WWR

What an awesome race to be a part of when you have a great group of people to race it with. Here is how the weekend and the race turned out.

Friday I worked half a day and then went to help pack our vans for the race. We loaded up and headed to the start line. Some teams started as early at 5:30am and the last teams started at 2pm. We were towards the end of the times. I had the first leg and started out on our race. I ran my first leg within 9 seconds of what I turned in for a time last year. A bit disappointing but I was okay with it considering last year we started earlier and this year it was 90+ and 90+ humidity. It was HOT out.

We were all hot running and our 4th leg person missed a turn with another team. When he didn’t check in at the check point and was not in sight down the road we got worried and headed off to find him. He had missed a turn and ended up running over 6 miles further then needed. For a 4.3 mile leg he ended up and near 11 miles and put us about 1:15 behind in the race. This group of people though never wavered in spirit though and we kept on going. We figured out how to help him recover and the rest of us kept running. We were Van 1 and we finished and handed off to Van 2 and went to try and recover for 3 hours before we had to take on running again.

I was absolutely upset when I got to my next leg. It was suppose to be 4.9 miles and is for the most part straight up the side of a mountain. They changed the exchange point and I now had an extra 5 mile to run and now an hour behind as well meant running in the dark up the hill. I did my run though ending right when it was really just plain dark outside. I handed off the baton and the rest of my van had to run in the dark through the woods. It was eerie and we soon found out we were the LAST team on the course. There was a Budget Rental truck that kept passing us and waiting for us at each sign. As we passed the sign or the next check point they would pick up the signs and move on. It was like the grim reaper was on us. We kept running though trying to get away from the grim reaper and handed off the duties again to Van 2 around 3am Saturday.

Saturday morning Van 2 put up exceptional numbers. They truly are a van of running stallions. They started our catch up mode and we began to pick off racers ahead of us. I left on my last leg around 7am and by mid morning we were catching more and more runners. This kind of a race has a lot of comrade among the racers. People talk at every exchange and tell stories. Other teams were now shocked to see our van pull in and then be leaving before they were.
At the end of the race we were waiting for our last runner to come in and I heard that over half the teams had not checked in yet. This meant that we went from being the last team on the course that night to being in the middle of the pack. Now remember lots of teams started before us and the race is based on time. We finished 12 minutes slower than we did last year. We also suffered that missed turn which means we really put up about an hour shorter run this year than last. We have not seen the official times yet but it is going to be interesting to see where we really ended up.

This was again another awesome race with superior people on my team. I am honored to know and race with these people. Being that I am the slowest person on the team they never quit encouraging and promoting a great run. The run what you feel like and do your best attitude can’t be beat.

Right here I need to post a great big THANKS to my team members and to the other supportive people we met along the race.