriy, but the most remembered - in the Hood to Coast relay who inspire so much dread and disdain by the locals. Especially the locals whose yards are used for restrooms and garbage dumps.

Have fun and good luck.
 
TyBoo":14mjkh54 said:
Is this 24 hour race a footrace? How many years did you go to school?
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Yes - it's a foot race. With 12 people, and each person running 3 legs, each person only has to run about 40 mins, 3 times.

As to how many years I went to school -
1) Way too many
2) There's little (if any) correlation between years of school and common sense.
3) After all those years in school and in research, sometimes a guy just needs to do something crazy. This sounded like fun to me.

TyBoo":14mjkh54 said:
I can't help you any, although I do wish you success. I might offer the advice to encourage all the participants to be better community visitors than the snobs - who are for sure the minoriy, but the most remembered - in the Hood to Coast relay who inspire so much dread and disdain by the locals. Especially the locals whose yards are used for restrooms and garbage dumps.

Have fun and good luck.
Click to expand...
We'll definitely run a clean show and we'll make a point of only dropping $'s into the local area. I'll organize our team logistics so porta potties, trash bags etc. will be available to all on our team.
 
rogerbum":3om0udg4 said:
Yes - it's a foot race. With 12 people, and each person running 3 legs, each person only has to run about 40 mins, 3 times.
Click to expand...

When I was in elementary school two of us trained for several weeks to run a 3 legged race for an end of the year field day. On the morning of the race, we were practicing and some jerk rode his bicycle in front of us and we crashed into him severely scraping our knees into bloody pulps. We still entered the race in the afternoon and took 1st place! (Truly amazing.......that I can remember that far back in time... :shock: )

Now about that "40 mins. 3 times".....If someone doesn't run their share of the distance in the designated time, does the next person have to sprint for their 40 minutes in order to make up the distance? :roll:
 
Yeah, well, my post did sound a little harsh. Sorry. I am quite certain you and those you choose as teammates will not be of the same ilk as the elitest-better-than-the-people-of-Seaside-and-all-points-in-between-Hood-to-Coasters. They are getting better but it still seems every year the organizers have to come before the local city councils at the coast end of the event and convince our communities that we should give them one more chance. Personally, I think we would all be better off if they picked a block in their own neighborhoods and just ran around it 1400 times.

When you get so big that Nike starts sponsoring teams of Olympians to run and the support folks are more like bodyguards, then I'm sure you will want to disassociate yourself. Until then, it sounds like a fun and healthful event. But geez, Roger, if you keep this up you're going to wither away to nothing.
 
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