The biggest relay race in the country (fact!) began at the top of Mount Hood, in northern Oregon. It was a 196 mile relay race, ending at a small coastal town called Seaside Oregon. Teams are allowed 8 to 12 runners (to our surprise, it appeared almost every team but ours had 12), the course is broken up into 36 distinct legs (ranging from 3.5 to 7.7 miles per leg), each runner must hand off to the next at the exchange points, and you must have each runner cycle through and follow the same order (meaning you can’t have your fastest runner run every other leg). Our team had 8 runners (originally planned with 10 but one dropped out from injury and another just dropped out). Our team captain was my friend Drew (a friend from Villanova who previously lived in Philly, but currently lives in Seattle. He’s engaged to one of my best friends Katie, who came for moral support). Our other team members consisted of three of Drew’s friends from work Harry, Kyle, and Matt (two of which I knew before the race), one of my high school friends Mikey who is a big runner, Katie’s brother Mike and his friend Justin. If you tracked along - yes, that made me the only girl (the one who dropped out from injury was going to be my fellow gal companion). Nonetheless, I loved our team. We had a support squad of Katie, Kristen, and Hannah, girlfriends of my teammates, who kept it fun and positive and I was very grateful for!
Leading up to the race, Drew established our team’s running order, assigning the longer and more challenging legs based on everyone’s experience. The order was: Kyle, me, Drew, Mikey, Matt, Harry, Mike, Justin. Since there were 36 legs, for a team of 12, each runner completed 3 legs. For a team of 8, the first four runners completed 5 legs and the second four completed 4 legs. Lucky us!
In terms of logistics, each team must have two vans to transport the runners; our vehicles of choice were two Toyota Siennas. Our support squad of the three girls had their own car as well. One thing that surprised me was that tons of teams went all-out painting and decorating their vans with team names, designs, and crazy props. We didn’t plan for that, but we did tape notecards with our team name ‘Shake and Bake(on)’ (Drew came up with it, don’t ask me why) on our windows for a sprinkle of team spirit. For fueling, the race does not supply free water or food due to the scale, so prior to the race, we did a grocery store haul, stocking the trunk of the vans with gallon upon gallons of water, enough carbs to feed the population of Oregon, and every kind of protein snack imaginable (think trail mix, energy bars, peanut butter, etc.). Our projected time was over 24 hours, so we were stocking up for the journey ahead. For attire, we all had our own race clothes, and I planned to switch outfits after each leg in order to stay as fresh and fly as possible.
The race sent runners off from the starting line, which was located on the top of the mountain, but rather than starting everyone at the same time, your team is assigned a starting time based on your projected finish time, so that teams all finish and celebrate around the same time. The earliest start time for a team was 2AM on Friday morning (yikes!). Our start time was 11AM (thank goodness). Because of the location of the starting line, our group camped out the night before the race about 2 miles from where we kicked off. So we camped Thursday night into Friday, had bagels, bananas, oatmeal, and coffee for breakfast, and drove a short distance to the starting line.
Once we got bibs for everyone (the piece of paper with our teams number on it that you pin on your shirt) and our team’s baton (a rubber bracelet you can slap on your wrist and passed off from one runner to the next) from tents by the starting line, we were ready to go! After much anticipation, 11AM arrived, and Kyle was off with a handful of other runners that had the same starting time (little did we know we would get to recognize these teams and their vans over the many miles to come).
One of the things the surprised me the most about this race was that much of it was run on the shoulder of the highway or along main roads. And with the exception of occasional cones, tape, and volunteers, you were running freely along right next to cars. Honestly I was a bit nervous at first, but it added to the adventure and insanity of the event (and felt safe enough), so all was well in the end. If there was a turn in the course, a volunteer manned the location and directed runners, but otherwise there was a lot of course that was just you and the road.
Our team traveled from exchange to exchange by van, often passing our runner on the road along the way (we couldn’t drive alongside them for long, but would pass and cheer briefly out the window). After Kyle kicked off, we all headed to the first hand-off, where I got the baton for my first leg around 11:40AM on Friday. Both Kyle and I had severe downhill for our first legs, as we were descending down Mount Hood. The downhill was a blessing (because I could go fast) but also a curse (because it hurt my quads to pound down that much of an incline, and I didn’t want to go too fast and struggle on the later legs as a result). The leg was run along a bustling road, but the views on this were my favorite of the whole race. I finished my first run, 5.64 miles, in 36:50 (6:32 min/mile). I can’t say I meant to go that fast, but I was feeling good, running on adrenaline, and trying to do my team proud.
From there, the race continued on. Since it was light out and our supportive team energy was high, both vans traveled to each exchange early on and cheered for every one of our runners’ first leg. In between driving and cheering, we were chugging water and eating bagels, poptarts and granola bars to keep the glycogen stores filled. Moral was high during the first cycle of legs, although the heat was a challenge in the afternoon as we descended from the mountain towards Portland.
Around 6PM I was up for my second leg (leg 10 of the whole race) which was entirely on a trail. I appreciated that there were no cars for this portion, but it was pretty hot and draining, and I could already feel that my quads had worked hard and needed to recover from my first leg. One local woman was standing with a hose and drenching the runners as we went by; it was glorious. I went out too fast on the first mile of this leg after getting so excited from the hand-off, and spent the rest of the time hanging on for dear life. This one was still fun, but much more difficult for me compared to the first. I completed the 5.54 miles in 41:18 (7:27 min/mile).
In the midsts of our team’s second legs, we felt the adrenaline starting to fade and realized that we had a long night ahead of us. Moral always remained relatively high, but each of us went through highs and lows in between each leg. Matt’s second leg took us through Portland (which had the biggest crowd) as the sun set, and once we were through, it started to get dark. My van stopped for sandwiches in Portland to get some real food in us, and I had half of an Italian hoagie. Mikey had a large Philly cheesesteak. Drew and Kyle scarfed theirs down so fast that I didn’t even know what they had.
Once it got dark, runners were required to run with a reflective vest and a headlamp (our team had two sets, which added to the logistical puzzle of getting each upcoming runner a vest, prior to the next hand-off). It was quite the experience. A few things about racing in the dark: 1) It was much harder to spot your runner coming in for a hand-off (this is where our bib number became important, and volunteers would yell out bib numbers of the runners approaching). 2) It was much cooler, which was wonderful. 3) Some of the legs (not mine) were on the side of a main road even in the dark(again surprisingly without many cones/blocking off of the road). 4) The reflective vests and glowing flashers made it feel like I was playing laser tag and hunting people down. My third leg (team’s 18th) came at 11:30PM and was through winding neighborhood roads (that were pretty hilly). We were passing a lot of teams who must have started hours earlier at this point, and I had a blast running people down. I think I passed more than 15 people and got passed by only 1 or 2. I completed the 3.76 miles in 27:49 (7:24 min/mile).
Past 1AM is where I would say delirium started to kick in. We often kept the music playing but people were on and off trying to nap and then get pumped up for their next leg. We also lost cellphone service from about 1-9AM, which we expected, but made it very difficult to coordinate between the two vans to ensure we could switch safety gear and arrive to the exchanges on time (that was one piece that was a real challenge: knowing when your runner would finish in order to be at the next exchange in time).
After getting about 30 minutes of napping in, I had another leg in the dark (my 4th, team’s 26th), which was done on country back roads (with a good amount of incline). This one started at 5AM. Nobody passed me, and I passed a good handful of people; we call this ‘nothing but kills’. I was surprisingly in the zone and felt energized when I finished. I completed 5.65 miles in 44:50 (7:56 min/mile). When I approached the hand-off station in the dark, there were a bunch of indistinguishable people standing around but no one stepped up to take the baton from me. I panicked that Drew didn’t make it, but I called out his name and he popped out immediately! He just couldn’t tell that was me coming in. The thrills of a relay race in the dark.
Soon after, the sun began to peak through. I chomped down on my fifth poptart and second plain bagel (sixth bagel if you count the mini blueberry ones too) in an attempt to continue to fuel my body for one final effort. At this point, we still didn’t have service and needed to meet up with the other van for an exchange, and ran into a minor struggle. Due to race traffic, no way of communicating, and having to make decisions and do math in a state of pure delirium, we were 7 minutes late to drop off Mike to exchange with Harry. By way of miracle, we found our teammates pretty quickly, and got back on track. What a boost of energy and gratefulness I felt in that moment.
On Saturday morning, I hadn’t had any coffee since Friday morning (which felt like an eternity ago) but somehow had a decent amount of energy for the circumstances. Finally my fifth and final leg (team’s 34th) came at 10:34AM. I completed the 4.12 miles in 31:20 (7:37 min/mile). This leg was labeled ‘easy’, but it didn’t feel that way. There was a steep hill at the beginning and another at the end. Luckily, I used the hill to rack up even more ‘kills’, and again, closed out without getting passed by a single runner (all the quick teams must have already passed us at this point). I handed off to Drew for the last time and felt a sigh of relief that I really completed my portion.
After Drew ran, Mikey’s fifth and final leg took our team to the finish line in Seaside. Traffic was so backed up that we didn’t get to see him finish, but he clocked us in at a final time of 25 hours 56 minutes 58 seconds. A team average pace of 7:56 minutes/mile (which included a 5 and a 7 minute hand-off delay). We came in 76th place out of 1165 teams. At the beach, our team celebrated with cold beer, rice and chicken, lots of hugs, and medals. It was such a great group of people, and an adventure of a lifetime.