River to River
This past weekend was the River to River Relay, an eight-person eighty mile relay that runs from the Mississippi River to the Ohio River across southern Illinois. 240 teams are started off with a half-hour stagger in between. Good teams race for prizes and the bad teams race daylight. If you cross the finish line before they close it down, you get a t-shirt.
This was my second year and I was one of the veterans on my team. The team consisted primarily of a group of hashers - Duzzy Cum, Dead Squirrel, Necrofeelyass, Haley's Comet, Mother Mary Nipple, Just Nicole, Fuzzy, Blows Like a Freight Train, and me, Waldo's Pimp. I felt like it would be a strong team that had a good chance of finishing before subset. I didn't know Halley, Necro, Fuzzy, or Nicole, but the others seemed capable of putting up solid 10:00 miles.
The day got off to an inauspicious start when our first runner, Dead Squirrel, had to stop and throw up on her way down to the rest of the team. We were literally the last team out of the start by a healthy margin. We made up some ground over the next few runners and finally caught up to other groups in our starting time. Halley and Nicole proved to be strong runners and averaged 8:00 miles. By the time Just Nicole handed off to me, we were more or less with the groups that would have started with us.
During the first set of legs, the team drove to the exchange point and then everyone got out. Inevitably I would hit the bathroom and then head back down the final stretch of the leg. While waiting, I'd stretch out my legs and warm up a bit. When our runner came around the bend, I'd give a signal to the next runner that they were coming. When the other runner caught up with me, I'd jog in the last piece of the run with them.
My first leg started off with a flat stretch before I hit the hills of increasing slope - up and down, Up and Down, UP and DOWN. I'd like to say that the hills didn't stop me, but I stopped a bit near the trop of the Up hill. One guy passed me as I started to give out again on the UP hill and said that the finish line was at the bottom of the hill. That got me back going and I powered down the hill into an uphill finish.
By the time I got in the van the team was already discussing skipping legs. It seemed really early in the race to be considering that. At the time all we need to do was average 10:00 miles. Our next couple of runners increased the time gap that we'd need to make up. We deployed our alternate runner Fuzzy on leg 9. By leg 12 we were "helping" our runner over the difficult hills and in leg 13, we did a mid-leg exchange between Duzzy and Halley.
Leg 16 was probably my favorite of the day. The first mile and a half is a slow uphill followed by a steep mile and a half descent finished with a mile and change climb to the finish. Despite being the longest run of the day, I felt strong and smooth throughout the leg. Probably powered by the long downhill I finished it averaging 8:00 miles.
When I got to the finish, I was suprised to see Fuzzy in the exchange area since he had just run a couple of legs ago. The team informed me that we were skipping the next THREE legs in order to give ourselves a shot at finishing before sunset. Especially at that point, I didn't much care. I just needed water and rest. Fuzzy, Blows and Necro were done for the day. Dead Squirrel and Mother Mary Nipple were going to split a leg. During the Dead Squirrel/MMN leg, Blows and Necro started talking about needing to skip another leg because the runners (Duzzy, Halley, Nicole, and I) would need to average better than 10:00/mile in order to finish on time. I protested that all of the runners this group should be able to do it. Halley volunteered to skip leg 22. I said that if he didn't want to do it I would. It seemed silly to run River to River and skip the race's signature leg. Eventually we decided that we didn't need to skip any more legs.
I started on leg 24 with an hour and a half less rest than I was anticipating. Leg 24 has three sharp hills over the first two miles and then it is downhill to the finish. The hardest part about the leg is that you are running all by yourself and running up hills that curve around bends. Mentally you see the bend and think that the hill ends just beyond it. Then you get to the bend and it keeps going. When I started down the long downhill, I heard cheering from the base. Huh, I thought, I thought it was farther to the end than that. So I picked it up. And when I got to the source of the cheering, it turned out to be several members of another team cheering on the runners as they went through. That was almost enough to stop me, but then I saw Blows at the top of the straightaway and started picking it up. As I turned down the straightaway and saw the other members of my team and the finish line, I started sprinting for the end. I'm sure the other members on my team would have preferred a much more leisurely pace, but it was finally over.
After the finish we went on top of the dam and took several pictures and sang several hash songs. I'm sure the other runners didn't appreciate us (some old man sang a retort "So long farewell, I'm sure you're headed right to hell."), but we enjoyed ourselves. We got our t-shirts and headed for home.
This year's River to River wasn't quite as good an experience as the previous year's was, but it was nice to be one of the stronger runners for a change. And you can bet that if I can get on to a team next year, I will.
This was my second year and I was one of the veterans on my team. The team consisted primarily of a group of hashers - Duzzy Cum, Dead Squirrel, Necrofeelyass, Haley's Comet, Mother Mary Nipple, Just Nicole, Fuzzy, Blows Like a Freight Train, and me, Waldo's Pimp. I felt like it would be a strong team that had a good chance of finishing before subset. I didn't know Halley, Necro, Fuzzy, or Nicole, but the others seemed capable of putting up solid 10:00 miles.
The day got off to an inauspicious start when our first runner, Dead Squirrel, had to stop and throw up on her way down to the rest of the team. We were literally the last team out of the start by a healthy margin. We made up some ground over the next few runners and finally caught up to other groups in our starting time. Halley and Nicole proved to be strong runners and averaged 8:00 miles. By the time Just Nicole handed off to me, we were more or less with the groups that would have started with us.
During the first set of legs, the team drove to the exchange point and then everyone got out. Inevitably I would hit the bathroom and then head back down the final stretch of the leg. While waiting, I'd stretch out my legs and warm up a bit. When our runner came around the bend, I'd give a signal to the next runner that they were coming. When the other runner caught up with me, I'd jog in the last piece of the run with them.
My first leg started off with a flat stretch before I hit the hills of increasing slope - up and down, Up and Down, UP and DOWN. I'd like to say that the hills didn't stop me, but I stopped a bit near the trop of the Up hill. One guy passed me as I started to give out again on the UP hill and said that the finish line was at the bottom of the hill. That got me back going and I powered down the hill into an uphill finish.
By the time I got in the van the team was already discussing skipping legs. It seemed really early in the race to be considering that. At the time all we need to do was average 10:00 miles. Our next couple of runners increased the time gap that we'd need to make up. We deployed our alternate runner Fuzzy on leg 9. By leg 12 we were "helping" our runner over the difficult hills and in leg 13, we did a mid-leg exchange between Duzzy and Halley.
Leg 16 was probably my favorite of the day. The first mile and a half is a slow uphill followed by a steep mile and a half descent finished with a mile and change climb to the finish. Despite being the longest run of the day, I felt strong and smooth throughout the leg. Probably powered by the long downhill I finished it averaging 8:00 miles.
When I got to the finish, I was suprised to see Fuzzy in the exchange area since he had just run a couple of legs ago. The team informed me that we were skipping the next THREE legs in order to give ourselves a shot at finishing before sunset. Especially at that point, I didn't much care. I just needed water and rest. Fuzzy, Blows and Necro were done for the day. Dead Squirrel and Mother Mary Nipple were going to split a leg. During the Dead Squirrel/MMN leg, Blows and Necro started talking about needing to skip another leg because the runners (Duzzy, Halley, Nicole, and I) would need to average better than 10:00/mile in order to finish on time. I protested that all of the runners this group should be able to do it. Halley volunteered to skip leg 22. I said that if he didn't want to do it I would. It seemed silly to run River to River and skip the race's signature leg. Eventually we decided that we didn't need to skip any more legs.
I started on leg 24 with an hour and a half less rest than I was anticipating. Leg 24 has three sharp hills over the first two miles and then it is downhill to the finish. The hardest part about the leg is that you are running all by yourself and running up hills that curve around bends. Mentally you see the bend and think that the hill ends just beyond it. Then you get to the bend and it keeps going. When I started down the long downhill, I heard cheering from the base. Huh, I thought, I thought it was farther to the end than that. So I picked it up. And when I got to the source of the cheering, it turned out to be several members of another team cheering on the runners as they went through. That was almost enough to stop me, but then I saw Blows at the top of the straightaway and started picking it up. As I turned down the straightaway and saw the other members of my team and the finish line, I started sprinting for the end. I'm sure the other members on my team would have preferred a much more leisurely pace, but it was finally over.
After the finish we went on top of the dam and took several pictures and sang several hash songs. I'm sure the other runners didn't appreciate us (some old man sang a retort "So long farewell, I'm sure you're headed right to hell."), but we enjoyed ourselves. We got our t-shirts and headed for home.
This year's River to River wasn't quite as good an experience as the previous year's was, but it was nice to be one of the stronger runners for a change. And you can bet that if I can get on to a team next year, I will.
Labels: Running
posted by mypetrock at 3:23 PM
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