I'm retired from racing. Really.

6 easy miles with some of the RDS team.  First day running after missing Monday and Tuesday.  Went to the chiropractor for the first time ever on Tuesday and I am sore!

We leave tomorrow for RDS.

I have already read a few of the entries for the race from my teammates, and recommend reading them.  Paul's has more of a general overview and is rather humorous.  I recommend it.  Here is my report.

A group of us drove down Thursday night/Friday morning.  We met the rest of the team at the starting line in Wickenburg.  I was the last runner (runner 6) in van 1.  The race started well, with it quickly becoming apparent that our competition would be from the Google team.  The five runners in front of me ran great, though Google did manage to open up about a 4-5 minute lead on us.  After making my ritual 20 trips to the beloved port-o-podies (or so it seemed), my leg approached.  My first run started about 8:30 pm.  It was a short leg- 4.4 miles, though it was hilly the whole way.  I had not trained near as much as I should have (only 10 weeks of running), so my overall predicted pace was 7:00 miles, though this leg was supposed to be a 7:18 thanks to the hills.  I didn't like running along the highway for the first bit, but having a full moon was great.  I hit my first turn (1.4 miles) at 6:45 pace and was feeling good, though I knew I was (sadly) near my speed limit since my breathing kept trying to turn random and I had to force it to stay even (2 steps in, 2 steps out).  I then had a gradual uphill, gradual downhill, then somewhat steep uphill.  The second hill slowed me a bit, but not too much.  I finished with a nice downhill run and a time of approximately 30:30, 2 minutes faster than predicted but we were still 4 or 5 minutes behind Google.

We drove the exchange 12, where I took a very cold but wonderful shower and fell asleep for about 2 hours on a wrestling mat.  Having always been the 1st runner in my previous vans, I prefer being last so I can sleep longer.  Results continue on Saturday.

Part 2

Our team ran great leading up to my second leg.  Clyde had a very hilly leg with lots of turns- something I would have enjoyed.  Paul closed a lot on Google and I was only about 3 minutes behind them at the start of my leg.  I was slightly confused for the first half mile because I thought I missed a turn, but actually didn't.  My leg was 4.1 miles, with a constant ascent the whole time.  I pushed myself and passed 2 teams (the only ones I saw), finishing about 4 minutes under my predicted time (just under 7:00 miles again).  I was tired but happy.

The race got real exciting after this.  Van 2 ran great and closed the gap with Google to 20 seconds.  It's amazing that you can run 120 miles and be within 100 yards of a team.  Google pulled away a bit before my leg.  My leg was very short (3.3 miles) with one decent uphill, a steep downhill, and then some flat and gradual up.  I ran hard but was very tired.  I could definitely feel some fatigue in my legs on the downhill pounding.  I also thought the second half would be flatter and even some downhill rather than up, which was hard.  But, the "1 mile to go" sign came a lot quicker than I expected and I finished 2 minutes ahead of schedule (~6:16 miles).  I was glad to be done and was very hopeful would could catch Google.  Alas, it didn't happen, but we still took second place, 10 minutes behind Google and 90 minutes ahead of 3rd place.  It was very fun to have a team to race and they were great competitors and good sports. 

Overall, it was a very enjoyable race.  I met some nice new people, saw some beautiful country, and had a great time.  I will make sure to start training earlier before future relays so I can pull my own weight rather than dragging down the average time.  It shows you how great my teammates did when our average time was 40 seconds/mile faster than my time.  They were great runners and enjoyable teammates.  Thanks, guys.

Looking towards the future, I'm not sure if I will do this relay again.  I enjoyed it and am very glad I did it.  But I think I want to run some other relays (other Ragnars, Hood to Coast, etc) before I would consider repeating this one.  If they change it to run from Flagstaff to Phoenix, though, I would be back in a heartbeat.