In 2017, my organization was in the middle of acquiring another bank. Given my role, I was part of the due diligence team. But I was also responsible for negotiating the purchase agreement, and preparing all of the paperwork that accompanies a regulatory filing. During this time, I still had my day job, so I still had all of my regular responsibilities in addition to working on a merger. And, I had small children at home: One in preschool, one in elementary school. If there was a time for me to be on the cusp of burning out, this was it.
I saw a post on social media from a group of women looking for additional runners to run a 200-mile relay from Duluth, Minn., to the Twin Cities. I actually didn’t know any of these other women so, like a perfectly normal person on the verge of burning out, I messaged them and said, “I would LOVE to join your team.”
To run a RAGNAR — a series of long distance running relay races held across the country — you’re on a team with 12 runners split into two vans. While one van has runners out on the course, the other van has driven ahead so runners can eat or sleep or rest. When you are running, your van can’t simply follow behind you because you might be running on a trail or a bike path or a road, and they don’t close the roads down while you are running a RAGNAR.
Since then, I’ve actually completed a second RAGNAR in the summer of 2021, running from Blaine to Langley, Wash.
To run 200 miles in two days, the team must run 24-hours-a-day. My first leg was at noon, which meant my second leg was at midnight. Now, we are running on an open road, so for safety reasons, I had a headlamp, a lighted vest and a tail light, and I took off from a high school that served as my exchange point. However, I turned to run out of town and it wasn’t long before I found myself on a gravel road in rural Minnesota. A dense fog settled in. We’re halfway through the race at this point, which means the runners are fairly spread out along the 200-mile course. It was dark, but even so, I couldn’t see another runner ahead of me or behind me. And it sunk in: I’m running 4.8 miles in the middle of Minnesota after midnight and it’s dark. It was me, the road and my lights.
I grew up on a farm, and I had pepper spray, but I know what kind of animals come out at night; pepper spray is not going to help in that situation. I wasn’t running with music because I needed to make sure I could hear what was happening around me. Plus, even though I couldn’t really see very far ahead of me thanks to the dense fog, the course map indicated I was also running on rolling hills. I had not been able to sleep yet on the course, so my legs and my brain were tired.
At about 3.5 miles in, I heard the crunch of gravel behind me. Another runner had caught up to me and said: “Good job. It’s tough out there.”
Never underestimate the power of an encouraging word. You never know when that word might help a person get through their darkest day, or their darkest miles, of their life.
We finished the last portion of the leg together.
As we entered the final part of the race in Minnesota, we crossed into a county that I recognized. And I recognized it because I had just completed the HHI calculation for that particular county in connection with our acquisition application. So I turned to the person driving the van and said, “Do you want to hear a good story?” Then I explained what a regulatory agency looks at when they are analyzing a merger and volunteered all kinds of fun facts about deposit market concentration.
They looked at me and said: “That is not a good story. That’s a terrible story! I thought you were going to tell me a story about a river!”
Fortunately, together we can celebrate our differences.
When I ran the RAGNAR Pacific Northwest, I volunteered to wear a shirt that read: Talk Banking To Me.
To run a RAGNAR there is a fair amount of preparation you have to do. You have to pack for the elements, but you are in a van. Food is not guaranteed en route, so you will eat copious amounts of peanut butter. GPS does not always work in the cornfields of Minnesota or the mountains of Washington, so you need a map. We actually had a spreadsheet that indicated when one person would be running what everyone else would be doing: Driving, resting, eating, preparing, recovering.
But even with the best preparation, there will be hiccups. I found out I can’t sleep in a gym at night, but I can sleep in a field in the middle of the day without a problem.
You must drink more water than you ever think is necessary, which we found out the hard way when one of our runners was hospitalized with dehydration after finishing her last leg. I learned that even after years of driving impressive farm equipment, driving a 12-person van on dark roads around midnight is very stressful.
But we do not prepare to be perfect; we prepare so we are ready for whatever obstacle is in front of us.
My favorite part about RAGNAR though, is that it truly is a team event. As your last runner is finishing up, when they have a half mile left, the rest of the team jogs out and meets that runner, and we finish together as an entire team of 12 runners. And we receive our medals together, which coincidentally fit together like a puzzle. It does not matter if you were the fastest runner or the slowest runner, every single member played a role in getting us to that finish line. In fact, RAGNAR’s motto is to bask in the joy of accomplishing something together that you could never accomplish alone.
These experiences have taught me that together we can do hard things. Together we can prevent burnout. In my case, by running 200 miles with complete strangers.
I chose to share my experience with RAGNAR at the ABA Conference for Community Bankers and with BankBeat because I think its motto is true in my personal life, in my work, and in the communities that my bank serves. Together we can accomplish anything. Together we can.
Kristina M. Schaefer is EVP, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Administrative Officer at First Bank & Trust, Sioux Falls, S.D. Shaefer grew up on a farm and can drive a tractor. Annually, she plays drums with her college drumline, but she considers her true calling to be “an encourager.”