This past Sunday I ran in my first marathon relay. We had a team of 5 people - all from work. The route was broken into the following mileages: 6, 4, 5, 5, 6.
I took the fourth leg, which started at mile 15.
I knew my portion from all the bicycling I’ve done around the lake, and I knew that it finished with a pretty nice long hill.
I got to the point where I actually enjoy running, and have a nice 4 mile loop that takes me from my house, around my neighborhood, to the high school, and back. With music this is a nice way to spend an hour.
The day of the run came, and it was warm-ish (70) and very windy. The wind was out of the South, so it was a warm wind. Well, it was warm except for the place that I waited to start my leg. I didn’t take into account the lake wind effect with the wind coming across the lake. It was actually quite cold in that 1 spot.
As a result I decided to keep my long-sleeve shirt on, which had my runner number on it. You HAVE to keep your number on at ALL times. So I was pretty committed to that long-sleeve shirt.
The race was very well organized. Except for the bank of port-o-pots at my starting point. All but 1 of them was padlocked. The line was unreal.
The hydration stations had some gatorade that was super sweet. I was used to half strength gatorade from my MS 150 rides. I also learned that it’s pretty hard to drink from a cup while you’re running.
Mile 19 had a Clif shot station in addition to the hhydration. I grabbed the first one they offered, which was Double Espresso. Sweet! Caffein. It tasted pretty bad, though. Fortunately jsut around the corner was a beer table with little dixie cups of beer. I was set for that hill now.
I started seeing runners walking back with the relay bibs on, so I knew I was starting to get close. I was having fun, but ready to be done. I finally saw my teammate and did a hurkey through my station as I tagged off. My goal was to run my leg in under an hour, and I just made it.
We all had a blast and are now talking about doing the Cowtown 10K in February. Then it will be time for me to clean off my bike and start training for the next MS 150. Hopefully along the way I will manage to get in shape.