Saturday, August 29, 2015

This is what we do

Run 200 miles. And refuel. Deschutes had a pretty good night and we would like to endorse (completely unofficial) the Black Butte XXVII imperial Porter. Nothing eases the lactic acid in the legs like 11% abv.


Made it to the Coast! Probably finished fifth overall

Ran in with our anchor Brent. Got a team picture in front of the carnage on the beach: closed because of high winds. Van 2 heroically battled the elements on the last legs! Looks like we averaged 5:55 min/mile pace over the ~200 miles of the race.

It was fun to go back and forth with a couple teams around our speed: initially GE (3rd) and then Bullseye running club from Maryland (4th).

The beach disaster scene



Made it!

Unofficially fifth. This weather has been nuts. The wind is blowing consistently at 20 mph, gusting up to 30. They actually *closed* the beach due to "flying debris". And the rain has ranged from light sprig showers to cloudburst in minutes. Even with all that, the anchors for van 2 wound up running strong closing legs.


Van 1 is done! Van 2 bringing it home

Having some local beers. We dropped to fifth place by a few minutes in spite of beating our projections. Stiff competition!

Go van 2!

Van 1 handed off to van 2 for legs 19-24

Holding on to 4th place

Friday, August 28, 2015

Dawit just started leg 14 in Portland

5 minutes down from GE, a few minutes up on a couple other teams.

Van 1 is starting legs 13-18

Van 2. Signing off (for now)

Must say this is a lovely night to run and the volunteers have been amazing. Brent cruised so now David is back out there for seconds, of legs and time.

Here are the vans conferring at the exchange.


Leg 11 is in the books

Brent is out there now. Little smattering of rain felt nice in this 80° Portland night!


Van 2: go time!

Jeff hands off to Peter in Sandy.


Jeff's running leg 6, 30 seconds behind GE

Almost ready to hand over the running to van 2!

Legs 1-4 down, neck and neck with GE

We're probably 4th overall, about 5 minutes behind the leaders, Portland track club and Nike.

Van 2 is chilling at Sandy High School

We should get underway in a few hours. Until then, the pb&j, goldfish crackers and pop tarts have come out. And so it begins.

And they're off

Team picture with Mt Hood


Van decorations: check

Half an hour to start!

Driving to Mt Hood

Van 1 on our way to the start. 1.5 hours until David leads off!

Boarding at SFO

Getting pumped. We land in PDX in a few hours and then head to Mt. Hood. Rain is in the forecast...