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.
2 comments:
When I first looked at the map, I thought you were going to run over 17, and I wondered how much of a mess traffic would have been there! So ok, it looks like you're taking the 9 route. Just watch out for those crazy motorcyclists heading for skyline...
jean-michel,
yup, those crazy motorcyclists were out there in full force. Our run meandered through Skyline Blvd onto Hwy 9, and we bumped into them in the whole stretch. Luckily most of them were headed the other way from us, otherwise it could have been nasty. But the god-awfully loud noises still scared the crap out of people. I have no problems with motorcycling or motorcyclists, but why do some of those bikes need to make so much noise? Seems like a strong case of inferiority complex.
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