This is the true story of seven strangers picked by Coach Jenn to fly to Florida, camp in the middle of nowhere, and run crazy trails as part of the Ragnar Trail Alafia River BAMR Trailblazers team!
After months of training, plotting and planning, we finally all met in Alafia River State Park to set up camp the night before the relay began. Thankfully, some of us were experienced campers and we set up a pretty good camp site.
Friday morning arrived, and despite the lack of sleep due to rowdy campsite neighbors (which can only be described in the words of Dana, “this isn’t Coachella!”), we were ready to start!
Heading to the start! We never missed a photo-op!
Heather was our first runner and she started things off for us!
We spent most of the day Friday checking out the Ragnar Village, the merch shop, and getting to know one another. And it wouldn’t be a true team of BAMRs if one of us wasn’t pumping while away from baby!

Ragnar Village

Friday night took a turn weather-wise and we were hit with some pretty bad thunderstorms. The relay was put on pause for about four hours due to lightening. We took this as an opportunity to get some sleep and just hunkered down in our tents. Thankfully, we were able to start again around 4 a.m.

Jenn and Betsy survived the storm!

While the worst of the weather was over around sunrise Saturday morning, our nerves were a little frayed. We still had a lot of running to do!

Melissa and Amy want off this crazy ride!

With the rain delay, we were worried we wouldn’t be able to finish all of our legs. Thankfully, the race organizers let teams begin to double up their runners so all the teams could finish on time. So many of us were able to run together in our final runs.

Jenn and Heather getting it done!

When the last group of runners set out to finish the last loop, they were in for a sight. As the trail took them by the water, there just so happened to be an alligator! Needless to say, our girls were shocked to see it. We had been obsessing about seeing one for weeks and didn’t believe we would. We were wrong!

Amy, Dana, and Melissa were quite freaked at the sights and sounds of the gator!

Can you see her?

And there you have it! Eight women came together and had a weekend they won’t soon forget. We started out as strangers but left as sole sisters!

We are Ragnarians!