Whew! What a week it's been! Where to begin - - - I'll get us started off and I'm sure as others are able (some are flying home today), we'll continue to add to the story over the next few days. The Wild Rogue Relay is a local (to me) relay and this is its 4th year. I ran the inaugural year also with a few of the masters here. This year we put together an exclusive WUTBCR team. The team consisted of: Me, John (johnny), Karl, Paul, Renee, her SO Jan, Karen (enke), Liz (can't even think of her handle here? She's just Liz to me , Leslie, Marilou (dove), the elusive DG (yay! I know what she looks like now!) and Carolyn. Dove had an injury though and had to bow out but thankfully, another masters runner friend of mine was enthusiastic about joining our team. Her name is Cindy and she fit in so well with our entire group.
Liz flew in last Tuesday and I picked her up at the airport and she spent a few days hanging out with my crew and helping me tremendously for last minute prep - like food shopping! Thursday afternoon, most everyone congregated at my house to pack up vans, leave their cars parked at my house and we drove out to a house we rented not too far from the start. Van 1 had about a 30 mi drive to the starting area and Van 2 had about a 10 mile drive to the first exchange, so it worked out perfectly. The house (The Pond House at Pacifica Gardens in Williams) accomodated all of us comfortably and we enjoyed a big pasta meal that evening.
This relay starts at Applegate Lake, not far from the Oregon-California border, and ends in Brookings, OR. We had unusually cool weather for this relay, which was awesome. Generally, it is 80-90 at this time of year. It was raining the night prior and into the early morning hours of Friday, when the relay started. Our team started at 5:20 a.m. so Van 1 was up and out of the house early!
VAN 1: Paul, Carolyn, Karen, Debbie, Renee, Jan
VAN 2: Tammy, John, Karl, Leslie, Liz, Cindy
I'll let Van 1 peeps step in now and talk about their first van segment to continue the saga . . .
Tammy
On Wednesday night MBE came over to my house late and slept over. I was tossing and turning a lot, anxious, thinking, 'this is my last chance to get a good night's sleep, so I better fall asleep RIGHT NOW!'. Of course this meant I was awake until after midnight, and blew my last opportunity for a good night's sleep! I only got about 5 hours. We were up at 6 am to leave by 7 am to drive to Southern Oregon. I had to get the kids off to school too.
The drive went really fast. We were the first to arrive at the Pond House, and hung out on the deck. There was a pond, with bullfrogs, and fields with horses. Really nice location. It was mostly sunny and cool but with scattered showers. Topsy turvy weather. The other folks arrived about an hour later and I got to meet dg, Liz, Jan and Cindy for the first time. The others I have met at least once before. We had a nice pasta dinner and then MBE left to stay at a hotel in Roseburg for Thursday and Friday night, about 1hr, 40 minutes north of the Pond House. He drove to Crater Lake Friday, cycled 30 miles in rain and hail, then packed that in. On Saturday he actually did part of a ride that went on the same damn trails we were running on near Agness Pass! Didn't see him though... Everyone was really nice to him when he was around, trying to engage him in cycling talk.
The Pond House is really odd. It's a bit rambling, one room opening up into another. It is set up to sleep a lot of people. Van 1 folks took over the basement, and Van 2 upstairs. There was a separate bed for everyone that wanted one I believe. I slept great that night, but the only problem was we had to get up at 3:20 am!! So another night of only 5 hours of sleep. So I was a bit sleep deprived and tired, of course.
The rain started that night. Carolyn had rented Van1, and seemed content to do most of the driving, which no one really tried talking her out of as she was good at it. We missed the turn for the Start area, this was around 5 am, and our start time was 5:20. No stress, really though. We found it in time. It was dark, and rainy. I set off with about 11 other mostly women doing this leg. I let them all get ahead of me except 2 women. We started off, in the dark, on a trail that went along Applegate Lake. The trail was very rocky - sharp, large rocks and not much fun at all to run on. It was much less than a mile before we went up to the road. One woman passed me on the trail, then after that, I only had one other woman behind me. She was hanging off my shoulder for about 2 miles, and her Van came by and told her to stick with me. That bugged me - that she was sticking to me like glue and I could hear the pat pat pat of her feet just behind me. I eventually got a lead on her with maybe 2 miles to go. With about 0.5 miles to go (of 6 miles), I thought I heard her catching up again. No way was I going to let her pass me and have me be the last person in on this Leg. So I pushed a little harder and got in before her. It was raining harder by this point, but getting lighter too. IRC for me, 49F at the start of my Leg. I handed off to Jan. He had a brutal 6 mile route that was mostly uphill. I was pretty sweaty and wet but didn't care. I left my clothes on and after several hours, and a nap in the sun, the soaked running clothes dried out from my body heat - but I was chilled until that happened. My Garmin pace was 10:01 - I was actually fairly happy with that given my current conditioning. There was a small net downhill, but overall it was rolly.
"During a marathon, I run about two-thirds of the time. That's plenty." - Margaret Davis, 85 Ed Whitlock regarding his 2:54:48 marathon at age 73, "That was a good day. It was never a struggle."
Carolyn
I thought I'd post some pictures from FB, for those of you who haven't seen them. Actually, is anyone not on FB, except Tet?
Our team was "We Used to be Cool Runners" - since we met back on the Cool Running forum ~10 years ago. These are Van 1's window decorations:
I hammered down the trail, passing rocks and trees like they were standing still.
So to continue the story where Karen left off, Karen handed off to Jan for his uphill 6 miles. We were all so impressed with him! He's only been running for a year, but he chugged up that hill with no walk breaks! Renee was next, followed by Debbie, Paul and then me. It rained off and on most of the morning, but it had stopped by the time I ran.
I ran leg 6, which went steeply uphill for 2 miles (1000 ft elevation gain!) followed by 4.2 miles of glorious downhill (-1150 ft). The vans drove a different route to the exchange, so there was no traffic on this leg! It was mostly dirt road, with a short trail section at the end, leading to the exchange at a winery.
I handed off to Tammy, and said a brief hello to the van 2 folks before they headed out. Van 1 was about 30 minutes ahead of our projected pace at that point, and it was about 10:30 am. We were off duty till about 5 pm, so we went to a park on the Rogue River near our next exchange, that Tammy had recommended (the course was pretty close to her house at this point.) We had a picnic lunch followed by a nap on the grass. When we got up we ate more, then decorated the van, and headed to exchange #12.
This first segment when Van 2 was on duty was a lot of fun. Weather was so perfect - cool, no longer raining - just real comfortable! We were running along roads with dirt shoulders, but for the most part we had to deal with some traffic. The first half was run through a winery valley, so it was mostly relayers. Van 1 had us about 1/2 hr ahead of predicted pace schedule and Van 2 was able to pick up some more time and I think we might have ended our first shift about 45 min or so ahead of pace. We were all feeling pretty pumped about running faster than predicted and I'm sure the weather was a major factor. Normally, it's quite warm in June here, but we were easily about 20 degrees cooler.
During this segment of our shift, Karl and I stopped off at a bar along the route and each had a small Stella (and I couldn't even finish mine!) The folks in the bar, which was right on the route, thought these runners were nuts I'm sure. I have no idea why they would think though - it's not like there were runners in full clown suits out there or anything . . . . . . or maybe there were! (I need to figure out RA on my phone so I can upload some pics here. all my pics are on my phone).
We were on duty from roughly 11:30ish - 5:00 or so maybe? We all had great runs and then when we were off duty, the van route had us taking a highway north a ways to eventually cut over on a mountain pass. Van 1 would be travelling mountain forestry roads, so the off duty van was not allowed to follow along the same route. Van 2 went to a little town "Glendale" and found the one and only restaurant and had dinner. Several other teams were there also, including that freaky clown team. Then we headed to Glendale HS where they opened up the gym for rest because it was POURING RAIN at this point! We kept thinking "poor Van 1 people out running in torrential ran, but we later learned that where they were running was hardly, if at all, raining. We had a little over an hour to rest in the gym before we had a 1+ hr drive up to Agness Pass to get back on duty. No one slept although it was nice to just stretch out and have some quiet time. Because there is zero cell phone coverage through this whole stretch up to and past Agness Pass, we wanted to give ourselves plenty of cushion time to get to the next Van Exchange, incase Van 1 was running even more ahead of schedule.
what is the easy trick to direct posting of photos from an android into a reply box? is there an ez way to do that?
Tammy, it's really easy to copy pics from FB. Open the picture in FB, right click, and choose "copy image location." Then switch to RA and click the picture icon on the top, with the mountains. Paste the image location into the box.
thanks Carolyn. gosh, i even knew that, but just had it in my mind to go via my phone. "doh!"Van 1 partial decorations. (yes, Tet - Karl/Opie was on the team) and you can see Johnny's reflection here.
View from the Pond House/pre-relay lodging:
Renee after her first leg:
Carolyn, flying like a gazelle, soon to hand off to me:
Here comes Liz in on her first leg:
Karl, aka "Sexy Leg Mahn!" handing off to Leslie: (and in the background you can see 2 HS runners. The boy is my "2nd son David" - David's best friend and running partner when he was still running.
Here's Johnny handing off to Cindy (not a RA'er - my friend that subbed in for Dove):
I hopped out on the course to run with this clown. and this is my sons mentor, teacher and the man supervising my sons trip to Atlanta next week <smh>
Jan handing off to Renee for her costume leg:
Renee doing her stretches and calisthenics. proper stretching technique is very important. notice those younger runners in the background that don't even stretch out prior to a run. rookies.
Leslie in our van took the majority of pics and now she uploaded them so I'll add some of hers :
the whole team (minus Debbie)
Karl and John: I think Karl is so happy because he finally got his coffee. the lines were forever to get one!
Van 1 having fun while Tammy is out slogging around:
I think John is saying "get your ass back out there and run!"
John: still happy during this first leg. not so much by the 3rd. lol
An infamous team at the WRR: (they got the name Leg 34 after themselves (The Clown Puncher) and it was quite the doozy!!) Dove originally had it and then Cindy got it. She knew what she was in for but wanted the challenge. it's a couple miles along Hwy 101, then you go off the highway, onto a trail that leads down to the beach. You run, hobble, crawl - whatever works for ya - over piles of driftwood, then you climb up and slide down two very large sand dunes. It's like a 5 mile leg that takes even the best of runners about an hour to do. I think Cindy pounded it out in about 1:20 or so and many people take over 1.5 hrs to finish it. She really pushed herself and did great!
This was the shot Cindy took with her phone as she began her ascent up the first dune:
and then she said she just about cried, when she got to the top and saw that once she went down, she had another equally as large dune to go up.