Van Pyre Weekend - Hood to Coast 2014

I know that I haven’t updated my blog recently, and that wasn’t really planned, but I also really didn’t have anything to report.  My last couple of training weeks at Chautauqua went well and I felt like I was finally used to hills and ready to run at Hood to Coast.   One of my last workouts involved running a 5K tempo run followed by 6 x hill in the "heat" and we (MP came with) nailed it.  I knew that I was in better shape than I thought and ready to go for it.

Last March when I visited and ran in Atlanta for a couple of weeks, my good friend, Chris, talked me into running on a Hood to Coast relay team.  Hood to Coast is a 199 miles relay comprised of teams of 12 runners that is basically the first relay of its kind.  It has a 33 yr history and is known as the "Mother of all Relays".  The race course takes the 1000 teams on a scenic adventure from the lodge on Mt. Hood to Seaside, Oregon which is on the northern coast of the state.  I had run HTC before both as a member of an Atlanta Track Club team and as part of the Femme Fatale team out of Portland.  Sure, I agreed to run on a local Atlanta team and heck, I knew Chris.  In early May; however, Chris bailed and I was left with a decision as to whether or not I still wanted to run.  I decided as long as they weren't ax murderers - well, sure why not. (It turned out that one couple actually lives across the street from Chris and other good Atlanta friends and one of the other runners runs with my old Riverside and Windward runner friends one of who I ran Boston with the last two years).  So with the team christened as "Van Pyre Weekend" after the band, I was ready to go.  

Team Van Pyre Weekend - At the Timberline Lodge at the race start on Mt. Hood

The weekend started off rocky in that United Airlines cancelled my flight to SFO and re-routed me twice - first through Chicago which was delayed by weather and finally through Denver.  I got to Portland an hour later than planned, but it was still ok and my team did not leave without me! I had visions of my having to drive to Sandy, OR on Friday morning to be picked up. We drove to Mt. Hood and stayed at the Timberline Lodge.  What fun especially watching folks "ski" on the glacier face.  That evening we had to re-distribute the legs as one member couldn't make it to Oregon as her Mom took ill (bummer), so three of us (Gary, Bob and myself) decided that we felt up for the challenge.  That meant that I had to run Leg #1 which started the race and also runs down Mt. Hood - a descent of 2500' in 5.67 miles.  I knew that I could handle it as I'm the one who never seems to have shredded quads after Boston.  This leg was a blast and I just let gravity carry me down with no stress and a very low heart rate.  I ended up running a 7:49 pace without even trying.  We started at 12:45 and we were off. After leg #6, I had to switch into Van 2 from Van 1 in order to pick up my next leg which was to be leg 12 since we were covering the race course with only 11 runners.

Fast forward to my next leg which was a 10K that was mostly flat and a long a bike path into Portland finishing under the Hawthorne Bridge.  This was run in the dark and it was a bit creepy near the end when you exited the bike path and were in a bit of an Industrial area along the river.  Not a place that I would have run alone or in the dark, and here I was, alone and in the dark!  This leg had a very cool part where on a short street, the residents had blocked it off and had luminaries set up along the stretch and they were out there partying and cheering the runners along.  Another great effort at an overall 8:15 pace which had me holding back since I knew that I still had two more legs to go and I wasn't sure where I'd sleep or what I'd be fueling with before my next leg. As it turned out, we drove to the next big van transition, and the five of us literally slept 4 hours in a Toyota minivan.  Yes, it can indeed be done!  We woke around 3 am to a cold Oregon morning and we were ready to rock and the Van 2 runners were ready for leg #2 (3 for me).

My next leg, leg #23, was a beautiful 4.3 mile run that began as the sun was rising and the mist was clearing.  I took the wrist bracelet from Jim and was off.  The weather was gorgeous and I simply seemed to fly without even trying.  Now this was a funny leg as the traffic along the course began to back up terribly.  Gary, our team captain and the runner after me sensed that they might not make the transition, and he jumped out of the van to chase me down running an extra 1.5 miles!  He caught me around 3 miles and told me to slow down so that he could rest a bit at the transition.  I did my best, but it was so beautiful and I felt great.  He did get a minute or two of rest before I came in and he took off.  For me, it resulted in a great run at a 7:58 pace.   

Over the next few legs, the traffic was horrendous.  We were able to meet up with Van 1 and pick up Bob at one point, but we feared making it to our final transition.  Van 1 runners had to wait a couple of times at the leg transitions as these are the last few hard legs over the last ridge as it just wasn't fair to make a runner run up a hill to make up 2-3 min and then just have them run up another mtn!  Our team was about 35 min ahead of our projection when we started this portion of the race, and we were back to only 19 min ahead when we took the final 6 legs as Van 2 with our youngest member Kelsea who ran some of the toughest legs and was not a seasoned runner.  She is now.  The temperatures rose to the mid-70s for most of these legs and my teammates (Kelsea, Alan,and Jim) just killed them.  

My final leg, Leg #34, was just over a 5K and I was determined to run it hard and give it all I had left.  There were a couple of good climbs in this leg, and I was not going to let my tired legs, sore quads, calves and glutes, give in. After driving over the killer legs that Kelsea, Alan, Brian, Shannon, Lisa, Chuck and Morris ran, I felt a bit guilty and that I had better deliver. After all, I wasn't sure what Chris originally told these folks about me the runner, but I wanted to be as advertised.  I realized immediately on this leg that there were a lot of walkers.  Since it was a shorter leg, I think many teams had placed their lesser experienced runners on it.  This allowed me to record 16 road kills and run my butt off literally finishing with an overall 7:57 pace.  At the end of this leg, I felt that I had more than done my job.  I passed off to Gary and watched him take off realizing it was home free from there.  

Gary ran strong and passed to our final runner, Bob, who brought us in with an overall time of 29:46:36 over 20 min faster than we had predicted. Not sure where that is overall, but there seemed to be plenty of teams behind us.  Of course, with last minute changes we were competing in the Men's Open division as we only had 4 women (you need 6 to be a true mixed team) and Kelsea is only 28!  Just shows what a bunch of fun people can pull together!   Glad I went as it was worth every bit of the run.  I gained 10 new running friends for my next trip to Atlanta and maybe for my next relay. 

 At the finish in Seaside, OR.

Chris got me into something that I could have truly regretted and instead I had an awesome weekend.  HTC is indeed the "Mother of All Relays", and I'm glad that I did it again with a team of really great, truly tremendous people.  It made me realize that you can really enjoy the camaraderie of a race and it isn't all about "time" or "place" and I liked that feeling.  Noone stressed over anyone's runs and therefore, everyone ran within themselves and then some.  It was awesome to see Lisa so psyched after her first tough leg or Chuck and Brian and Kelsea climb so of those killer hills.  Or Alan in his bandana and head lamp ready to attack the dusty gravel road in the middle of the night. Or Jim hanging out of the van trying to grab whatever dry clothes he could find after his leg.  Or Gary chasing me down the scenic Oregon road to tell me to "slow down"!

 Thanks to you all and as the Mastercard ads say: Running with 10 friends all night in the middle of Oregon: Priceless.