Ragnar Relay Florida Keys, part 4

On Monday, I woke up and decided to go for a run first-thing in the morning. I dressed in my really gross, already-worn, running clothes. I should have brought extras, but I just re-wore the ones from Ragnar. I headed downstairs and then ran down Duval Street, and a couple of side streets. It was extremely humid, and I was pouring sweat. I completed three miles, at what felt like a hard pace, but turns out was kind of slow for my typical pace lately. I blame tired legs and the humidity!

After I showered, Jerry and I ate cereal in our hotel room, and then went down to meet the team. We waited in line for a while to take a picture at the southernmost point of the United States.

Then we saw a guy selling coconuts on the street, so we bought some. The fresh coconut water is delicious!! I've tried the Vitacoco coconut water before, and didn't like it, so I really was not expecting to like the fresh coconut water. But it was SO good!

We bought some tickets for the trolley tour, and then we had to say good-bye to Meredith and her husband, Dave, who were leaving. I’m hoping I’ll see Meredith in the spring, when I go visit my friend Sarah in Phoenix. Then we hopped on the trolley. We stayed on until I heard the words, “World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie”. I almost jumped off on the spot, but was patient enough to wait until it stopped.

The cookies were at a shop called Kermit’s, which had tons of key lime stuff. Andrea bought a cookie, and we cut it up to each try a piece. I took two bites, and decided it was nothing special at all—it tasted like a grocery store cookie, just dry and tasteless. It wasn’t worth eating any more.

I bought a piece of chocolate-covered key lime pie to taste; I just had two small bites of it, and then handed it off to the rest of the group.

This was the sign that sold me on it!

It was just okay, but again, not worth spending PointsPlus on. I don't think that the chocolate and key lime go well together. Separately? Definitely. But not together.

We finished out the trolley tour, and at one of the stops, we found a dessert place called Mattheessen’s on Duval St. They had ENORMOUS cookies and brownies. The brownies were 1/6 of a 9x13 pan, and their cookies were baked three to a cookie sheet! Andrea and I got a chocolate chip cookie to share—she does Weight Watchers too, and we guesstimated it at 20 PP for the whole cookie, so 10 PP for half. Not too bad.

Ohmygoodnessgracious, it was the BEST chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever eaten in my life! The center was a little raw, and was so good I was actually moaning when I ate it. If you go to Key West, you’ve got to try it! 

Once we were done with the tour, we wanted to see the sunset. The pier was extremely crowded, so we got tickets to go on a sunset cruise on a sailboat. They let us bring our own drinks. It was just Jerry, me, Andrea, and her husband, Andy who did the boat, while the rest of our group went to the pier.

The sunset was gorgeous, and I must have taken a hundred pictures of it—although my iPhone camera doesn’t really do it justice!

We walked back to the hotel, but stopped for dinner at Ambrosia, a sushi place. I’d never had sushi in my life, so I was excited to try it. I let Andrea order for us, because she and her husband have sushi pretty often. We got a large variety of stuff.

I tried a little of everything, and it was just okay—I didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it either. I could go the rest of my life without it and be fine. But it was fun to try!

After dinner, we went up to our hotel room, and the rest of the team joined us there for drinks. We had a ton of beer in our fridge that we had to use up. I actually didn’t drink anything, but chatted with the team. It was nice to chat with Allison, because I feel like I hadn’t gotten a good chance to talk much with her (she was in Van 2).

Everyone left at around midnight, and I said good-bye to everyone except Andrea and Andy, who were driving up to Miami with us the next day. I was so sad to see everyone leave—I could have stayed another week, for sure!

On Tuesday morning, I woke up and went for a run again. Just three miles, down Duval Street. It felt a little cooler than Monday morning, which was nice, but it was still super humid. Back at the hotel, I showered and then Jerry and I walked to my brother’s hotel for breakfast. We met up with him and Becky, and some of his team.

I (again) ordered an English muffin and a scrambled egg. The table next to us got their food, and I saw an amazing looking dish of fresh fruit, so I ordered that as well. It was SO delicious!

After breakfast, I said good-bye to my brother, and then Jerry and I went to the hotel to pack. Our hotel was amazing, and worth every penny (it was the Southernmost on the Beach).

We had to rent a car to Miami, so Jerry walked the 1.6 miles to the car rental and got the car, then came back and picked us up with the rental. We made our way up to Miami, and it was really cool to see some of the Ragnar course in the daylight. It’s much less scary during the day!

We stopped for lunch at a fresh fish place called The Fish House in Key Largo. I had the very best fish I've ever had in my LIFE there--I ordered Mahi-Mahi Matecumbe. Here is the menu description:

You can order it with your choice of fish, so I chose Mahi-Mahi. It was absolutely perfect--the perfect size (I was worried about getting a ginormous portion), the perfect price (although after tasting it, I think they could certainly get away with charging more). Everyone at the table tasted it and agreed it was absolutely amazing.

I estimated it to be 6 PP--4 PP for the fish, and 2 more for the small amount of olive oil. The other ingredients were 0. I so badly want to try and replicate this dish at home!

The rest of the day was pretty low-key. We got to the hotel, I blogged for a little while in the lobby (free internet there, but not in our rooms). We had dinner at the hotel restaurant. I wasn't really in the mood for "real" food, and I had quite a bit of PointsPlus left for dinner, so I decided to order a piece of chocolate cake for dinner. Yep, that's right. And it was sooo good!

Again, I was thankful the size of it wasn't ginormous. It was perfectly portioned, and I counted it as 12 PP.

After dinner, we went up to the room with Andrea and Andy (her husband) and had a glass of wine and chatted for a bit. We called it a night pretty early, at around 10, because we were all tired.

Jerry's and my flight leaves at noon, so we'll be home by dinner time. I have an interview with WDIV Detroit tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM--ugh! Nobody wants to wake up the day after vacation that early (probably 4:00?) but it's pretty exciting. (If you're local, they told me I would be on-air by 6:20 AM). I can't wait to watch The Today Show piece tomorrow! I wish I could specify what time it will air, because the show is so long, but I don't know yet. If I get word from the producer, I will post it to Facebook and Twitter. (Update: It's supposed to air at 8:15 AM)

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Ragnar Relay Florida Keys, part 3

On Sunday morning, I actually woke up pretty early—7:00. Considering I was up until 2, that’s early! I blogged for a little while before heading to breakfast with the team. We went to a little café called The Six-Toed Cat. There were about 20 of us there (teammates and spouses), and our server was fantastic. We had such bad service everywhere we went, and we were so grateful to have such an awesome server.

I got an English muffin and a scrambled egg—pretty basic stuff, but it was SO good. The English muffin was obviously made from scratch, and it was amazing. After brunch, some of the team had to head back to Miami—Ada, Jen S., Jen R., and Carly—so we said good-bye. It was hard saying bye to everyone! I keep saying this, but I dearly love my team.

Jerry and I headed back to the hotel, and then we walked down to the beach to meet up with my brother. We sat on the beach for a little while and chatted with him and Becky, his girlfriend. He also had a woman named Megan on his team, who works for Ragnar. She want to interview me for some Ragnar publicity stuff (just fun Facebook page-type stuff).

We agreed to meet the rest of the team at a bar called Rick’s at 4:00, for the Ragnar awards ceremony, so we walked down the road for that. It was pretty packed when we got there, and we couldn’t see or hear much, so we just started chatting with other teams. We met an ultra team (an “ultra” team means they only have six runners, and they each run six legs, instead of running three). They were dressed as superheros, amazingly good-looking and fit, and also gay ;)

One of them, Tyler, had a boyfriend who was extremely flirtatious and fun to chat with. He looked a lot like Ryan Gosling (at least he did in person, not so much in photos), and his name was Brien—so we started calling him Brien Gosling. He told us about a “Tea Dance” at one of the hotels, which I then learned was a gay dance party in the afternoon—John wanted to go, so I said I’d go along, and Jerry came with us. It turned out to be a blast! Jerry absolutely LOVES dancing at weddings, and that’s pretty much what this was like. There was a DJ, a dance floor, and a bar, and even though I don’t dance, I had a good time. 

John was totally embarrassing me by pulling up my before and after picture on his phone and showing it to everyone, pointing at me and saying, “Look! This is HER—isn’t she amazing?!” and I have to admit, it was nice being told that I look “fabulous” and “gorgeous”, hahaha. Gay men are so great at making me feel good about myself, that’s for sure!

After the dance party, we met up with the rest of the team for dinner at our hotel. It was extremely expensive, but that was going to be our splurge meal, so I got blackened Mahi Mahi with mango salsa, wild rice, and asparagus. I also got a Key Lime Pie martini. I loved the martini, but the food was just so-so. Thankfully, our service there was good.

From there, we walked down Duval Street to find a bar. There are 150 bars on Duval Street, which is only a mile long! A lot of them open wide into the street, so it’s easy to hop from bar to bar. We stopped for a drink at a gay bar, and got into conversation with these men that were so friendly—one of them looked just like Eric Estrada, and I wanted to get a picture with him. (I have an inside joke with my friends about Eric Estrada).

They were very interested in our team, and very impressed with our weight loss, so we chatted about that for a while. Then who should show up, but Brien Gosling ;)  One word I could use to describe him is “conceited”—he was super nice and fun, but definitely thought he was the best-looking guy around. He even said, “I bet she wants her picture with me,” referring to ME. I humored him, and he lifted me up (no doubt to show off his muscles, haha).

It’s funny, I’m at goal weight, but I still cringed when he picked me up, because I was worried he could feel my fat. I still have that image in my head of what I look like and feel like, and I have a hard time pushing those thoughts aside. I was worried I was too heavy, which I know was ridiculous; Jerry proved it, because he let Brien pick HIM up as well!

Then we had to say good-bye to John, which was hard. He was going to be leaving in the morning. I absolutely love John, and had a blast with him for the couple of short days that we were there.

What was left of our team (and the spouses) before John left

We left there and walked a couple doors down to a mellow wine bar. It was a really nice atmosphere, and I had a glass of cabernet (yes, just one--surprised?!). We sat and chatted for a couple of hours before we called it a night. I think I had maybe two drinks the whole day? I had a lot on Saturday night, so I decided to tone it down for the rest of the trip to save my PointsPlus. I still had a blast.

 

(will continue tomorrow...)

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Ragnar Relay Florida Keys, Part 2

(...continued)

In the morning, we drove to the next major exchange point for Van 2 to hand-off the bracelet to us. Because of the issues they were having, it didn’t look like John would hand off the bracelet to me until much later than anticipated; and I was worried we weren’t going to finish the race before the cut-off time.

We called the Ragnar officials, and asked them about our options. They told us that we could have Van 1 start before Van 2 was done running, and we just had to keep track of our leg times so that we could still have an official time at the end. That way, all of the legs would still be run, but we would finish earlier. We decided that John (runner 12, the last runner in Van 2) would start his leg as normal, but when he started, I would start the next leg at the same time to get Van 1 rolling again. Hard to explain, but it worked out.

I started my third and final leg at around 9:15 a.m. It was only three miles, and Angela strapped a camera to my head to wear during the run.

Since it was only three miles, and it was my final leg, I decided to push my pace, even though I was tired. I ended up passing a couple of guys, one of whom said, “You’re making me look bad!”

It was extremely humid (once again), but the course was easy and I finished my last leg with an 8:42 pace. 

We went to McDonald’s to use the bathroom and get some coffee and hang out for a few minutes before going over the 7-Mile Bridge to the next exchange point.The bridge was really cool, and I've never seen anything like it; but I certainly didn't envy Meredith for running it, because it was SO hot and humid, and that was an "unsupported" leg (meaning vans are not allowed to stop to support runners, and there were no water stops, so she had to carry water with her).

While we were waiting for Lealah to finish her long (very, very hot) leg, Angela interviewed us--just a couple of quick questions about the race itself.

Behind the scenes with Andrea's interview

I was SO happy to be done with my runs! I wasn’t “allowed” to change out of my sweaty clothes just yet, though, because the Today Show wanted to interview us at the finish line. I used baby wipes to clean up the best I could, but I still felt gross. We went to the next major exchange point to hand off to Van 2. Jennifer was the first runner in Van 2, and since she'd had a bad run the night before, we wanted to give her extra support.

It was so amazing. I can't even talk or write about this without crying. We all wanted Jennifer to have an amazing run, and gain some confidence back, so all 11 of us went to cheer for her at the exchange point. We were chanting her name as it was time for her to start, and I just felt this amazing love for all of my team! They are SO supportive.

After that, I just relaxed in the van until it was time for us to drive all the way to the finish line while Van 2 did their third legs. When we arrived at the finish line, we parked the van and went over to where the Today Show was set up. I met Kerry Sanders, who would be interviewing me. He was very sweet. I felt a little rushed during the interview, and I’m not so sure it sounded okay, but at that point, I just didn’t care! I was way too excited to be at the after party.

After Rik and Ada were interviewed, we finally got to go party! First, we went to the Ragnar shop, because I wanted to get a shirt or two. The hoodies were really picked over—they had all XXL’s, and two XS’s—nothing in-between. I tried on the XS, and it actually fit, so I got a hoodie; I also got a t-shirt. It was hard to choose, because I wanted everything!

Then we sat down on the beach with the spouses, and we had a couple of rounds of drinks while we waited for Van 2. I had a mojito, which I’d been craving ever since we talked of Ragnar Florida Keys.

Ada, Andrea, and me

Finally, at around 7:00, we went to the finish line to wait for John. He was runner 12, the last one, and when he came down the street, our entire team joined him. We all grabbed hands and slowly ran the last couple hundred yards or so together.

I can’t even describe how amazing it was to cross the finish line with my team! We all started hugging (and crying) and I just felt this amazing sense of camaradarie. I love all of them so much, and they made this experience amazing. Rik handed out our medals, we did some more hugging.

I don't know what our "official" finish time is, but it was about 38 hours. We had been told by The Today Show that they were going to do some photos of the team on the beach after the race, so we had to do that before anything else. But when it came time, they only wanted Rik, Ada, Carly, and me to go. I was really upset by that, because I wanted it to be the whole team. Maybe it was the drinks, maybe it was the emotional finish, maybe both, but I started crying and I just said I didn’t want to go without the whole team.

My team was fantastic about it, though, and they kept telling me to go, that it was ridiculous for me not to and that I had to “represent” all of our stories. So I ended up going, but my eyes and nose were all red from crying, so I can’t even imagine what it’s going to look like.

They just had me stand there while they moved the camera all around

When we were done with that, we dropped Ada off at her hotel, and then we went back to the finish line party (which was overwith by that point). John said he wanted to go out and I really did too, so John, Jerry, and I went to a bar/restaurant for some dinner and drinks. I tried tuna steak for the first time in my life, and it was pretty good. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

On Facebook recently, we were talking about how we should treat ourselves better; that we deserve to do nice things for ourselves (inspired by this post from Jennifer). John said (on Facebook), “When we get to Key West, we should all order a top shelf drink”. I jokingly said, “Sure John, if you’re buying!” So I wanted to buy John a top shelf drink, but he ended up beating me to it, and bought me a top shelf margarita (which was fantastic!)

The restaurant kicked us out at around 11. I was tired and planned to go back to the hotel, but when we got down to the street, John saw a bar that he wanted to get a drink from. It didn’t take more than a “Come on!” from John to talk me into it ;)  So we sat and had a beer on the street.

Duval Street in Key West is… well, an experience in itself. It was so much fun to people watch! The crowd was very interesting, which is the only way I can really describe it. John got a cab back to his hotel at around 1, and Jerry and I walked back to our hotel (about a mile away). I took a shower (finally!! I had two days worth of sweat and grime on me) and then crashed in bed.

The Ragnar was AMAZING! I will write more about my thoughts on the whole thing later; for now, I'm living it up in Key West! 

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Ragnar Relay Florida Keys, part 1

This post was actually written on Friday, Jan. 4th, but I didn't have internet access, so I'm just now posting it. I'll continue to catch up with more posts today and tomorrow...

 This morning, I woke up at 4:30 to get ready to head to the start line. Our team decided to wear pink shirts for the first legs, yellow for the second, and orange for the third. So I got dressed in my pink outfit to go to the starting line. I have to admit, I though it was really cute!

The team all met in the hotel lobby at 5:30 to leave. The starting line was about 10 minutes away. When we got there, the Today Show cameraman was there to film us for a little while. He wanted to film the start of the race. Our team had to go through the required safety meeting, and it didn’t finish until 7:03 ish—my starting time was 7:00. Because of the filming, the race post-poned our starting time until 7:05. 

This was a sign to disclose to the runners that a documentary was being filmed

 I quickly pinned on a bib and ran to the starting line, where I was told to go front and center, so that the filming would be ideal. I was a little horrified, and very embarrassed—I NEVER go to the very front of the starting line of a race! But because Ragnar’s are so relaxed, a lot of the teams were yelling to me and laughing along with me which made me feel more comfortable. But I still felt bad for cutting in to the front of the starting line.

The announcer introduced our team, and then we finally started. I didn't hear about this until later, but apparently some people were trying to get right in front of the camera for their moment to shine, and they weren't watching where they were running--four people actually fell!

The Ragnar has a staggard start line all day long, so there were only about 50 people starting at that time. My first leg was 5.7 miles and had a monster of a hill (a bridge) halfway through.

It was REALLY hot and humid. I can’t even describe how difficult the run got, because of the heat. My van was supposed to go halfway through my leg and give me some water, but they didn’t. I did see one of our photographers/videographers along the way at different points. There were other vans cheering for their runners, and I got a lot of comments on my outfit.

Finally, I got to the checkpoint and passed the “baton” to Meredith.

I gulped down a bottle of water, and told my team I NEED the support on my runs! I was so glad to get in the van and finally have some breakfast. Breakfast of champions, right here:

Ada and I sat in the back row of the van. It was so fun getting to chat with her in-person, as opposed to the phone or Facebook.

After Meredith was Lealah, then Ada, then Andrea and then Rik. Once our van was done with our first legs, we finished decorating the van:

We got magnets made of our before/after pics for the vans;
These were a HUGE hit--people loved them!

Andrea and Lealah decorating the windows

We were pretty hungry for lunch after that, so we headed to Denny’s. I ordered the Fit Slam, which was egg whites scrambled with tomatoes and spinach, an English muffin, and fruit (grapes and strawberries). It was really good, filling, and just 10 PointsPlus. We sat and chatted for a little while, and then went to the dollar store to buy some towels (we were all sweating like beasts after our legs, and we didn’t have many towels in the van). I also bought some grapes, because I was going through withdrawal ;)

After that, we drove down to exchange 12, where my next leg would start after Van 2 was done.

We had a lot of time to kill, so we sat around in the shade. I ran into my brother Brian (he’s on a different Ragnar team) and he had a hammock set up! It looked so comfy, and I gave it a try—it was awesome!

With the heat and humidity, our projected finish time kept getting pushed back. Our team as a whole has a pretty slow pace to begin with, so we started to get concerned about finishing on time (before the course closes). The heat was making it REALLY hard to stay on pace--I ran much slower than I've been used to lately.

Because of the delay, we had some extra time to spare before it was our turn to start running again, so we went to Subway to get some dinner. I got a turkey sub, and just after I paid for it, we got a message from the other van that they were about an hour from us. I started thinking about whether I wanted to eat a sub that soon before running, and I decided to just wait until after my run.

We went to the exchange point, and I put on my tutu. Since it was after 4:30 p.m., I had to wear a reflective vest and headlamp (Ragnar rules say that we have to wear a vest and headlamp between 7:30 and 4:30).

We put some lights on our van for decoration, and then headed to where John would pass me the baton (slap bracelet). 

This is a crappy picture, but it's our van in the dark:

My brother was standing there, and his teammate was really close as well—very coincidental, but I thought it would be awesome to run with him on my long leg!

My leg was 8.8 miles, and there was a portion of it that was on really rough terrain, and where the van wasn’t allowed to drive. I saw John round the corner and run toward me with the bracelet, and off I went.

Almost immediately, it became dark outside. By a mile in, it was pitch black. I could see a couple of taillights (flashing lights clipped to the back of runners, also required in the dark). The videographer for the film was leapfrogging me, and I started to look forward to seeing him. I talked to him, but he would never respond, and I thought it was hilarious.

I was running along a pretty busy road for a little while, but then I started to get scared when running where it was rural. It was pitch black, and I was running on the side of the road, and occasionally I would see some random guy walking—scary for me! But it was comforting knowing that the photographer was around.

Then it turned into a dirt road, full of pot holes and big rocks, so I had to be careful with my footing. I couldn’t see well, so I was using the lights on my fingers to try and light the way. Then the cameraman starting following me, literally driving right next to me for about a mile. Since I was really scared by that point, I just started talking to him.

Then I saw the terrain of the road change, and the road narrowed a lot. There were trees and bushes right up along the road, and since the road was so narrow, they were hanging right up next to my head. There were swamps alongside,  and I just kept picturing the alligators waiting to eat me. I told the cameraman, “Okay, NOW I really want you to stay with me!” and as soon as I said that, I saw a sign that said, “No vans”. So he had to turn and take a different route.

The next couple of miles were terrifying! The road was super narrow (more like a path), with trees and bushes right up next to the road. It was pitch black, and the footing was terrible—dirt road with huge rocks and potholes. I could hear dogs barking off to my left, and they sounded pretty close.

I just wanted to get out of there! I tried messing with my headlamp to see the road better, when I realized that the light part flipped down so that it shone right ahead of my feet—which was perfect. I just wish I’d noticed that before! Finally, I was able to make a turn, and the road widened. Then I saw all kinds of fencing and barbed wire—oh joy, I was running in the dark next to a prison! I was so ready to be done with that leg.

I was hoping the whole time that my brother would catch up with me, since he started so close behind me, but he never did. The last mile, we were told to run in the grass (which was tough—it was exhausting). Finally made it to the exchange point, where I handed the bracelet off to Meredith. I saw Becky, my brother’s girlfriend at the exchange, and she gave me a bottle of water—I was so grateful! I was super thirsty, and I downed the water.

 

After that leg, I was so glad to be done with my “very hard” leg. I sat in the van and chatted for a little while with the team until we were finally done with our legs. We went to the next major exchange point where we would have a long time to wait before we had to run again. The exchange point was at a school, and they were offering showers for $3. I was so tired that I really just wanted to sleep.

A couple people from my van went in to shower, but I laid down on the back seat of the van and actually fell asleep. I slept from 3 a.m. until about 5:30 a.m. Van 2 had some issues during the night legs, but I’ll save that story for the film. 

(To be continued...)

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Ragnar team dinner

I reeeeally ought to be going to bed, since the Ragnar is bright and early tomorrow (we have to get there at 6:00 a.m.), but I am just not tired. I'm still so excited about this whole trip!

Meeting the whole team was just so surreal today. I couldn't even keep track of who I met already and who I still had to meet--because we'd been getting to know each other for an entire year on Facebook, I felt like I already knew everyone.

We hung out for a little bit this afternoon in Jerry's and my hotel room, and then we all headed downstairs to go to dinner. We took the vans to dinner, and there were 20 of us (team plus some spouses). We went to a place called Randazzo's, which had Italian American food.

The Today Show was there to film us "meeting", and then we sat down to eat. Holy cow, that was the WORST service ever. The whole team was cracking up because the service and food were SO bad that we thought it was a practical joke-type show (the joke being on us).

Meredith and I were going to split the lemon chicken, and I asked that it be cooked without added butter or oil. The server looked at me like I was insane, and then argued with me about it for a minute--"You mean you want it DRY?" he asked. "I just want it cooked with the lemon and garlic, no oil," I told him. He checked again, and I said, "Yes, dry is fine."

When he brought it out, it was swimming in a pool of butter--literally, there was probably a whole stick of butter in the dish, if not more. When I pointed it out, he got mad and said that's what I ordered. He said, "Well, it has to be fried in SOMETHING."  hahaha, I just said okay, forget it. And I chose not to eat. I had a blast just getting to talk with my team (John is hysterical, and I laughed so hard the whole time).

We were there for over three hours, and not one person got what they ordered, let alone in a timely manner. The servers were extremely rude--so much so that we all found it hilarious. It would take forever to describe the whole situation, but we all agreed that it was awful. So if you're in Miami, I would stay away from Randazzo's. ;)

It was a lot of fun getting to chat with the team, but after spending over three hours there, I was STARVING. It was also too late to decorate our vans at that point, so when we got back to the hotel, Jerry and I walked across the street to Walgreens so that I could buy some dinner. They actually had fresh food there, and I bought some brown rice California rolls and a small bag of pretzel M&M's.

When we got back to the hotel, we ran into John and Angela, who were waiting for some Ragnar crew to drop some things off. I scarfed down the California rolls while I chatted with them, and then I hung around to talk with the crew. They gave us passes to use for the race (well, for Angela to use so that she could film).

While we were standing there, my brother and his girlfriend showed up, so we chatted with them for a while. I had a couple of beers with them outside, then went and talked with Angela and John for a little while before coming back to our room.

Now I'm really going to try and get some sleep so I can get ready to Ragnar tomorrow!!

(For those of you that asked, the Today Show segment about our team is going to be on Thursday, January 10th.)

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