Queens of the Road - Rocking the Relay!

Well let me start by saying I have wanted to do this race for a few years now, but I couldn't find enough girls to do it with me. They all thought I was crazy (go figure).  So when I joined NTX runners, last spring and found out the Libby usually coordinates a team, I was all over it!  I had been looking forward to this race for a very long time!

We left out of D/FW airport in our rental vans about 10:30ish.  We had two vans each carrying 5 great girls and some pretty awesome guys who agreed to drive us for 3 days while we ran and giggled and stunk! (I think they might have gotten the worst job of them all, at least we got to run!)

Stopped at Rudy's along the way for some lunch.

Lunch - yum, yum!

The whole gang...drivers and all

Me - so excited on the way down to Bastrop from my perch in the back seat - obviously had no idea what I was about to do...

On we go to Bastrop and checked into the Holiday Inn and made a quick trip to Walmart for some last minute snacks and decorations for the vans.  Apparently we planned on eating our weight in Oreos, Pringles, and candy because I came home with so much food!  

These "accidentally" fell in my basket at Walmart when I realized I would be rooming with Corina for the night.  She might have a hatred for the lizard...I am working on getting her to overcome that by scaring her in hotel rooms with tiny lizards during race weekends...so far - no luck, just lots of screaming...

Next stop was to find some place for dinner and we went to the Texas Grill where I must say they have the best french fries ever.  ( I will admit most of the food I ate on this trip was the best ever - I think I was really hungry!)

Happenin' Joint in Bastrop

Then it was back to the hotel to decorate our vans before hitting the packet pickup/pre race party.

Van Decorating...Never underestimate the power of a hot pink star when you are running! I was so glad to see those stars many times!

Van #1 - Ready for some craziness!

Then we get back to the hotel and start getting ready for bed and our 4:20 wake up!  I couldn't sleep - too excited - nerves...Finally fell asleep about midnight...That would be last the sleep I would have until 5:30 Sunday morning.  

So Saturday morning we were up and out the door by 5 am.  With a 6:10 am race start and a 30 minute drive out to the race start, it was an early morning, but we made it.  

Van 1 Bright and Early!

The starting line at 6:00 in the morning...

So they announce our team start and shoot the cannon and off we run as a whole team for the prologue (about .3 miles) and then Kristi takes off on the first leg in the dark by herself!  

The weird thing about this race as opposed to other races, very rarely are you around other runners.  You are on your own.  You have to know your turns, streets, directions...Most turns were marked, but some weren't.  I took my map of each leg with me when I ran.  I was terrified of getting lost and not knowing it!

Van 1 went back to the hotel and grabbed our stuff and a quick breakfast, while Van 2 ran the first few legs and we met up with them about 2 hours later.  Then we all worked together to take care of the runners and leapfrog them every mile to make sure they were okay and if they needed water.  

My family for the weekend! Van #1 peeps!

Love these two! And who is that good looking one on the right? :-)

Waiting for Fiona to come in off her first relay leg with our Van #2 peeps! Wish we would have gotten to hang with them more!

Fiona looking strong at the end of her leg!

Lesley taking off! 

Loved meeting and talking to Liz!  Great team - great new friends!

Beautiful scenery along this part of the relay!

We continue with our running leapfrogging each runner at every mile and at each exchange point.  After Van #2 had finished their morning relay legs, they went to grab some food and our van took over for a while.  By this time, it was getting really hot and VERY humid.  Most of our running was done more on small 2 lane highways where it was just radiating heat.  We had to change the plan at that time and go from leapfrogging the runner every mile to every 1/2 mile.  It worked out really well.  At every 1/2 mile my peeps would meet me with water, ice, S caps, wet towels, anything you needed. You just took it and continued on and they would meet you down the next 1/2 mile.  I think a lot of teams underestimated the heat because we were actually supporting a lot of runners who were out of water and/or wanted wet towels.  We saw at least 3 ambulances in the afternoon.  After Van 2 got some grub, they met right back up with us and we continued leapfrogging.  It was really a team effort with both vans. It was wonderful to be met at the 1/2 miles with cowbells and horn honks and water and ice. I love my team!  

We continued on into the afternoon running, leapfrogging, cheering, and sweating.  On Saturday I ran 2 legs during the afternoon.  I had at 1:00 pm ( 4.35 miles), and then again at 4 pm (3.86 miles).  The second one was harder than the first, but I got it done.  

Leg 1- done

Sharon waiting to run at the exchange point.

The map of my relay leg 2.  These are the directions you would get.

Waiting on Sharon to come into Weimer, TX!

Main Street Weimer, TX

Best cupcake ever...

There she is!!! Sharon coming into the exchange point!

We continued on leapfrogging and running all through the afternoon and night.  Sometimes our van would be the runners, sometimes it was our other van.  We were all leapfrogging and cheering and supporting each runner through every 1/2 mile (unless we were grabbing some real food from somewhere).  Our van ate breakfast about 7 am remember, but we didn't eat again until about 6 or 7 that night other than what we had in the van.  

Van #1 Ready to Run!

Van We took over for Van #2 and ran our night legs.  I wound up running from about 12:45-1:30 Sunday morning along a little FM road in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  Just had my headlamp and some reflective gear and knew that on the map I had no turns so as long as I stayed on that road for 5 miles I would get to where I was supposed to be.  Every 1/2 mile our van would be waiting for me - the other van was on break and back at the hotel to get their big 2 hours of sleep in a real bed before relieving us later.  At every 1/2 mile, Luis (our driver/Amanda's husband) was on the side of the road waving his huge flashlight that you could see from 3 miles away I swear.  I would just tell myself "Make it to the light, make it to the light."  I felt like a bug!  Every time he was there, with water.  The girls were pretty tired and asleep in the van but good ol' Luis was amazing.  I was running my 5 miler in the dark and the first stop, he gave me water and asked if I needed anything and I told him I just needed to catch the guy in front of me...I figured that would give me a goal and I wouldn't think about what in the world I was doing.  The guy was far enough ahead that it was going to be a real challenge, but I could tell by the distance of his headlamp that I was gaining on him so I made it into a game. I also knew that I had to be on the lookout for little night animals on the road.  We had seen snakes and stuff already.  Fabulous! So I finally made it to him and kept on trucking.  Met Luis again, more water, more running, beat another guy...by mile 4 I was exhausted.  This was my fastest relay leg - probably because I was afraid of the chupa and I was trying to make a game out of it by catching up  to people.  I get to mile 4 and Luis tells me that the guy that just past him a ways up is walking and that I can catch him...Well great...I was really okay with taking it easy the last mile, but now I have to go catch that dude - Okay, I don't have to - but it sure would be cool if I did... :-) Of course the guy started running and I had to sprint a long time but finally got there and ran on to the finish.  Luis started laughing when I told him I beat the guy, I on the other hand told him that if I threw up at that point it was his fault because I had to haul buns to try and do that! :-) Totally worth it though - made that last mile go by much faster - Thank you, Luis!

Exchange point in the middle of the night...

There goes Mama C into the dead of night with way too much happiness!

I may have been delirious here from no sleep.  We were going on 25 hours of no sleep and I was pumped because I was out of the dark and done outrunning the little night creatures.

We continued on in this manner and Van #2 returned fresh off a whopping 2 hours of hotel room sleep and took over and we headed to the hotel, showered, hopped in bed at 5:30am woke up at 7:30 am - grabbed some breakfast from the lobby and were out the door to meet our van peeps and take over at 9 to start running again.  We ran the legs on Sunday from about 9 - 3.  It was hot and humid, but our vans rocked and rolled and helped everyone!

Mama C taking pictures of me taking pictures of her!

Lesley finishing strong on her last leg.

Van 1 peeps meeting Elaine on mile 3 of her 6 miler.  Taking care of each other. It was like this the whole time! I really loved the cohesiveness and teamwork we all put in.  It was like a little family.

Me waiting for Elaine at mile 4.  I was bored...

Waiting at the exchange point in downtown Houston for Elizabeth.

Don't ask...

There is Miss Elizabeth...Rocking out 9 straight miles in the afternoon heat like the rockstar that she is.

 Then van #2 finished off the last 3 legs of the race and we were done! 

Corina finishes leg 39 and still has energy to hook 'em...

Fiona and Kristi bring it in for the team together and finish Leg 40.

There it is...

Never been so happy to see a monument in my life.

 It took us 34 hours and 58 minutes, but the Queens of the Road were at the San Jacinto Monument and we had run 203 miles from Bastrop to Houston!

DONE! 203 glorious miles!

Stats...

I am so thankful for all the girls on our team, the drivers, and all their support!  I love each and everyone of you girls and I am so proud of all us.  I can't wait until next year!

Must Eat Brains (aka. Zombi Race)

Yes, he was part of the race...I did scream like a girl and run as fast as possible!

This race started on a Thursday night at a bar down in Deep Ellum.  I found it on a Groupon and mentioned it to my friend Catherine to see if she would be interested since you had to be in a team of 2 or team of 4 to do the race.  She agreed and also recruited her husband, both sisters, and her brother in law to do it also!  It was so much fun!

So we headed down to Dallas about 6:30, and the race started at 7...or it was supposed to.  I think by the time we got our directions and were released it was around 7:30.  Basically it went something like this: you got a postcard that had 3 QR codes on it.  You have to scan a QR code for a clue and then figure out where it was and go there to get your card stamped.  One little bit of info that Catherine and I forgot in all the melee was that at each stop, we were supposed to get another clue for another place.  Since they gave you 3 to start with and there were 6 stops.  Yeh, we totally forgot that because we were busy dodging zombies! So they release us from the club to go out into the night...well as soon as you leave the club, there are freakin' zombies everywhere at the exit to the club!  And they are on roller skates!!!  Zombies don't wear roller skates!!!   Originally the plan was for all 6 of us to try and stick together....yeh, throw a zombie in the mix and that plan was ruined!  We scattered like a bunch of mice!  I almost lost Catherine and we hadn't even started yet!  I may have screamed a little bit too, but I will not admit totally to that.  Once we figured out what business the clue referred to, we had to find it on our phone GPS and then figure out how to get there.  It is a lot easier to tell if you are going the wrong way on the phone if you are driving, that little blue dot that represents you moves a lot faster...When you are walking, you have to walk like 50 feet before the dot moves and you realize you are going in the wrong direction.  (Not that it ever happened to us...)

So off we go, once we got to the first stop Crossfit Deep Ellum, there were zombies EVERYWHERE.  At first it was hard to tell if they were racers or not because we all had to wear glow necklaces.  You wouldn't necessarily know it was a zombie until you were right up on them.  I screamed and ran and got tagged at the first flippin' stop...That made me mad. From then on, I did everything possible to avoid getting tagged including high stepping in a field of weeds and dodging lots of cars very carefully.  No zombie was going to get me.  My partner in crime, Catherine...well that was a different story.  I think all my screaming at zombies might have distracted her from escaping because she got tagged like 4 times! I wound up only getting tagged the one time.  

Look at that hand! Tagged 3 times and we just started!

Yes we like dodging zombies in the middle of the night on random streets in Dallas...doesn't everyone?

So from the Crossfit place, we figured out our next stop would be the DoubleWide Bar a few blocks away.  We headed there and got to the intersection only to find these guys guarding the bar.  If you could get to the porch you were safe and they couldn't tag you.  Um, yeh...I would be getting there untagged if I had to trip someone to do it.

We did convince them to let us have a picture...

After leaving DoubleWide, we crossed the street because we had to get away from the zombies before we could look at our last clue on the postcard.  We decided if we could just get across the street then we would be safe and could calm down and figure it out.  Well, we got across safely, and Catherine started figuring out our GPS stuff and how we needed to get to the next intersection.  While she was looking at her phone, I happened to glance into the shrubs on her other side as we walked by...It was then I might have let a few choice words out as I saw a zombie jump up and get Catherine.  It was also then that I high tailed it into the field of who knows what while my team mate is getting "infected" for the 3rd time by a zombie!  I wasn't very loyal....Even the zombie tried to convince me that since my teammate was infected didn't I want to be too...Uh, yeh, no....thanks for playing..

So then we realize that the next place is way far away!  Like 2+ miles to the next stop.  We were going through parts of Dallas that made me thankful that I had a police officer for a teammate.  I was hoping that if something happened she would forget my unloyalty back there and save me.  Eventually we got to the other Crossfit where they made us do 20 burpees! (I was sore for like 3 days! Kudos to all my peeps that do Crossfit.  I am way too big a wimp!) So then we start heading back, a little confused because we knew it was supposed to be 6 stops but we only had 3.  After talking to other racers, we realized that we had failed to get the other clues.  By then we were so tired and we were getting texts that the other 4 were already back at the club done with the race!  (This is the part where I should mention that Catherine's husband and brother in law got second place, but I might still be a little bitter that they beat us, so I am not going to own up to that.)  So we decided to say forget it, let's head back.  We wound up getting back to the bar and as soon as we walk in, they scan your hand to see if you have tagged by an "infected" zombie.  Catherine goes in first and they ask her who her partner is.  I should have known then that it couldn't be good, but I was loyal (only because I was dead tired and not thinking) and said I was.  Well, guess why they needed her partner?  Because little Miss Get Tagged By Every Zombie had gotten infected and they sent us both to quarantine where we had the option of zombie make up.  Well, Catherine said she didn't want any so I sure wasn't going to get any and be the only zombie.  Then we got to the table and find this:

Before being infected....

After being infected...

Yep, both of Catherine's sisters, Cara and Chrissy, had to go to quarantine and got zombie makeup.  They made it look good...I couldn't have rocked the make up like they did!

So after that, we all wound up going to dinner at like 11 and getting home about midnight.  It was so much fun!  Granted I was sore from all the crazy sprints and burpees and exhausted from staying up til midnight, man I am getting old, but it was a blast!  I would totally do it all over again!  But this time, the boys are not winning...Mark my words!

Why yes, I will take a 10 miler instead of a 50K...thank you!

After last week's crazy, cold, WET half marathon, I was very tempted to ask my running buddy Shannon, if we could do the 10 miler at Isle Du Bois instead of the 50K that we had signed up for. Originally, I had agreed to run the 50k with Shannon since she wanted to do one for her birthday so we signed up, and then for some reason both of us raced the whole month BEFORE the 50K!  She did 2 marathons in November and then the half last week at White Rock and I had the 50K, Wild Hare, and the half last week.  Needless to say I could tell my body was exhausted.  Running was becoming more of a thing I had to do instead of something I wanted to do.  Hello, McFly, can you say burnout?  And I was so tired all this week...the cozy sleeping weather didn't help, but I think I took a nap every day!  Well, so I texted Shannon and just asked if she would be interested in dropping down to the 10 miler.  After a couple of days of thinking about it, she agreed that it was probably smart and that she was tired too.  You have no idea how happy I was to get that phone call!  YESSSSSSSSS!   My mood immediately changed from something I was dreading on Saturday - distance wise, running with Shannon would have been a blast - now I got to run with Shannon AND not worry about time and just have FUN! Double bonus!  Then on Wednesday, I found out that our friend Greg, aka Ninja, was going to sign up and do the 10 miler also.  So plans were made and I picked Ninja up and we met Shannon at 6:30 this morning and headed out to Pilot Point, TX for the trails.

It was soooo cold when we got there.  I think the car said 32 degrees.  So we went and picked up our packet and ran back to the car.  We holed up in the car for a good 45 minutes before our race started.  There were a couple of bathroom breaks for everyone. One in which someone who shall remain nameless (Ninja) went into the ladies bathroom!  Poor ladies! :-) At 8:25 we got out of the car, I think Ninja had already gone up to the start line by then, and we headed up to the start line.

Soooo cold!  Let's get running!

So we start the race and the first mile was on sidewalk, which was nice.  Then we hit the trails.  The trails were awesome.  They were VERY rocky in parts and lots of switchbacks.  You were always seeing other racers on the course.  (Which didn't make good for if you needed to go to the bathroom we would realize about mile 6!)  Shannon was very nervous about the rocks because of her spill that she took at the Chupa race back in October when she landed on a rock and couldn't finish the race.  So we walked the rocky parts and that wound up being a lot.  It was fine though because it was actually nice to look up and not constantly at the ground.  The trees were gorgeous and we saw 2 deer!

Can you see the deer? A mom and a baby!

That is one reason why trail running is so much better than road running! I can see deer or I can see a building!  Ummmm yeh, give me a deer!  As long as they don't chase me!  Then as we were running we came up on the one manned aid station and low and behold, Mama C. was there!  We knew she and Marci were working the station so we were really looking forward to seeing them!

Shannon, Me, and Mama C. (I think Marci was on the phone.)

Finally Mama C kicked us out of the aid station and told us that we had a race to run!  We were having such a good time visiting with our buddies.  So off we went...About mile 7, our friend Tracy ran up on us and we wound up running the last 3 miles in together.  We had so much fun.  I had met her at Wild Hare with Corina.  We laughed and talked the whole last 3 miles and picked up the pace the last part. In fact, I think our last mile was our second fastest one of the day, but there was very little rocks. 

We finished the race in 2:55.  Those walks killed our time, but I realized that sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses and that is what we did today.  It was awesome and this time the parts I walked weren't because my knee hurt. I felt fine so I enjoyed it much more.  I will say, I was so exhausted by the time I got home you would have thought I had run the 50K!

As far as race goes, great race!  Everything was awesome from the aid station volunteers to muffins to course marking.  It was just a very well put on race.  I am so glad for it too because I want to go run that trail again!  I will definitely be back next year!  It was a great local race and it was so much fun to see all our friends out there!  There were so many!  

I am so thankful for this past year and all my wonderful running friends I have made!  This has definitely been a great year!