Hood To Coast 2011 Race Report - Race Errata

Since blogging about my most recent experience with the Hood To Coast team relay in Oregon, I've gotten a lot of great feedback. Some if it was along the lines of "Hey, great blog!" which is awesome to hear and "I like Oregon!" which is also awesome to hear. Mostly the feedback I got was long the lines of "I don't get it. What did you do exactly and why?". Hmmmm. Right. It's my blog and I wrote about my experience from my perspective but from my perspective, I already know a lot about Hood To Coast.

What is Hood To Coast / What is a team relay race?
Hood To Coast calls itself "The Mother of All Relays". I have no idea if that's true. I know it is not the only long distance team relay race out there but they very well may have started the model. There's on very near where I live in California called The Relay that runs from Calistoga to Santa Cruz and we've talked about doing it. We haven't mostly because we consider Hood To Coast our event.

The way it works is you are a runner on a team of 12 runners. You will each run 3 legs of a 36 leg relay race that covers about 200 miles. You run in a rotating order so if you run Leg 1, you also run legs 13 and 25. In order to "pass the baton" to the next runner, you ride ahead in a van. Instead of everyone riding in one van, you split your team between two vans. As a runner is on the road, a van drives ahead to the next baton exchange to drop off the next runner in the lineup order. The other van drives ahead and rests and prepares. You cycle runners and vans like until you reach the finish line.

Is there more too it than that?
Yeah, but not too much more. While your runner is on the road you might, if you are able, drive part way ahead and pull over to offer them water and cheer them on and check on their well-being. This is really important. Even if the runner doesn't need water or cheering or help, necessarily, as a part of a team this support is vital to morale. In many cases, it's vital to runner health as well. Many times I've seen runners say "don't stop for me" (including myself) just to find that they needed something half way through and were very glad that you did stop.

And this is supposed to be fun?
It is supposed to be fun! And it has been every time. Not only that but every time we do it we have teammates we've either all never met before or who only one or two of us has met. Not only do they have fun but at the end of the event we have new friends. After spending 29 hours in a cramped van with sweaty, cramped, exhausted people, sleeping on the ground, eating weird foods, trying to stay hydrated, sane, alive, you bond.

To me, that is the joy, the beauty, the irresistible allure of this event: teamwork. It starts before the race, decorating the vans to celebrate your teammates and your team and the event. One of our teammates this year brought a ton of sparkly temp tattoos (unicorns, hearts, rainbows, dolphins, oh my!) and we spent the waiting time plastering them all over our bodies and laughing. Everyone is in it together. Everyone is going to have their own needs and times when they aren't so happy. Being able to rely on a team makes it that much easier to get back out on the road. This is absent of every other race of the non-relay variety. When you start your 3rd 10k leg in 24 hours with no sleep and, about a mile or two in, a van load of cheering, delirious lunatics drives by with the windows down, screaming their heads off, it makes a difference to how you feel.

I've seen some amazing feats of team support. The first year I ran it, my entire van jumped out to run with our exhausted runner in to the finish line; running extra miles on top of our own to lend any bit of energy, strength, spirit we had left to our anchor runner. The second year a twisted ankle left a teammate running an extra leg. The third year it was me being unable to keep food and water down that had a teammate running one of my legs and then, later, another twisted ankle had me picking up a leg despite my own problems. I've documented the feats of team spirit in my most recent race experience in my race reports. It's an amazing thing when people who have already pushed themselves to their physical and mental limits find that they have even more to give, if it means helping a teammate and the team reach the finish line.

I love this race because it shows me that I can accomplish amazing things (even if I'm hurting and begging to quit) and that I can help others accomplish amazing things. I love this race because it shows me what amazing, strong, resilient, superhuman people my family and friends are. Every year we say "never again" but that's just for a day or two. Even now we are talking about splitting duties for 2012's event... if we make it through the lottery...

Hood To Coast 2011 Race Report - Wherein Our Heroes Are Victorious

I rolled sorely out of bed, likely muttering curses, and shuffled across the hall for a short shower. Thanks to the Pepto dosing the day before, I was feeling okay enough to force down some oatmeal and another swig of Pepto. The familiar milky minty fluid was a pathetic replacement for coffee. Other sleepers started to rise and I roused the remainders. Others crankily lamented the lack of coffee and we did a quick van clean up, packed the cooler with drinks and ice and hit the road in the pre-dawn dark.

As we drove up Highway 30 we saw something we'd never ever seen in past years, the end of the race. Exchanges were being broken down and we didn't see any runners on the road for a long time. Finally we came up on the last runner on the course, being followed by one of the security motorcycles with its flashers on. Man, a few of us commented for foreshadowing, glad that's not one of us. As we got further up the road and closer to the major exchange we saw more runners and knew that, despite still being at the back of the race, we were still pretty well surrounded with other teams.

We met Van 1 at the exchange and found they'd had a tough night after their hot weather runs the day before. Still, everyone was on track and even a little ahead of schedule. Even Naomi who, as she came in to the exchange to make the hand off, looked like she was really hurting and had not been able to receive van support for her leg. But, in the breaking morning light, they were excited to be two legs down and to be headed to sleepy time out in a field somewhere.

Naomi comes in to the exchange at the Colombia County Fairgrounds 

Van 1 drifts off to sleep in a field

There's something kind of amazing about sleeping during Hood To Coast. I've noticed a similar phenomena with The Game. There's only so much being awake, physically and mentally exerting, that your body can take. Some can take more. I can take less. But your body and brain can be tricked. Sleep for an hour or two, get focused on the task at hand and adrenaline (and blind stubborn will) take over. Unless you can sleep sitting up in a cramped and sweaty van, you only really have 2 chances to sleep for 2 hours and usually that's on the ground in the middle of a busy race.

Once we were back to running it was like it was the most natural thing to be doing at that moment. We ran through some farmland and into the beginning hills of the coastal range. This saw Burke running 6 miles in a never-ending set of dirt road switchbacks, passing off to me for a gentle downhill 5 miler. Even so, I was feeling the miles from the day before and needed a bit of walk therapy. I'd never run the leg in the daylight before and I chuckled as I came across the landmarks I'd seen on the map but never with my eyes. Hey, Barn! Blue gate! There IS a creek here!

I still came in on time so I must have been going faster than I'd felt. Something odd had happened on my leg, though. I saw quite a few vans at the exchange and saw a few teams make the hand off. When I was on the road I saw at least 6 or 7 vans pass me. What I never saw on that leg was another racer. Weird. I was just in a dead spot, I guessed because after we dropped Shawn he ended up with a pretty good group to run with and even had a rivalry with a runner we'd mistakenly cheered thinking he was Shawn. He came over to us after the leg to shake Shawn's hand and was surprised to see Shawn was with the van that had been following him, cheering.

It gets a little dirty out there 

The team returns to the van after Burke handed off to me

The day was starting to heat up again and we felt bad for Van 1 that they'd be spending their third legs as they'd spent their first, in the heat. Luckily it didn't get as hot on the second day, though it still got up over 80 at the peak. Shawn, Lisa and Morgan all had strong second legs. While waiting to put Morgan on the road we came across one of the Granges where in past years we'd seen signs advertising hot food. I'd just run out of gas on my leg and I was hungry. Hungry enough to grab some cash and head inside. I should have been deterred by the pushy guy trying to guilt sell me 4 pastries for a dollar. I should have been deterred by the white dreaded burner (he talked about burning man the whole time) making very unfunny jokes and penis shaped pancakes. I should have been deterred by being charged $6.50 for two inedible pancakes, two eggs that did not go 'over easy' and a slab of fossilized ham. Harsh? Maybe. I get it, Hood To Coast is a boon and a curse for those small towns. Once a year tens of thousands of people roll through town with no real interest in the town itself. Once a year they have the chance to fund raise above and beyond what their small community might otherwise manage. All I'm saying is, repeat business is not a guarantee. Besides, common H2C knowledge is that the best food is from "the garage" at Exchange 30. Next time, garage burgers fo sho! Still, I dropped a couple of extra bucks in the pushy pastry guy's jar. It was for a good cause.

Calories are calories, I guess - Matt and Burke

Morgan hands off to Rachel

Morgan after her hand off to Rachel

After Morgan's hand off to Rachel, we decided to drive ahead to major exchange 30 for some shut eye of our own, if we could manage it. As we drove ahead to Exchange 30, we caught the race. Suddenly we were back in the thick of things. Suddenly we were in traffic. We hit it about a mile or so outside of 30. At that time we had not heard about the traffic problems others had experienced. This was the first van back up we'd seen the entire race. Unfortunately, I had to go. And I mean, GO! NOW! A LOT! Shawn piped up that he was in a similar pee-dicament and that a Honey Bucket would be a welcome sight. Instead, traffic crawled along, runners and timers popped out of the vans and trotted down the road to the next exchange, attempting to beat their runners to the mark. We crawled along with our van door open, ready to run to the first appropriate waste receptacle we saw. 

Surprisingly, Exchange 30 was busy but not packed. We found Honey Buckets (with lines!) and we found paradise. Many of our teammates had piled out of the van where it was parked, rolled out their sleeping bags in the thin shade and slept. In our quest for HBs, Shawn and I had discovered a wide open, tree lined area next to a gently burbling drainage pond. It was huge. It was empty. It was cool enough in the shade to curl up in your sleeping bag. That's what we did. The blue sky, the breeze through the trees, the cool shade and cool grass... Heaven. There, with my shoe pillow, in my sleeping bag, I was totally at peace. Oddly enough, I found myself right next to Jessica's cousin Nicole again. A great spot is a great spot. But there was more running to be had and Van 1 was upon us.

Van 1 is stoked to be done

Dan and Marc share a pretty hilarious rivalry (Back of Marc's shirt reads "Dan's Man" back of Dan reads "I <3 Marc!") 

Naomi finishes her last leg and Van 1's journey

Good morning... afternoon? Uhh... where are we?

As we headed back to our van to complete our final set of legs, we noticed a marked difference. For one, our van was the ONLY van in a huge field. All of the facilities were being taken down around us. What happened? No time to think about it, we've got a runner on the road! This is where the race got weird. While doing van support for Jess, we noticed a marked drop in the number of teams around us. We were still a little ahead of schedule so we weren't worried. At Burke's exchange, the volunteers had stopped managing the exchange, or parking, or anything. They either sat in the shade or worked to take down and pack up the exchange. We called out team numbers for the few teams around us. Burke took off on his last leg and while we waited at the next exchange for my last leg, there were very few teams around us.

The exchange was again being torn down, the volunteers were eagerly heading home. Teams, it seems, were being asked to leap frog (drive ahead and drop off all of their runners to run simultaneously) to make sure they made it to the finish before it closed. No one asked us. Many teams openly discussed, and many seemed to decide on, dropping out at that point. Somehow, despite being on our predicted pace and H2C's predicted pace for our team, we were at the very end of the race pack.

I was hurting at that point but confident that I could complete 7.73 miles of gently rolling road in mid 70 temps. I might have to walk a little but I'd get there and we'd probably still be on pace. I bolstered myself with some placebos, Advil and KT Tape. I set off at a good casual pace and held it strong for 3 miles. I kept looking over my shoulder to see which teams might catch up and pass. No way was I going to let myself get killed on my last leg if I could help it. I had a funny feeling. One of the radio communication trucks kept passing me and asking how I was doing. "Oh, I'm good, just taking a drink" and "Feelin' fine, just needed a walk break". Finally he came by and asked my team number "683!" I shouted. Errr... "682!" He drove up the road out of view. Suddenly up ahead I saw something; something black and weasel shaped. Marmot? Weasel? Some weird Nutria cross breed? Whatever it was, it was hustling on the same route in the opposite direction and no way was I going to get in the way of that. I pretty much ran to the other side of the street for a couple hundred yards.

Up ahead my van had pulled off the road. I was more than 4 miles in and I was hurting. I ate a Gu and drank some watered down Gatorade. I lied to my team about how I was feeling. I kept going. As I ran away someone yelled "You're the last runner on the course". Really?! There were teams behind us at the exchange. Had they all dropped out? The certainly hadn't dropped runners if there was no one behind me. With no one in sight in front of me and no chance of someone being behind me, I was alone. I'd stopped seeing team vans a mile or two back but hadn't thought about it. I was running on a country road, in the middle of nowhere, ostensibly in one of the biggest road races in the world. With more than 20,000 participants, I was the last one in the train and I was alone. Psychologically, I was gutted. All motivation left me and my body turned to lead. Painful lead. The radio truck came by again and I said I was fine again. I wasn't. As soon as he was out of sight I stopped and I threw a fit. I tore off my KT tape and threw it in the bushes (Sorry! Littering makes me feel terrible!) I considered throwing my empty Gu pack into the bushes too (Screw you, weasels!) but that was too blasphemous for me. Before the race, Rachel had joked 'Who is going to puke and who is going to cry?' "Oh my god" I thought, "Am I going to cry?". No. No I was not.

I ran as much as I could and walked when I had to, usually for just 10 or 20 yards. I ran past a H2C photographer and told him "You just snapped a photo of dead 'effing last place". (I know that with staggered start times we were far from last place but it sure felt like it at the time.) I decided that when the radio truck came by again I would quit. I'd get a ride to the next exchange and tell my team I was sorry but I was defeated. I came around a corner and saw my team van instead. I think I tried to quit to them and was instead flanked by Jessica and Burke and led back onto the road. We're going to run together, they said. I started to protest but kept going anyway. I didn't want to quit. That was the last thing I wanted. They chatted with me as we ran and walked. I felt a million times better just to be with people, to not be alone, to be part of a team, to be part of a race. We joked and Jessica rapped some of the filthier songs on the most recent Girl Talk album to motivate me. They'd told me I had just a mile and half to go but I'd immediately checked my Nike+ and knew I had two and some change. They were amazing and they got me to the finish line, amazingly, on time. I learned later I had David to thank, at least in part, for that support. We've known each other for a long time and when they'd told me I was the last guy, he saw the light go out in me. I'd lied but he didn't buy it.

After I handed off to Shawn we were approached by a race official. They'd need us to leap frog our last runners. We asked if there was any way to avoid that. At that point we were about 20 minutes behind our estimated finish but we didn't see much difference in finishing at 9:20pm instead of the 8:50pm they'd predicted for us. They knew our paces. They knew our start time. They'd planned for us to be out here now. Why were we being asked to get out of the way, essentially? No answer, just brusqueness. The official demanded to see our timing sheet. We showed her the app we were using. She demanded to see Van 1's timing sheet. Uh... they're at the beach. She harangued and harassed us like we were a-holes for being where they'd planned for us to be when they'd planned for us to be there. We were flustered but we agreed to do as they said. We dropped Jessica off at Shawn's finish to explain to him where we were, dropped Lisa off at the same exchange to start a grueling and unsupported (because we'd be racing around dropping off and picking up) 8 miler. We dropped Morgan off and told her we wouldn't make it to the Finish line at the beach to cross as a team. Sorry.

We passed back by Lisa on our way to get Shawn, she was also alone but seemed to be doing fine. We picked up Shawn and headed back by Lisa. Now she was being closely trailed along the side of the road by the radio truck with its caution lights on. She was feeling humiliated and her pace was suffering from being followed by a car (try it, it sucks). She wanted to finish her miles. We're a stubborn team. We'd paid to take the ride and, dammit, we were taking the whole thing. We drove ahead to a safe pull out and Shawn jumped out. He'd run the last 1.6 miles with his wife to the next exchange.

Shawn and Lisa before our 3rd set of legs

 Shawn at the pullout waiting to run with Lisa

Shawn and Lisa run along a logging road into an abandoned Exchange 35

We talked to the race officials at Exchange 35 and tried to explain our situation to them. Apparently we were the first ones to attempt an explanation and they had some trouble understanding. They had trouble understanding why we wanted to be out there at all. Didn't we know the race was over? Didn't we know they were closing up the exchange? They couldn't understand wanting to finish the race. We were an oddity. A curiosity. They just didn't get it.

We drove to the Finish Line with a sense of quiet pride. Mostly I think we bitched about how we'd been treated for the last 3 or 4 hours but we were proud to be done. We were proud to be on such a supportive team. We were proud of our accomplishment. But with the experiences of the last legs in my mind, I'd forgotten about the fun of the beginning of the race. I wrote angry emails in my head.

We met Van 1 and Morgan at the beach party and rushed over to the photo stands. Van 1 had asked the photographers to please stay for just one more team. We heard the last announced team cross the line. It wasn't us. It should have been us. We got our team photo and our medals, turned in our timing sheet and headed for the vans to drive to a condo in Cannon Beach where pizza and beer waited. As we turned to leave, fireworks started to explode overhead. We stopped and watched for a bit but ultimately we were too tired, too beat down to stay. Personally, I felt like a badass as we turned and walked away with 200 miles in our legs, medals around our necks, team pride swelling our hearts, explosions booming and crackling overhead.

Hood To Coast 2011 Race Report - It Begins

With a 3:45pm start time on top of Mt. Hood, just an hour outside of Portland without traffic, there was no real sense of urgency on the morning of the race. There was definitely a sense of tension and anticipation as lists were checked and plans were made, remade and repeated aloud to ensure understanding. Normally vans would have been packed the night before in anticipation. On this day we got up, sought out coffee, fueled up both vans, decorated them, packed them and waited for Van 1's occupants to amass. Riding in Van 1 would be (from left to right) Marc, Naomi, Amy, Dan, Stephen and Team Captain Rachel.

Van 1 is ready to roll!

Sometime around lunch Van 1 talked a bunch of smack, dished out a round of hugs and high fives and headed for the start line. We'd learned in past years to leave extra early for the start and for at least the first couple of van exchanges. Traffic up the mountain on H2C days can get pretty slow and there's a surprising amount of registration activity to perform once you're up there. I was in Van 1 in 2007 and I remember getting up there thinking we had plenty of time and ending up basically pinning a number on our first runner as she bolted out of the start gate.

They made it up in time to gawk at some vans and costumes and to hit the merchandise table. This sparked a realization for those of us in Van 2, how were we going to get merch? Since Nike took over the race, the official race merchandise has vastly improved in quality and desirability. They sell out of everything every year. If we weren't at the start line and wouldn't be at the finish until 9pm the next day, we were probably out of luck for merch. Bummer. This was the first disappointment surrounding our late start time. (Luckily I have an awesome girlfriend/volunteerfriend who hit the beach in Seaside early on Saturday and scored me a cool shirt. Thanks, love!)

682 lurks in the shadows and no one suspects a thing...

They're off! Go, Rachel!

Back in Portland, Van 2 lounged around watching TV and waited. The race had begun at 3am under an apparently terrifying spectacle of lightning flashing and striking all around the mountain; the runners were shook by the booming thunder and were doused with rain. We envied them. We waited. We repeated the schedule over and over and got it wrong again and again out of a tense eagerness to get going already. Weren't we supposed to leave for Sandy at 4? 4:30? Nope. Just wait for it. More team members arrived and our volunteers left for their post, my first exchange. Around 6:15 our final runner arrived, a stranger to all present who had accepted a challenge while drinking with the captain, Burke. Riding in Van 2 would be Lisa, Shawn, Burke, Jessica, Morgan and Matthew. We were lucky enough to have a driver, Jessica's husband and my long-time friend, David (pictured below in shadow form).

I thought we were all going to be flexing. Guess not.

On our way up we got a call from the volunteers. They'd gotten to their exchange and had forgotten flashlights and flashy blinkers. No problem. We'd pick some up at the Safeway we were headed to for the van exchange and would pass them off to Van 1 so they could drive ahead and drop them off on their way back to Portland for real food, a real shower and an hour or two in a real bed. I've learned in past years that, whether you are tired or not, you have to take advantage of that bed time.

We pulled into the Sandy Safeway with an hour to spare and spent the time doing our own van and costume gawking. We had coincidentally parked right next to Jessica's cousin, Nicole's, team. I tried to settle a nervous stomach by munching a couple of awful, awful cherry Pepto chewables and by repeatedly visiting the Honey Bucket. Safeway had cleverly put signs on the Honey Buckets (See also: Porta-Potty, Porta-John, etc...) notifying racers of the array of products available inside the store. "Fresh muffins and bagels inside!" declared the Honey Bucket I visited repeatedly (I try to keep my repetition as repetitious as possible). I was so amused by the signs that I made a point of exclaiming upon my exit, "Those muffins were NOT fresh!"

Jessica waits for Naomi at the first van exchange

The race was on! Sure it had been on for hours but we were finally in the thick of things. Teams were all around us and the excitement of racing carried us through our first sets of legs. The sun had set by the time Jessica set off and by the time she handed off to Burke, it was dark. Burke handed off to me sometime before midnight and I think I ran into the next day.

 Waiting for Burke while distracting my girlfriend/volunteer 

The Flash let the volunteer coordinator know our volunteer was well supported ;)

Before I set off I spent some time chatting with fellow racers. A guy in a flashing fiber optic mohawk asked me about the leg we were about to set off on and I told him where to take the turns and to not worry because volunteers would guide us. I told him I'd say hello again when he inevitably would pass me. I was feeling slow. He did pass me right as we were hitting a few miles of rough dirt trail and was huffing as he went by. "Sorry for breathing so loud", he said. "No problem!" (it really wasn't, he couldn't see it but my headphones were in, a rule violation but not one I was worried about on a protected trail in the middle of the night) "BULLSHIT!", he exclaimed, "I'm annoying the shit out of myself!" and then he was pulling off ahead. The trail was long, straight and pitch black, tall trees and shrubs on both sides and no lights at all. I could see that flashing mohawk getting smaller and smaller for miles. Once those lights were out of view, all I could see was a super illuminated halo of dust in front of my face.

Mohawk was one of three runners to road kill me and I got a road kill myself. My kill later caught back up to me when I caught the cord of my headphones on my swinging monkey arms and flung it down the side of the trail. As she caught up to me clipping my gear back on she said "Your rear flashing light is completely inadequate". What. Ever. She kept pace with me for a while but I decided I didn't like her attitude, turned up my pace and she faded fast. I felt good. I got a little calf cramped at mile 5, as in every one of my training runs, but it wasn't bad and I finished ahead of schedule. Coming in to the exchange I was used to, I found an empty parking lot. "Keep going!" yelled a volunteer. They'd moved the exchange about a hundred feet around a slight bend. As I came in they asked my number and I told them it was 862. "862!" they yelled down the course to the waiting teams. "682! 682!" I started yelling wildly. "Here comes Matt!" said my team.

We made the rest of our exchanges along the Springwater Trail, navigating the new exchange points and new driving routes better than a lot of other teams, including flashing fiber optic mohawk team which repeatedly missed their exchange. It was really confusing and there was a lot of doubt that we were going the right way but we had a great driver and he got us to each exchange with time to spare.

 Shawn hands off to Lisa along the Springwater Trail. Yeah, it's way dark.

Before long we were racing ahead of our last runner to the next van exchange. Morgan would come into that exchange to declare her leg as "really scary" because of the pitch black trail portion and "really creepy" because of the "hobos" downtown. At that exchange under the Hawthorne Bridge in downtown Portland, the runners and "hobos" has crashed out next to each other and were hard to tell apart.

 This is the classic 'arms crossed tight to keep food inside' pose

Rachel looks ready to rock but, after that downhill on Leg 1, her quads were almost audibly screamin'

We drove the couple of miles back to Rachel's place and I immediately crashed out. It was 2:15 and I set the alarm for 4:15. When it went off it was like I was an episode of Jackass and had just been woken from a deep slumber with one guy slapping me in the face and another kicking me in the junk. I limped to the shower and started psyching myself up for what I new would be a very long day.

Next Time: Where'd Everybody Go?