Stranger Danger, Relay Edition

My previous post detailed the running aspect of the Hood to Coast Relay.  But relays are much more than a running event, relays are essentially a social experiment in which you put 6 people in a van for 30+ hours with no sleep and lots of running. 

Most teams know each other and form a team based on previous friendships, relationships, and/or similar running goals.  These teams have some idea of what to expect when living with 6 people for the length of the relay.  My team, on the other hand, was a group of COMPLETE (all-female) strangers.  Not only did I not know anyone else on the team, most of the other team members were ALSO strangers (there was 2 pairs of the women knew each other).  This made for quite an interesting situation.

Coming into the relay, I knew running this relay with complete strangers could either:

1. be an awesome experience in which I would meet awesome people and gain life long friends from across the country, OR
2. be an utter disaster in which I would be caged in a van for 30+ hours with people I couldn’t stand.

My experience was somewhere between the two.  I really enjoyed the running aspect of the relay and met a few people I could see myself keeping in contact with….. but there were others (1 woman in particular) who I could not stand and who almost ruined the experience (yes, 1 person can almost ruin it for everyone if they are bad enough).  And being stuck in a van for 30+ hours with someone you cannot stand is not so fun. 

In addition to the 1 bad apple, I think there was just not enough in common between me and the other team members to optimize my experience.

Here is where there were differences between me and the majority of my teammates:

Age/Life Phase:

• I was the youngest runner at 30, and the oldest member was 55.  The average age was around 40. 
• Some women had kids that were my age, some women had babies at home, others had no kids at all.
• I like to enjoy a cold beer after running.  The majority of the women didn’t even drink beer.
  • Example: Me after my first leg “I want a cold beer, did we put some in our cooler?” Teammate “I don’t like beer.  Plus, you probably should not be drinking in the van.” 
• I like to celebrate after races by drinking beer and hanging out at a bar or beach party until wee hours of the night.  The majority of the women wanted to have 1 glass of wine at the beach house and went to sleep by 9pm.
  • Example: Me “Lets go to the beer garden and chug beers with the other teams!” Teammates “We’re tired and beer is gross.”
  • This led to me drinking beer by myself in the beer garden while awkwardly texting people on my phone to appear to have friends.  BUT I did convince one teammate (the oldest) to come back later with me and we had a blast; I wish she would have been in my van to get to know her more.
• I am a big goofball, I love to listen to music, and do stupid things.  Many of the women were very serious and wanted to sit in the van having quaint conversations.  
  • Example: Me “I made a bunch of CDs to listen to!” I put the CDs up front and one in the CD player, but it was never turned on. Silence or awkward conversation continued for 30+ hours.
  • Example: I wanted to jump out of the van and perform a dance routine in the van headlights along the road for the night runners as course entertainment.  But I felt that if I did this, my teammates would have left me behind in embarrassment.  I felt inhibited and that I was always holding back.

Running/Fitness Level:    

• I was the fastest runner at around a 7:00 pace, the slowest “runner” was at a 13:00 pace.  The average pace was around a 9:15 pace. 
• I have participated in a TON of races and do marathons and half marathons all the time.  One woman had never ran a single running event in her life.
  • Example: Teammate (bad apple woman) “So where do I pin this race bib? Do I pin all 4 corners?” Doh.
  • Example: Same teammate “What if I need medical support? Do I need to bring one of those GU things? Should I wear my hydration belt?” This was right before her first 4 leg which was 4 miles (easy rating). It was going to be a long 30 hours…..
  • Example: Same teammate after her run “I have a blister, I don’t know if I can continue?!” I looked at her foot and did not see evidence of a blister.
  • Example: Same teammate after her 2nd run “How do you know if you have a blood clot, is it visible?  I think I might have a blood clot in my calf.”  Seriously.  I was sitting behind her and began hitting my head against the side of the van.
  • A word of advice- if you have never run a RUNNING event, DO NOT choose your first event to be the Hood to Coast 200 mile running relay.
• I run to compete.  The other women “run” to finish. 
• I know exactly the types of food I need to eat and at what times to it them to succeed and feel good.  There was one woman (obviously the bad apple) who was eating Cheetos 5 minutes before she ran and couldn’t figure out why she felt like crap.

Needless to say, I was a little frustrated the whole weekend.  (Granted, there were several of the women who were great…. I just didn’t get to know them well and the bad apple overshadowed everyone else.) 

I was doing an amazing running relay but was participating it with the wrong team.  I would look around and lust after the fun and fast teams, wishing I was with them.  Instead of enjoying the moment, I was constantly thinking about how I would do things differently if I did another relay.

Well, you win some and you lose some. 

I wouldn’t take back this experience, in fact I’m glad I did it.  I now know what to expect for relays and can’t wait to do another one, but with the following types of people:

1. Coed team.  I think a mix of men and women would be better for me.
2. Similar paces to mine, if not faster (this would cause me to run faster). I like to push myself.
3. Competitive team; run to race, run to win!  I’m competitive.
4. Similar ages, or at least people who are at similar life phases.
5. Partiers.  Beer drinkers are a must.
6. Goofballs.  Must be able to make as a$$ of themselves in the name of fun.
7. Established friendships.  Know at least a few of the teammates or at least have a connection to all of them.  Make sure personalities mesh well.

I’m already mentally forming a team for a relay…. hopefully they will want to run the next one with me!!!

* If someone from my relay finds this blog and reads this, I hope I don’t offend anyone and I hope they understand where I am coming from.   

What the heck is Hood to Coast?

Before I go into a post with stories/opinions about my experience with last weekend’s Hood to Coast (running) Relay (HTC), I am going to break down HTC. Hopefully this breakdown will give an easy-to-understand explanation of this event so that you (specifically my mom and dad) have a better idea of what the heck HTC (or any relay) is and what goes into it.

Here are the facts:

• Total Distance: 199 miles (+2 miles due to a detour)
• Start Location: Mt Hood, Oregon
• Start Date: Friday August 24
• Start Time: Varies, but slower teams start Friday morning with the fastest teams starting Friday evening; my team started at 8:15 AM (we had a slow projected finish time) on Friday August 24
• Finish Location: Seaside, Oregon
• Finish Date: Saturday August 25
• Finish Time: Anywhere from 20 hours to 32 hours after starting; my team ran it in 30 hours 6 minutes and finished at approximately 3:30 PM Saturday August 25
• 12 runners total; 2 vans with 6 runners each to cover the 199 mile course
• Each runner runs 3 legs over the course of the relay

Here is a map of the course with locations of exchanges.  The course goes over varying terrain but on average is a hilly course going through Oregon mountains and countryside along (mostly) paved roads or trails.  I was in the second van and ran legs 7, 19, and 34 (should have ran leg 31, but switched with a runner to help the team out) for a total of 19.41 miles as shown below:

All three of my legs were “rated” as Hard or Very Hard as shown in a breakdown of the various legs and their difficultly rating:

A huge aspect of the relay is logistics.  There is navigation of the vans between the various exchange zones and knowing the expected time each runner will arrive at an exchange…. and doing this on little or no sleep can make for interesting situations!  Luckily, my team and van was, for the most part, on time at each exchange and our runners didn’t have to wait (we saw some runners waiting up to an hour for their vans/exchange runners). 

Here is a summary of the schedule/logistics of the van/runner exchanges:

• 8:15 AM Friday: Van 1 starts at Mt Hood and each of the 6 runners run 1 of their legs (legs 1-6) to get 35.25 miles from the start.  Van 1 drives ahead of each runner and drops the next runner off to complete each exchange (and picks up the runner who just ran….this continues throughout the race).

• 11:00 AM Friday: Van 2 drives to the 7th leg  in Sandy, Oregon (first “major exchange”) and must be ready at a specific time based on the average pace of each runner in Van 1.  There was a spreadsheet we completed to know the time range that each runner would arrive at each exchange.  You have to give an honest and accurate expected pace to not screw up the exchange coordination!!!!!

• 1:15 PM Friday: I started running the 7th leg when runner 6 from van 1 arrived and passed the “baton” (slap bracelet) to me.  I had no idea how to pace myself and just went with a comfortably fast pace; I felt really good, even with running during the heat of the day and on a hilly section. 

• Van 2 runners continue running the next 6 legs (legs 7-12) until they run 34.11 miles from Sandy, OR to Portland, OR to exchange back to Van 1 runners.

• 6:15 PM Friday: Van 1 runners continue running legs 13-18 (34 miles) from Portland, OR to St. Helens, OR.
• Van 2 then drives to the next “major exchange” and tries to get in a few hours of sleep before it is their time to run again.  We each got about an hour or 2 of sleep before the Van 1 runner arrived.
• 12:30 AM Saturday (middle of night): I started running leg 19 in the middle of the night.  All runners are required to wear a head lamp, reflective vest, and a back light.  I was very glad to have the head lamp as my leg was in the middle of nowhere Oregon where the stars and other runners were the only “lights.”  I really enjoyed running at night in the middle of nowhere; the silence and darkness made for a (different sort of) sensory overload. 

(sorry no nighttime photos, I was practically sleepwalking/running and didn’t know what was going on)

• Van 1 drives to the next “major exchange” and gets their turn to catch some zzzzz’s.
• Van 2 runners continue running legs 19-24 (32.55 miles) in the middle of the night in the dark in the middle of Oregon until they exchange back to Van 1 runners in Mist, Oregon.
• 5:00 (ish) AM Saturday: Van 1 runners continue running legs 25-30 (30.97 miles), their final legs.
• Van 2 drives to the next “major exchange” and again try to sleep.  I think we all got in less than an hour of sleep before we had to run our final legs.
• 11:00 (ish) AM Saturday: Van 2 runners continue running legs 31-36 (31.6 miles) to the finish line in Seaside, Oregon.
• 1:30 PM Saturday: I started running leg 35, a gradual uphill for 7.20 miles in warm temperatures with no shade (this leg felt the hardest for me, esp. on little sleep…. as you can tell from my terrible running form below). 

• Van 1 runners were able to go to Seaside, shower, and rest before meeting Van 2 at the finish. 
• 3:30 PM Saturday: The entire team (both vans) waited for the final runner and finished together as a team.

The finish is a giant party on the beach.  They have a stage set up with music and a beer garden.  Teams celebrate together on the beach and the night ends with fireworks.

I hope that helps clear up the relay concept, and Hood to Coast in particular.  There are lots of other details that go into a relay (traffic, eating, other teams, etc.), but that would just bore you even more than you already are.

* I’ll do another post concerning my down and dirty opinions of doing the HTC relay with complete strangers and how I will do things differently if I do another relay. 

** I didn’t take a lot of photos because everyone else had better cameras and was snapping away.  But then I failed to copy over their photos before I left.  Foto Fail.