Notes
Summary: No real clue on the time and distance is probably pretty close. The relay race. 1st 4 were two mile legs followed by 4 1 mile legs. Pretty hard running. The first couple legs were sub 7:00 and I think I was close to seven for all. Pretty f'n brutal. Hammy and knee got to a certain pain threshold and then stayed there for a bit and then faded and the day was super hot and humid
The Report:
We had set our strategy the night before, 2 mile legs for the first half and then change strategy as needed and the following running order: Dermot, Jon, Pete, me, Andy and Dennis.
Dermot takes off at the start and some unknown dude tried to hang with him (maybe Rydzinski). Dermot has a 20 second lead as he hands off to Jon at 16th Ave S. Jon gets passed by unknown dude about halfway to beach club where he hands off to Pete. According to Pete, one of the Capitalists passed him near the turn from Crayton to Harbor (I saw him, it was Holland cruising by about 20 seconds ahead). So now we are in second and there is no sign of the team or the unknown dude that passed Jon way back at Central, weird.
I banged out my first leg with no clue about the time (MTA, 2..01 miles, 12:36), I just know I was hammering it down past the 'ville expecting to hear Hester or some other joker coming up behind, but I got to Andy and there was no sign of anyone behind me. A quick hello to Devin's teacher who was running on the fast female team and we took off.
We had worried the whole lead-up to the race about Andy's and Dennis' fitness. Good guys but not serious runners, but we had decided to get corporate sponsorship for the event so we were wedded to having them on the team. At this point, Andy was running hard and, as he handed off to Dennis, Dennis was running hard too. No worries.
So the morning progressed with us cycling through our legs. Dermot is nailing 5:40 - 6:00 paces on his legs and Jon, Pete and me are all running 6:40 to 7:00. Andy and Dennis were close to 7s to start but got progressively slower as time went on. At the checkpoint Nolan's team van had already pulled in so we eye ball each other. Jon and I are the only guys they know (of know of, in my case) so they give him some good natured shit. Mitch told us we had a 5-8 minute lead over them at that point. So we headed up through Ft. Myers Beach. I had a shitty piece of road to run on for the second straight leg (the other being Bonita Beach Rd.), heavy traffic, no shoulder, buses unloading passengers, cars pulling in and out, but I got to Andy at the next bridge in good time.
A little team dissension after the turn onto Summerlin Rd. Dennis takes the long way around (dummy, he ran within 1' of the sign telling him where to turn), probably cost us 45 seconds to a minute there, then he fucks around with Dermot as Dermot tries to take the baton a little early (another few precious seconds as it turns out). (We were trying to cut his leg short because he's running slower than shit.) Dermot finally gets the baton back and does his usual disappearing act and turns over to Jon .5 miles from the turn around.
Heading back South and we see Hester cranking North. I think we have about a 3 minute lead now. As I see Pete approaching me, I can just see Nolan's runner a little more than a half mile back. I take off and I think this may have been my fastest two mile leg. It was certainly the hardest. I'm passing a bunch of woman runners from other teams heading north during this leg and they are all saying the usual pleasantries (good job, looking good, etc.) and all I can do is grunt. I hand off to Andy and the boys told me I added some ground to our lead. I'm happy.
As we head south through Ft. Myers beach with Andy on the road, Nolan's runner is gaining ground fast on Andy, and passes him just before he hands off to Dennis who is going to run a one mile leg. Nolan's guy then hands off to one of his slower runners (Quinsey I think) who opens up more ground on Dennis even though he ran about his fastest leg of the day. (Nolan's team has been doing one mile legs for a while now.) Quinsey hands off to Hester and Dennis hands off to Dermot. We told Dermot to do a 1.5 leg. Dermot makes up about 100 yards and passes Hester who tries to hang with him (great, "maybe he'll burn himself out" I was thinking). Dermot hands off to Jon and we have about a 20 second lead.
From here on in it's all 1 mile legs for us. Jon seems to hold or increase his lead on his guy and we are thinking we are still in the game. Jon hands off to Pete who is now racing Horn. As I'm out of the car waiting for Pete, I see the red lights go on on the drawbridge from Estero to Ft. Myers Beach. I swear Pete and Horn must have just missed getting stopped by that bridge, which would have been pretty funny. Just after Pete crests the bridge, I could see Horn right on his tail. Great. As Pete hands off to me, Saunders is about 1 foot away. I can hear his footsteps right behind me, I also feel my shorts starting to slip off. The crew goes by yelling "nice ass jay" so I make the effort to tie them a little tighter. I opened up a decent lead on Saunders heading into the checkpoint, maybe 40-50 yards. Of course he arrives next to me as I'm trying to scribble name, time and team name (couldn't remember the friggin' name of the team, just scrawled spandex) and take off. Tactical mistake no. 3. our guys should have signed the book for me. Tactical mistake 4 was having the car stop just after the sign in point so I thought my leg may have been over so I slowed a bit to ask. Tactical mistake 5 was Andy being on the western edge of the road waiting for me, so as I handed off to him, Nolan was essentially about to get the baton from Saunders as he was 30 yds closer on the other (and correct) side of the road. Nolan extends the lead on Andy (of course), then one of their big guns (McConnollee's replacement) opens up a commanding lead on Dennis (of course) and the game is basically over.
We have one more shot. Dermot takes some ground back from Hester (we think he had taken something out of Hester because he was noticeably slower), as do Ness and Pete and me, but back to Andy and Dennis and we are done after Vanderbilt Drive. We keep running hard (at least the four of us) but we came in at 8:51:30 five minutes behind. Shit.
Obvious issues. Nolan replaced McConnollee with a much faster guy, which could have been the difference right there. Also, Dennis and Andy cost us two minutes or more with their fuckups. You never know what a two minute difference may have done to the other team's psyche. Maybe we are 5 minutes ahead at the bridge and they decide to ease up. Jon, Pete, Dermot and I decide to do it again next year with a full team of hard runners.