This morning started with a cannonball run to the exchange #24, for my third and final leg. In short, at 2:05 am my alarm on my Garmin sounded and two minutes later Steve, my Team Captain, alerted us that our twelfth runner was around two miles from the exchange. Crap, there was no way I was going to be late. As a result, I quickly tossed on my running gear, asked my nice (and really sleepy) teammates to take my backpack and sleeping bag back out to the van. I then bolted out of the room and down the fire escape (figuring the elevator would be too slow) and across the hotel's vast parking lot to the exchange. Thankfully, I made it to the exchange approximately five minutes ahead of schedule. At 2:25 am I was off on what was supposed to be a 6.9-mile climb that thankfully ended up being a 6.05-mile climb because it was the most brutal and dangerous run that I have ever completed in my life. In short, the first three-fourths of a mile was on a nice paved road, then it when off on to a dirt ATV-road/trail that was highly technical (i.e., lots of dug out places and tons of rocks). It would have been a really difficult trail to run during the daylight, much less during the wee morning hours where the only light was your lead lamp and the blinking lights of the runners and markers in front of you. It was like running on a moonscape, absolutely crazy!!! With that said, around mile 4, my teammates had pulled off into a field and were there to support me. Even though I passed on the offer of water, their support greatly helped my confidence to finish this leg. Thanks to the Simon Family and Eric!!! Also, "Another One Bites the Dust" was blaring in the background from someone's speaker which was pretty humorous. So I finished my 6.05 mile leg in a time of 44.09 which equals a pace of 7:18. My splits were as follows: 6:29, 7:10, 7:33, 7:27, 7:35, 7:32, and 0:24.
What followed were just some amazing finally leg performance by my teammates. Lindsey, the fastest person that I have ever run a relay with (fastest this is saying a lot because there have been a number of solid runners on my teams), just cruised up and down a steep hill, Steve sucked it and kept a solid pace through his last legs, Eric in one of the best Ragnar performances ever ran his beyond dusty uphill leg almost completely unsupported (I jogged and even 2.0 miles down and up at the end just to find him him before the exchange), then Scott and Rebecca both showed a lot of heart in keeping up an ambitious pace over their dusty, dirt road legs. Not only an exceptional job by Van #1, but Van #2 of Kevin, Darrell, Sarah, Ben, Scotty, and Lisa somehow fought through the brutal Saturday afternoon heat to keep ahead of their projected paces. It's corny, but I could not be more proud of all my teammates.
At Desert Breeze Park, while waiting for our final runner, FRB legend Burt (I am on his list!) spotted me and we had a quick conversation before my team finished. Around 3:24 pm, team Sweaty or Not fished in a time of 29:22:04 at a 9:24 overall pace (the fastest relay team that I have been on). Also, eight of us (Steve, Lindsey, Kevin, Darrell, Sarah, Ben, Lisa, and myself) all earned the Saints to Sinners medals! Great job team and it was a very entertaining experience running with all of you! | 