I think most people have a fundamental understanding of what type 2 fun is. When I Google "type 2 fun", AI defines it as "an experience that is miserable, stressful, or challenging while happening but enjoyable, rewarding, and memorable in retrospect". To me, type 2 fun is a perfect description of how a Ragnar relay race feels.
Ragnar relay races take teamwork and team bonding to a new level. Essentially, Ragnar is a 200-ish mile relay race that is ran by teams of twelve runners. Ragnar has races all over the country, but this one that I was participating in was going to follow a specially designed course through Southern California from Coronado, near San Diego, to Huntington Beach. The 200 miles are divided into thirty-six segments, with checkpoints along with way. Each of the twelve runners runs three segments of the course, and while one team member is out running, the rest of the team drives to the next checkpoint to wait for them to arrive before the next runner takes off. Some teams cram all twelve of their runners into one big van, but most teams have two vans carrying six runners each. I had a lot of fun at the Ragnar races I had done in the past, so when I found out my company had a team for the Ragnar SoCal event, I jumped at the opportunity to participate.
My colleagues and I conversed in the office breakroom during the days leading up to the race about how much "fun" it was going to be. And indeed, Ragnar did not disappoint. It was an experience that brought our team together in a whole new way that I will remember forever. It was quite an eventful thirty-five hours with a wide range of feelings. It was fun, challenging, a little hectic, a little emotional, and ultimately, quite hilarious.
It started off with a short night sleep at the house that we were all sharing in San Diego. We woke up at 4:00 AM, drank some coffee, packed up our van with provisions, and took off for the start line in Coronado. Our team of twelve had two vans, and we were the first van, so we were going to be starting off the race, while van two would be running later on in the day. Our van included six runners and Blanca, our driver. I've always thought that Ragnar van drivers had the harder job than the runners. Being the driver involves driving the van to each checkpoint to meet the runners at the transition areas. It's a tedious task that involves navigating through unfamiliar neighborhoods while fighting to stay awake, and making sure the van is at the checkpoint before the runner arrives so the next runner is ready to go. Van two had two drivers, but Blanca, who works on our facilities management team, was going to be driving our asses around singlehandedly for the next day and a half. Having been with SmartStop for several years, she's had plenty of experience being the van driver at Ragnar. Although it's a lot to handle for one person, I knew we were in good hands.
We arrived at the starting area, and Proshat, our first runner, kicked off our race at 6:00 AM. As she ran off into the pre-dawn darkness, we jumped into the van and drove to the first checkpoint. Each team is given a special bracelet for team members to wear during their run so the rest of the team can track the runner's progress along the course on the Ragnar app. When Proshat arrived at the checkpoint, she handed off the bracelet to Elle, our second runner. Our third runner, Jenn, would be taking off from the next checkpoint once Elle finished her first run. Jenn was the mastermind behind the entire SmartStop Ragnar team. As our team captain, she spent months preparing for the event and working out all of the logistical details. I was impressed and grateful for her dedication and hard work. Jenn is our director of asset management, and an accomplished endurance athlete, having competed in multiple Half Ironman triathlons over the years. She drives a Jeep with a license plate frame that reads "running is cheaper than therapy". Her father was also an endurance athlete in his younger years, and she considers him to be her ultimate hero. Coordinating Ragnar is really a labor of love, and the fact that she put so much time into it truly showed how passionate she is about the event. Jenn is a fast runner and was expecting to click off between seven-and-a-half and eight-minute miles, so we knew we had to get over to the next checkpoint quickly. Kelly, our fourth runner, awaited her arrival in the transition area while the rest of us were watching the app. It looked like Jenn was coming in hot and we knew she'd be arriving soon. But then something really strange happened. According to what we were seeing on the app, it looked as if Jenn had blown right through the checkpoint and kept running. We didn't know what was happening, but something had to have been wrong. She should have arrived at the checkpoint already, there was no way we would have missed her.
After spending twenty minutes driving along the course trying to find Jenn, we were so close to the next checkpoint, we decided to have Blanca drive there while the rest of us searched for Jenn on foot. We were thinking there was a chance that she was at the next checkpoint already anyways. We weren't sure what happened, but she evidently had gone off course at some point. We couldn't call her because she didn't have her phone on her while she was running. All we could do was trust the app, which was clearly giving us false information since Jenn was seemingly nowhere to be found. Things were getting hectic. It had now been forty-five minutes since we started searching for Jenn, and we had no idea where she was. It seemed like the best option was to contact the Ragnar staff for help. Just then, my phone dinged and a new message appeared in our group chat that we had going. It was a message from Blanca saying she had found Jenn. "Guys, Blanca found her!" I announced to the others. We turned around and ran back to where the van was parked. When we arrived, Blanca informed us that she had spoken with Jenn on the phone and she was stranded at a Taco Bell nearby. When we pulled up and found Jenn in the parking lot, she was crying and visibly upset. We jumped out of the van and embraced in a group hug in an effort to console her. She tearfully apologized to us and talked about how stupid she felt because she got lost. My first instinct was to tell her she wasn't stupid, but something I've learned over the years, especially as a dad, is sometimes it's best to just let people feel their feelings for a minute. The truth was Jenn made a mistake that any one of us could have made. We reiterated to her that she was doing an awesome job, we were grateful for her, and mistakes happen. Once she was feeling better, she filled us in on all the hoops she jumped through to get a hold of us to tell us she had gone off course. She had to borrow a cell phone that belonged to one of the Taco Bell employees. She didn't have any phone numbers memorized except the ones belonging to her daughter and her mother. Neither of them answered. She tried calling her cell phone to see if one of us would pick it up, but we didn't hear it ringing in the van. Finally, she sent an email from the Taco Bell employee's email address to a member of her team saying it was Jenn and to call the cell phone number of the phone she was borrowing. Thankfully, her team member saw the email immediately, called the number, and gave Jenn Blanca's cell phone number, which she then called. In the end, we found her, and the most important thing is that she was safe.
The situation with Jenn reminded me of a similar dilemma that I had gotten myself into several years ago when I was visiting my hometown in Michigan and doing a point-to-point training run for an upcoming ultramarathon. I was borrowing my dad's car, and I had parked it at the trailhead where I began the thirty-three mile rally from the outskirts of the city of Kalamazoo to the town of South Haven on Michigan's west coast. My plan was to call an Uber when I arrived in South Haven to drive me back to the parking lot where I had started. I successfully completed the thirty-three miles and enjoyed a quick solo celebration after crossing the invisible finish line. After spending a few minutes marveling in the experience, I took out my cell phone to find an Uber. The trailhead was in a park on the edge of town with a boat harbor and a couple of high rise apartment buildings nearby. According to my phone, there were no Uber drivers available in my location. Downtown South Haven was about a mile away, so I walked in that direction, trying the app again. Still no Uber drivers. I knew there were a couple of cab companies in South Haven from the research I had done earlier that week. I dialed the first one, but the number was disconnected. When I dialed the second one, it sent me to voicemail three times in a row. Not good. My phone battery was getting low, but I managed to pull up a website with a train and bus schedule. Nothing was leaving town until the next day, so that wasn’t an option either. By the way, this was late March in Michigan, so it wasn't exactly warm outside. I was clad in running gear with no jacket, and it was started to get very cold as the late afternoon sun began to lower in the sky. Unsure of what to do next, I decided to head into the nearest establishment to seek assistance; a Fifth Third Bank. The staff was friendly and helpful, but they informed me that the one Uber driver they had in town was off that day. They tried calling the cab companies as well, but no answer. At this point, my phone was nearly dead and my mind started racing. I asked if I could borrow their phone to call my dad. When he answered, he was happy to hear that I had finished the run safely, but he became concerned when I explained the situation. I told him I'd call my sister, Stacey, to come get me, and I wanted to let him know that I would be home a lot later than I had planned. He exhaled a long breath into the receiver. “I’ll come get you” he said. He wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t particularly thrilled that he was going be driving three hours across the state to rescue his crazy son. Although they were happy that I was able to get a hold of someone to rescue me, the bank staff gently informed me that they were about to close, so I had to be on my way. I stepped back outside into the freezing cold, and headed into another nearby establishment: a Dairy Queen. Despite the troubling situation I was in, I was starving, so I ordered some chicken strips, fries, and a chocolate malt. As I sat in a booth enjoying my tray of deep fried heaven, I texted my dad the address. That final text to my dad depleted my remaining phone battery power, and it went dead. I was hoping that I could hang out for a while and wouldn’t have to wait outside in the cold. Thankfully, the staff didn’t seem to mind that there was a crazy runner loitering in their restaurant, and I spent the next two and a half hours watching Spongebob Squarepants on the restaurant TV, laughing to myself about my debacle.
My dad finally arrived around 8:00 PM. When he rolled up in his partner's car, he just laughed and shook his head. I was happy as a clam. “You’re the greatest dad of all time!” I exclaimed as I hugged him. We talked about my adventure during the ride, and he dropped me off where I had parked his car. We then drove home following each other on the highway and made it to my dad's house a couple of hours later. There was no shortage of teasing from my dad for the rest of the visit about my little mishap, but all in all, he didn’t seem to mind that he had to make the trip. We're all human. Sometimes runners make mistakes and finding creative ways to problem solve sure makes for a fun story. Once the dust settled, there were lots of laughs about Jenn's mishap throughout the rest of the journey.
Our fourth and fifth runners were Kelly and Matt, who had both traveled to Southern California from Colorado to run with us. Both are district managers in their respective territories, with Matt coming on board as part of a company that SmartStop acquired in late 2025. Kelly had been with the company for seven years and had done Ragnar a few years back. As part of the race preparation, Jenn had asked us to give her our estimated paces so she could calculate how long it would take us to finish. Kelly surprised us all by running quite a bit faster than her expected pace. Matt was running Ragnar for the first time, and seemed to be enjoying it so far. While we were driving he told me the funny story of how he was recruited into the race by Kelly. She emailed him and said "you're a runner, right?" He replied "kind of". Kelly explained to him what Ragnar was, and that we needed another runner, so he checked out the link to the Ragnar website that she sent him. Matt thought the race was 200 miles for just one runner and responded back to her that he couldn't run 200 miles, so he would probably have to pass. Once Kelly explained that it was a 200 mile relay for the whole twelve-person team, he was relieved and told her he was in.
I was runner number six, the last runner in our van. Once Kelly and Matt completed their first segments, it was my turn. I had a nice five-mile run mostly along the harbor before following the course into a local park, where I handed the bracelet off to Gerald, our first runner in van two. Gerald works as a consultant for our operations team, and we had a shared love of hockey, although we rooted for different teams. We had several hours of downtime while van two completed their segments, so we got some lunch at a local restaurant and then returned to the house to get some rest. Shortly before 5:00 PM, we were at Torrey Pines, where Proshat began her second run. Things took an unexpected turn during the drive to Torrey Pines from our house. Jenn had gotten a call from Holly, one of the runners in van two. One of the van two runners, Jamie, had injured herself during her first segment and had to be taken to urgent care. She was sprinting towards the transition area at the end of her run when she was suddenly hit by a lightning bolt of excruciating pain in her calf. She suspected it was her meniscus, but wasn't completely sure. But one thing she knew for sure was that unfortunately, her race was over. Jenn and Holly came up with a new game plan over the phone. Originally, the plan was for me to run my three segments, and cover Gerald's last segment, since he only wanted to run two. Instead, I would run Jamie's last segment, while Holly and another runner would cover her second one. Meanwhile, Jenn called Rhonda, our vice president of marketing, to ask if she could run Gerald's last segment. Rhonda told our team that she would be available to run on standby, so she was happy to help. Things had gotten a bit scattered, but we seemed to have a good plan in place. Sometimes in these types events, as is the case with real life, things can go upside very quickly and it's important to break out those problem solving skills when needed.
Once Proshat finished up her second run, It was Elle's turn again. As we drove to the next checkpoint, we passed her as she ran up a massive hill. We honked and cheered as we drove by. Elle was Kelly's daughter, and a freshman in college studying nursing. She was going to school in a town in Wyoming that was over a mile high in elevation, which I'm sure helped her run stronger here at sea level. As we drove by her and cheered, I was sure that Kelly had a proud mom moment as she watched Elle tackle that hill. After Elle arrived at the checkpoint, Jenn took off again, going strong. About halfway through her run, Proshat got a call from her. She sounded frantic and told us over speaker phone that she had taken another wrong turn. We were trying to help Proshat pinpoint Jenn's location by looking at the app and checking Google maps. We heard a lot of wind in the background, and it sounded like Jenn was running as she was talking. It was hard to understand what she was trying to tell us. Proshat handed me her phone and walked over to the transition area, and after a brief pause, Jenn said something to the effect of "I know where I am. I'm just going to have to get back on course and book it. Bye." And then she hung up. I walked over to Proshat and told her everything was okay, and that Jenn just had to get back on course and book it to the checkpoint. Proshat looked confused. "What do you mean?" she asked. "She's good" I answered. "She just has to get back on course and book it". Now she looked worried. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Is she okay?". Again, I said yes. "She's booking it. She'll be here soon". Proshat then looked at me as if she was going to say "if you don't tell me what's going on right now, I'm going to beat the words out of you". "Liam, I don't know what you're saying." she said. "Book what? What is she booking?". I finally saw where the confusion was. Proshat was a native Farsi speaker, having grown up in Iran. She had been living in the United States for eight years, but some of these odd English slang expressions were still unfamiliar to her. Once I realized her confusion, I explained that "book it" just means move quickly. I was essentially telling her that Jenn just had to get back on course and run fast. Once this was cleared up, we both laughed hysterically. Proshat thought I was saying something like Jenn needing to book an appointment or a hotel or flight, so she was relieved once she understood what I meant to say. It went back and forth three times before the right message was delivered. Proshat works on our property accounting team and is pursuing a PhD in Accounting. With the exception of Jenn, has done more SmartStop Ragnar races than any of us. Her and I are cubicle neighbors at the office, and we still laugh together about that exchange we had at the transition area to this day.
Hours passed, miles were covered, and I completed my second run and handed the bracelet off to Gerald at around 11:00 PM. After getting some carryout sandwiches, our van headed back to the house again for some more downtime. I was able to get a shower and a nap in during the three hours we were at the house, which felt luxurious. Our van had completed two full running segments and everyone was doing a great job and having fun. Through all of this, Blanca was doing a fantastic job with driving us around and navigating from checkpoint to checkpoint. I'm glad that she was able to get some much needed rest. At 3:00 AM, we found ourselves at the next checkpoint. Once the final runner for van two arrived, Proshat took off for her third and final segment. It was the middle of the night and we were running through a sketchy part of town, so I ran the first mile and a half of Proshat's segment with her until the course continued into a safer neighborhood. The next checkpoint was pulsing with energy when we arrived. There was music, lights, bonfires, and a coffee food truck. It was quite lively for 3:30 AM. Because of the sleep deprivation and the chilly early morning air, that cup of coffee from the coffee truck was really hitting the spot. The bonfires were a nice addition to the ambiance. It was marvelous. The sun eventually came up, and as more miles were covered, we found ourselves at a park near Doheny Beach in Dana Point. I waited for Matt to arrive before I began my final segment. From there, the course would continue through Dana Point, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods and then into Irvine, and eventually, Huntington Beach, where we would cross the finish line. We were getting close with each step that our team took.
As I completed my run, I entered the parking lot of Dana Hills High School, where I handed the Bracelet off to Rhonda, who had shown up earlier that morning to run Gerald's final segment. At this point, I said farewell to my fellow van mates, gathered my stuff, and jumped into van two, since I would be covering Jamie's final segment that afternoon. Jamie, or "JJ" as we called her, had spent some time in the hospital, but was now back in the van wearing a boot and using crutches. Despite the unfortunate circumstances, she was in good spirit. In addition to running, she was super into cycling. It's never fun to have to work through an injury, but I knew she'd be back to her active lifestyle before too long. Her and her husband, Josh, were joining us from British Columbia, Canada. Josh, our legal council for our Canadian operations, was the only guy I had ever met who was born and raised in the Yukon territory of Canada. If you're not sure where it is on the map, check it out. It's way up there. Also accompanying us in van two was Bliss, our executive vice president of our Canada operations, who I shared a couple of miles with for motivational support. She had traveled the farthest out of all of us, all the way from Toronto, to be part of this wild adventure. We ran up a big hill together, and she finished strong, handing the bracelet off to Holly, our next runner. Our van two drivers, Todd and Jeff, who worked on our facilities and marketing teams, drove us to our next checkpoint. When Holly arrived, she would be handing the bracelet off to me to run JJ's final segment. As we waited for her in the transition area, I was chatting with Michael. Michael and Holly are husband and wife, with him serving as the CEO of our company and Holly serving as the executive vice president of our sister company. I thought it was really awesome that they both participated in Ragnar every year together. It sets a really good tone for the culture of SmartStop and it was cool interacting with them outside of work.
My pace throughout JJ's final segment was considerably slower than my earlier segments. I only slept a total of three hours in the past thirty-six hours, and I had already covered twenty-three miles. I wasn't hurting, but exhaustion was setting in pretty hard. I finally made it back to the transition area and handed the bracelet off to Josh. He was running the final segment of the race, so our next stop would be the finish line. My teammates greeted me with cheers and high fives. Much to my delight, they had a double cheeseburger from the Habit waiting for me in the van. After running a total of thirty-one miles over the past day and a half, it tasted heavenly. "Thank you guys, I'm so obsessed with this cheeseburger right now" I told them.
Shortly before 5:00 PM, Josh emerged in the distance from the finish line in Huntington Beach, and our whole team, including our drivers, crossed the finish line all together. We high fived and embraced each other in celebration as if we were a hockey team who had just won a playoff series. After thirty-four and a half hours of battling the obstacles, including runners going off course, runners getting injured, getting three hours of sleep, eating room temperature hamburgers in the van at 3:00 AM, consuming lots of coffee, and sitting around in our own sweat for hours, we were Ragnar SoCal finishers! All of the runners did an awesome job, and we couldn't have done it without our amazing van drivers. Matt's wife had flown in that morning from Denver, and met us at the finish line, much to our excitement. My heart was full as we sat around a big plastic table in folding chairs, beers in hand, sharing stories and laughs about our adventure.
At 7:30 PM, I finally arrived at home. Coincidentally, Samantha had driven down to San Diego to see some friends who were in town, so my in laws were babysitting Aidan. Once they took off, I had a hot shower, and Aidan and I ordered some Raising Cane's on Uber Eats. I always look forward to being home with my family after finishing races. I ran lots of miles, helped my team to the finish line, and gained a lot of great memories with some super cool people. Now that I was back home resting with people I love, there was nothing more I could have wanted.
