Hood to Coast Relay!

Warning: Journal Length.

We just got back from Oregon where we ran the Hood to Coast Relay, 197 miles and 1000 teams, each team has 12 members and two cars with six people each. You average about 15-19 miles total spread out over three different legs. You run about every eight hours but are driving for most of that so you can't just go to sleep or do something else.

And we're off! I bought brand spankin new shoes the day before despite crazy warnings not to :). I was really torn between the asics cumulus (which I already owned but were way overdue for a new pair) or the new asics nimbus. I had a coupon so that helped, but I don't think you should worry about paying a lot for shoes that will be supporting your body as you hammer out tons of miles. I'd say a small price to pay to make sure you treat your body right.

Anyway, I went for the cumulus which happened to be cheaper, I just had to stick with a good thing even if the newest shoes are hideous. Red and silver? Total man shoes. Any of you have these shoes too?
Near the start line up on Mount Hood.

Check out the yellow runner, pretty stylin dude. It was FREEZING up there. I have a towel wrapped around my legs if you can't tell. People were actually skiing on the mountain.

Stan is my brother in law, white shirt. He was super speedy. Not sure if he beat the yellow prancer, he was thoroughly entertaining to watch.

Yeah, sorry. Just happy about my free drinks. I LOVE free stuff. Cool Mount Hood too!

This is Ethan, Josh's brother, also super speedy. The first several legs were straight downhill, lucky dogs. They had great times to prove it too!

This is my first leg, 7.42 miles.

My wonderful van of people (1/2 the team) was so fun and supportive. This is after a few miles, I could have really used them on my run today to give me some water!

It was sure nice, but I realized again how hard it really is to drink while running. I have to say, I was very proud of myself! I had only done one eight mile run (and only six before that) the week before, so it was tough and harder to breathe with the elevation increase.

I ran about a 9min mile (what I expected) in the first half where it had some uphill (and those maps we all decided do NOT show all the uphill that really goes on in all the legs!) and the when it hit the downhill I picked it up a little, but the last mile and half a man started coming up beside me to pass me so that gave me way more drive than I thought I'd have at that point and ran about a 6 1/2 min mile from then on to average an 8min20sec mile pace average (GPS watch Josh got me for my birthday has paid off!).

I was thrilled with that for such a long run as I'm not a fast runner, esp to pick it up so much at the end made me feel great! I also managed to pass a bunch of people which upped the satisfaction.

After our first legs while the other van was doing their runs, we drove home to Josh's parents house in Portland (Beaverton) and played with the girls, ate, and went back to the city where we were due to start running again. Elisa, Josh's sister, has a WONDERFUL husband who babysat our two girls as well as his own two (the same ages as ours). THANK YOU MARK LUDWIG!

It was gorgeous weather and really fun to just hang out around all the buzz while we waited for the hand-off.

I'm on the phone so much because my sister was going through a break up and I was getting the sad scoop. Oh, and remember the whole pink debate? Can't miss me here! I actually am wearing this flourescent sign because I'd be running my leg in the dark and this was bright with reflectors.

Ethan and friend Joseph, also a speed demon and previous master swimmer (went to state in high school).

The crowd of partyers and runners, I spy Ethan and Joseph in the background! See the arms above everyone else?

This is Lori, superb florist (did our wedding, now works for the church doing arrangements) and runner too! She ran leg 12, so she was the last runner who got to run through the finish line after her third leg. I like how she's smiling and the guy behind her looks like he's trying to attack her. Yikes!

They had porta potties everywhere, thankfully. Well, this brand was actually "Honey Buckets," a little weird we decided. With all the nerves and runners you'd expect them to be much worse if you know what I mean, but they were actually really clean with hand sanitizer too! Joseph just really liked being safe, so he wore this a lot. I hope nobody is really like that. For certain legs you had to wear these groovy reflector vests that were nice and soggy for the subsequent runners. Mmm mmm.

In between legs we'd get out and stretch, went to Safeway and bought food, or hamburgers for some runners...I tried a delicious bite, but my run was up in 45 min and didn't think that would be a good idea since I did that last time we ran the race (with pizza) and I barfed after it.

The in between running was pretty fun and I have to say, even though we really missed the girls, it was nice to be without them too and just get to relax and have fun. Except the part where I had to pump milk since I'm still nursing every few hours--in a car of: Josh's dad, brother, brother's friend (both unmarried), Josh and his mom. It was just a tad weird. And then I stored it in an empty gatorade bottle in the cooler, yummy.

Stan's 2nd leg, letting his vest flap in the wind. It was a really small one so it made for a nice fitted vest if he strapped it.

This is after my second leg. It was at midnight and obviously, dark. It was 4.15 miles and mostly uphill and on potholed back roads. I was trying to catch up with some guys so I would feel a little safer than being all alone on empty country roads, but I could only get close, darn fast people. You had to have a flashlight, most people wore headlamps, but I held a little one too and it was still pretty dark.

At one lonely place I saw a man out of nowhere standing on the side of the road that momentarily freaked me out but then I realized he was just out watching the race and offered me water. I did pass a few more people towards the end, so that was fun.

Unfortunately the fun slowed down when I crossed the finish line only to hand off to nobody. The other car had a flat tire and so they had to change cars and stuff in it and didn't make it back in time (they'd spent their in between hours at home too). I know it wasn't how they wanted to spend their time either. It was such a disappointing feeling to see nobody at the end after you push it so hard, oh well. Josh's sister Emily was after me and the poor thing never had time to warm up because they had a hard time getting to the hand off spot by the time we were there.

Josh didn't see me finish my first leg for some reason and he didn't see me finish this 0ne either, sort of a let down since it was such an exciting and proud moment to do so and then he was somewhere else. I guess they miscalculated times and thought I wouldn't be there yet, oh well.

Oh yeah, that's the other tricky part of the race, you are just estimating how long you'll take and then your team drives ahead and meets you there. Some roads you can follow the runners and give them drinks, etc. Others, like this one, you couldn't, so it was all a guess and we all ended up doing better than we expected. Good, but bad for connections. Oh, and I had an 8.02 min mile average, yay!

I finished my 2nd leg at 12:30am and then we had to drive a while to find where we'd lay out sleeping bags. We just found a field and laid them out and tried to go to sleep, but other cars kept coming and parking next to us and talking. I zipped two bags together into a queen size to share with Josh and it was soo fun! I'd always wanted to do that for some reason. We were only able to sleep two hours before we had to get up and get to our next point.

Ethan's early morning 3rd leg. Stan, the first runner of our team had it the worst though, after the couple hours of wonderful sleep, he had to hurry and get ready and run in the middle of the cold, misty night. Miserable is my guess.

Ethan passed another one just in time! This is the "exchange point," which they were VERY particular about. One more roadkill as we called it. The name was a bit tarnished when one runner really did get hit by a car during her night run and broke both legs and a rib. Yikes!

Cold again. I think I was in the car trying to sleep here.

Josh's super mom, over 50 too! She organized this whole thing for us which also included finding three volunteers to work an 11pm-3am shift somewhere on the course--not easy. Thank you volunteers! She did excellent on her runs too!

We were waiting to get a picture of Josh coming up his beastly mountain leg, but the camera died right before he arrived. Uh, sorry, that might have been my fault.

This is at the end of my third leg which Josh was sure not to miss. It was 5.35 miles and I was tired and starting to get worn out, so thankfully I had a big downhill and a girl I was trying to catch for most of it. Unfortunately I just kept seeing the back of her, but she pushed me pretty hard and I ended up having 7min 25 sec miles! I was THRILLED with that. I just desperately wanted to break that 8 min mile average and I did, yay! That was big for me.

I'm doing my new favorite thing in pictures here, too bad you can't see it. After my sister went to Taiwan and we saw everyone doing "peace" signs in the pics, Tina and I kept making fun of them by doing it in pictures, and I guess I can't help but keep doing it. Every time I'm still doing it as a joke, but nobody else knows that.

Sometimes the course was empty and you were the only runner, but this is getting towards the exchange point so it could get congested.

My final stretch, finally!

I was too close to death to smile here.

And this is Major Disappointment #2. No teammate to hand off to again. I was like, "WHAT? This happened at my last one and I waited a half an hour!!!" There were audible moans of sympathy from around and I waited another half an hour for them to show up. It just took longer than expected to get there, traffic can get pretty bad during this.

This happened the last time we ran this race, but I only waited five minutes because the girl couldn't find her shoes and they didn't expect me yet (good for me I guess:). So anti-climatic, but got a good time out of it anyway. Oh, and I love how I look like there's some muscle in that leg, that's pretty exciting, it's like my super speedy looking "runner" picture with the blur and all.

On the next leg, pretty scenery!

I gave Emily my GPS watch so she could watch her pace, it's so cool. I don't know how I ran to her, my quads have never been so sore, it was torture to stand up, sit down, walk, or take stairs. Ow.

Emily was a great sport at being thrown in with no time for warm ups!

This is the cute town of Seaside on the beach where the race ended. They had so many cute shops, an ideal place for a finish!

We only stayed there for a little while so we could relieve the babysitters. Such a gorgeous day and perfect place to finish.

The other half was still running, so this was our van plus Josh's dad who drove us, thank you!

My speed demon husband Josh.

Like father like son, seriously, in so many ways.

Our team number was 665. Ethan said our team name should be, "The Devil's at Our Heals." It was registered as, "FUMI: Family Unit Most Important"--it's what Josh's mom's family uses as their motto, so we put that on the sides of the van. I put this on the back when she wasn't looking:), but I forgot heels and put feet. Oh well. That's my sloppy job of a pitchfork and flames. I wanted to draw the devil chasing a stick figure but I didn't think his mom would like that--right?

Back with my babies! Well, Felicity here anyway.

Our whole team. Go team! We did awesome!

This was such a fun run, I hope to keep doing it. I think it will be way more fun than halfs and whole marathons just because of all the support and size and length of it. It was just soo fun and social! And I have to add, not as much training, which was really nice.

HOOD TO COAST RELAY ROCKS! Now on to 1/2 marathon training...

Q: Anyone want to do the Huntsville 1/2 Oct. 11?

Q: Anyone want to run a half or whole marathon Dec. 6 in Memphis?