Monk's Nike+ Relay Runs

Overall the Nike+ was very close! My Garmin seemed to report that the legs were not exactly dead on, either, because the course was not exactly set in stone.

My first leg was around 2 pm on roads along side the vineyards. Beautiful and a bit breezy! This is the run where I had to kick at the end to beat the guy running with me! Very fun. I handed off to 1Mile and he took off on a dirt trail into the vineyards. There were a couple of hills and you can see that in the graph!



This was my leg at 2 a.m.-ish. I got the hand off from texas after he crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. I was wearing my head lamp, reflective vest, flasher light and I added a glow stick to my water bottle. I ran through a bit of suburbia and could see the city sprawled out below on my left. The course was uphill the first part and then peaked at a cliff-side view of the ocean. The moon shining on the waves was beautiful and I thanked the big guy above for the view as I ran down the big hill to the flat 3 mile stretch alongside the waterfront. I slowed down a lot here and sort of lost all sense of time. But I finally made it to the exchange and handed off to 1Mile again.



My last leg was entirely downhill. After texas ran up and handed off the replacement baton to me, he let out a might primal scream that inspired me to enjoy my last run. Now you'd think this would be my fastest leg but it isn't. My left knee started to scream bloody murder about 3 miles into it and I had to take it easy. You can also see in the graph a big dip when I lost my hat and had to turn around and run back uphill about .25 mile to find it. It was a beautiful run but I was happy to be done and see 1Mile for my last baton pass (which had to be a wonder twins knuckle punch because somewhere along that mighty hill I had lost the replacement baton, sorry guys!



I am so proud of this team! I cannot WAIT to run with you all again.

~Monk

memories of a van exchange

the biggest challenge seemed to be how to make the best use of time when your van was off. well, i can't say we made the best use of our time, but we certainly filled it. after getting a bite to eat at a local cafe (not nearly as good as mr. pickle's) we made it to a restaurant called mr. cheese's at the top of mountain in the middle of nowhere that had no cell reception, so we were forced to amuse ourselves. which we did by observing the other runners and making "social commentary". after a rousing game of name that tune from texasbuckeye's iphone we saw the following events, in no particular order...
a) a few ppl attempting to hacky sack, but the after the girl tried to stall the hack on her chest and the guy she was playing with tried WAY too hard, nearly splitting his pants we decided to focus our attention elsewhere
b) we was all manner of running gear like flannel shirts with knee socks
c) the van next to us locked themselves out of their van and had to call the fire department
d) smllbtmty claimed to see "the fattest man she ever saw walk" get out of a tiny blue sports car
e) the Foos lost everything they brought with them, but luckily found most of it
f) noel found the shirt he was looking for in mawz's running bag
g) a different van next to us walked in on a half dressed team mate and accused them (loudly) of taking a "Puerto Rican Shower" [note: the entire team loves Puerto Rico and do not endorse such ethnocentric comments]
h) the most animated story teller ever tells a tale of woe with a dr. pepper can as his main prop while wearing orange crocs
i) 3 ppl completely wiped out while trying to run on the gravel parking lot
j) we found out what happens when you honk your horn at a vans that have specific promises to the person who honks at them
k) we were serenaded by a runner who is a fan of the band Kansas
l) ate junk food
m) realized we were all about to run in the cold, windy, dark of a place we were not familiar with and tried to mentally prepare
n) saw dean run by, hung out with van 2 and had an all around good time bonding :)

good times.

Other teams experiences

I stumbled across a few blogs from other teams. I haven't fully checked them all out yet. One has a few videos that I will need to check out soon. Here is a list, if you find any more I can add them to the list here.

Whine & Cheese - http://365ultra.blogspot.com/2008/04/video-is-even-better.html & http://jessicafewless.blogspot.com/

Team 911 - http://www.weruncodethree.com/

Sweetcheeks 2 - http://www.jmoe.com/ & http://littlesnoopy.blogspot.com/

Fat Kids Always Go For Seconds! - http://no-wimps.blogspot.com/ &
http://tntmarathon.blogspot.com/2008/04/relay-2008.html

Runaway Jury - http://flickr.com/photos/runawayjury08/

travel here and beyond - http://here-beyond.blogspot.com/

Yo… Taxi - http://arunner.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/199-mile-relay/

International Used Parts Dept -
http://runonearth.com/uncategorized/international-used-parts-department-relay-team/

texasbuckeye garmin data

below is the garmin data for my 3 legs. the run up to the bridge in leg 18 was a challenge, but check out the elevation change in leg 30!

leg 6
leg 18
leg 30

who else has garmin data? nikeplus data? it would be cool to recreate as much of the course as we could.

Priorities

So, I got home from the Relay with two days of PTO ahead of me. Why two days of PTO after the race? you ask. Well, because I was signed up to do this little race in Boston on Monday, and to fly home on Tuesday. I still have the Boston Marathon bib number pickup card stuck up on my fridge. Many of my friends have Boston stories to tell. They watched the trials, ran the race, experienced that one-of-a-kind Boston experience that they say no other race can replicate.

I've been running for many years now, but I've never run the Boston Marathon. I'd like to, of course. I'd like the experience and (yes) the bragging rights and the cool jacket. And when I got the chance to run the EAS Santa Cruz Relay on the weekend of Boston, I was really torn. I even tried to figure out a way to do both, but eventually financial reality and common sense prevailed.

I'm not the least bit sorry about not going to Boston. I wouldn't trade the weekend I had with my team for anything. Streets lined with screaming spectators could never compare to pitch-black California back roads. I'd take the mountains of Napa over the Newton hills, without hesitation. And I'd take cheering on my fabulous teammates, primal-screaming their way through the finish of a last hard leg, over watching Deena Kastor run in the Olympic Trials.

Thanks, all of you. I'm still flying high three days later. I expect the high is going to last for a good while.

And maybe I'll run Boston next year . . . but only if it doesn't conflict with this race!

Thank you for NOT smoking!!!

So after my final leg late on Sunday morning, I let Van 1 in on my secret.... My last cigarrette had been early Friday morning, before driving up to wondermom24's house for the drive up to Northern California!

I've been a half-pack-a-day smoker for the past 14 years and have tried three times in the past 4 years to quit. I've tried to quit for my kids, I've tried to quit for my husband, who stopped smoking himself in 2006.

I knew I wouldn't be able to do it until I was ready. I felt like this trip up north for The Relay would be the perfect opportunity. I'd be away from the normal stressors of my everyday life, around people I'd never met (except for wondermom24). I was hoping that no one on the team smoked, because that might have spelled disaster for me. Luckily, no one did, at least not that I saw. Actually it wasn't until the finish it Santa Cruz, that I saw a man smoking near the beach. By then, I was two days smoke-free and it was bearable.

So here I am, on the other side, with 5 full days under my belt. I have tried and failed before, but I feel good this time. I am doing it for me and for my running. Watching my other teammates kicking up the dust and 'smoking' all those road kills out there!... was hugely inspiring and at times a little humbling for me!

So thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU to Team Waiting For Runs for being there for me when you didn't even know it. For replacing my cravings with laughter and showing me that I can take this running thing only as far as I'm willing to allow it!

And as wondermom24 suggested on our drive home on Monday... If I can make it 2 weeks without smoking, I will be rewarding myself with a registration into the Disneyland Half Marathon this August. I had previously decided against it because of the pricey entry fee. But hey, I'll be saving that money on cigarrettes!!!

Thanks again everyone!

mawz76

Garmin Data links and Google Earth

Here are my links to the Garmin Motionbased.com site to see what the most difficult set of legs (runner #10 ) looked like. If you click on Google earth beneath the map you should be able to transfer the garmin track to your Google earth site???

Leg #1 = http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5474922

Leg #2 = http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5474921

Leg #3 = http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5474920

I will also post some pics I took along the way but they just don't do justice to both the gradient and the duration.

Leg 33 - Almost there!

The night run had been amazing.  I had felt so great to be running under the full moon in the cold air that I hardly noticed the hills and felt like I could fly.  The next day, though, we'd had an adventure getting lost in the mountains and arrived at the exchange point to find... nothing.  No food anywhere in sight.  We were not going to hit those winding roads again, so we stayed put to wait for van #1 to arrive.  We munched on the snacks we had in the van that we'd kept in our really special cooler.  I wasn't really that hungry, so a little peanut butter on a slice of bread and some nuts would do.  It was exciting to see Tex come in for the final run of van #1 and do the hat slamming primal scream!  He passed off to Monk_Monkey and it was our turn for the final legs of the relay.  My last leg was #33 on Sunday afternoon.  It was supposed to be an easy run of overall downhill and I wanted to make it good.  We were still ahead of our projected finish time, and I wanted to keep that going.  Started running and felt pretty good, but every downhill seemed to be followed by a rise before the next downhill.  The lack of sleep, not having had much breakfast or lunch, forgetting to drink much water, and the hours of driving started to hit me.  I wanted to run faster, but couldn't seem to do it.  Oh, no, I was turning into roadkill heaven for the other runners that 1 Mile had passed in his quest for roadkill leader!  They came back at me, but all had a really positive comment as they passed.  We were all feeling the end of the relay coming close.  I hadn't wanted to check my pace cuz I didn't want to be disappointed, but took a quick look with about a mile left.  What?  I was still ahead of my expected time and hadn't been moving as slowly as I had felt I was.  That was so great - it gave me the energy to pick it up and finish that last leg strong.  Made that last turn and saw Alex there waiting for the hand off.  A little left for a final sprint and I was done!  My goal had been to finish all three of my legs faster than my scheduled time, and I did it!  I had not had a Diet Coke since before I left for the Relay, but now it was time for a little celebration!!  

Accuracy check - on all three of my runs, my iPod came within .05 of the actual leg distance!