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| The Team ‘Hashers Do It on the Trail’ at the Ragnar Trail Vermont 2018 |
I’ve got a new ‘Leeism’ I use in conversation now. To describe something as ‘Ragnar’ is to refer to something that is utterly brilliant and a total shitshow at the same time.
A few weekends ago I got to get my first taste of trail running in Vermont in the USA at the Ragnar Trail Vermont. I was lucky enough to join a team of American hashers who made me family and witnessed the best Vermont has to offer for mountainous forest trails with waterfalls and rocky technical terrain and stunning views. Whilst the event was like nothing I’d seen in the UK it sadly ended on a low note for many at the event….hence the term ‘Full Ragnar’
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| Ragnar Trail Vermont Review |
The Ragnar Relay has something of a cult following in the USA. Its a number of road relays throughout the USA held over a weekend, that has now branched out into trail and events around the world. The event allows teams of 4,8 or 12 to take it in turns to run various ‘loops’ as a relay team over a continuous weekend until all runners have done at least one of each loop. In the case of the Ragnar Relay in Vermont we had a total of about 120 miles.
Epic branding , huge merch stands selling everything under the sun for Ragnar branded running and even a campfire for melting smores. The whole thing was impressive. Just like my stint at the World OCR championships last year the event was staged at a Ski resort so there were plenty of hills!
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| Smores on a campfire at The Ragnar Trail Vermont |
The event kicked off with a staggered start, giving potentially slower teams a bit more time to get everything done within the weekend. The course was very well marked, and the event village had a wide selection of food and beverages and entertainment going on as well as being the base where the relay ‘baton’ was handed over between runners. There was a real party atmosphere clustering round the handover point and our camping area had a ringside seat to part of the green trail allowing us to sit under a gazebo and cheer on runners while we drank a beer.
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| Ragnar Trail Vermont Review |
The team spirit here is obvious, many of the teams decorate their camping area with their tribal signs and some of the hilarious names of the teams only reinforces that this weekend is about fun and friendship and trails and not necessarily competing. As one of your team runners came close to the event village a timing chip would fire up your team name on a screen to give you a heads up to get the next runner ready for the handover.
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| The team screen warning of a runner nearing the handover point at the Ragnar Trail Vermont |
Our team captain had carefully scheduled our runners to play to our strengths. I had been given slots through the night for my loops as I had experience running tired and at night on trails. As the event wore on huge thunderstorms hit the area with massive downpours and at one stage the race had to be temporarily halted for 2 hours while the risk of being struck by lightning passed.
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| Team tent decorations at the Ragnar Trail Vermont |
The Green loop was the shortest at about 3 miles and followed a winding route on the ski slopes through woods and fields near the event village. I would guess that much of it was made up from a mountain bike downhill trail. After a day of heavy rain I hit the Green trail with trekking poles for grip and could see the conditions were deteriorating badly on the slopes making it very muddy and slippery and difficult to stay upright on the course let alone run.
By the time I went out to run the Red loop ( 7 miles) the course was almost impossible to run at all do to the mud. This was the most scenic loop and meandered through dense hilly woodland past streams and waterfalls. The temperatures were high despite the torrential rain so although I was soaked through I was still hot so I used the streams to cool my body and face down. Even at night you could see the route was very impressive, and the darkness and sprouting mushrooms and lack of others runners only made it somehow more magical. I took over 2.5 hours to travel 7 miles having to pick my footing carefully and pull myself up parts of the route with the trekking poles for grip.
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| Cramped and soaking camping conditions at the Ragnar trail Vermont |
By the time I ‘ran’ my final loop around 3am on the Yellow loop things were beyond reasonable. Runners were coming in with thousand yard stares talking about not being able to run any of the course , and the yellow trail had been shortened due to a collapsed bridge in the woods. I couldn’t quite believe the race was still going ahead.
By the morning amazingly the organisers had still not stopped the race. In fact they had deferred the decision to the teams and sensibly most teams ( other than a small handful) had called it a day on safety grounds. A mass DNF of common sense prevailed. Asking teams to double or triple up on the course to make up lost time simply trashed the conditions twice as fast. It was basically pointless for anyone to continue.
As the torrential downpour continued many chose to leave, only to find their vehicles parked in a special area in a field a mile away were completely stuck. We had a 2 hour wait to get our car, others waited much of the day. The chaos of so many leaving overwhelmed the camping area and there wasnt enough room for people to load the camping gear onto their cars. The police arrived to help control and direct traffic and a huge lorry was required to dump tons of gravel to make a makeshift road out to the stuck car park. It was a giant glorious shit show and sadly took the shine of a superb weekend. Many people attending eventually left after many frustrating hours in a foul mood. I was one of them.
Its easy to say the rain was the problem, and it was, but a lack of any contingency planning or foresight as to what could happen with bad weather meant this event was basically doomed at the planning stage if it rained. I saw exactly the same cheerful optimism and lack of planning at the World OCR champs in Canada last year. In the UK we expect rain to ruin events, the week before I had seen similar weather all weekend at the Lakeland 100 in the Lake District but it made no difference as it was already factored in with the event and safety planning.
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| Ragnar Trail Vermont Review |
For me trail running has always been about the adventure, meeting new people and making friends. I don’t chase times and aim to win as I find that takes all the fun out of it. What Ragnar lacked in common sense and safety it more than made up for in spirit and intention. It was a weekend where I bonded with some new runners from my area, and watched many of them push themselves beyond anything they thought was possible. For some the distance was the most they had ever run, and for others their visual impairments made things even harder, yet all in my team had a sense of achievement that weekend.
Not completing the course was missing the point. This wasn’t a race really, it was a trail running festival and we had a blast. We drank beer , hung out and relaxed despite the rain.
I suspect the chaos of the car park and the trail will fade from my memory. What’s left is everything I love about Trail running, and a lifetime memory of running in the dark on my own with a fading headtorch and rain so warm I was using waterfalls and streams to cool down despite being soaking wet. It was gloriously brilliant and terrible at the same time.
It was ‘Full Ragnar’.
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| Our Team cheering on other runners at the Ragnar Trail Vermont |
For now I’ll grumble about difficult conditions and bad organisation, but I suspect If I get asked to go again next year I’ll probably say yes.
And I think that’s what ‘Full Ragnar ‘ may well be all about.
You can find out more about Ragnar events here
