Plymouth Magazine, January 2008

The Long Way Home

12 men run 208 miles across 2 states

By Kelly Westhoff

How long does it take to run from La Cross, Wis. to Minneapolis? For 12 area men, the answer is 29 hours, 25 minutes and 18 seconds. The men, all members of Wayzata Free Church in Plymouth, ran a relay race last summer that traversed the 198 miles between the two cities.

Brian Johnson, a Plymouth resident, organized the crew of men. Johnson was seeking a challenge that would help motivate him to stay in shape. That’s when he stumbled upon a brochure announcing Ragnar Relay Great River.

The Ragnar Relay Series are a relatively new phenomenon. The races started in 2003 when childhood friends Tanner Bell and Dan Hill, along with Dan’s father, Steve Hill, organized a relay race between Logan and Park City, Utah. Since then, Ragnar Relay runs have popped up in other states. Besides the original Utah location and the LaCross-Minneapolis trek, runs are also held in Washington State and Arizona.

This is how it works: Runners form teams of 12 and register for the event. Event coordinators divide the distance into 36 legs and score each leg as easy, moderate, hard or very hard. Teams assign runners to cover each leg along the way. Since there are 12 runners and 36 legs, each runner must complete three runs. Some of the runs are four miles long, but most require six or seven miles. Teams provide two vans, pick up their runners as they finish and shuttle them on to their next starting point. The race kicks off early on a Friday morning and doesn’t finish until teams reach the final destination. This means running through the night.

“I was really interested to find out how we would run physically, emotionally and socially throughout the night,” says Johnson. While soreness and stiffness were bound to set in, the team members, who names themselves “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My,” managed to finish the race without any serious injuries.

Yet they did encounter some road blocks: The course along the Mississippi River through rural Wisconsin was pretty and bucolic during day hours, but once the sun set, the back road running felt slightly more dangerous as the roads were twisty and dark.

At one point on the trail, a German Shepard put up a fierce front, barking and snarling at passing runners. When the teams reached Hudson, Wis., they found their path rerouted; a shooting had occurred and the police had cordoned off prime downtown areas.

Upon reaching Minneapolis, the runners found their paths rerouted yet again. The collapse of the 35W bridge caused the teams to loop away from the river, adding extra miles.

The remainder of this article can be found in the January 2008 issue of Plymouth Magazine.

To learn more about the Ragnar Relay races, visit www.ragnarrelay.com.