The Last Leg!!!

LEG 29

This was the leg of doom, what I began at some point over the weekend to call my "3 miles of hell". This was the leg I dreaded for the weeks and hours leading up to it, the one I was pacing back and forth over while waiting at the exchange. I will break it down for you below...

A 3 mile course winding up into the densely wooded Santa Cruz Mountains.
Starting Elevation (compliments of noels71): 589 feet
Start of Leg to Mile 1: rise of 148 feet in elevation
Mile 1 to Mile 2: rise of 300 feet in elevation
Mile 2 to Mile 3: rise of 465 feet in elevation!!!
Ending Elevation: 1502 feet
Hill training in preparation for this leg : close to nil! I know - Dumbass, right?


If you click on noels71's primal scream video you will see him passing off our replacement baton to a oddly large woman in a green sweater... that's me at the start of the leg!

I tore off from the exchange (tearing off for me is like a 10 min/mile pace!) thinking that the ascent would be just around the corner. But no, around it were a couple of small easy inclines which I would have been embarrassed to walk. They were followed by a couple of equally small declines which I ran as fast as possible. The first of the horrific hills caught me by complete surprise. I had expected some crazy hills, but not walls of concrete stretching and winding up and out of sight, ending who knew where!

I walked these as quickly as I could and at times I felt like I was struggling through pits of tar. With every step on these monsters, I was jerking my knees up as high as possible and to a passerby, I have no doubt I would have looked as though I was attempting some strange type of combat march. And combat was what it was, between myself and this mountain that I had chosen to take on.

I never expected to run it and believe me, I wasn't the only one forced into a submission crawl by it. But, I kept going, knowing that if I stopped I'd be giving up on myself and my team. I expected to finish those 3 miles of uphill in an hour.

I reached a point in the climb, just when I thought it might never end (I didn't bother to look at my iPod this time since it had been so far off during my previous runs), when I heard cheering. For a split second my spirits jumped, then I reigned them back, thinking it was perhaps just a runner's support vehicle up ahead rooting them on and not the exchange/end of my 3 miles of hell.

A minute late, after suddenly after coming over a rise, the road leveled out and began a small descent. I could see the glimmering of what looked like glass from van windows through the foliage ahead and could hear shouts and laughter. I picked up the pace again and when I saw the beautiful orange traffic cones around the bend, I went once again into my mawz-sprint and passed the baton to texasbuckeye for the last time. If I weren't so tired, I might have cried! I finished it in 50 minutes and texasbuckeyed took his 3.1 mile similar ascent in 27 minutes, the closest we'd be the entire weekend! Since I gave many runners during the relay the pleasure of being their roadkill, I'll take that for a moment I wasn't SO far off from the rest of my team!

Thanks to all of Team Waiting For Runs and who woulda thunk I'd ever call traffic cones beautiful?

The link to my second leg is...
http://waitingforruns.blogspot.com/2008/04/leg-2-began-for-me-around-1134-pm-on.html

Do it for the team...

What an amazing experience.  After a little time away to really think about it, WOW!  Like everyone has said, things went so smoothly, everyone supported each other so well, and the teamwork was super.  We really did it!!!  It was so much fun and everyone just pulled together to make it all work.  In conversations with different team members, I heard people say that they actually pushed harder and ran faster because they were running for the team and not just for themselves.  No way would we let down our teammates.  After Foo had that great first leg, it energized everyone, in spite of winds, cold, and crazy hills.    

Thanks, everyone, it was so wonderful to spend the weekend with you and meet you in person!  

Thanks to GGPRunner for amazing support, beyond the call of duty - can't wait to see you again in Oct for the Nike Women's!     

Thanks, tex, for being a great team captain.  Mawz76, you are amazing!  Your organization and preparation made this all work.  1 Mile, the shirts were totally cool!  This shirt joins the original Quad shirt at the top of my list!  Thanks to everyone who pitched in with whatever was needed, down to safety pins and peanut butter!

My Night Run!

Leg 2 began for me around 11:34 pm on Saturday. I took over from noels71 outside a bank and coffee house in the town of Corte Madera. This night run was the one I'd most been looking forward to and was actually a little dismayed that it didn't seem that it would be taking place in a more remote area.

About a quarter mile into the run, I turned a corner and saw two rather steep but short hills up ahead. I slowed to a walk during these unexpected inclines and, determined to make up for the time, I decided not to stop again until the end of this leg. If you know how I train and how I've run both of my half marathons, I follow a running with walk breaks plan. I will run a mile then walk for a tenth of a mile, then run a mile, then walk for a tenth of a mile, etc.

So I brought my running pace down about 30 seconds per mile and kept going and going and going. My course went onto a bike path alongside a freeway and I enjoyed coasting a bit of downhill before I left the path into a residential area. There were a couple of runners gaining on me and I was just focusing on maintaining a pace that would get me to the end without my usual walk breaks when I heard a rustling to my right.

When I brought my head up I was stunned by the sight of at least two dozen horses, some white and others black or brown grazing in a pasture on the other side of a chainlink fence. They had to have been no more than 8 feet from where I ran past. They kept on eating and payed no mind to the wild woman running out of nowhere, past them and off down the street.

I don't know how to explain it other than to say seeing that many horses so suddenly, under the full moonlight, while running at night in a place I'd never even heard of was... surreal, to say the least, and emotional and breathtaking! I wished I'd taken my camera for the night leg!

About a mile beyond that a bike path took me most of the remainder of my leg, along a few wooden bridges over small waterways and the smell of the ocean was invigorating and helped me focus on getting to the end of my run...

Right past the 4.9 miles on my iPod which is when my Leg should have been over. I went on and it wasn't until it read 5.6 miles that I could see texasbuckeye waiting for me at the baton exchange in Sausalito. Again, I did my little mawz-sprint (which I imagine is probably only about a 9 minute mile) to the end! But just the joy of having set my mind to finishing without walking and being able to do it, was enough for me!


My first leg description can be found here: http://waitingforruns.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-first-leggggggg.html

1Mile's photo album

Well, I uploaded my photos. I wish that I would have taken more, maybe with an iphone I would have... Anyway, here is my link: http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii30/1miletogo/The%20Relay/ It appears that 30 images is the max for a slideshow, so the above link will allow you to see all 68. I'm sure when everyone has their photos posted, that we will have hit almost every aspect of the weekend.