Sleepless slumber party finds perfect setting

"Imagine getting together with 11 friends and running 200 or so miles, day and night, relay-style, through some of the most scenic terrain in North America. Add in wacky costumes, inside jokes and a mild case of sleep deprivation. Some call it a slumber party without sleep, pillows or deodorant. We call it a Ragnar Relay."

I’d call it something Charlie Sheen might be interested in, were it not for the running part.

The Ragnar Relay Series began as the Ragnar Relay. There was just one, in Utah. That also would disqualify Charlie Sheen.

There are now 15 Ragnar Relays. The one in Las Vegas this weekend, which starts Friday at Echo Bay Marina and finishes around 24 hours later at Desert Breeze Park, has grown from about 200 teams in 2009 to 470 this year. It is tied for about third-largest among the Ragnars with the one in Southern California that traipses along the Pacific Ocean.

The most popular Ragnar Relays are at Wasatch Back, the original one in panoramic Utah, and the one in the Florida Keys, which finishes amid debauchery and ribaldry in Key West. Word is Charlie Sheen is training hard for that one.

A guy named Tanner Bell and another guy named Dan Hill — no relation to Dan "Sometimes When We Touch" Hill — are responsible for the concept. Bell and Hill — no relation to Bell and Howell — are Brigham Young graduates. And yet they came up with the wacky costumes, inside jokes and party attitudes. Amazing.

They also came up with the name. Ragnar is short for Ragnar Lodbrok, a Viking of mythic stature who predates other Vikings of mythic stature, such as Chuck Foreman and Mick Tingelhoff and the Purple People Eaters.

In A.D. 845, Ragnar and fellow Norse god Olav "Bud" Grant set sail for France, with 120 Viking ships and 5,000 Viking warriors, and pretty much ravaged everything they could lay hands on, leaving only a few cartons of Gitanes cigarettes in their wake. The sound from their collective Viking horns must have been deafening.

Eventually, Ragnar was cast into a pit of vipers and put to death in England, and in 1958, Ernest Borgnine portrayed him in the movie "The Vikings." There was no cameo for Bud Grant.

I’m not exactly sure how a pillaging Norseman relates to running all day and all night, other than sailing the high seas with Vikings must have been an adventure. As is, I am told, running 195 miles from sunup to sundown to sunup again around Red Rock Canyon and the Lake Mead and Spring Mountain recreation areas before finishing in Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps — except, perhaps, when it has a blister from staying up all night and running.

Supposedly there are awe-inspiring sights all along the way, according to race director Erin Gehring, who lives in Utah. So she should know about such things.

"We try to have beautiful courses, to let people see the different side of places," Gehring said about what attracts runners to the Ragnar Series. "It’s really fitting for Vegas, because teams dress up in costumes. You’re running with best friends and family, and it really is more special than running by yourself."

Gehring said she has seen a Las Vegas team do the relay in Sumo wrestler outfits; another in Speedos that seemed a bit too small. So running by one’s self isn’t always a bad idea. I forgot to ask if she has seen a team dressed as Excalibur court jesters, which I have seen pumping gas at Terrible Herbst late at night.

Anyway, Gehring said relay running isn’t all that difficult. The segments usually last from three to nine miles, after which — provided you didn’t run in Speedos — teammates will pick you up in Jeff Spicoli’s van or the Partridge Family bus and offer you mass quantities of Red Bull and a granola bar.

Gehring said individual runners still can sign up — they’ll place you on a team if you can’t find 11 Speedos-wearing pals by Friday — by visiting the Ragnar Relay Series on Facebook.

Though it sounds like oodles of fun (and a pulled hammy), I think I’m just gonna call Charlie Sheen and head down to Fremont Street, to check out the giant 24-ounce cans of beer for $1.99 and the girls dancing on top of the blackjack tables at the Golden Gate, for these are awe-inspiring sights, too.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.