Ragnar Trail happened last weekend

This week I want to share an awesome event several of us took place on behalf of RunBeerRepeat.

RunBeerRepeat sent its very first Ragnar team out this past weekend to Ragnar Trail Northwoods. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Ragnar Trail is an 8-person relay that happens on trails. All the runners complete the same three trail runs for a total of approximately 15 miles each. The group camps in a central campsite with about 400 other teams, supported by a central village with sponsors, food trucks, vendors and other necessities.

Ragnar Trail Northwoods took place just outside of Wausau, Wisconsin. The course was run on a combination of snowshoe, mountain bike and hiking trails in the Nine Mile Recreation Area.

RunBeerRepeat had a team of 8 solid runners who represented the club amazingly well. The team consisted of Dana Smith, Amanda and Tony Kutzke, Ashley Powell, Darrell James, Alan Pike and Audrey and Dave Royer. The team finished in the top 3rd overall and in our division, finishing the 24 loops in a total of 25 hours, 44 minutes and 10 seconds. Overall there were nearly 3000 runners over about 400 teams.

In true RunBeerRepeat spirit, we had a great supply of post-run beer available in the form of a 5-gallon keg of Summit Saga! Additionally, we had homemade wine and root beer on tap. The looks of other runners walking around camp were priceless, most having never seen a running group with multiple taps available during a camping event.

The running itself was a fun collection of rocky, rooty, moderately technical trails made more interesting by the darkness of running in the night for many loops. One of the highlights for me was the camaraderie between runners. The route leading to the transition tent was lined with cheering crowds, encouraging runners on. What I found especially interesting was that the vast majority of the cheering crowds were fellow runners that had already ran the same thing or would be doing so shortly. This was a truely motivational part of the event!

If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend giving Ragnar Trail a try. It was an awesome event.

A couple additional notes this week

This Sunday for the Twin Cities Marathon, we are hosting a cheering section at the corner of Western Ave and Summit Ave. We’ll be there starting at about 7am.

Next Sunday, October 8th at 1pm we are having our Bottle Share and social event at Audrey and Dave’s house in Eagan. We’ll go for a short run, followed by trying some fun bottles people are bringing. The idea is you bring something to open and try as well as a bottle to trade. Overall it’s a social time to chat and celebrate a great summer of running! Please RSVP on the event page for the full address.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone next week at Urban Growler!

More Ragnar Pics