Some Thoughts About Ragnar Trail Los Coyotes

photo by Juddson Taube

After months of putting an Ultra team together and planning, preparing and purchasing for the Ragnar Trail Los Coyotes event, it has come and gone.  I will attempt to assess this event in a balanced method so as to assist anyone may or may not have run a Ragnar Trail event before, or for someone  considering this particular venue for next year.

First a few caveats, I am not a Ragnarian. This was my first such event. I have run many trail races by different groups and enjoy the 50k distance the most and have never had a DNF (did not finish). This was my first such event.  I formed an Ultra team and we did not complete the 120 miles, I have no issues with that. Yes, its disappointing after all the months of planning however this is not Ragnar’s problem, and we are ok with the DNF.  I merely want to outline some observations which could help someone determine if this is the trail race for them and perhaps assist Ragnar address some issues.

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The organization for this particular venue was a little lacking, perhaps because they had never held the event at this location before.  I will give them that.  The pre-race video indicated that “gate” would open at 4 pm. That if you arrived early you could wait in line and enter at 4 pm.  We had no problem with waiting, wanting to be able to pick a campsite while there was still an hour or so of daylight and do so carefully once the “gate” did open.  We drove almost 8 hours to be at this location and were the first to arrive only to find there was no “gate”.  

We stopped at the stop sign and upon talking with tribal police, were told to turn around and drive back down the 2 lane mountain road to a golf course and stay there because the road couldn’t be blocked.  When we mentioned the info on the video, the officer was totally unaware of those instructions.  A representative from Ragnar at the gate would probably have helped. We elected to park on a small cut out about a ¼ mile from the entry.  There was just enough room for three cars if parked carefully.

Cars slowly started arriving all in the hopes of also being in line early, only to be turned around.  Only some were not turned around and they were not staff, we talked to them as they passed by our parked vehicle.   We were the first to arrive at the “gate” and ended up pushed back to about 120^th due to this mismanagement.  This two lane road is not highly used and a simple solution for this situation would have been to have controlled traffic using the law enforcement that exists on the property and their radios.  I live on a very busy two lane mountain road that has a ½ marathon run on it. They have successfully managed to stop and control a thousand or more cars for their event and still allow traffic to get to their destinations without difficulty. 

The camping area for the event was very large and nicely shaded and easily could accommodate the number of vehicles and persons staying for the event.  My only suggestion is that for this venue Ragnar designate a late arrival camping area for persons arriving the subsequent day.  This venue has plenty of room and campers don’t need to be literally on top of each other. Those persons could be directed to put their camps in that area and not on top of existing campsites, eliminating the safe walkways with their tents, decorations, chairs, and tables.  Those walkways were created by campers arriving early. There was significant safety hazards and several persons were observed to have fallen over these same objects in the middle of the night.   Those of us who arrived early did so for a reason.

Check in at headquarters was smooth and the campfire and social area was one of the highlights of the event. The iron cross competition provided a necessary comic relief as one our team mates won a new pair of Salomon shoes. They had a great location for the bonfire and hammocks close to the transition area,  making  for a comfortable wait for your runner to come in an pass the race bib.  They also had three electronic boards that were connected to timing pads about ¼ mile from the transition areas so that you could know when your runner was approaching.  This was a little like watching the stock market change second by second and added to the excitement for the subsequent team mate.  Fantastic idea! This also made the transition area less chaotic and I have to say that it ran far smoother than I ever thought possible. 

Trails were very well marked. If a person got lost or off loop on this event it would have to be the result of their own inattention.  I have done many trail races where there may be no markers for miles and one is left wondering if they took a wrong turn. Not so for Ragnar.  Runners were well informed of the direction and hazards along the way. 

One of the biggest problem we saw were that the port-a-potties were often totally out of TP and full, needing to be serviced more than they were..

 Bring all the water your group needs for drinking/cleaning etc. We thankfully brought five water cooler size bottles with us from home along with several one gallon bottles and had more than enough.  I don’t know what others did. A large water truck centrally located would have been nice for those persons who were unaware of what the water situation really was.  I saw many persons walking around with one and two gallon containers trying to find a source. I don’t know if they ever did..

 

For those who have never been to a Ragnar event I will issue this warning.  This is a party with running sprinkled in.  There were a lot of highly intoxicated persons roaming about then taking off on trails.  This is not what I would consider a real competitive event.  It has its place, but know what you’re getting into.  One of my team mates likened it to a cult event.  The description fits.  Its fine for those who want to party, socialize and experience something like this together.  There were many people there who were good natured and supportive and having fun but there was also a large contingent party animals also. Part of me felt like the land cherished by the Native Americans who live there was raided and tainted.  I may have this all wrong but I have lingering feelings of sadness.

The trails were incredibly hard.  Beware, if you have never run a trail race before this may not be the first one you want to do.  There are long stretches uphill in sun exposure which most persons except for elites could only walk. The downhills had their own challenges.  It is here where we lost one of our team mates to injury very early on. Another team mate who was well trained and used to distance running had health issues on the Red Loop.  The heat coupled with long hike uphill and her only having one kidney made her seriously ill.  I couldn’t envision her doing it again later on.  That left two of us, one with a heart of gold who probably would have run the whole 120 miles himself if so directed and myself still recovering from a recently healed broken foot.  We elected to scratch our race. We had no idea there were other options available. In fact the trail guide and the webinar both state that teams have to stick with the pattern they started with.

It is here that I have a couple of suggestions for Ragnar Trail and for anyone who does this event.  It would be really nice for us newbies if somewhere in your trail guide you list the following information and reiterate it also one your webinar. We only found out about it far too late to make changes.

1.  If team mate drops out, the others can still run their distances and medal.

2. You can create your own pattern of loops, give several examples.  We would have loved to have known that each of our four man team could have done the red loop first, then each of us do the green loop followed by the yellow loop. We assumed, erroneously that the descriptions given in the guide and the webinar were the only options.   

According to staff with whom we spoke far too late, there was some flexibility we were unaware of. You may say, “you could have asked about this during the Q&A of the webinar” however this was also too late in our planning for the event.  A couple of our runners had already been training the pattern we thought we were locked into. 

So, it is with this I close, would I do it again? No, It’s not for me.  I do see its place and respect that.  Perhaps some persons will fall in love with trail running from the experience. Just know what you’re getting into and what others don’t say about events like this.  It will help your overall experience.  For me, I will return to running lone.