What's In A Name or Out of the Bunker

Now where did I leave off. Oh yeah. Let's name our team.

Since the "fast" BRA team's name was 12 Hearts, should we have something similar. Like for instance, 24 Kidneys or 12 noses or 17 earlobes. Figure that one out. Maybe something along the lines of, The Slow Asses, The Others, The Glittering Cowboys or BRA's Red Headed Step Kids. No. We did not want to offend any troubled youths out there or red heads on our team.

So Beth and I started tossing out different names that sounded fun and yet fitting. She thought of Mixed Nuts. I thought of 6 Swords and Their Sheathes. We compromised on Half Nuts. She was thinking that we had to be half nuts to run across Florida. Guys, you know what I was thinking. Six guys-six girls on a team. Anyways. Turns out when the team was finalized, after the naming of course, we were actually 5/12ths Nuts. But hey.

We now needed a logo of some sorts. You know the whole womanly, "we got to have matching shirts so we can take pictures. Shirts we can wear crossing the finish line." Beth was able to use her artistic creativity (actually stole a clip art) and came up with our logo.

So after heavy debating and numerous voting, the name and logo were born. We were no longer just Team 44, we were and will forever be Half Nuts. HN4LB.

All we had left to do now was prepare ourselves for this strenuous journey we were going to partake in. I organized countless training sessions and met with numerous strength, conditioning, life and running coaches. I will also let the cat out of the bag and say that some of our runners also spent some time on a couch or two. They did not realize they were already on the team. I don't kiss and tell.

Some of the team suggested we have a few pre-Ragnar meetings just to talk about logistics and such. I held the first meeting at St Pete Beach. I set it up with beer and food. Had the beach chair with an umbrella. And just as the sun began to set on the horizon, I pulled out my laptop and sent some e-mails to the team. You have to sometimes slap them in the mouth to get their attention. I had a blast.

After several meetings, numerous phone calls, leg jockeying and countless e-mails, we were ready to race.

Next: Up Before Dawn or Is That Really Our Van?