Perseverance on the Mountain: Ragnar Trail POV

Sunrise from a mountain peak

Allison Williams

I enjoy a good leisurely run now and again. I like that running requires minimal gear, that I can set my own pace, and that it gets me out in nature. But a few of my Seattle friends are hardcore running people. They’re in running groups, they’ve done ultra marathons, and a “casual” run for them is usually longer than five miles and preferably up a mountain. For me, the 2.8 mile loop around Green Lake is plenty. 

So when my friend, who is in one of these running groups, invited my boyfriend and me to join them in something called Ragnar Trail Rainier, I was skeptical. A relay race where each person on the team runs three segments adding up to the equivalent of a half marathon in the course of a day? And all of this going up and down a 7,000 ft. mountain? Please, no.

But eventually, the allure of trying something I didn’t think I could physically do won me over. If I went on enough long runs in preparation, it might not be so bad. But the extent of my training was that a week before the race, I ran 4.2 miles around Green Lake. Alas.

On the day of the race, we pulled into the parking lot of Crystal Mountain Resort, the sun already blazing the dry, dusty dirt. The uppermost parking lot was one giant campground. The race was already underway, and our team’s first runner was on the course. We unloaded our gear at our team’s campsite, while people around us did quad stretches, hoisted pirate flags, and donned compression socks, cow costumes, and sparkles. In the campsite behind us, people were talking about Darn Tough socks. After thirty seconds of listening, I got bored, and when my attention drifted back to them ten minutes later, they were still discussing Darn Tough socks. I didn’t think it was possible to have that much to say about Darn Tough socks. I felt a bit like an alien. What was I doing here? Running culture scared me.

My boyfriend and I were the seventh and eighth runners in the relay schedule, so we had a few hours. We rode up the gondola to check out the view at the finish of the 5 mile yellow loop and start of the 7.6 mile red loop. We saw some people below walking straight up what seemed like a vehicle access road, no switchbacks in sight. One person stopped walking and bent over, and even from the gondola I could see sweat dripping down her back. 

Someone near us remarked, “Oh yeah, the 12-year-old kid on our team, he got lost on the yellow loop and ended up on that thing instead. He knew he had to get to the top of the gondola, so he just followed it straight up.” My jaw was agape. A 12 year old?! Did that?! Also, were the trail markers so bad that I would get lost? According to one of the other runners on my team, several intersections were not marked clearly, but the advice was to take the seemingly wider path. 

The afternoon drifted on, the early 2010s pop hits blasted at the finish line, and the electrolytes were consumed. The time came for my first loop, the 2.8 mile green loop. My stomach was doing backflips. The pre-race nerves were amplified by the fact that I had no way of tracking the runner before me while she was on course until her name popped up on the scoreboard when she was a quarter mile away, so I spent thirty minutes bopping on my heels and anxiously watching the scoreboard. 

Yellow loop finish line with Mt. Tahoma [Rainier] looking on

Craig Brunner

Finally, she arrived, and my legs briefly forgot how to function as I clipped the team bib around my waist and started my watch. I booked it up the first gravel hill, fueled by nerves and spry excitement. This hill quickly turned into a mountain, and I was forced to hike much of it. About a mile in, it switched to a steep downhill. Another runner and I kept pace with each other as scarily fast men bolted past us. We were silent as we ran under tall coniferous trees, but I felt a kinship with her. I pushed myself through the last uphill mile, and then handed the bib to my boyfriend as he began the yellow loop, which was now known to be the hardest course.  

My teammate and I went up to meet my boyfriend about an hour after he took off. No one on our team had come through the yellow loop in under 90 minutes, so we thought we were way early. At the top, we meandered around, looking at the stunning summit of Mount Rainier [Tahoma]. The largest glacier in the contiguous U.S. stared back at us. 

While I was in the bathroom, I got a call from my boyfriend. I heard the sound of people yelling, then the call cut out. He texted me that he had just finished. We ran as fast as we could down loose rocks from the gondola to the finish line, and there he was, sitting in a chair, panting. Having only started running in winter of this year, he had finished the loop in 75 minutes, then looked around bewildered for his teammates who were supposed to be there.

In the early evening, we found a stream near the campsite and put our feet in it. The coolness of the water on the rocks blocked the heat of the day. One runner dunked her whole head in the stream. That was the move. I was beginning to feel quite sore. I had pushed myself hard on that green loop, and I still had the ominous red loop in the middle of the night, then the yellow loop sometime the next day. 

Getting any sleep proved a challenge. I tossed and turned in my tent, listening to a group of extreme runner bros drone on about their splits and their placement in overall Ragnar history. Apparently, one guy in their group had beat the record for the yellow course, running it in 40 minutes. “You’re the king of Ragnar,” his friends told him. I rolled my eyes. I went on a walk to make some instant oatmeal, and watched The Princess Bride screening by the fire pits for a bit. It was cozy. 

One of my teammates finished his red loop around 11 p.m. I asked him how it went. 

“Horrible,” he said. “I just threw up.” 

I promised myself that I would take it easy on my red loop, drink lots of water along the way, be careful on the steep descent in the dark, and use my hiking poles. 

Mount Tahoma [Rainier] in all her glory

The Evergreen Echo

My boyfriend accompanied me up to the gondola. They were playing chill R&B jams at the finish line and people were dancing. It was chilly up there, but I knew I’d get hot once I started running, and took off my comfy sweatshirt. We could see the outline of mountains in the distance, lit in a faint afterglow that was probably the lights of the city. The stars were glorious. We could see the Milky Way. I realized what a truly original experience this was. 

At 2:13 a.m., a headlamp coming up the final slog of the yellow loop revealed our teammate. I hugged my boyfriend farewell, unsure if I would ever see him, or anyone, again, and set off down the trail, poles in hand. I had almost eight miles ahead of me, down the mountain in the dark, running on ten minutes of sleep, by myself. 

Adrenaline coursed through me as I navigated the steep and rocky ridge trail with my headlamp. I ran past huge black beetles on the ground and lots of animal droppings. The worst part by far was the dust. It has been troublingly dry in Washington this summer, and the trail was completely made of dust which blew into my face constantly, the particles illuminated in my headlamp. I kept my mouth closed when I could, my eyes stinging.

The trail passed through several alpine zones. First the rocky ridge, then meadows, then deep forest, then muddy bogs. There were a few times on the trail when I heard footsteps, but I couldn’t tell if they were coming from behind or in front of me, and I couldn’t see any lights either. It was eerie. I saw a pair of animal eyes in the bushes to my right at one point, glinting at me. I ignored them.

Thankfully, I was not fully alone. In the middle, I ended up in sync with two runners for a while. Their careful pace on the steep switchbacks probably kept me from doing a faceplant, because at a certain point my legs began to struggle to control themselves. My chronic ankle injury was being activated, too. I just wanted to be done. About halfway through, I began counting every .1 mile to go and repeating this number under my breath. This kept me going. My ankle hurt and my legs were noodly, but I had to finish it. I took regular sips of water and an energy gel. Man, that stuff tasted bad. 

When I came through the finish line, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I’d made it back in one piece. Now it was time to eat some protein and go to sleep.

In the morning, morale was low. The teammate who had thrown up hadn’t been able to keep anything down, and the medical team had advised him not to run any more, so we were moving some things around, figuring out who would cover his segment. Then there was a terrifying thunder crack at 6 a.m. followed by pouring rain. One of our teammates was on the trail then, and saw lightning close by. The course was put on pause for a few hours while the weather moved through, and we were advised to start doubling up our segments with people to finish the race in time. We ate breakfast in hail. I could barely move from soreness and was feeling like there was no way in hell I could run a yellow loop. I think I cried at one point, but it’s a blur. 

Thankfully, I got to run another green loop instead alongside my close friend, who had just run her second red loop. I couldn’t imagine the level of exhaustion she was feeling as we started out. We walked almost all of the loop, took care of each other despite the pain and nausea, and sprinted together through the finish line. 

Nighttime sky from on high

Chris Cole

What an experience. It takes you out of your everyday life. It’s a reminder of how small you are and how big nature is. It’s good practice for the anxious—you literally can’t think about anything else except making it through the experience. Every aspect of it is hard, and yet somehow you still feel joy. It’s just as much a mental challenge as physical. It’s about trusting yourself, and it’s also about being part of something bigger than you, supporting everyone in the group, and not leaving anyone behind.

I’m grateful I got to do this and that I live in a city where mountains are my backyard. I’m not sure I’ll ever do it again. But, you never know!