Shanghaied to Bachelor
216.6 Miles
2 Vans
12 Runners
28:40:27 hours
Sixth place out of sixty teams.
Lindsay's boss, Tom, invited me to join their running relay team. They had been rejected by Hood to Coast and found the Cascade Lakes Relay. It was CLR inaugural year; 216.6 miles starting at Diamond Lake and finishing in Bend. Beautiful scenery and challenging course. I have seen much of this course through visits to the Diamond Lake and Crater Lake area plus a portion of the course follows a good portion of the bike course of Pac Crest.
We headed out on Thursday. Tom picked me up,met up at Jim's house loaded the van and went to pick up Sharon and then off to Salem to pick up Dan. Well by this time it was early afternoon and we were hungry and i wanted a beer or three. Convened at Red Robin and loaded up on food and beverage and then settled in for the drive to Diamond Lake. Uneventful ride. Sharon had put together some compilation CD's. While listening to 80's CD we found out I could name the bands/singer with in a few seconds of the intro starting. I am not sure if I am proud of that or embarrassed, their were a couple of tough ones in there.
Arrive at Diamond lake and find our cabins meet most of the rest of the crew some had flown into Redmond and then drove down 97 to the lake. We had people from Texas, Georgia, Illinois, and Seattle and the Portland crowd. Loaded up on Pasta at a feed, drank beer and settled in to our respective sleeping spaces. One late arrival showed in the middle of the night.
Arise fairly early and Fran led breakfast preparation with many other hands chipping in. Pancakes, eggs, fruit, juice and sausage. Lots of food. have to load it is going to be a long day and and night and day. Our team starts at 11:30 am. The starts are staggered in a way so that most teams will be arriving close together at the finish some of the later teams will eventually pass some of the early teams.
So Van 1 starts us off. I am in Van 2. We watch the start and are off to kill time until our van takes over later in the afternoon/evening. Van 1 does a very respectable job with the first 6 legs of the race. Van 2 chills finds some gas and a little restaurant for food and nourishment. Sharon seems to be quite dissatisfied with the level of energy in the Van 2. I think we are just conserving energy, waiting, biding our time; it is going to be a long night.
It is early evening when we, van 2 take over. We are off. We are headed out on Silver lake highway. A beautiful stretch of eastern Oregon two lane highway, winds its way from Hwy. 97 to Silver Lake. I have the third leg in our van. I take over about 7 or 7;30 pm. Sun is starting to go down, I have my ipod on and start off pounding the pavement. My leg is 8.7 miles, hilly, nothing extreme but I climb for the first half of the run and then descend through rollers on the second half. I am all alone very little traffic, very nice
scenery. The asphalt winds through meadows, ponderosa pine stands, and crosses streams. A great run, solitude, music and beautiful eastern Oregon. I would run or ride on this road again. I have actually road on the first 25 miles before. Did an out and back from Hwy. 97 junction and back with Jen, Lindsay, Jon, Sue, and Malia a little over a year ago. My leg started at mile 26 and ended around mile 35. I was able to run it at a 7:20 min/mi pace, if memory serves.The rest of our crew runs in the dark as the sun sets and disappears for the night. We finish somewhere around 11 or twelve and hand off to Van 1. We have maintained pace well, having a good time in the van much to Sharon's delight. All tired, we head out to find food and the sleeping area in Lapine. We find a 24 truck stop, eat some breakfast, oatmeal seemed to be very popular that night along with eggs and plenty of Peach soda, the soda was awesome, we ended up ordering a pitcher of the stuff. We drive to the sleeping area where we figure out we have just over an hour to sleep. We all decide not to mess with sleeping bags and just sleep in the car seats of the van. Sleep may not be quite the right word but I do get some rest and a few winks in.
2:00 am the alarms in the van start going off. necessary pee breaks are taken and we take off for the next van exchange, about an hour east of Lapine. On the way there we are driving against runners as they head toward Lapine. It is pitch black and you can see reflective vests, flashlights and head lamps bobbing in the night. It is in the upper thirties, a little chilly. We meet up with the other van and our first runner takes off into the darkness. He has a killer hill to climb, should keep him warm though. Our second runner also takes off in the darkness. When my turn comes around it is just starting to get light. This leg is going to be great, pretty much gentle down hill. Another good run. The ipod is giving great tunes, I have it on shuffle. I run 6.6 miles at 6:49 min/mi pace. Felt good but I really pushed it and hope I have not burned myself up for the last run, yet to come.
Our last three runners do a great job and we hand off to the van 1 west of Lapine heading for Cascade Lakes Highway and the climb to Bachelor. Van 2 is pretty tired, Sharon thinks we are boring. We pull off into a camp ground and three of us spread out sleeping bags and get some much needed rest. The rest chill in the van and talk and rest. I think I had two maybe three hours of sleep, woke up a couple of times, it will have to suffice. When I finally get up, I go for a light short run and do some stretching and start rummaging for food, cliff bars, bananas, an orange or two, Gatorade. I actually feel fueled up but am still tired. Luckily Sharon has some caffeine capsules (coffee in a pill) works well. We visit relax and then decide to head out to the next transition.
Okay, Van 1 hands off to us. They are done. Time for us to take it home. We are left with climbing up to Mt bachelor and descending into Bend. The first leg is a climb for our runner but not too bad although Dennis is have troubles with his achilles and calf. He muscles through, although I hear he is still a bit gimpy. Our second runner takes over and he has a climb about 4.5 miles of the steepest climb up to Bachelor coming from the west. he does very well with it and hands off to me this leg is rated as very hard. It is 5.5 miles of steep descent with a brief but steep climb at the end and then the last 0.5 is pretty steep downhill again. I think the caffeine helped. My legs are pretty fried and I am trying to flow with the downhill with out pounding. My quads are feeling it and feel it for a few days after. The weird part was when we hit a length of flat it felt like I was climbing my legs are tired. Then just before the end we have to climb again. It is steep, the sun is out in full force, my legs feel like meat. Just keep climbing. then i crest and you can see the next exchange. I pretty much let it go and ran balls out nothing will be left in the tank or legs.
Sharon takes over for me and has probably the most traumatic experience of the whole relay. Some of the runners on another team we have been racing with alot of the night run in thongs and they were not women and not pretty. More ass then I have seen in some time and not the kind I am wanting to view. Anyway Sharon gets passed by a guy in a yellow thong and it looks like he has nothing but his race number on. So she spends a fair amount of the run following a very white ass.
We are almost there, the last tree runners bring it home and we finish together in Bend. Kudos to a great group of runners. One of which was Jim and Fran's son. Who logged the fastest splits on a individual leg and up until this event had never ran 8 miles at one time, one of his legs was 8.6. He was awesome and should be checking in with his cross country coach at High School.
The event ended with plenty of beer and a BBQ lunch at the finish. We told war stories, laughed and had a good time. Shortly we were off to Sunriver to get to our houses. Showered and somewhat refreshed. We noshed on snacks and sipped beer and grew very tired. Off to bed; we are talking about a recovery run the next day.
Sunday morning, legs tired, a bit sore, we rally for a little recovery run along the Deschutes River. We regroup at the main house and make breakfast and pack up to head out. Drive home is uneventful and restful.
good times, good challenge. I'd do it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment