Hood to Coast 2006

August 30, 2006. Ok so we get some grub at the Safeway, they made sandwiches and sorts, fresh in the deli section, and head to the room. Everyone takes a quick shower and then just lies out and about. Six of us so that means a couple of us are on the floor stretching, doing yoga poses or elevating our feet up on the wall.

Jokes between the vans are not uncommon. The guys from 2 put shaving cream on our door handles at the start, but me and Arthur were so into it that we didn’t even notice it. I went downstairs to the bar to see if I could get some empty beer cans or a vodka bottle to make it look like we were partying it up but the girl at the bar said that they inventory everything so she couldn’t help me. Other ideas went from saran wrapping the toilet to getting a bum to receive the next set of guests. So Van 1 flopped that Dept. But I'll be ready next time.

At the change off I got my first real look at the diversity of the vans and how everyone was coming along. One Van had a water cannon and got all the girls as they walked by. Their were venders and a band was playing. It was friggging awesome. Handoff went without a hitch and so started our second set of runs.

Jim was off first again. We made it to the predetermined water stop and waited, and waited and waited. Other team vans would ask us if they saw so and so come by, which we did, so we started to wonder if he hadn’t passed us. We all piled into the van and started back over the course to see if we could find him. About 150 yards into the backtrack we came across Jim, he was walking. He didn’t notice us as we passed by. We did a U-turn, came up beside him and started banging on the side of the van yelling, C’mon mister get that ass in gear you slacker. The result was a cross between the startled look of a dear caught in the headlights, and the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He kind of jumped into a slow trot and went about 10, 15 feet before her realized it was us egging him on. It was Priceless. We gave him water, we all laughed and proceeded to the relay point.

Our only real snafu came when it was time for Betsy to run her second run. Remember that there are no mile markers, we would use our water stops to judge our progress or at least let us know how far into it we are and/or how far we have left. During her run, she asked for a water stop at 2 miles. Arthur was driving, I was copilot/navigator. Sometimes there are landmarks, sometimes not. When this was the case we would use the digital odometer to find a place to pull off on the road. On this run we stopped at 2 on the odometer, gave her her water stop, and continued to the next one. While en route, we started to compare landmarks on the description page to what are odometer read, and they were not matching up. It then became painfully obvious. Somehow the odometer had changed over into KM instead of miles. This was one of the longer stages. We all felt like shit and were expecting the worse and got it when Betsy came in. The first thing out of her mouth was, where the hell am I. We explained what had happened, she understood but that still didn’t make up for our goof. She later told us what she was going through on the course. She wasn’t sure where she was, how far she had left, or if we had maybe passed her and missed her second stop. The fact that it was late evening with darkness setting in did not help any. She would confer with other people on the course and it just wouldn’t add up. All of this became discouraging to her and put our one and only damp spot on the race. To add insult to injury, after every water break we would re-pass the runner yelling encouragement, the reaction would be a thumbs up or arms in the air. When we passed Betsy the second time, it was meek on our side because of how we felt and her response was like, yeah whatever.

On a lighter note, I became the first victim to succumb to a joke by one of the other teams. Remember my Mars post sometime back. Well there were three guys looking up at the sky saying yeah that’s Mars, it’s the closest its ever been, yada yadda yadda. So I come over, look up and low and behold there is this reddish sphere, the right hue, the right size, it was perfect. Remember we were out in the boondocks at this point and the only real light was that from all the parked cars and headlamps and such. So I'm like Wow, that is so cool. Then another guy says no look it's that one over there, I look over and low and behold another mars. I'm like what the F***. Then the third guy goes no its that one over there, looking to the other side. What I was looking at and mistaking Mars for was the Balls that hang on the high tension wires that were crossing the area. As soon as I realized I had been taken hook line and sinker I exclaimed, "Ahh man you guys suck" and walked off to a chorus of laughter. I must admit I was laughing too. Well we lost Jim somewhere in the crowd. I told everyone to get in the van, drive out and look for the tall guy with his headlamp set on strobe/beacon. Worked like a charm. Once I found him I clicked it on and they were able to spot us in the tumultuous crowd.

Sara picked up after Betsy. She said she wanted 2 breaks also but to surprise her. She also had a long stretch so we decided to divi it into 1/3 segments for her. Thing is, it was really dark now we were out in east bumblefudge and the only place to park was a 3 mile stretch of road that everyone and his mother crammed into, it was kind of at the bottom of a slight downhill so as you came up on it all you saw was a tremendous line of cars. So we did the same for Sara, "Look for the Beacon we yelled". She told us it was hilarious, as she came up on the stretch of road she was like oh my God where did all these people come from, and then saw our strobe from about a mile away. After Sara was Arthur, and then me.

Mine was an easy straight flat stretch.

leg 17

I took off, caught up to those that were close by and then found myself running alone in the Dark. We were really spread out and I found myself having a tough time pacing again. My solution was the following. Good old George T. was on the Nano going through one bourbon, one scotch, one beer. Now I'm not sure what the frequency of the beat was but it fell in perfect harmony with my stride. So what I would do is keep the beat and then use the bottom arc of the light for something to reach for with my feet. By tilting my head I could keep it just in front of my feet, and every time my foot would intrude on it, the little reflective tape would fire off a flash. So with the beat going and the feet flashing I would chase everyone down. I would stretch it out to chase someone down, then recover for a few and then set off for the next one. I didn’t ask for a break but the ever vigilant gang made a stop at the 1/2 way point. I almost ran right by them because I wasn’t expecting it and they couldn’t really identify the runners until they were on top of them. Later they told me they tried to give water to someone else by mistake. Man I’m glad they found me.

I’ve never really run in that kind of total Darkness before and something funny happened. The arc of light was so defined that it seemed as if I had a pair of glasses on. This is hard to describe but it kind of made me dizzy a little bit. I would shake my head trying to beat the light but obviously to no avail. Anyway, that was something new that I've never experienced.

Well, I ran that stage in :36 and change.

Ginny was next. Her area was desolate and the vans could not follow. They had Volunteers which marked the way. She said afterwards, that she couldn’t believe how out there she was. It was a big, “Way to go!” to all of the volunteers at this stage because basically if it weren’t for them you probably would have gotten lost.

A word about the volunteers for this thing - How do you get them? If you’re a Local team along with you runners you had to provide 3 volunteers to help out. Now that my friend is a real desire to run this thing.

Well with Ginny's finish that was the end of our Second Stage- we passed off the baton to Van 2 and all we had to do was head out to the town of Mist where we would overnight.

Tomorrow you’ll read about the Freak Show Bar, Me sleeping on the cooler, The Lockout, The Beast, The Run-By Mooning, and the post Partum Depression.

Braz

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