MADISON TO CHICAGO RELAY Race Experience Recap

I'm not sure where to even start with this whole fiasco... How bout with some lessons learned!

-Speeding tickets in Wisconsin are ridiculously expensive… my buddy got clocked going 81 in a 65 on the drive up… in Illinois that would have cost him 75$ in Wisconsin the price of the ticket is 250.90!!! Oh well, at least we started fast… it was all downhill after that.
-Waking up at 5am for a race sucks… waking up at 5am for a race when you aren’t scheduled to run for another 13+ hours really sucks!!!
-Always remember to pack an extra pair of running shoes… you never know when the runner you’re supporting might decided to flash his balls at you mid run causing you to back into a giant puddle of water 20 minutes before you’re about to start your own leg. (Luckily I did have an extra pair of shoes with me).
- Normally people find us annoying, offensive, and juvenile… but at 5 in the morning we’re comedy legends!!! - It was five in the morning and our 12th runner had just finished his leg. He was standing outside of the van with a towel wrapped around him so that he could change out of his running shorts. However he was delirious from extreme physical exertion and sleep deprivation and subsequently finding it nearly impossible to get his boxers on. Jokingly he shouts into the van… “Could somebody help me put my boxers on?”… Right at this moment a woman from another team walks by and overhears him and just about falls over laughing… she looks into our van and says “You’re all guys aren’t you?” and continues to laugh even harder…
-There’s nothing more surreal than pulling a van full of runners into a parking lot full of vans full of runners… everyone wandering around dazed, half dressed, in their shorts and sports bras… powdering their neither regions with no shame… people sleeping in fields, on benches, on the concrete… fog, and mist, and lights shining… I’m pretty sure I just experienced what the Zombie Revolution is going to feel like!

-If you’re going to write a rap song specifically for an event and if that event is going to last for over 36 hours you better damn well make sure that you make that song as good as you possibly can because you best believe that you are going to be hearing it over and over and over again until you might just feel like you’d be better off sharpening two sticks and jamming them deep into your ears!!!!

And now... A Graphical Representation of my Mood During the Event...

Next On the agenda--- The Tale of 2 VANS!!!

It was the best of vans (Van 2, my van), it was the worst of vans (Van 1, the “other” van).

Van 1 shenanigans:

-Not bringing toilet paper even though it said to in the handbook… taking half of van 2’s toilet paper… immediately losing the toilet paper and asking for more at the next meet-up.
-lead runner running 1-2 minutes per mile slower than his predicted pace, despite the fact that he had racing flats and a Garmin GPS on and talked a huge game before the race started.
-Getting a hotel room because they didn’t want to sleep in the van or inside the high school gym and weren't comfortable using the communal showers in the locker room and then oversleeping and not showing up to the 3rd handoff in time.
-complaining that "porta-potties are nasty, why can't they have more places with regular bathrooms", even though it must have taken extraordinary effort to get multiple porta-potties delivered to 36 different locations!!!
-having their “feelings hurt” after we relentlessly ragged on them for getting the hotel room
-not showing up at the finish line in time to finish with the rest of the team because they had once again overslept
-2 of the runners not showing up to the finish at all
-Continuously misplacing their possessions and then calling us to see if they were in our van even though none of their runners spent anytime in our van what so ever making it physically impossible that any of thier possessions could possibly be in our van...
-Complaining that the relay was 205 miles instead of 200.
-realizing after one of their legs had started that they had forgotten to bring along their GU, stopping running completely, and waiting on the trail until the support van could find them and bring them the GU
…I’m thinking that next year we might want to think about “cutting the fat” and running the race as an Ultra team!

How about the running???

Almost forgot to talk about the running... this supposedly was a race afterall... So here's a quick recap of my legs...

Leg 1: 5.74 miles

Planned on going out at 8-8:30 pace... by the time I ran I was so hyped up that I took off at 7 minute pace instead... Then I started passing some runners... after that I couldn't slow down because I didn't want to can passed back by someone I had already passed... the only thing that slowed me down... the 88 degree heat!!! Brutal, just brutal... I ended up running a 7:15 pace (half-marthon pace) but my heartrate was up in the 95% zone for the final two miles...

Leg 2: 4.95 miles

Run started at 4:20 in the morning and in was amazing!!! The air was finally cool and the ground was covered in fog... my headlight bounced off the water in the air and made it seem like I was running through a cloud... plus my legs felt great... I took off at 7 minute pace and this time I held it... I could see the flashing lights clipped to the reflective vests of the runners ahead of me... one by one I chased them down and picked them off... I think I passed 12 people on this section (+/- 2)... 

Leg 3: 7.51 miles (that turned into 8.5... that turned into 12.23)

Leg 35... last run before the last run... I was sore and tired from my previous two tempo paced runs... despite that I still was able to maintain a 8:00 minute mile pace... I felt a total disconnect from my legs as I strode along... Up until this point in the race there were plenty of runners around and the way was well marked with signs and arrows... so I decided that I wouldn't bother carrying my map with me... big mistake!!! For some reason there were no signs on this stretch... Me and another runner got lost about 4 seperate times... I finally had to call my van from my cell and have them direct me to the end (when I finally made it to the end, one of the volunteers at the handoff said that a lot of people had complained about the stretch and that she though that maybe some of the signs had been stolen)... I wasn't happy with finishing up my final lost by getting lost so after grabbing some water I hopped back out of the van to run with our anchor runner... I considered finishing the whole race with him but my legs were getting really tired and I decided it wasn't worth risking injury over so I stopped after about 4 miles.

NEXT UP... SOME PHOTOS

The Aftermath...

Damn am I sore!!! I'm not going to say that I'm marathon sore, but it's pretty close... I definitily going to take it easy this week... and don't be suprised if I'm absent from the blogsphere for the next week either... I think I need a quick break to regroup and refocus on Chicago 10/10/10...