On August 25-26 Emily and I participated in the 2011 Hood to Coast (HTC) Relay with a team of Emily's co-workers. Emily was team captain, so I was able to weasel my way onto the team at the last minute due to some injuries that forced a teammate to dropout a week before the race. HTC is a 200 mile running relay that starts at the top of Mt Hood and ends at the small Pacific coastal town of Seaside, Oregon. Each team has 12 runners split between two shuttle vans. The runners take turns while the vans leapfrog to the next exchange point. Each runner completes 3 sections and each section varies from 4-8 miles, so you end up running about 16-17 miles over the course of a day. The fun part is that there are no breaks in the race....it goes through the night. We started early Friday morning and finished Saturday afternoon. It was an amazing challenge and a great experience. Running through the pain on a back country road at night with just a headlamp to dimly light the way can take you to some places in your head that you didn't even know existed. If you are a runner (and I don't claim to be), then this is an event that you will look forward to doing again. I think I only slept about 2 hours in the van, yet I logged a pace 30 seconds per mile faster than my usual; I guess those late nights on call for work have prepared my body to function at peak performance no matter what time of day. :) ....or was it the Redbull and an energy bar for breakfast?
gearing up the team van (van #2) at our house before the race...in case you can't read our spoof corporate motivational signs they state "
blurring Vision", "
wavering Commitment", and my fav "
begging for an Execution".....which pretty much sums up how you feel after running 17 miles on hardly any sleep!
looking to the start in the morning
powering through my first leg - a rolling 5.87 miles
exchange to teammate Chris (Emily's former manager)
donning the reflective vest for the night run
night exchange point - somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Oregon
Em running at 3AM
Em hands off the baton after finishing her night run
then we got stuck in traffic from all the vans...sometimes the runner beat the van so we had to get out and run an extra mile or so to make the exchange in time for the next runner
vans waiting at the exchange point
people get creative on where to sleep - this guy had a full matress in the back of his truck
Em heading down the final stretch to the coast to bring us across the finish line!
the AGX12 team
at the finish on the beach - time to party
after the race, we got massages then sat on the beach and just soaked in some sun and the views
Registration just opened up for next year......we just need to find 10 crazy friends to do it with us again.
gearing up the team van (van #2) at our house before the race...in case you can't read our spoof corporate motivational signs they state "blurring Vision", "wavering Commitment", and my fav "begging for an Execution".....which pretty much sums up how you feel after running 17 miles on hardly any sleep!
looking to the start in the morning
powering through my first leg - a rolling 5.87 miles
exchange to teammate Chris (Emily's former manager)
donning the reflective vest for the night run
night exchange point - somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Oregon
Em running at 3AM
Em hands off the baton after finishing her night run
then we got stuck in traffic from all the vans...sometimes the runner beat the van so we had to get out and run an extra mile or so to make the exchange in time for the next runner
vans waiting at the exchange point
people get creative on where to sleep - this guy had a full matress in the back of his truck
Em heading down the final stretch to the coast to bring us across the finish line!
the AGX12 team
at the finish on the beach - time to party
after the race, we got massages then sat on the beach and just soaked in some sun and the views
No comments:
Post a Comment