After crashing at the Columbia County Fair Grounds for a few hours, we were on the move again. I did not get that much sleep on the one of the benches in our van, but it felt like it was some deep sleep, so I was good to go. Luckily, we gave ourselves plenty of time to get to exchange #24, because there was a big bottleneck getting into Mist (a town that seems to be completely engulfed in mist). We were able to beat our twelfth runner, Nicole, to this major exchange by 15 minutes while other teams were not so fortunate, thus their runners had to wait around in the cold for the other van to arrive in order to make the exchange. Also, in this remote location there was no cell phone coverage, thus it was a little chaotic during the early morning hours.
After gulping down an orange-flavor GU for breakfast, it was time for me to complete my final leg which was essentially a 3.6-mile climb followed by a 2.5-mile descent. This 6.11-mile leg on Highway 202 in Astoria ended up being a little shorter according to my Garmin; that is, 6.03 miles. With a sub-6:00 overall average pace on the line, I tried to push it as hard as possible from the start. I knew I needed a 6:02 average or lower and I tried my best to not be discouraged by my early splits that I knew would be slow. Starting out, I was thinking that 3.6 miles into this run (at its peak) I need a 6:30 pace or lower then I would have a great shot of accomplishing my goal. The support was awesome along this three-mile-plus climb with all of the other teams cheering you on. My splits for the climb were 6:29, 6:18 (feeling good at this point), and 6:44 (thing were starting to unravel). The grade seemed to be getting steeper and steeper with each switch back and at the summit I was at a 6:34 average pace. I knew that it would take a heck of a descent to dent this average back to 6:02 and I was running out of real estate. However, this was the Hood to Coast so I was determined to give it my all. My splits for the descent were 6:07 (0.6 uphill on this one), 5:18, 5:16, and 0:09. On fresh legs I could have done more damage, but these splits exceeded what I was expecting on my tired legs. I completed my final leg in a time of 36:21, thus a 6:02 pace! Yes, yes and yes, this equates to a 5:59 pace for the relay!!! I’m always just happy to finish and for my teammates to finish, but achieving this goal was just a bonus and it felt tremendous and it stills feels great!
Unfortunately, there was another bottleneck where vans were in a logjam along the descent waiting to get into Exchange #29. Consequently, I had passed my van and beat my teammates to the exchange. However, Dena was showing a tremendous amount of heart in that I saw she had left our van over a mile outside of the exchange and was running in. As a result, I only cooled downed at the exchange for a few minutes then Dena came by to take the slap bracelet baton. I met up with our van then as we inched our way along to the Exchange #30, we all realized that we were not going to be able to catch up with Dena and there was not cell phone coverage to alert Van #2 that we were arriving. So I jumped out and ran the last 2.27 miles of this leg #30. It was fun adjusting to the circumstances and people were yelling out “Go Ragnar!” from their van as I passed since I was sporting my 2011 Wasatch Back shirt (I even saw the famous Utah Relay team CTR: Choose to Run--great D-News article on them). I bypassed Dena with around a mile and a half to go and got to Exchange #30 a few minutes before she did. Needless to say, I did not have much time to find Van #2, then I saw our seventh runner Stephanie in a bright (and I mean bright) pink Salt Lake Running Company t-shirt, no one could miss her (by the way, a big thanks to SLRC for hooking us up with such awesome t-shirts for the race and everyone loved them). I found out that Van #2 had gone ahead to Exchange #31 just as Dena was heading toward the exchange. Perfect execution and we were on our way to Seaside!!!
We finished in Seaside on the beach in a time of 31:32:39, which equates to an overall team pace of 9:28. Oh yeah, the beach finish was awesome!!! Perfect weather, powder-like sand, great seafood, awesome firework show, and an off-the-hook concert; that is, when you are completely sleep deprived, a cover band jamming AC/DC, Poison, Journey, Prince, Def Leppard and everyone else is so much fun and just rocks! Thanks to Z and all my Coasties and Ghosties teammates for an unbelievable race and a memorable experience!!! | 