Texas Independence Relay Info

The Texas Independence Relay is composed of 40 relay legs of various lengths, totaling over 200 miles. The course starts in Gonzales, TX, where the Texas Revolution began, and it finishes at the San Jacinto Monument, where Texas Independence was won!

The relay will run from March 7th - 8th.

8 original Waiting for Runs Relay members will be returning (we will miss abelisle, the Foos, & Mystery runner)

This time, we will up the challenge and have 9 runners in a luxurious 15 passenger van. This means no resting time for the 2nd van.

Keep an eye out here for updated info and up to the minute updates.

2009 Texas Independence Relay Runners

  • 1) 1Miletogo
  • 2) Monk_Monkey
  • 3) noels71
  • 4) texasbuckeye
  • 5) mawz76
  • 6) wondermom24
  • 7) slowashell
  • 8) James
  • 9) SusieQ

Texas Independence Relay Map

Texas Independence Relay Map
Click the Map for individual Leg Maps

Thursday, April 24, 2008

In Search of Dean

UPDATE 4/24: The results show that Team Dean completed 147.6 miles solo for a complete time of 28 hours 18 minutes finishing at 11:18 AM.

We all looked forward to seeing Dean at the Pre-race dinner, and we were all bummed when he had flight problems and couldn't make it in time for the 7:30 speaking engagement at the Calistoga Inn.

Van #2 got a rare treat as we were driving to the start of Leg 8. We passed Dean as he was tredding along. We stopped and turned around and snapped a few pictures and a little video as he passed. We then continued to the exchange for Leg 8. As we waited, I imagined that I might have a rare chance to run with Dean or try and catch him for mega bonus roadkill points.



Dean then came up to the exchange and entered his motor home (The mothership). He didn't come back out, but his dad continued on as I waited for my team to handoff. I didn't see Dean's dad on that run but talked to him later.

At the end of leg 9 we were waiting for wondermom to hand off to Alex and low and behold we see Dean again. People were cheering as he passed and headed to the hills of the next stage. I hadn't passed Dean's dad on 8, but somewhere on 9 Dean had passed wondermom. Soon wondermom had passed off to Alex and we went on to the next runner exchange.

We waited at the end of leg 10, and the mothership pulled up. Dean's Dad got out and he talked with Robyn, Mark, and I for about 10 minutes. He mentioned how he got off course on leg 8 and used a phone to call and tell that he was off course. He mentioned that he tried to get another lady on track (a lady that I had passed while I was on 8 myself) but she didn't believe that she was going the wrong way. Dean's Dad also mentioned that they were going to run Big Sur next week. Overall a very enjoyable conversation with his dad.



Soon Dean came into the runner exchange and continued on through the cheering and high 5's of the crowd. About 10 minutes later, Alex came into the exchange, he had survived the hardest leg of the relay. Mark took off out of the exchange into the gale force winds chasing after the great Dean.

Halfway through the course we waited for Mark to supply some water for him. Along comes Deans Dad, it seems that there was a substitution somewhere along leg 11. We waved and cheered him on as he started to climb a small hill. We continued on to leg 12 to prep Susie for the last set of legs before the van exchange.

As we sat at the exchange, low and behold here comes Dean again, he is being paced by a few female runners as he came through the exchange. He got the usual high 5's and cheers as he continued on down the road. We made our runner hand off and headed to the van exchange.

It was starting to get dark at the van exchange and soon, Dean came trotting down the road. ne of the volunteers was wondering why he wasn't handing off to another runner and someone shouted, that's Dean, he is running the whole thing by himself, he isn't handing off. This caused a bunch of people to come down to the exchange area and cheer Dean on as he ran down the road. That was the last time anyone from van 2 saw Dean during the 2008 Relay.

His blog at http://dean.runnersworld.com/2008/04/the-relay.html has some info leading up to the relay. His finish time is not on the 2008 results, so I am unsure if he finished or not.

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Relay Medal

Relay Medal

Team Waiting for Runs - Slideshow

1Mile's Relay Photo Stream

Texasbuckeye's pics

wondermom24's photos

abelisle's Relay Photos

mawz76's Relay Photos