Ragnar Relay Raises $3,000
By Chesa Boudin.
From May 13-14 a team of 12 runners participated in a “Ragnar Relay” road race to help raise money for Music for Autism. Junior Board member Chesa Boudin was one of the runners who helped organize the team and virtually all of the other runners were current Yale students or Yale alums. The team members were: Cynthia Lin, Helen Jack, Emmy Waldman, Lauren Brooks, Stasia Thomas, Ariel Patashnik, Chesa Boudin, Matthew Dernbach, Wookie Kim, J.J. Weis, Jordan Hare and Benjamin Albright.
Because of the Yale affiliations the running team was an official “Yale Day of Service” event. Despite the Yale and the Music for Autism affiliations, the team name was “Undisputed Champagne” to evoke their winning ambitions. The race began in Bethel, NY and ended in Dobbs Ferry, NY. The windy course went through Catskill mountain country on open roads, day and night, with car traffic. Here is how it worked.
There were 12 runners – 6 women, 6 men – on the team. Each team member ran 3 separate legs for a total average of 16.5 miles per runner. One runner, J.J. Weis, ran a full marathon (26 miles) if you add up the various legs. The least any one runner ran was still an impressive 11.4 miles. All in all the team ran 197.5 miles in 23 hours, 50 minutes, 10 seconds. That works out to a speedy average pace per mile of 7 minutes, 14 seconds.
Lest you think this was the only group of people crazy enough to spend a full day running, there were 214 teams entering the race, though only 182 teams actually finished. True to their name, team Undisputed Champagne finished FIRST PLACE in the mixed gender division.
Here are a few fun facts about their race:
- Number of runners on the team injured during the race: 1
- Number of wrong turns that led the team off course: 1
- Number of runners run off the road by oncoming traffic: 1
- Number of dollars raised for Music for Autism: $2,095
