Last weekend was this year's Hood to Coast Relay, one of my favorite weekends of the year. This was my 6th year to run this race. My goal is to eventually have run each of the 12 legs in this relay, so I am now half way there!
This year I ran Leg 12, the anchor leg for the team. The breakdown of the legs was... 1st leg: 6.29 miles along the Springwater Corridor ending under the Hawthorne Bridge, 2nd leg: 4.92 miles near Mist, OR between Portland and the coast, 3rd leg: 5.23 miles ending at the beach in Seaside! I didn't have any crazy middle-of-the-night runs - they were actually at very normal times: 9pm, 6am, 4pm. And not too many hills either. I actually wasn't really sore at all after this weekend. Maybe that means I didn't run hard enough!
I was in Van 2 with 5 dudes: Drew, Jed, Robbie, Marty and Ben. Fun group, but always a little interesting being the only girl in a van with 5 smelly guys. Let's just say we all got to know each other pretty well. By the end, I was practically just one of the guys.
I would love to say that the race weekend went smoothly without a hitch. Our team did awesome and no one was injured. But the race organization had a few hiccups along the way. Around the 2nd big exchange, traffic got really congested and vans were backed up for miles. Our van dropped Drew off for his second run and started driving to the next exchange where he would hand off to me. Well we got stuck in the nasty backup of vans and pretty soon I see Drew running by our van, headed to the next exchange (where I was not waiting). So I jumped out of the van and ran the last mile of his leg, grabbed the baton from him at the exchange and then ran another 5 miles of my leg. When I completed my leg and got to the next exchange, there was no one from the other van there to meet me. So I waited... and waited... for an hour... in the cold... wearing wet sweaty clothes... for an hour. My runner finally showed up. They had gotten stuck in traffic, too. And thankfully he brought me a sweater and some cash to buy some coffee that the local church was selling. Bless him.
Our van finally got out of the traffic, and continued on to the coast. I was the final leg into Seaside and once I reached the beach, my team was able to join me for the final steps across the finish line. We gave high fives and snapped some pictures, then quickly got out of there and started the drive back to Portland. We were done with crowds and standing on our feet and being sweaty. I was so ready to be home, take a shower and climb in my bed.
What a fun, crazy exhausting race. Somehow all of the memories of traffic and sleepless nights and stinky vans is already fading and I'm already looking forward to HTC 2015!
Van 2: Drew, Jed, Robbie, Marty, Mary, Ben
**please note our awesome van... there is a queen size bed in the back of that thing!
geared up for my first run... headlamp, reflective vest, and front and back flashers required
during my hour wait at the 2nd exchange... I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life
finish line!!
the whole team
Unknown Injury
A couple of weeks ago, I went out on the river with Chris' family and some friends. It was a great night for boating and we all enjoyed wakeboarding and tubing. While tubing with my friend Courtney, my tube got some air, did a flip and I tried hanging on for dear life. In my attempt to hold onto the tube handles (and my pride), I injured my finger. I thought it was just jammed or a bad sprain. It hasn't really been getting much better, so I decided to go see the doctor today (with a nudge from Chris). And what do you know... my finger is broken. I've been walking around with a broken pinky for two weeks. It's in a splint now, so hopefully it will start healing quicker, because I can't let a pinky slow me down.
the tube flip that took out my pinky
see the break on the pinky between the knuckle and middle joint
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