Hood to Coast 2013 Race Report

So this is the 2^nd time I’ve run the famed Hood to Coast relay, the “Mother of all Relays”.  If you haven’t heard of it before, do yourself a favor and check out Youtube for some fun videos.  There was a documentary made about it in 2009 that really captures the feel of the race as well.

Anyways, I live in Indiana and one of my friends was given a team after his friend couldn’t get it filled.  So Nathan asked me and my husband to join his team.  We managed to convince 6 other people to join us but couldn’t find another 3 to make it a full 12 person, 2 van team.  So we decided to enter as a 9 person Ultra team, meaning we would each run 4 legs, have one van and no down-time between runners.  It’s significantly more difficult as your van is always “on” but we also liked the idea of seeing the entire course and hell, why not?

Our team consisted of experienced runners.  All of us had run multiple marathons with the exception of one who just finished a half Iron Man.  Three of the runners are ultra marathon runners as well.  I, Brett, Nathan, Jerry, Tina-Maria, Ginger, Scott, Chuck, and Jeff were ready and very excited for this race.  I’m towards the end of training for my first Ultra and I know my speed has diminished greatly because of that but my endurance and pain threshold has really improved.  We had matching red hoodies that were so comfortable all weekend.  So much better than buying team tech shirts.

We flew into Portland on Thursday, hit the local Party City for some fun costumes, stopped at the grocery store for provisions and drove to our hotel resort near the base of Mount Hood.  Our resort was amazing; we had 2 suites that we were very comfortable in.  Pizza, wings and beer were next as well as some hilarity that will stay in Oregon.  Let’s just say the phrase “Yeah, I’ll do that for $10 but no pictures!” came out of my mouth.

Friday morning came bright and early due to our bodies being on the Eastern Time zone.  We ate breakfast at the resort, saw Christy Turlington walking to the lobby (she was running on a team to support her charity “Every Mother Counts&rdquo, changed into our first set of costumes and decorated our van.  Our start time was 1:30 so we started driving up the mountain about 11:30.

It was so exciting to see runners on the route!  The first runners started Leg 1 at 6:00 so there were already several hundred teams on the route.  We got to the starting area, got our registration package and were immediately swarmed by people wanting to take our pictures!  It was so fun!  Jerry and my husband were wearing wrestling singlets so they were pretty popular with the ladies.  Scott had an inflatable ostrich outfit that was getting lots of attention as well.  Meanwhile, I noticed the famous (infamous?) Dead Jocks in a Box van near ours so I got a pic with them and chatted it up.  When I told one of them that we were a 9 person team he said “Oh yeah, been there and done that.  Someone always gets hurt.”  Foreshadowing, maybe??   I was a little confused by the fact that Dead Jocks, who has won their age group for at least a decade was starting at 12:45 and we were starting at 1:30.  Previously, the slower teams started first but maybe since we were an Ultra, we were being started later.  Anyways…

My husband on the left in the blue, Jerry in the crown and some of the dozens of people who wanted pictures.

This time went pretty quickly as everyone was really excited to be there and lots of pictures were being taken.  I bought a nice Hood to Coast hoodie and waited to for the race.  Oh, should probably have mentioned that I was selected to start the race by our captain!  What an honor!  But also really scary as Leg 1 looks like this:

I don’t have many hills to practice running down in Central Indiana but I did try to practice and knew to lean forward to hopefully save my quads from being thrashed.  Before I knew it, the clock said 1:20 and the announcer was asking the 20 teams in the 1:30 group to line up.  So, me, in my cute fairy wings and tutu, head to the starting line.  Next to me were to Japanese runners who had already been asking us to take a zillion pictures with them and on the other side was a young lady running HTC for the 11^th time.  The announcer starts talking about each team and I hear him say “Team so and so, 5^th place finisher in their division last year” and “Team Google – winner of their division last year, 8^th team overall”.  Gulp.  I start noticing that EVERYONE around me looked very fast.  So I try to scoot towards the back of the group but the Japanese guy grabs me and says “No, No, by me, for picture at start!!”.  Then wham – the countdown starts and we are running!  And I’m completely blown past within 50 feet.  Like I wasn’t even moving.  It was shocking and I just started laughing as I ran past my team mates.  I yelled to Brett “I’m totally last!!!” and he yelled “Don’t worry, we’ll see you at the end!”.

After I shook my head and decided WTH, I’m still running the most famous leg of the most famous relay in the world, even if I’m 20^th out of 20 in my heat.  I relaxed and leaned into the hill.  WOW – that was intense.  I felt like my feet were turning over as quickly as possible.  I was terrified that I would trip and seriously hurt myself!  But I was also on such a high, looking around little bit at the scenery, hearing waterfalls in the woods around me, waving to the vans that passed me and honked.  Soon my own team came up behind me, honking and yelling and waving.  The miles were ticking away.  There was a flat-ish area about 100 yards long around mile 4 that I felt like I could catch my breath for a second.  But it didn’t last long.  I could almost always see the guy in front of me but there was no way to catch him.  Before I knew it, I saw the 1 mile to exchange sign and was a little disappointed that my leg was nearly over.  I came to the bottom of this part of the road and it flattened for about 10 yards and then went up a decent incline into the business area of the village our exchange was at, Governer’s Camp.   That was painful, going from a steep decline to a sharp incline in a matter of 10 yards.  Not cool. I was winded but still pushing, knowing I was nearly done.  I could see the exchange and hear the crowd now!  Suddenly, I hear something else- footsteps.  A runner who started at 1:45 passed me!!!  Again I was stunned and mad and upset but man, that dude was FLYING.  I pushed with everything I had left which was good because I heard Brett yell “Better keep pushing, another one is on your tail!”.  I  made it into the exchange without being passed and handed the slap bracelet to my teammate, Jeff, who started Leg 2.  What a ride!!!    Stats: 5.63 miles Splits: 7:35, 7:33, 7:29, 8:03, 8:20, .62 at a 8:20 pace.  I’m happy with those numbers, I wanted to be around 7:30.

I’ll skip all the legs of the other runners.  But each of us wore a costume for our first legs and were hits among the crowd.  We did see Bowerman Athletic Club (team Nike) at leg 4.  They started at 2:45 and were passing us in just 18 miles!  They were insanely fast and just looked effortless with their running.  But – they were there to win, not have fun so no costumes or picture taking or beer in their coolers!

My next leg was just outside Portland and started at 8:45pm.  My husband was handing off to me so I waiting in the dark on a paved rail trail, looking for a running cow (his costume).  After a few minutes, I see him running towards me and he just stops before the exchange with his hands on his knees and a very pale look to his face.   He hands me the bracelet, tells me he’s gonna puke.  I tell him the team is right there and I take off for my 2^nd leg, Leg 10.

Leg 10 was my least favorite leg.  It was 5.15 miles long but flat and boring. It was like running on my local rail trail, just in the dark.  And it was very dark.  But others were on the trail, I was happy to pass 3 other runners (Road kill!).  I pushed my speed since I was feeling good and ended up with a 8:52 pace.

I handled the navigating for the van so between the map given to us and our phones, we were able to find our way through Portland to the next few exchanges. Things got much easier, driving wise, once we were on the other side of Portland and in the country.  Of course, that also put us into the Coastal Mountain range.  Beautiful, if it wasn’t in the dead of the night.  I tried to get some sleep before my next leg but that didn’t really happen.  Before I knew it, Brett was running and I was on deck.

Leg 19 was rated Very Hard, with plenty of hills, ending on a long, long hill.  It was 4:00am and the weather was perfect, misty and cool.  I take off running and am greeted by the first of many hills.  I keep chugging away (I’m actually pretty good at hills) and focus on the 10 feet I can see in front of me.  One of the worse things about running hills at night is you can’t see when the hill starts or ends.  So I looked forward to vans passing me so I could use their headlights to see ahead.  Occasionally there was another running passing me or someone for me to pass.   I was impressed by how strong the runners passing me were, they were eating up the hills!  Nearly every runner who passed me or who I passed, said something encouraging like “Great run” or “Looking good”.  It was really nice to feel that runner bond.  About .25 from the finish, I was grinding up a very long hill, feeling pretty damn tired when I heard foot steps behind me.  A runner came up next to me and said something about how we were almost done.  So we started chatting and I know he slowed down to run by me that last little bit.  We came around a switchback and saw the exchange and I said “Music to my ears!!” and he said “We can’t let up just yet!”.  I decided to put whatever I had left and sped up and he yelled “Don’t put that much into it!!”  I let up as we got close to the exchange so he could finish first as I’m fairly certain he slowed down that last little bit to run and encourage me.

Shortly after dawn we came to an exchange that was selling hot breakfast so I ate pancakes, eggs and sausage and got a cup of coffee as well.  I tried to sleep again and I’m pretty sure I dozed for a little while.  One of my teammates, Jerry, had hurt his foot during his first leg and then got bad motion sickness in the back of the van so he wasn’t a happy camper.  I asked him to use The Stick to rub our my quads as they were pretty darn sore.  He must have taken some frustrations out on me as he rubbed the hell out of them.  But it worked and my legs felt good enough to tackle my last leg.  About 11:00 and it was my turn to run again.  This Leg 28 was rated Easy and only 4.2 miles.  It was a very pleasant run but rolling hills in Oregon are not the same as the rolling hills we have in Central Indiana so it was still an effort.  But I ran it without walking and passed 5 other people.   I finished my last leg with a 9:24 pace and celebrated being first finished with a beer.

Then Jerry decided, after much anguish, that he couldn’t run his last leg without risking really injuring his foot.  One of our team members, Scott, is an athletic trainer and he agreed that it would be best to have Jerry give up his last leg.  Well, he was our 7^th runner.  And I would have the most rest as I was the 1^st runner.  So I volunteered to take his last leg.  Hell – why stop at 4 when you can run 5?

Leg 34 was short but by this time, our team was being passed by so many fast teams.  But we were also passing slower teams so that helped mentally.  Everyone around us, all the other runners looked tired and were walking slowly.  You could tell we were closing in on the finish of a long, long adventure.  I waited in the exchange for Chuck, who was our fastest runner. He ran the first 3 legs without being passed but was passed 6 times in his last leg, which was 7 miles.  He still brought his best effort and we were very happy to have him on our team.  Anyways, I see Chuck barreling towards the exchange and he passes the very sweaty wrist band to me and I take off again.  This leg was short, only 3.34 miles.  Rolling hills that by this point were just a joke to me.  It was like “Oh, another hill to climb.”  I did run it strong (at least strong considering the lack of sleep, hard running and being fueled by bagels, peanut butter and eggs) and passed 6 people, finishing with a 9:31 pace.   Finally I see the exchange, pass the band to Jeff and hop in the van to drive to the last exchange.

So, we get parked and I’m walking very, very slowly to the exchange to cheer on Brett as he starts our anchor leg.  I walk in front of a van that wanted to pull out and the driver jokingly yells out “Why you walking so slowly??” and I snapped.  I turned around and yelled “Because I just ran 5 legs, Bitch!!”.  My teammates cracked up laughing and I was mortified that I said that.  I apologized as the guys I yelled at laughed it off and asked why I ran 5.  Thank goodness they understood and didn’t think I was a completely rude person.

Anyways, we send Brett off, find parking in Seaside, somehow locate the finish line before Brett gets there and then we all cross the finish together in a large cattle call (6 teams finished within seconds of each other so it got very backed up).   We did see Kathy, the lady who had the heartattack on the course a few years ago that was featured in the HTC movie.  She was sweet enough to pose for a picture.

So to wrap up – this in a very short portion of my experience.  This really just talks about the running part but the running part was just a small piece of the weekend. Everyone had a terrific time and said it was everything they had hoped it would be.

Team Hoosier Mama finished in 29:01, 398^th out of 1002 teams.  The top 1/3 of all the teams and we had only 9 runners.  We averaged 8:48 min miles so we really were putting it all out there.  As a whole, we passed 113 other teams.  And drank some beer along the way.  I really encourage anyone who has a chance to do this race to do it!!

Awesome, Mary!  Getting your updates in FB and via text, and following your progress was amazing.  I want to do the Ragnar Key West or HTC one day and I know who to include on my team!

Loved your report, Mary!  The whole race sounds like SO much fun.  *Promises not to ask why Mary's walking so slowly in the last few laps of NC24.*

Well- looking back I know it was caused by low blood sugar. I hadn't eaten in several hours and was cranky with my team mates later as well.  So- I keep me feed at NC24 and ill be fine!!

No problem.  I'm bringing hoho cake and whoopie pies.  There will be no low blood sugar at NC24.

 

No problem.  I'm bringing hoho cake and whoopie pies.  There will be no low blood sugar at NC24.

And I'll be bringing my homemade fudge and possibly homemade ChexMix as well.

Candy stripe pants! Way to represent Indiana. Nicely done!

You tell a great story, and that pic of the team is a winner!

Wow, sounds like a great adventure.  I actually think the way you guys did it, with fewer runners, makes it more appealing.  So many of these big relays, it just seems like you run 3 or for legs for a total of like 12-15 miles.  When you're a marathoner or someone training for an ultra, that just seems like it's hardly worth it.  Anyway, nice, strong running by all of you and I'm sure you made a lifetime of memories.  Thanks for helping all of us to experience such a storied event along with you.