Hood To Coast 2010

I have quite a few updates..... that's why I haven't posted lately, because SO much has been happening there's been no time for blogging .....but rather than have one mammoth post, I'm going to try and break them up a bit....enjoy!  (Update - this post ended up being mammoth.....but that's just because Hood to Coast was so amazing......so sit back and enjoy this post.....my others will be more succinct I'm sure!)

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I am a crazy person.  Literally.  Why?  Because I signed up to be on a Hood to Coast team this year.  (I'm not going to comment yet on some of the other reasons I may be a crazy person.)  Hood to Coast is a 12 person relay race that covers 197 miles from the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood to the beach in Seaside, OR.  The race takes teams anywhere from 17 hours (for the insanely fast people) to 35 hours (for those who enjoy relishing in every step, like me).

With 1000 teams, it's sheer insanity.  Everyone decorates their vans, some teams get dressed up, it's an absolute blast.  But since I have a lot of fun pictures from the 36 hours of madness (in which I slept a whole hour and a half).....I'll let them do the talking....

My van (Van 2) met up Friday morning to load up the van....

Then we headed out to the Sandy Fred Meyer to wait for Van 1 to finish their first legs and start our first legs...

We had a little time to kill....so we decorated the van, ate sandwiches, and took in the madness that is an exchange point at Hood to Coast.  Before long it was Kristen's turn to take off on her first leg...

And I took over the all important clipboard...

And then our van was off to meet our runners at each exchange point.....and of course we had the sombrero with us to "help our teammates find us" (or maybe just to look a little ridiculous for the fun of it).....

 

Oh, and we may have brought my horn.....just for fun....

Can you see me at my first exchange point? (I was runner number 11 in the rotation)....

Jason coming in to hand off the bracelet....

And I'm off!

My first leg started in a business park parking lot....so I ran around the parking lot and right by my team....hence the pictures below....

Then they met me at the next exchange point about four miles of running later....

I handed off to Molly and then we took off to the Hawthorne Bridge to meet up with the other van....

(we had to get the blinking light on her because it was 6pm and time for the Safety gear)

Yay!  One leg down....two to go!  Then it was time to hang out under the Hawthorne Bridge...

Before we knew it Molly was coming in to hand off to Shawna....

After Molly finished, we headed to her house for showers, spaghetti, and a very little bit of sleep....seriously, very, very little.  As in, I laid my head down at about 9pm.....and then woke back up at 10:35pm.  

Soon we were headed out to St. Helen's for the next exchange.  It was cold and 1am.  But we were still having fun...

There aren't many pictures from the middle of the night due to a couple factors including: laziness, trying to sleep a little in the van, and the general consensus that we couldn't believe we were taking off for runs in literally the middle of the night.  The photo documentation resumed in the morning.....

The last big exchange point is sheer madness.  It is literally a few fields out in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone reception, and thousands of people.  We sat in traffic for an hour and a half on a two lane road just to get in.  It was absolutely nuts trying to find our other teammates from Van 1, but soon we were off on our last legs....

Proof that I drove the Sprinter van....

Jason was not really looking forward to his last run....but he took off anyway...

Soon he was coming in to hand me the bracelet so I could take off on my 7 mile final leg...

It was a beautiful, but long, run.  I'd compare it to a giant staircase.  Overall it went up, but it would climb and then level out, and then climb again, and level out.  Here's my last handoff....

Then we took off to the beach to meet up with Molly at the finish line!  It was absolute madness, but SO MUCH FUN!!  

I don't think I mentioned our team name........

Team Marga-RELAY-ville!

It was such a blast to run this race and I will just forget about how insane it was and probably be willing to do it again in the future.  Hope you enjoyed all of the pictures!