Klondike International Road Relay (Read 489 times)

This is my 8th time running this race and I'm mostly writing this report as a plug for a really fun road relay that runs from Skagway Alaska into Whitehorse, Canada.  It's 110 miles broken into 10 legs (Map of legs)that rand from 5.6-16 miles long.  The First 2 legs climb over 3400 feet in 14 miles and all the other legs are interestingly different. 

We are a team (Harriet's Herriers) that has been around for 24 years although I have only run with these fine ladies for the past 4 years.  We take a ferry from Juneau AK to Skagway to start the race.  This year I left on the early ferry  to watch my son's high school team in a cross country event that had the worst headwinds ever.  I love to watch my kids run!  I spent a bit of time walking around Skagway waiting for my team to show up.  We had 2 sort of injured runners so we knew we wouldn't beat our best time (17 hours).

So this is how we do it and all 158 teams do things differently, but we have 2 cars and both cars support the leg 1 runner up to that finish and then leg 1, 7,8,9, and 10 drive out to a lodge that is close to the end of leg 6 while leg 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 run through the night,  When they are finished the "day car" starts its runner running while that "night van" take over the already slept in beds.  I was in the day car so at 5:45 we woke up and pretty much left the lodge to get to teh end of leg 6.  We got there just as the leg 6 runner was 1K from the finish so we had some stressed out folks wonderingif we were going to show. 

Leg 7 runner went off and I *being the leg 8 runner) ate some granola and yoghurya dn a banana and just help support leg 7 runner to the finish.  I was a bit nervous but was totally happy to have a daytime leg after actually sleeping a bit.  Those night time legs are really tough because most runners don't reall ysleep through the night.

Leg 8 is deceptively hilly but I had a tailwind and a gorgeous day.  The Fall colors in teh Yukon are really beautiful and the lakes a long the way are...well...stunning.  I started a bit fast and it took a couple of miles to get into a groove but my splits were:

9:06

9:07:

8:36 (feeling good)

8:45 (knew I was going too fast for finishing 12 miles)

9:23

11:10 (damn 2K hill and I walked while I fueled a bit)

9:20

9:14

10:04 (steep hill)

9:23

10:02

9:02

Total 12.4 miles at 9:33 pace.  I handed off to Jan and was soooooo glad to be done

Totally fun and I had a ton of energy left for the dance at the end.  I won't go into how much fun it is to spend 2+ days without the husband and kids with some great gals who range in age from 36-52.