The Relay Story - Episode 1

[Note: Part 1 of a multi-part series. Read previous posting for details]

SAT, Oct 15 - 7.00am: The morning of the relay. After all the planning and preparation, we were going to embark on this crazy trip today. I had my cuppa coffee, and set out to make sure I had packed everything I needed, per Linda's checklist.

Leading up to the race, there had been a huge amount of team preparation that went into it. Most of that work was done by Linda, our team captain. She along with a bunch of others in the team had done this relay multiple times before, and they knew exactly what the deal was. All I had to do pack a few sets of clothes and my running gear, and even this was neatly laid out on a checklist that Linda had made for us! This is how I like it - just show up, let people take care of you.

SAT, Oct 15 - 8.10am: This was the scheduled time for me to be picked up by the van that was leaving from Santa Cruz. Sure enough, the van was there on the dot. I hopped in - the van already had 5 others. Soon after, we picked up Mary, and were on our way to Calistoga. This was going to be "Van 2" at the relay, i.e, it was going to hold runners #7 through #12. Me being runner #11, this was going to be my home for the next couple days.

Linda, our captain, was driving the van (it was her van) - but once she reached Calistoga, she would hop on to Van 1. The rest of the folks in the van were genuine Van 2 folks - Chris, a colleague of mine, an experienced runner, with a wicked sense of humor; Trevor - an ultrarunner who'd just finished a 100 mile run earlier in the year, and the perfect complement to Chris; Jaime, who was so fast he'd probably do the whole relay alone in half the time we'd all take as a team; and Angelique and Mary, both of who had miles and miles of running experience between them, and more importantly were very laid-back, relaxed and happy-go-lucky.

SAT, Oct 15 - 12:15pm: We arrived in Calistoga, the starting point of the relay. We were duly joined by Van 1 and the rest of its folks - Angeline, Tom, Tim, and Joe. Wait a minute, where was Marc? We learnt that Marc had to drop out due to a late attack of stomach flu - and so we were suddenly reduced to a team of 11. No matter, the three brave men in Van 1 decided that between themselves, they would each run an extra leg to compensate for missing Marc. 3 legs seemed daunting enough, and now these guys were going to do 4 legs? Yikes. Well, it was great that these folks stepped up to the plate and made it a non-issue.

[L to R, Front: Joe, Mary, Linda, Angeline and Jaime. Back: Tim, myself, Angelique, Chris and Trevor. Tom is missing in this photo]

Our team's starting time was 1pm. We picked up our bibs, and got down to the task of decorating our vans, and looking at all the cool stuff on the vans of other teams. Chris was humming a song that seemed to have been written specifically for the purposes of this relay. It goes something like this:

Everybody looks good at the starting line
You can hit the ground running like you are shot from a gun,
but going the distance is the hardest part, son...

1.01pm: Our team's starting time finally came around. Angeline started off with a small pack of other 1-pm starters, and we were officially underway. We split - Van 1 got on its way to the next leg, and those of us in Van 2 headed out to do the tough task of finding a place to eat and relax. Our turn would come after the folks in Van 1 took care of the first six legs - in about 4 hrs or so.

3.30pm: After a hearty lunch, we were lazing around in Napa. Hey - weren't we supposed to be in a relay? It felt kinda anti-climactic. We were looking forward to actually getting to do something.

4.30pm: We reached the first interchange - where runner #6 (Tom) would hand off to runner #7 (Trevor). Vans crowded all over the place, runners getting ready. Ok, this was a real race after all.

5.16pm: Tom came in, handed the little wristband (which was the equivalent of the baton) to Trevor. For those of us in Van 2 , the race had finally begun. After seeing Trevor off, we hopped into our van and drove to the next interchange to pick up Trevor and drop off Jaime.

A view of the interchange point in Napa, while we waited for Trevor to pull in.

6.16pm: Trevor pulled in with a big smile on his face, and handed off the "baton" to Jaime. As Jaime took off we lost no time in getting back to our van and hustled down to the next exchange, since we knew that Jaime would be *really* fast.

Jaime takes off, as sunset approaches. Angelique, our time-keeper, notes down the Trevor-Jaime exchange time

8.50 pm: Our van pulled into the next exchange point, which was at a high school. Jaime and Mary had already finished their legs. Chris was on the course, running what probably was the hardest leg of them all, an 8.9 mile killer. I was due next, and I was having the butterflies in my stomach. I'd been waiting all day for this. I stepped out of the van, to warm up - and there was a stiff, cold breeze in the air. It felt kinda odd - I had just spent all of a very beautiful day, inside a van. And now, on a cold, dark night, I was getting ready to run. As I jogged around the school, I noticed that the crowd was an odd mixture of people, some, like me in their sweats and shorts, and others, a bunch of young folks who looked extremely well dressed. Oh - it was prom night at the high school.

9.23 pm: Chris pulled in, and from the look on his face, it was clear that he had just been through a most-brutal run. He was hobbling a bit too, which had us worried (he thought he'd twisted his ankle but luckily it turned out to be a false alarm). I took off into the cold night, wearing a reflective vest, and a headlamp, to light up the evening and keep me safe. (see a (headless) picture of me below. Hey, I was running too fast for the camera!). This was a 7.1 mile "hard" leg. The first three miles were flat, and through the city streets. They were well lit and all, but it was a bit annoying to have to stop at a couple of signals. Things got better as I reached "D" street shortly after mile 2 - the rest of my run was going to be on this street.

The hills started at mile 4, and would continue on through the end of mile 5. I had already been "roadkill-ed" (i.e., passed by runners from other teams) a few times, but I was feeling good at the bottom of the hill and that's what mattered. The road was now quite away from the city. There were no street lights anymore. I recall thinking earlier that it would be spooky running in the middle of the night through some lonely road - but now that I was on one such road, it was actually beautiful. The full moon was out - and it lit up the hill sides. I could see a couple of runners ahead, by the reflection of the moonlight on their vests. As we climbed up the hill, I realized that I was actually gaining on one of them. I focussed on him for the rest of the climb. Soon enough, we reached the top of the hill.Two more miles to go, all downhill. I had almost caught up with this other person, we were running on two sides of the road now. I decided to step it up a notch. Pretty soon, I overtook him (yeah! my first roadkill!) and was now coasting along. I couldn't relax though, as this person stuck right behind me and had the pressure on. A few more twists and turns, and just as I was starting to tire and wonder how much more we had left - I came around a bend, and suddenly - people. A relay volunteer cried "runner up - 159" (that was my team number) - a very pleasant sound indeed. A few more yards, and there was Angelique, waiting. I handed her the "baton", and pulled to a hard stop, and my legs almost buckled under me. It was 10.21pm, and I was done with my first leg. Quite a feeling.

10.50pm: We reached the next van exchange - a cheese factory in Marin county. The Van 1 folks were already there, ready to start their next set of legs, and we were ready to take a break. Angelique, our van's last runner, arrived around 11.10pm after hustling through a 4.8 mile "hard", hilly run, and handed it over to Angeline from Van 1. We had just finished one whole set of legs as a team. Whew! We figured we had around 4-5 hrs to kill, and decided to find something to eat first, followed by some sleep somehow, before our turn would come again, at around 3.30-4.00 am. The fun had just begun.

[To be continued...]

The Relay Story - A Preview

I realize that it has been more than one week since my last posting, and I want to assure you that I have neither disappeared from the face of the earth, nor have I decided that this running thing wasn't such a good idea after all. Rather, I have been hard at work on behalf of you all (atleast this is what I want you to believe), writing up an account of the relay I participated in, a couple weekends ago. The thing is, that account is turning into quite a novel. If you thought my other posts were long - well, brace yourself. So what I ve decided is to break it up into multiple (3, maybe 4) episodes, which will be released over the span of the next week or so.

In a nutshell, the relay was quite a trip. I had a fantastic time. Can't all be categorized as "fun" - but it certainly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I lucked out - I ended up with a really good group of people. Folks who were good, solid runners, but not obsessed about every single detail. As a team, our goal was to have a good time, and we didn't really worry about racing all that much. Despite the lack of sleep, cramped van-space, etc., a cheery attitude and good humor carried us through and made it a nice trip.

Episode 1 is out today for your reading pleasure. Enjoy, and send those comments/brickbats.

Asleep at the Heel

This is what my relay team calls itself. Yes, that's right. T his weekend I am abandoning my traditional long run, for what promises to be quite an interesting trip - the "relay".

The Relay, as it is simply called, is a 199 mile team run, from Calistoga to Santa Cruz. It starts tomorrow (Oct 15) and ends on Sunday (Oct 16th). Some people I know have run it for a few years now, and this year their team had an opening, and they asked me if I could do it, so here I am.

So here's how it works: Each team consists of 12 folks, and the 199 miles are divided up into 36 legs, with each person getting to do 3 legs each. Runners are ordered from 1 to 12, and each runner in a team gets to do a set of legs corresponding to the number. For example, I am number 11, so I get to do legs 11, 23, and 35. The legs are also ranked by difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard and Very Hard) and overall, the runners are also given an overall difficulty level (1 being the most difficult). My difficulty level is 4 - and my three legs are "Hard", "Easy" and "Hard". Kinda complicated? yeah. But it all adds to the fun.

Oh and did I mention we don't stop running through the night? There are many teams participating, and based on the teams "running ability" the starting times are assigned. Our starting time this year is 1pm tomorrow. We are split into two vans - runners 1-6 in Van 1, and 6-12 in Van 2. Given that each person's leg is ~6 miles, and that'd take ~45-55 min each (say), Im presuming it will take until 9-10pm or so to get to me for my first leg. The way they've timed it is such that the person who gets to run golden gate bridge will do so, around midnight, on a full moon. Now how's that for timing?

So - my legs are #11 (7.1 miles, Hard, in Petaluma), #23 (3.7 miles, Easy, in Skyline Blvd above San Mateo), and #35 - (6.5 miles, Hard, in upper west Santa Cruz). Total 17.2 miles. Now that can't be all that hard, can it? Considering Ive already done 18 miles at a stretch in my long runs.
But I suspect that the challenge here is in managing to sleep between runs, figure out when to eat, etc. and running at some really bizzare times. And in staying in a tiny van filled with 6 sweaty people for a day and a half. Should be a quite a trip. I'll tell you all about it when I get back! Time to get some sleep now, as this might be the last chance at getting a decent sleep for a couple of days.

The battle with the food belt

I am finally getting around again to writing about running, after a haphazard week or so. There was my apartment move to deal with - and then, the south asia earthquake - and we are all still coming to grips with the scale of the tragedy. Some local organizations that Im involved with are starting to work toward supporting relief efforts (fundraisers are being planned, etc) so I expect some of my time in the next few weeks to be occupied with that.

Regardless, my marathon training is still on - though I'd stopped writing about running for a little bit, running still has been going strong. Today I wanted to write about one of my recent runs, including an unusual struggle and some unexpected help that carried me through...

Our long run two sundays ago was an 18-miler. For me, and for other novice marathoners in the group, this would be the longest we would have ever run. I was pretty excited. Also, I had learnt my lessons from our 16 mile run two weekends ago - when I had just carried water for the entire run and ended up feeling wiped out. I was sporting a brand new, fancy water/food belt - a thing that you wear around your waist that contains a slot to hold your water bottle, plus pockets to store away some energy bar or sports gel. I was feeling good, feeling very prepared with my food belt, gel packets and gatorade mixed-water. This was going to be a good run.

I started running with Ted, slightly behind the rest of the group. Ted's a mid-thirties guy, he is a mathematician, as well as a pastor (quite a combination). He's a pretty good and fast runner, but this would be his first marathon too, and so he's doing some of the really long runs with the slow group, i.e., our group. He's quite a chatty guy and it didn't take long for us to start having a few laughs. All was well until half a mile - when things started sloshing around me. I realized that my food belt had loosened from its resting place around my waist and was now going up and down against my tummy! like a hula hoop. Of course, it had never occured to me to try the thing out beforehand. I had to stop. Ted, nice guy that he was, also stopped, and waited till I adjusted. I thought I had it nailed this time. We resumed running and had just started conversation again when the belt became loose one more time. Hmm - "maybe i had it on too tight. lets try loosening it a bit, and then it won't feel the pressure" - didn't work. "Maybe I should wear it lower." Not quite. "How about higher?". Nope. With each of these stops I became increasingly annoyed. I suggested to Ted that he should leave me to my plight and get on with it, that I'd join him and the group later. But he insisted that it was OK, he was determined to run with me no matter what. We got into a pattern - each time I had to stop, he would try and help me out with the belt. And then when we ran, he'd patiently engage me in conversation, trying to get my mind off the fact that I was wearing this awkward belt. By now we couldn't see the rest of the group ahead of us anymore - they were a few minutes ahead. Thankfully however, Three miles into the run, things improved considerably - I found a semi-decent neutral position for the belt and it held there for a little while. A mile later it started sloshing again, and I decided that I would just ignore it. At 5 miles I took the water bottle out of the belt and decided to carry it in my hand - and the sloshing reduced considerably. At mile ten, when we were back at my car (we were doing a 10 mile loop followed by an 8 mile loop to get our 18 miles) I dumped the contraption into my car, and the rest of the run was a breeze. In the end, 18 miles was accomplished without feeling too bad, and a new milestone was reached!

Now that I've had time to reflect on the run, I realize what a difference it made to have Ted along in those early stages of the run. If he'd left me and run with the rest of the pack right from the start, I'd probably have imploded on myself, that's how frustrated I was feeling. What's even more remarkable is the fact that he kept stopping whenever I stopped. To appreciate that, you have to know that one of the things runners HATE most is stopping intermittently when they don't want to. It upsets their rythm, screws up their timing, makes them stiff, etc. etc. If I were in his position, I'd probably have taken off and joined the rest of the pack! And yet, my day was salvaged only because he hung around with me for those first painful 30 minutes. Here's to you, Ted. I owe you one.

[ Check out the features of the food belt in the image. Quite fancy, don't you think? Now if only there was a way to actually wear it....]

And what happened to the brand new food belt, you may ask? well - it has figured out it needs more training before it can join me on long runs. So its going to take it easy for a while. Meanwhile, Im reverting to tried and true stuff - my old bottle strap to carry in my hand, plus shorts with pockets to keep energy bars and keys and what not (wow, what a concept). Who needs new technology?

Tragedy in South Asia - please help

The move to my new place finally got done last week, and I expected to get back to writing up my running stories tonight - but these past couple of days, things have been shaken by news of the earthquake in South Asia. As you all know - on Saturday this massive quake hit the North Pakistan/Kashmir region, resulting in tens of thousands dead (and still counting), many of them school children - the lives of millions devastated. Friends of South Asia, a South Asian community organization in the SF Bay Area that I am involved with, along with other Indians/Pakistanis in the area are trying to figure out what we can do to help. At the very least we can all donate generously. Go to the earthquake wikipedia/wikicities page at http://pakistan.wikicities.com/wiki/Earthquake_10-05 to get latest news, info, photographs, personal accounts, etc. as well as various donation options.

more running stuff coming tomorrow...

I'm still here - and will be back REAL SOON!

In case you are wondering - no, I have not disappeared from the face of the earth. Only thing is, my time-availability + internet access have been rather sketchy over the past few days. This is because I m in the middle of moving apartments, and living a nomad's life right now. I should be done with all of that craziness by this weekend - but in the meantime, the list of things I want to share with y'all has been growing everyday.. Lots of interesting stories to tell!

Here's what's cooking:
- my 18 mile run this past wknd and some "unusual" struggles
- October - the "monster month"
- the "relay" - a 200 mile, 12 person team run that I'll be doing Oct 14-15
- What do runners think about when they are running? (I will build off of a question asked by Parul in a comment to a previous posting)

... and much more. So be sure to check back this weekend.