Lake Tahoe Relay Race Pre-Report

Hey, y'all. Haven't posted in a few days as our schedule has been chock full ever since we arrived in Tahoe late Tuesday night after our cross-country road trip. The rest of the team arrived on Wednesday and Thursday, and we ran the race yesterday.

Only time for a quick post now. Here's a photo of us at the finish line, tired and happy. The 72.3 mile race at high altitude, on mountainous terrain and a narrow winding highway (many times with no shoulder), but with breathtaking views of Lake Tahoe and the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, took us 11 hours and 33 minutes. At least half of the 8.2 - 12.3 mile legs had 1-2+ mile-long hills.

We placed 72nd out of 100 teams, and 21st in the open division (mixed men and women). A fine effort for our first attempt, especially since one of our team members just started running a month ago. Another had never run more than 10 miles before, and he ran a hilly 12.3 mile leg.

More later. It's beautiful here, and we're headed for a boat cruise on the lake, sip cocktails with little paper umbrellas, and rest our tired tootsies.

The Long Hot Summer ...

has begun. Queue The Style Council and someone hand me a Tom Collins, heavy on the Gilbey's. I ran 8 miles yesterday on the C & O Canal Towpath with Coach G. and a few others from the Tuesday night track workouts. We started at Fletcher's Boathouse near Georgetown, then ran west on the dirt trail. We saw two deer bound by and a huge tortoise slip into the water.

Talk about sultry. Talk about stifling. And I don't mean that sexy but needy sweet young thang you dated in grad school. At 8:45 a.m., it was already in the upper 80's, and the air so thick with humidity it felt like a physical force one had to push through. I ran with L., while our group's two guys bounded out front, and Coach stayed behind with two slower women. It was one of my first long runs in over a month.

Our splits:

M1: 9:39
M2: 9:10
M3: 8:57
M4: 8:15
M5: 8:59
M6: 8:45
M7: 8:58
M8: 8:47

Tahoe Race Relay: I told Coach that I organized a 7-person team to run the Decelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relay, a 72-mile race around Lake Tahoe in northern California/Nevada on June 9. What, you haven't heard I'm doing this? Oh, you'll hear PLENTY in the next couple of weeks.

He said that he runs the Reach The Beach relay in New Hampshire every year with some Bucknell University cross-country buddies, and has run Hood to Coast in Oregon twice. He shook his head when I told him that I let my team members choose which relay leg to run, and that they rented a full-size car, not a minivan for our support vehicle. Which can't hold all 7 of us. So now we're taking two cars, not the one car the race director recommends.

I could just see the thought bubble above his head: "Rookie mistakes!"

So I'm a bit nervous how the relay will pan out. I'm hoping it will go smoothly and not devolve into a logistical nightmare (where's that damn Tom Collins?!). Hey team, ease my mind, will ya?!