Hood to Coast
If you haven't heard of Hood to Coast, it's the craziest road race in Oregon where 1,000 teams of 12 run a total of 197 miles from Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood to Seaside on the Oregon coast in 24 hrs or so. I ran with the Eugene Running Company team, a group I run with a few times a week. Our van #1 started at Mt. Hood at 445pm on Friday, which put my van starting our legs around 10pm. As the last runner in the rotation, I was running into Portland at 1 a.m. with my headlamp and reflective vest.
Each of my three legs were 5 to 6 miles long with few rolling hills. So, after 24 hrs of no sleep, eating no real meals (consuming cookies, chips, candy, bananas, and lots of water), and running 16 miles or so in a day, I was exhausted. Our team finished in a little over 24 hrs and placed 61 out of 293 in our category, averaging a 7:32 mile.
Two major setbacks: 1. Van 1 drove to the wrong exchange and put us back an hour and causing one of our runners to run two legs in a row. Van 1 simply wasn't having luck this weekend. 2. When they pulled into Seaside, they realized they had some car issues with the '89 Suburban we had borrowed. Diagnosis: leaking break fluid which got onto the back tire and started a fire. This meant we'd had to figure out how to get everyone back to Eugene with one eight passenger van, logistically impossible.
Lucky for me, my mom had come to watch me finish the race so I got a ride home with her and avoided most of the logistical chaos. The team ended up getting the hunk o junk towed to Portland and then rented a car to get everyone else back to Eugene. All in all, everyone arrived home safely and had a great time. I can't wait to do it again next year!
Each of my three legs were 5 to 6 miles long with few rolling hills. So, after 24 hrs of no sleep, eating no real meals (consuming cookies, chips, candy, bananas, and lots of water), and running 16 miles or so in a day, I was exhausted. Our team finished in a little over 24 hrs and placed 61 out of 293 in our category, averaging a 7:32 mile.
Two major setbacks: 1. Van 1 drove to the wrong exchange and put us back an hour and causing one of our runners to run two legs in a row. Van 1 simply wasn't having luck this weekend. 2. When they pulled into Seaside, they realized they had some car issues with the '89 Suburban we had borrowed. Diagnosis: leaking break fluid which got onto the back tire and started a fire. This meant we'd had to figure out how to get everyone back to Eugene with one eight passenger van, logistically impossible.
Lucky for me, my mom had come to watch me finish the race so I got a ride home with her and avoided most of the logistical chaos. The team ended up getting the hunk o junk towed to Portland and then rented a car to get everyone else back to Eugene. All in all, everyone arrived home safely and had a great time. I can't wait to do it again next year!
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