This was my first Ragnar Relay with a 12 person Co-Ed team (2 men, 10 women). First and foremost, we were all friendly with each other, had met ahead of time, and had some great leadership on our team that did a lot of planning and organizing going in to the weekend. That being said, I have explained it like camping; you can read about it and buy all the perfect gear, but until you spend the night in the woods, you just don't know what it's like. I would highly recommend being in Van 1 if you like to "get things out of the way". We had an 8am start time, and chose to drive up to Madison for our start. That was rough, because it involved heading out at 5am on race day. Also, this is a SUPER EXPENSIVE race. You rent 15 passenger vans (if you're smart), you pay an exorbitant race fee, you likely buy some safety gear you may never use again, and you probably will invest in team shirts/costume-y type of stuff you will either give to your kids or repurpose. Oh, and you'll have to pay for gas, you'll want to BUY Ragnar stuff while you're at Exchange 6 and 36 (finish), and you'll probably either have to pay ($120) for a volunteer unless your team can find 3 good friends who you will forever be indebted to. But the experience was one-of-a kind. As much as I hated myself for signing up when I got ready to do my last leg of 6.2 at 4am on Saturday morning after 45 minutes of sleep in 24 hours, I'm already saying "yes" to planning two ultra teams for next year. Here's my best advice: save up your $ for this race; rent the big vans; have at least 2 registered drivers on each van; organize who is bringing what food (don't plan on just eating bars & gu); pack your run outfits into ziploc bags; read every blog/article on ragnar than you can; use bug spray; know your route; get into the "spirit" and have a team shirt/costume and magnets to tag other vans; decorate your vehicle; BE NICE TO PEOPLE; track your own team's start/finish times because Ragnar does not do it for you; follow the safety rules; bring sleeping gear for the hard floors or to sleep in the van; cheer on other teams and runners--it REALLY made a difference for me; and do this relay if you're thinking about it.
Overall, the Ragnar organizers were great. My medal is nice, the t-shirt is great, and the instructions were very clear. My very first leg was not well marked, and I wound up in someone's front yard, but that was partly my fault. If you want to be competitive, I suggest finding another team to compete with, as it's tough to "win" (we have another team who's runner #4 now has to mow our runner #4's lawn). I am not quite sure what our team paid about $1500 for (not including our van rentals and finding our own two volunteers) because there wasn't even bottled water at the finish, so it seems somewhere, somehow, someone is making bank off of this race. However, I'm willing to do it again, so that tells you something, right???? You can also check out the Ragnar Trail series, which appears to be more camping and loop running :)