The Relay Recap

Hold on to your hats kids... it's a long one :D I thought I'd break it into a timeline so I could remember everything:

SATURDAY:

4:15am Wake up :(

4:50am Lael and I pick up Lindsay and head out to Oakland to meet up with Leslie, Allan and Allen.

6:00am Finally loaded up and on the road to Calistoga to meet up with Van #1

7:00am Arrive in Calistoga, get everyone settled in their vans, do a little van decorating, take some pics

Some people got very clever with their van names :D

Me, Lael and Linds

Phil and his Go Girl drink

The Fat Kids!!

7:30am Send off Kat, Fat Kid #1! Woo hoo, the race is on!!

Kat at the start line

7:30am-noon While Van #1 is out there doing the first two legs, us Fatties in Van #2 have a few hours to kill :D We stop for breakfast in St. Helena at Gillwoods (which I was just at two weeks ago with Amy). After breakfast we headed to the first Van Exchange at a church in Napa to hang out and rest up. It was starting to warm up and a few of us managed to get in a little nap out in the warm sun.

Lael trying to nap in the van

Noon: We heard from Van #1 that their last runner was on their way so Rudy, Fat Kid #7, got ready and we all headed over to wait at the exchange point. We had a few minutes to chat with the Van #1 peeps once they showed up. I wish we had more time to hang out with them but once Sean came in and Rudy headed out, we had to get in the van and get out there to support our runner!

Phil, Linds and Kat from Van #1

Van #2 Fat Kids: Me, Lael, Leslie, Rudy, Allan, Allen and Fat Kid Volunteer Matt

Ultra-Marathon Man Dean Karnazes

12:15pm Rudy is off and Van #2 is on for the next 6 legs while Van #1 gets some lunch and much deserved rest :D

Sean (on the right) sending Rudy off!

12:30pm This is when it almost all ended badly... As the "active" van, our job is to support our runner while they're out on the course. There are no aid stations or water stop, or cheering crowds for that matter, and the van is there to provide all of that :D While Rudy was out running, we were leap frogging with him... we'd drive by him, honk and wave, and then pull over about a mile down the road to wait for him. After cheering him on, we'd do the same thing all over again. The problem is that on these little two lane roads, there aren't too many places to easily pull over, especially with other Relay vans vying for a spot on the road too. Let's just say this led to a Hollywood style, almost accident :( No one was hurt, neither were the vehicles, but I think we all got a BIG surge of adrenaline!

12:30-2:00pm Rudy finished his leg and Allan rocks his (despite getting lost in a vineyard). During Allan's leg I start getting ready for my turn... eating a little, hydrating, getting all my gear ready.

Allan running through the vineyard

Leslie and Rudy

2:00pm Now it's my turn... we pull into the exchange point in Sonoma. My stomach is in knots so I make a quick potty stop (of course there's a line!) and then rush over to the exchange area to wait for Allan. Here he comes and I'm off!! I had a pretty strong head wind for almost the whole run, which made it feel like I was running uphill the whole time. I got passed a bunch, but managed to pass up one lady by sprinting at the end :D My Garmin kept losing the signal so it was hard to keep track of how far I'd actually gone, and what my pace was. I felt like I was running slowly, but I didn't really know!

My turn!

These yellow Relay signs pointed out any turns we had to take

Me coming in, and Lael in perfect Relay form :D

3:00-6:00pm Lael, Leslie and Allen all complete their legs... and they looked fantastic doing it! We had some really strong runners in our van and they all just rocked their legs! We all took turns driving the van or co piloting (except for Allan-- we were encouraged by some of last year's group NOT to let him drive :D) and supporting eachother along each leg. It definitely made the time pass quickly and it was fun seeing a part of the bay area that I had never really been to before! (Oh, and Lael said I had to mention that he actually passed up Dean Karnazes on his leg :D)

Lael trying to protect himself from the wind

This is how windy it was out there

Lael finishing, and Leslie heading out

Leslie's done and now it's Allen's turn!

6:00pm We pull into the next van exchange point at the Marin French Cheese Company in Petaluma. There were TONS of vans there, including our van #1 who had been hanging out there in the wind all afternoon. Once Allen came in, Kat from Van #1 took off and we had a few hours to eat and hang out.


6:00-midnight We decided to head over to Novato where there would probably be a few places to eat. We found a Chevy's, which seemed to be the best option, so we pulled in there for a bite to eat. My stomach was not feeling to hot so I tried to order something kind of bland. Once the food came though, I took one look and knew that I wasn't going to be able to eat much. I think I had a couple bites of rice, 2 bites of my chicken taco and that corn tomalito stuff. I was just too nauseous to get much of it down though :(. After a stop at Target so I could get some Pepto, we drove to the next Van Exchange on the SF side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Once we pulled into the parking lot, we all tried to get a little shut eye, which is kind of hard with 6 people in a van, even a pretty roomy van like ours! I know Allan slept pretty well (I heard a lot of snoring coming from his area) but I think the rest of us only managed a quick nap. At 12:00 Brian showed up (he was running one of our legs since it went right through his neighborhood) and hung out with us in our stinky van :D

Midnight Van #1 showed up, Sean came in from his run across the Golden Gate bridge with a full moon, Brian headed out and Van #2 was off again!

Brian and Lindsay

SUNDAY:

12:30-2:30am Brian and Rudy both did their legs in the dark, with a few sprinkles. At least the wind had pretty much disappeared! It was really weird to be driving around the city in the middle of the night, and it wasn't because I went out in the city!

2:30am Now it's my turn again. :( I'm tired, my tummy hurts and I have to run in the dark by myself :( My leg started in Milbrae at some shopping center. Rudy came in, and I took off into the dark. It really wasn't THAT bad... I had a headlight, there was a full moon and street lights, and every once in awhile I'd be passed by another runner, or my van. I had beautiful views of the hills to my right, and down to the Bay on my left. During one stretch with no traffic, they drove behind me so I could see a little better with their headlights. A portion of my leg was on a bike trail, and since I couldn't be trailed by my van, and there were no streetlights to help us see better, they let the runners do that portion with an "escort", another runner from their team. Once I got to the bike path, Rudy was there waiting for me and he ran that portion with me! THANK YOU! I definitely would have gotten creeped out on my own! Again, my Garmin kept losing the satellite signal so I had to guess how far I'd gone by what I thought my pace was. It was kind of annoying :( I finished that leg actually feeling pretty good... although I hadn't gotten much sleep, I felt wide awake...

3:30-6:30am .... that is until I got back into the van. I layed my head down and pretty much slept off and on during Lael and Leslie's legs. Since Brian had taken one of our legs, Allan and Allen decided to run the last leg together to the next Van Exchange in Redwood City.

6:30-10:00am After the Van #1 took back over, we headed up to Canada College where there were showers and a gym to sleep in. It felt SO nice to finally take a shower and put on clean clothes! While Lael and Rudy slept in the van, Allan, Allen, Leslie and I laid out our sleeping bags on some mats on the gym floor and tried to sleep for a couple of hours. At 9:00 we had to get up, get everything back in the van and head off to the next Van Exchange in Saratoga.

10:00am We arrive at the Van Exchange and meet up with Van #1 who is waiting for Sean to come in. My stomach feels a little better and I'm starving so I wolf down a couple of bars of something. Felt good going down, not so hot afterwards :( Thankfully I still had plenty of Pepto!

Lael, Leslie, Allan and Allen waiting at the last Van Exchange

Me and Linds, tired and looking it :D

10:30am-12:30pm Rudy and Allan get a couple of nice downhill legs which I'm sure felt nice after the harder legs they had the day before!

12:30pm WOO HOO... my last leg! I was so tired at this point... 6.3 miles sounded like SUCH a long way to go! I was looked forward to having some downhills, but unfortunately for every little downhill, I also had a little uphill. Nothing very hard, just tiring, and I'm a big wimp with hills! There were a couple of times when I knew my van had passed me already, and I was in the hot sun, that I walked for a couple minutes up one of the inclines :D This time my Garmin never found the signal at all, so again, I had no idea when I was running how far I'd gone or how fast I was going. :( At the exchange area I smelled some serious BBQ and I was starved! I had a hot dog, and Rudy and Allan also had something... A hot dog had never tasted so good!!

Off I go on my last leg!

1:30-3:30pm Lael and Leslie had two really tough legs with some BIG climbs but they totally kicked butt! Allen got the last leg through Santa Cruz and after we saw him off, we went straight to the Boardwalk to find the rest of our team. We found them hanging around the finish line drinking beers!

4:00pm Here comes Allen towards the finish line on the beach... about 100 yards out we jump in with him to sprint across the finish line in the sand! WOO HOO... We're DONE!!! We hung around the finish area for just a bit but I think we were all anxious to get home, take a shower, eat some real food and get some sleep! I finally got home around 6:30 and promptly did just that!

The Fat Kids finished!!!

The Relay was one of the hardest things I've done... not necessarily because of the miles I ran, which really wasn't bad, but because of the mental challenges. It was really hard to run with no sleep... at dinner on Saturday night it dawned on me that we were only 1/3 of the way done :( Already I was tired and not feeling that great and I had the rest of the night, and next day to go until it was all over. Right now I don't know if I'd do it again... I had such a blast and am SO glad I did it, but it might be one of those things you cross off your list and then don't have to do again!! Well see... after all, that's how I felt after marathon #2!