Hood 2 Coast relay ... KTC unplugged

"The Mother of All Relays" sure taught us a thing or two about our team and ourselves Aug. 28-29. What began last September with the initial invitation, finally came to fruition as our Knoxville Track Club team finished third overall against a talented field of running teams, including several compiled by Nike and Brooks. But before I get into the results and recap of the race, I feel it is necessary to rewind and start with Thursday, Aug. 27, the day everyone was supposed to arrive in Oregon. It is necessary to note how important logistics played both during and prior to this relay to ensure we were prepared to race. It involves a lot more than just navigating two minivans all over the state, mostly during the night. Our first logistics issue was getting all 12 runners to the state. This was tested early by rough weather in the Southeast that prevented me from arriving that night. So there I am in the Knoxville airport awaiting my flight and out of nowhere, a monsoon-like storm tears across the Southeast and right into the backyards of both Knoxville’s airport and even worse Atlanta's, where I was to catch my connecting flight. Well that didn't happen and by the time I got to Atlanta, my two and a half hour layover had long been gone and I was praying to the running Gods that I could find another flight early that morning. Luckily, I did, and to top it off, Delta provided me with a hotel and two meal vouchers. So when I finally arrived, my team was relieved and we continued to follow our schedule like nothing had happened.


Team picture at the starting line on Mount Hood Aug. 28


KTC team picture on Mount Hood

Pregaming
Before heading to Mount Hood, we made a stop at the grocery store to buy food and fluids for our venture. So two full carts later, we spent close to $450 to feed and fuel 12 hungry runners and 2 drivers. Then it was on to the mountain. As we drove from Portland to Mount Hood, we passed by teams of runners already out on the course, and we wondered if we would catch up to them at some point later on in the race. Even in August, Mount Hood still has ice caps on it. That means as we got close to the top, the temperatures continually dropped. It actually felt amazing and reminded me of December weather in Knoxville, as everyone was walking around in long sleeves and jackets. We got to the starting point about four hours early, so we did a lot of lounging, picture taking, eating, and watching teams start their journey. It is amazing to think that teams started running at 3:30 a.m. that morning and we were in the last start wave that began at 6:45 p.m. It was also interesting to read the team names and see the obscurely decorated team vans. Some of the team names I liked were “Puke and Rally” and “The Slug Hunters.”


Handoff between myself and Stuart

Race recap
Our running order starting with van #1 was Elijah Shekinah, Bill Kabasenche, Andrew Press, Bob Adams, Stuart Moran, Daniel Hughes, and van #2 was Mike Mentz, Bobby Holcombe, Stewart Ellington, Chad Newton, Andy Baksa, and Joseph Goetz. The first three legs of the course lost A LOT of elevation and the runners came screaming down the mountain. The adrenaline was extremely high as we stayed pretty close to the Brooks and Nike teams for the first few legs. Then unfortunately, Press pulled a hamstring in the third leg and we fell off pace. I ran a strong fourth leg, but the Nike and Brooks teams weren't giving up any ground. By the time Stuart Moran and Daniel Hughes ran, who by the way, were the two workhorses for our van, we were still roughly five minutes behind the two leading teams.

After we handed off to our teammates in the other van, we drove ahead about 50 miles to where the other van would hand back off to us. That is where we made our one logistical mistake of the race. A simple human error of inputing the wrong relay exchange address in our Garmin put us one relay exchange point ahead of where we needed to be. We did not realize we were at the wrong relay point because it was not marked, and it was not until I was on the phone with Bobby describing different exchange points that we figured it out. We jumped in the van and tried to get back in time before Joseph finished his leg of the race. Unfortunately, there were detours and construction blocks that prevented us from getting back in time before Joe finished, and we lost at least 6 minutes. Now at this point, everyone on the team could have just given up and run slower, but that was not the case with this team. Everybody continued to perform to his ability, and I feel like it brought the team closer. In addition, we had a large contingent of KTC fans keeping track of us throughout the race and we could not let them down either.

Twitter updates page (there are some funny ones from the race and after party if you scroll down and click more)

So we continued to run throughout the night and into the morning hours as we completed our second and third legs, battling fatigue, both mentally and physically. It was tough to run the second leg at the same intensity as the first leg and even harder to prepare for the third leg, because of muscle tightness and fatigue from sitting in a van for most of the 5 hours of downtime in between legs. It took a lot of mental toughness to convince your tired body that it must go out there and run one more time, when all it is telling you to do is sleep.

It was fun to see how other team vans kept track of kills on the side of their vans. Every mark showed how many teams they passed during the race. Of course, we did not have enough room to keep track of all our kills, since we had the third most of the entire relay race. After handing off to team van #2 for the last time, we drove ahead to the finish line and awaited the arrival of Joseph, who was running the final leg of the course. The course, which started on Mount Hood, had made its way 197-miles across the state and ended on the beach at Seaside. As the clock approached 12:30 p.m., we knew it was going to be close to break 18 hours. About five minutes prior to 12:45 p.m., I positioned myself about 600 meters away from the finish to inform Joseph of the time and distance left in case he could still break it. With 3 minutes left, he came into view but was hurting from cramps. I told him how far away he was and sprinted alongside him encouraging him and letting him know how much time he had left. He ended up crossing the finish line unofficially in 17:58:42 to seal our sub-18-hour time and secure our third overall team finish (second overall in the men’s open division). After the race, we all proceeded to get some well-deserved rest and then celebrated into the night. Our performance earned us an invitation to come back next year, which I would be privileged to be a part of again.

Individual pacing chart (Click image to enlarge)