Thursday evening we had a pasta dinner together to go over
details etc., with most of the runners. We were missing 2 of ours due to1 being
out of town(Nick) and the other being barely recruited(Sommer’s dad Dale). We
had to rearrange our legs to accommodate Nick as he was out of town for the
guys first leg.
The ladies started the race at 10:30 a.m. and had their longest portion in the first
series so the guys didn’t start running until 4 ish. We haven’t had much heat
around here so the temp got to us a bit. Mark ran the first leg and then I took
second…Tim was third and then I took another short leg…both of which I hit at
about a 7:30 pace…I went out a
little fast and had to slow it down a bit.
Then the fun began…our next runner has run hood to coast
quite a bit and he was really looking forward to running this with us. He may
have been a little overanxious though…he started hard and passed several people
and then hit the hill on his route…it was still pretty warm. Upon seeing him
come to the top of the hill he was staggering a bit. We made him sit on the
back of the van to collect his breathe…but he didn’t want to stay long…he was
off again and we were a little concerned about him. We hustled to the next
exchange to meet up with Dale as he had to work and this would be our first
contact with him. Mark and Tim dropped me off to help get Dale ready and they headed
back to check up on Dan. As they drove they saw him about a mile from the
exchange and he was wobbly. Before they could get to him he toppled down a hill
into a barbed wire fence. Tim jumped out and went down and got him off the
fencing and held him off…Mark was stuck as there was no where to park and he
couldn’t find the hazard clickers. He just parked it and went down the hill to
help Tim get Dan back up. Mark went ahead and finished the leg and poor Dan was
pale and sweating like crazy for quite sometime sitting in the front seat with AC full blast…too much heat!
After some rest Dan got back to being himself and was able
to run his other slots/legs and finish on a positive note.
We headed to the hotel and Mark and I hit the hot tub to
relax the legs…worked great! Then while Dale and Dan slept, we went and got
some pizza, we were pretty hungry after all that. Later Mark would say that he’d
had one piece of pizza too many.
My next leg was a 4.8 with hills here there and everywhere
it seemed. It was also in the dark and there were few lights anywhere except of
the support cars. Thankfully the moon was out and almost full. When the guys
were done we headed back to the hotel and we all conked out for about 1-1.5
hours. Boy that felt good! We had to head out a little early as our next leg
started quite a ways from the hotel. Mark and I both had 6.3 on the next legs
so I challenged him to see who could be the fastest… He ran his in 48 minutes(I came in at 49, Dang!)
and then I started mine… first check of the watch showed a 7:45 pace which would get me close to his time but I knew
there were hills ahead and didn’t want to die on them so backed off to 8 min.
pace for the first 1.5 miles. Then the hills(from 1.5 to 4) started and there
was a pretty long one…pace got down to 8:30
and discouragement was starting to set in. I kept going and finally got to
where there was a very steep up and then the hills where reasonable and I
was able to crank the pace back up and
got it down to 8:15 and then finally to 8 and then finally crested the
hill(didn’t feel like there was much downhill) at a little past the 4 mile
mark. This leg was a non-support leg and so there were 2 water stations, the
first at 2.8 and the book said 5.8…what a great feeling to see the 2nd
one at 4.8 which was perfect for me…at both I drank a cup and poured another on
my head to cool off. Picked the pace up as much as I felt comfortable with and
just tried catching the guy ahead of me. Finally at 5.8 caught him and passed…he
showed signs of life so I kicked into gear to give him no reason to even try…he
slowed back down. Then once I turned the corner I saw another guy way down
there and decided that since this is my last leg…what the heck…I put the
burners on…this part was downhill. Caught the guy with about 20 yards to the
finish line…my pace on the last .3 was 4.58…didn’t know I had it in me.
That was such a good feeling to know that I’d given it all I
had and finished strong. Dale finished up our race and we ran in with him…poor
guy had a bad back and blisters on his feet but he never complained…he just hit
it hard and was apologetic that he didn’t do better at the end…he was only a
minute off his predicted time and had to run in the heat and some hills.
We had a really fun team! The girls rocked their legs and we
hit ours pretty close. After all of that we ended up being only 1 minute off
what Sommer had predicted for our finish!
Then it was time for pictures, etc. Our team name was “No
charge for Awesomeness or Attractiveness” from the movie Kung Fu Panda. We had
hoodies made and put them on in the heat to get pics.
I was happy with my runs for the most part. I had a lot of
roadkill too. I don’t remember exacty how many on the first thru third legs but
I got 10 on that last leg and was only passed by one young punk.
Good Times and challenging…now time to take a little break
again…legs feel pretty good. Not sure if I will run Torchlight on Sat. evening
or not…we’ll see.
Pics will be posted on facebook page.
