Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Ragnar Trail Relay - Tahoe July 2013

I love races. I am not competitive, never have been. But I enjoy group activities, and public races are not necessarily about who comes in first (you know it's the Kenyan guy who flew in two days ago.) This year I plan on running at least four races, including the Grizzly Peak Half Marathon in April, the Bay to Breakers in May, the Lake Tahoe Trifecta (3 half marathons in a weekend) in September, the CIM - the California International marathon (the Sacramento marathon), and to top it all off, I joined a Ragnar team!

Like many runners on the roads and trails, I had been noticing these orange butterfly symbols on tee shirts, and knew it was a running series. With a Google search, it appeared Ragnar was very trendy and had a cult like following. I had seen one run live in Marin a few years back, on my way to running Mt. Tam alone. But I had never looked into joining a team.... until now.

Ragnar is now doing a trail running series, and they have chosen South Lake Tahoe as one of their locations. Run up and down ski runs in the summer? Yes, please! 

As the new Adult Sports Director for the City of Albany, I have been learning how to put together an athletic team from scratch. It is definitely an art. Part of it is "If you build it they will come," but it's much more complicated than that. A sports team is also about chemistry - do these athletes work well together, about position - you can't have 10 pitchers and no outfielders, and about the purpose of the team - do they want to have fun or do they want to win?

I thought about putting together my own team. But since this is my first Ragnar, it made more sense to join an existing team, a team that had experience under its belt. But the team had to match my abilities and goals, which is to say, non-competitive and into a good time above all things. And Team Uter Zorker answered my call! They run for chocolate! Named after the fat German kid from the Simpsons, this Vegas based running club appears to be a perfect match for me. So this July you will see me running at Sierra-at-Tahoe for two days, with a bag of M&Ms in my Nathan's backpack.