Ragnarok 105 Summary

 This weekend I was up in Red Wing, MN for the 4th running of the Ragnarok 105.  I'll just be covering a couple key points in this update and then I'll let the pictures tell the story.

• I went into this one with the intention of it being my final Trans Iowa tuneup.  I had three goals:
• Finish (check)
• Control my cramps (Felt a couple minor twinges that were easily controlled, otherwise a cramp free race - check)
• Finish with a 12MPH average (Actual average: 11.4MPH including stops, 12MPH moving.  Good enough for TI)
• My legs were burning from the start, even though I was controlling my pace.  Not sure why since I'd been going easy leading up to this race.  Eventually they started playing nice.  I actually felt a lot better the second half of the race than the first.
• I finished this race feeling like I had a lot of miles left in my legs.  Even with the crazy hilliness of the course I wasn't too beat at the end.  This has me feeling a lot better about TI than I was before the race.  My main goal for TI is to make the second checkpoint at 170-180 miles.  I would have been able to meet that goal on Saturday, even on that course.
• I walked two hills in this race.  The first one was a little more than halfway in.  I felt a slight twinge in my groin and it was a fairly steep hill, so I decided to walk most of it.  The second was Heath's Hill, which was a steep minimum maintenance road around 90 miles in.  I got stuck in the mud at the beginning, tried once more to ride it after clearing that patch, then gave up and hoofed it.
• Nutrition and hydration were good, but I'll have to plan on more solid foods for TI.  Gu's alone just aren't going to cut it beyond 10-12 hours.
• Caught a couple minor quirks that you only find on these really long rides.  Found out that the way I have my Garmin set up could have got me lost at TI.  It's only set up to show three digits on the distance so once I hit 100 miles it stopped showing 10ths of a mile.  Not a big deal most of the time, but when you're relying on cue sheets it's critical.  I should be able to change my display configuration so that's not an issue.

On to the pictures..

Checkpoint 1

Heading back out

 

100 mile photo op

Mission accomplished

Let's get outta here...

Race stats.  Click to Viagrify.