Co-captain's report (immediate aftermath - Sunday, June 8)

We made it!    Rank Strangers finished the 200 mile Madison - Chicago run relay yesterday afternoon.   Congratulations to my wonderful teammates!

Finisher medal

(This post is a work in progress: I'll modify this through the course of the day as the fog of sleep deprivation clears.  I apologize for dropping off the social media map around our 4pm finish time.  I'm full of excuses: the race-after-the-race to purge the rental vans and get them back to their homes occupied me into the early evening; 45 minutes of sleep over the 30+ hour race period seemed like EXACTLY the right amount at the time but it couldn't sustain me past 9pm last night (though that late hour, in retrospect, may be a personal record for me).   Within the week I will have a post with official race results; I'll add this year's individual results to the team record book and share pictures from teammates.)






Runner #12 Paul Miller sustained his social media stream admirably.  Paul's @MillerRoad (Twitter handle) had great pictures along the way and this one of him and teammate Ed Stojakovic at the finish:

Paul (left) and Ed with the Ragnar

finish banner in the background.  Paul

carried the orange slap bracelet ("baton")

across the finish line, surrounded by his

teammates.

Rank Strangers gather after pre-race breakfast (L to R) - (Pete Boll's boys are in front); Paul Miller, Ed Stojakovic, Pete Boll, Bo Lackey, Art Saffran, Eric Engdahl,, Mark Clear (co-captain, not running this year), Steve Hill, Jeff Shampo, Cathy Jooste, Greg Masenthin, Suzanne Holmes, Renee Roux.

10 digits for 10 Madison Chicago relays - Eric and Jeff celebrate after Jeff finished his 30th relay leg at North Chicago.

A few more snapshots from along the way:

Lest we forget - night.   Scene near Exchange 20 in Oak Creek, 

Wisconsin.  Greg was waiting for handoff from Suzanne.

Read backwards, it is team #133. 

Suzanne and Greg on the school bus shuttle from van

parking to the finish line.

Steve waiting to start his final run at the North Chicago 

transition - last smile for a while.

Pete

Renee monitors treasures from the Van #1 snack stash

Pete emerges from tunnel to greeting by teammates.

Renee

Art about to dig into a hard-earned breakfast on Saturday morning - Van #1's work is done.

Highlights from Paul's Twitter feed (@MillerRoad):

Highlights from Bo Lackey's Twitter feed (@MotivationNinja):