I needed a get away and some “me time” so when Paul sent out the call for people to run the Northwest Passage Relay I jumped at the opportunity. After running the Wasatch Back Relay I started to question my decision. Relays definitely are not my strength. After the team was put together it looked like we had a really good shot at winning. Unfortunately, a few drop outs left us short handed (or is that short footed) and while we were still competitive, the win was less certain. We were originally scheduled to start at 4:00 p.m. but moved our start time to 2:00 because we were in jeopardy of coming into the first two major exchanges (6 and 12) after the cutoff times. The only issue with moving the start time up was that Dave was going to meet us along the route and this left little room for error. An ultra team from runningshoes.com was the only team to start after us (3:30) and we figured would be our stiffest competition.
I met Craig at SeaTac and we waited for Mark to get in. Once he arrived, we picked up the van, grabbed a bite to eat then drove to Bellingham. We did a little grocery shopping in Bellingham and bought way too much food. We hardly ate any of the food that we bought. We had a couple of hours to kill until it was our time to run so we just hung out at the park. It was a really beautiful area.
Since we only had 4 runners in our van, two people were going to run 4 legs and 2 would have to run 5. Dave had to be runner 12 since we were picking him up along the route. I was originally penciled in as runner 11 but it made more sense logistically for me to be runner 7 and leave runners 10 and 11 as the open slots. In hindsight, since I was the slowest runner in the van, I probably shouldn’t have been running the leg with the most miles.
I warmed up with a 1.5 miles and was ready to go. A guy from an ultra team came stumbling in while I was waiting for Cody and he was not looking good. They got him to a stretcher and started an IV and he was completely unresponsive. This isn’t something that I wanted to see before starting my run. Cody came flying in and passed me the baton. My first leg was 3.95 miles (according to my Garmin) and started at 6:12 p.m. The first mile was rolling then there was about a 50 foot gain over the next ½ mile then another mile of slight elevation gain. The last mile climbed 425 feet and I was not looking forward to it. My biggest concern was that there were about a million turns and I knew that I was going to get lost. There weren’t many teams around us so I was on my own. Right before the big climb, I was sure that I was lost but could see somebody ahead so I assumed I was alright. The climb absolutely killed my legs. It’s one of those hills where walking is probably as fast as running (I promise that I ran the entire thing). Eventually got to the top and passed off to Craig. Total time was 29:07 (7:22/mile) which was 1 minute ahead of schedule.
I still had one more run in this set of legs before I could rest. At 8:07 I started my next run (leg 11) and it was supposed to be easy. It started with a 200 foot drop over the first mile then was completely flat for 3.6 more miles (4.6 total miles). The first mile went really well (6:06) then my legs started to rebel. I averaged 6:45 over the flat miles which was 15 seconds/mile slower than I wanted. Total time for the run was 30:15 (6:37/mile) and I gave back 1 minute. I figured that I was alright since I came out even for the 2 runs. I was happy to see Dave at the exchange because there was some question as to whether or not he could make it in time. There was some confusion since I didn’t know what he looked like and I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be handing off to.
We talked with van 1 for a bit at the exchange and we decided that it made more sense for Dave to run the extra leg during the next set instead of me since leg 19 was so long. I’m glad that Dave was still on the road while we were discussing this. This is also where Cody offered up his services for an extra leg during the last set in case we needed the help. After Dave finished his run, we drove to Mt. Vernon and stopped at Denny’s for some food. I decided that I was more tired than I was hungry so I made a sandwich and took about a 45 minute nap while they ate. I was happy that I did this but the decision may have hurt me later in the race.
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