Hood to Coast

This whole adventure started with Juliet dropping me off at the Amtrak station in Tacoma. 4 hours and change later, I was in Salem being greeted by my family that had been visiting G&G Cooper for the previous week. After a good nights rest and the next day spent with Dallas sick and me reading a book and relaxing most the day, I was ready for the adventure. I drove the van with Derrinda, Debbie, and the boys up to Portland and met the members of our team that would be in van #2 together for the next 20 some hours. After chatting and getting to know everybody for about 1/2 hour, we all loaded into the van and got to our first exchange point. We dropped Jeriah off and we were under way. I did legs 11, 19, and 32. The first leg for me started at 12:23 a.m. It was a 4.39 mile distance through the outskirts of Portland and along a trail. It was pretty uneventful other than a group of punks walking along the sidewalk and one of them came at me and tried to hit me, but I jumped out of the way, hollered a colorful name back at them and continued on my way. I also got stopped twice and had to wait to cross the street. Since I am new to this event, I figured that was part of it, but I later found out that nobody else got stopped anywhere. I finished my leg in 26:33, and averaged 6:03 pace. I would have been under 6 minute pace were I not stopped. Oh well. I handed off the wrist band and crawled back in the van to await my next leg. We stopped at the next van exchange point and had about an hour to kill before I started the next leg for us. I tried to sleep and may have managed to sleep for a few minutes before I had to head to the exchange point. This next leg proved to be my most challenging; a 5.89 mile leg that turned out to be a serious climb, something I was definitely not prepared for. However, I took this leg out a little easier because on the first leg I went out a bit quick and had to struggle for a while towards the end. This time I was smarter, but also slower with this killer hill. I knew I would be running for about 40 minutes with the hill thrown in the mix, so I basically told myself it was a 40 minute run and that helped me to mentally get through it. I finished in 40:52 and was very happy to hand off the wrist band. I only managed a 6:56 pace for this portion. Oh well. Now I just needed to prepare for my last leg, which was to be a 7.28 mile section. My stomach had been giving me trouble the entire time, and apparently I wasn't the only one experiencing this. I thought I would puke a few times, but thankfully I never did. Trevor could see I was hurting and not feeling that well, so he decided to switch my leg out with another runner so I only had a 4.09 mile section. I was very thankful for this. I know I could have finished the longer leg, but it would not have been pretty. This meant I would be running again soon. I was just glad to be getting it out of the way so I could just relax and cheer the team to the finish after my last leg. I started my last leg at 11:46 a.m., so I had 6 1/2 hours of rest between my 2nd leg and this one. I started out and thought I was really hauling. I figured I was running somewhere near 5:40 pace, but also knew how fatigued I was and told myself I would probably be running 25-26 minutes for the leg. I passed a ton of runners during this leg. I think during all my legs combined I must have passed near 80 people or so. The good news is that I never got passed during the entire relay. Anyway, I finished my last leg in 26:07 and averaged 6:23 pace. I felt like I was running a lot faster than that, but at this point, I was going to be happy with it, get back in the van, drink some gatorade, and just relax and cheer on the team. Our team ended up finishing the event in 20 hours, 1 minute and 56 seconds. Less than 2 minutes shy of our goal of breaking 20 hours. Oh well. Everybody did their best and that is that. We still ended up being the 10th team overall, out of over 1,000 teams, and averaged 6:07 pace for the entire relay as a team. Not bad. I was happy it was over and we all crossed the finish line together on the beach, collected our medals, and posed for a photograph or two. I understand we are getting an additional medal for our finishing place, so that is cool. I met up with the family, and we stopped in for an elephant ear there in Seaside, then got the heck out of the crowded town and stopped at Cannon Beach for some play time. The cold water felt awesome on my sore and very fatigued legs as I frolicked in the waves with my sons. It is an experience I will not soon forget and I got to meet a bunch of great guys who enjoy running as much as I do.