It takes a particular kind of crazy to enjoy a relay. You are signing up to spend ~30+ hours with 5 other people that you may or may not know, go without sleep or decent food, and run a total of anywhere between 15-18 miles. Throw in the added joy of living in a van that comes to resemble the aftermath of a small child eating breakfast, climbing all over each other's sweaty stuff, and it's a heck of a fun way to get to make new friends.
For the uninitiated, here's how a relay works:
- They're usually around 200 miles total, divided into 36 segments.
- Teams consist of 12 runners, 6 to a van.
- Each runner runs three times, for a total of anywhere from 13-18 miles.
- Runners go sequentially, and pass a wristband "baton" at defined exchanges, and cycle through the team. For example, I was runner #9, so ran leg #9 (6.8 miles), #21 (2.2 miles), and #33 (6.8 miles).
- Every 6th runner passes the wristband to the first runner in the next van, so each van drives to the next major exchange, and uses the waiting time to eat and rest.
- There is no stopping until the finish, so yes, you run through the night.
A big part of the fun is coming up with silly (often crude) team names, decorating the vans, and sometimes even wearing some sort of costume. Many teams create magnets with their names and "tag" other vans at the exchanges. "Chafing the Dream" was one of my favorites. "12 Hotties and a Squatty Potty" definitely had the best costumes.
This relay started at the Peace Arch up by the Canadian border, wound down along the coast, through Anacortes, across Deception Pass, and down Whidbey Island to end at Langley, WA. It was a beautiful course, hilly with lovely views, and a delight to run. In van 2, I barely knew one runner, and had never met the other four. We were four women and two men, early 40s to 57 (me). All of us were experienced runners; our paces ranged from 9:30 to 11:00 miles. We were not a fast group. The race starts Friday morning (start time depends on your projected paces), and you have until 9pm Saturday to finish. Our first runner started at 6:45am Friday, and we were projected to finish around 7:30pm Saturday.
Things went well through the first several sets of exchanges. My first run was mostly downhill, through some beautiful forest, on a 2-lane state road. Though hot, the 6.8 miles went by quite nicely. We cycled through the first 12 legs, and arrived in Burlington some time in the early evening. We used the time to get some pizza, then went to the van exchange for showers and rest. I was so tired I didn't care about the showers. (Why bother? Just gonna stink again in a few hours anyway!) Threw a bag on the ground and dozed for about 1.5 hours, but the noise level was far from sleep-inducing. We were on our way again around midnight. My second leg started at 1:45am and was short and flat, in downtown Anacortes. Two down, one to go!
At 5:40 am, we handed off the wristband to van 1. By this time, we were sharing fantasies about finding breakfast and passing out, in that order. Our swearing had begun to significantly increase, as we got slaphappy and more comfortable with each other. Despite vastly different backgrounds, we had begun bonding quite well. Nic is a seriously badass obstacle course racer, and Ryan and Severin aren't far behind. Ryan and Severin know each other from work, and have raced with Nic before. They were also our fastest runners. Donna is from New Jersey, so we had some good laughs about being East Coast assholes (she knew all about driving in Boston and being a Masshole driver). Marilou is a small package stuffed with a huge amount of honey badger, doing obstacle racing as well as a lot of endurance running events.
So, we're all dying to find real food and sleep, and figuring we have about 4.5 hours. It's 5:40 in the morning, most of us got zero sleep at the last van exchange, and last night's pizza had long worn off. That's when the shenanigans started up.
Runner #1 departed, and someone from van 1 makes an announcement: "We did the math, and it's going to take you guys 7.5 hours to do your last set of runs. We don't want to wait that long for you to finish (at the finish line). We're going to skip one run and leapfrog some others, so that we don't take much time. You guys need to find a way to shorten the time. Come up with a plan and tell us what it is when we get back with our last runner. See ya!"
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Seriously? Wrong on so many levels. To enumerate the level of effed-up-ness:
- You just robbed us of our food and sleep break. You're going to be back in 2.5 hours, so there's no time to go find food. Nothing nearby is open. You also just shorted us on sleep time. Awesome.
- The entire point of doing a relay is to tough it out and complete the challenge, not short-circuit it because you "don't want to wait". Go sign up for a 5k if you don't want to wait. Waiting is part of the deal.
- Unless someone is injured or sick, there is no excuse for skipping a leg. Even someone IS injured or sick, it's up to the other team members to figure out who is going to cover for them and do their runs.
- You just blew any possibility of having a legitimate time and ranking with other teams. No, we weren't going to win anything, but I'd still like to have an accurate time and see how we stack up against other teams.
My vote was to just run our legs and make them wait 7.5 hours. After venting a bit, we did all agree that we wanted to run our legs, but were willing to try to compromise somehow. Marilou and I both checked out of that conversation and threw a bag on the ground and promptly fell asleep for 1.5 hours, while the others stayed up and hashed out possibilities. They came up with a plan to leapfrog some legs, so that two runners were going at the same time. Our "official" time was already blown to hell, so why not. Apparently Ragnar is ok with leapfrogging. I rather doubt they're cool with simply skipping legs, but as long as I run my legs and get my swag, I'll deal.
At 8:30 we were ready to, waiting for runner #6 to arrive. That's when we got the text announcing that they were going to get some coffee before dropping off runner 6 to start her hour-long run. Are. You. Kidding. Me. So now we have to sit around for ANOTHER hour, when we could have been sleeping. Unbelievable. How about bringing US some coffee too, while you're at it? And food. You didn't happen to see any food while you were chillaxing, did you?
We sent Ryan off at 9:30, for his long 10.5 mile run. After a few minutes, we left to drop Severin off to start her long 9.5 mile run. When we passed Ryan, we got the wristband from him and gave it to Severin. We dropped her at the beginning of her leg (end of Ryan's), then waited for Ryan to arrive. He got done, and we went to fetch Severin and start runner 9, myself, and 10, Donna. I finished and we drove to Donna's finish. She was late because she was so sleep-deprived and hungry that she was quite addled, and missed a turn somewhere, turning her 5-mile run into a 7-mile run. She got back on track and came in strong. We sent Marilou off on her 3-miler, then Nic got started on his (and ours) last run of the event, 6 miles and change. Almost done!
We went to the finish, and waited for Nic so that we could run the last tenth of a mile in with him. At last he came chugging around the corner, refusing to slow down or take a walk break. He led us to the finish, and we all celebrated being done! Collected our medals, picked up some food, then headed for the car to share in the caramel apple pie they had picked up during my run. YUM. Nothing was better than sharing that pie around the hood of the van. It was a delicious end to two long days and cemented our bond. Van 2 rocks!
Finally got home to a lovely shower around 8:30pm Saturday. Paula made me a gigantic gin and tonic to enjoy while showering, and it was as heavenly as the soap.
I already have the team name for next time: All Lubed Up and Ready to Go. (It's not what you think: Google "runners, chafing, bodyglide".)
