Invictus Endurance Takes on Ragnar Relay Napa Valley

Invictus Endurance Takes on Ragnar Relay Napa Valley
Written by Nuno Costa

This upcoming weekend Invictus Endurance will be participating in the Ragnar Relay Napa Valley. The 194-mile running race is a relay-style event, and our team of 12 runners will run day and night through some of Northern California’s most beautiful scenery. We begin racing on Friday. We have two vans with 6 runners each, and each person will run between 3-10 miles at a time. Once everyone in their individual van runs their portion, then they tag the second van and they rest while the other runners take the course. We end up doing this three times and are projected to finish sometime Saturday afternoon.

Our team, Invictus Endurance, competed in the Ragnar Relay SoCal that ran from Huntington Beach to Coronado earlier this year. We placed 6th in our division with a total time of 28 hours and 23 minutes and an average per mile pace of 8:22 a mile. Our team came in 27th out of a total of 526 teams! The majority of the team is returning to race in Napa Valley, and we would like to better our finish! We train together every Wednesday evening and weekend, and we are looking forward to the challenge. Running in our Southern California backyard was fun and exciting, but the Napa Valley race will be exciting in new ways, as we run through unknown territory during the fall grape harvest. The team has done the Southern California race 3 years in a row, but this is our first time travelling for a Ragnar event.

The team consists of Ed McBean, Christopher Walden, James & Johannah Valentine, Michael Bellock, Ian Armstrong, Eric Brandle, Alexis Mowat, Miné Okano, Jay Garrison, Jeff Rosser & Nuno Costa. We are flying north on Thursday and picking up our vans – which will be decorated with Invictus Endurance logos and slogans, and we will be running in shirts that were donated to us by Life As RX. Our slogan is not far off from Invictus’ – “I am the master of my feet, I am captain of my soles.”

You can follow us throughout the event on Facebook or Twitter @ Invictus Endurance.

Finally, since the upcoming race is in Northern California, the costs of travel, food and lodging build up. We have sought out sponsors and collected some donations (money, products, etc…), but it’s not too late to make a contribution. Any contribution, big or small, is much appreciated. In return, we would love to place your logo on our two vans. We will be running and driving our support vans through the wine country as we run with 400 other teams, so your logo will be seen by many. If this is something you might be willing to consider, please contact Nuno directly at [email protected]