[Los Angeles, CA, August 2017]

In August 2015, we were on our way back from our Ragnar trail relay race in Lake Tahoe, California, when our friend Wendy discovered Ragnar had just announced they are planning an inaugural road relay race on the Big Island of Hawaii for October 2016. When registration opened later in 2015, a full year before the race was supposed to take place, we signed up not one, not two but THREE full teams (12 people each, 36 people total) to do the race with us.

Ragnar has been organizing relays, both on road and on trail, for a few years now. The road relays typically cover about 200 miles point-to-point, split among 36 legs. A team of 12 runners covers this distance, each runner running one leg at a time while the rest of the runners follow along in a van. Covering the 200 miles can take anywhere between 24 and 36 hours, so there is definitely night running involved. In the case of Ragnar Hawaii, each team of 12 would be split into 2 vans, so that meant each van would be actively running  6 legs (roughly 5-7 hours total), then rest while the next van took over the next 6 legs, and so on until all 36 legs were complete. The race was taking place on the Big Island of Hawaii. I visited the Big island in 2014 with my friend Lena, who was also joining on this race.

I did not blog this trip while we were in HI last October for several reasons. One, I had already been here, so I expected to visit some of the same places as in 2014 – Lena and I did a pretty good job of covering all the must-sees. Second, I typically don’t blog my running trips. Last but not least, I wanted to immerse myself in the experience and not think about the blog. However, a friend of mine is currently on the Big Island, so I found myself wishing I had done the 2016 trip on here also, for the sake of my own memories. It’s been less than a year, so I figured I should go ahead and blog this while I can still remember it! 🙂

So here goes, better late than never, the Inaugural Ragnar Hawaii 2016 – first entry coming soon. 🙂