It's official - I'm signed up for the Hood to Coast Relay! H2C is considered "the Mother of all relays". It starts at the top of Mt. Hood and ends 197 miles away at the Oregon Coast. No, I'm not running 200 miles on my own; I have 11 other team mates. We will each run 3 seperate legs for a total of about 16 miles each. In between legs, we will pile into a van and drive to the next trade-off location.
It all began when my roommate Kathy mentioned that she was on a H2C team that needed a few more female runners for the relay which is the last weekend of August. I said that the race sounded fun and that I was interested. Before I knew it, the team captain contacted me and I was in. Only after the fact did I realize just how difficult it is to get on a H2C team since there are a limited number of teams which don't change much from year to year. Lucky me!
The relay is sponsored by Nike and each team runs to raise money for a charity of their choice. The week after I signed up for the race, I realized that my team was raising money for an organization that works in Uganda. What are the odds! The organization is called Eternal Impact and is led by John Garrick, one of my running mates.
This week, our team (yet to be named) had our first meeting. Apparently our team leader is a hard-core runner. She began the meeting by saying, "Okay, lets all introduce ourselves and say how many times we've run the Hood to Coast and our most memorable moment. I'll start: I'm Norma. I've run the Hood to Coast 3 times and ran the Boston marathon a few weeks (no big deal). My most memorable H2C moment was when another runner and I sprinted the last mile of our last leg because we are both so competitive and didn't want to let the other pass. Next." My first thought was, "What the heck am I doing here? Maybe I can slip out the back door and nobody will notice." Well, it ends up that only about 3 people on our team have actually run H2C before. Most of us are first-timers. I'm super excited about this challenge and know that it will be a great accomplishment! Let the training begin!
It all began when my roommate Kathy mentioned that she was on a H2C team that needed a few more female runners for the relay which is the last weekend of August. I said that the race sounded fun and that I was interested. Before I knew it, the team captain contacted me and I was in. Only after the fact did I realize just how difficult it is to get on a H2C team since there are a limited number of teams which don't change much from year to year. Lucky me!
The relay is sponsored by Nike and each team runs to raise money for a charity of their choice. The week after I signed up for the race, I realized that my team was raising money for an organization that works in Uganda. What are the odds! The organization is called Eternal Impact and is led by John Garrick, one of my running mates.
This week, our team (yet to be named) had our first meeting. Apparently our team leader is a hard-core runner. She began the meeting by saying, "Okay, lets all introduce ourselves and say how many times we've run the Hood to Coast and our most memorable moment. I'll start: I'm Norma. I've run the Hood to Coast 3 times and ran the Boston marathon a few weeks (no big deal). My most memorable H2C moment was when another runner and I sprinted the last mile of our last leg because we are both so competitive and didn't want to let the other pass. Next." My first thought was, "What the heck am I doing here? Maybe I can slip out the back door and nobody will notice." Well, it ends up that only about 3 people on our team have actually run H2C before. Most of us are first-timers. I'm super excited about this challenge and know that it will be a great accomplishment! Let the training begin!
Mary, our next door neighbor ran this race last year! I'll tell her about you and let her tell me her story. She's a fanatic runner/biker/exercise person.
ReplyDeleteI am so impressed that you're doing this! You'll do great!
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