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!