HOOD TO COAST RELAY
Portland, Oregon

August  2004

By: Todd Henderlong

Our illustrious club President, Sue Brown, asked me to write a  column detailing our teams exploits at the Hood to Coast relay race  in Oregon this past August. What is the Hood to Coast?  Officially, it is the largest team relay  race in the country.  Unofficially, I like to think of it as Woodstock for Runners. This year, 1,045 teams, consisting of 12 runners each raced 198  miles across Oregon from Mt. Hood to the Pacific Ocean. The way the race works is as follows:  Each runner is responsible  for running three legs of the race.  The legs can vary in distance from 3.3 to 7.9 miles, and each runner must alternate every 12th  turn.  Or in other words, you're not allowed to get all of your  running done at once.   What it amounts to for each participant is running the equivalent of  three, 10K races with about 4 hours of rest in between.  Keep in  mind the 4 hours in between running are spent driving in a van,  eating whatever you can carry in a cooler, and trying to catch a few  hours of sleep if possible. Because each runner must take their turn in order, each teams divides their runners into two vans.  The runners in the first van run their consecutive legs and then meet up with the second team van to pass the  baton.   Then the runners in Van #2 take their consecutive turns until they meet back up with Van #1.  In essence, the vans kind of leapfrog across scenic Oregon countryside. 

Teams come from all over to participate and some take the competition incredibly seriously. This year, one team recruited Eddy Hellebuyck (fourth in the US Olympic Marathon Trials), two Kenyans,  and a woman who once took second in the Pike's Peak climb. They took second in their division. Our team, consisting of local runners Tom and Kathy Mangel, Sue  Brown, Jim Nickerson, Art Schneidt, my wife Heather and myself, as  well as some friends from Indy and Naperville.  Needless to say our  team was slightly less talented than Mr. Hellebuyck's.  Luckily, we were all in it for the experience and not the competition, or so we  thought....

Hood to Coast accepts entries from teams almost 10 months prior to the race and sells out instantaneously, so  team members must commit well in advance.  What this means is that  inevitably some people are going to become injured or encounter  scheduling conflicts that can come up over a years time and have to  drop out.  Over the course of the year we had to recruit new runners  and convince them that what I have described thus far is actually  fun.   Each recruit would ask the same question, " do I have to be  fast, is this going to be competitive?".  The answer was always, "  Of course not."   Again, we were just running for fun and to get the  finisher's medal. 

The logistics of sending 12,000+ runners in 2,000+ vans down the  same race course dictates that you just can't fire a starter's  pistol and say go.  For this reason, the Hood to Coast starts 20  teams every 15 minutes from 8 am to 7:45 pm on Friday and all teams must finish by 9 pm on the following Saturday. The progression  through the day isn't a strict line from slow teams to fast, but  there is a formula that assigns a projected finishing time to each  team.  The formula uses estimated 10K time for each team member provided by the team captain to make  sure each team is assigned a start time that will realistically  allow them to beat the finish deadline. I'm sharing this information so you can fully appreciate why,  when  we found out our team's starting time was 7:30 pm...second from  last...right in front of the aforementioned elite team.... the  prospect of simply getting that finisher's medal became less than  simple.   Again, if a team doesn't finish by 9:00PM the next day,  then they don't finish period-no medal! Turns out the finish time prediction formula  using the  "guestimated" 10K times I provided  had us finishing in 23 hours and  9 minutes and ranked 10th in our division, the Open Submasters.  (everyone over 30; fewer than 6 women). Last year our team took almost 26 hours to finish.  All of a sudden  the pressure was on.   After fielding several questions like "what the hell kind of 10K  times did you give them?!?!!" and quelling a mild mutiny, we were  ready to go.  The members of Van #2, Tom, Kathy, Jim, Sue, Heather,  and I, loaded into our van and headed off to the first exchange  point while the first runner in Van #1 took off running down the  mountain.   FYI,  there is nowhere in Northwest Indiana to prepare to run this  race.  The first leg is 5.95 miles and drops 4000 feet in elevation!   What we call mountains, they call hills.  What we call hills, they  consider flat. Once those of us in Van #2 reached the first exchange point, and  realizing we all had a long 24 hours of running and driving ahead of  us, we decided to try to get some sleep.  FYI #2, there is absolutely no way for 6 sober adults to comfortably sleep in a mini van!  Even with diminutive Heather on the floor sandwiched in front of the middle bench seat and under the reclined front seats ‑ in  what became know as the Sadam Hussein suite ‑ the most comfortable place to sleep was outside on the sidewalk. After tossing and turning for a couple of hours, we got a call on  the cell phone from Van #1 that their last runner had just started  his leg and that we'd better get ready.  At around 11PM, Sue took  the baton and Van #2 was on the move.

Some of the highlights from Van#2's first turn running were: Each  runner claiming they had the most difficult leg, the full moon in  the sky and the half moon from Sue, Jim's up close and personal  moment with a skunk, and the Marilyn Manson roadie I found wandering  down a running path at 12:30AM. But, the most memorable moment from our first leg was my beautiful wife Heather getting lost in downtown Portland.  Because we were one  of the last teams to start, by the time we reached Portland it was  close to 1:30 in the morning.  After a day of directing runners, apparently most of the volunteers along the poorly marked and ill conceived route through the city had decide it was time to go home.  The result was complete chaos.  As we were trying to interpret the  "map" provided by the race, we could see runners heading in every direction, all searching for the exchange zone, without a single  official from the race to be found.  On more than a few occasions, we would tell Heather to turn left,  the stop, then go right, then come back and go left again, etc.  As  it became clear that we were lost, and with the clock ticking, the  frustration inside and outside of the van was beginning to build.   Finally, as we were shouting directions and arguing about what to do  next, my dear, sweet, loving wife, perhaps tired from lack of sleep,  maybe a little claustrophobic from her stay in the Sadam Suite,  provided us with the moment of true clarity.   She stopped dead in  her tracks, stared straight at the van, and yelled "F*%# YOU!"  As her words echoed through the streets of Portland, we knew we had the  answer to any question that might come up for the rest of the trip. 

Van #2 had become the "F*%# YOU!" gang. Eventually we found the exchange point and turned the baton back  over to Van #1, only loosing about 15 minutes in the process.  The rest of the race went pretty much as planned.  Despite lack of  sleep, poor dining habits, and running up and down elevations that  would make a Himalayan sherpa wince, everyone on the team ran great.

 As night turned to day we began to catch and pass many of the teams  that started hours before us and eventually we knew finishing before  the cutoff was no longer an issue. I'm happy to say that our team finished with a time of 23:15:14, an impressive 63rd out of 1045 teams and, as predicted,  in the top ten in our division.  For you number crunchers out their,  that's a 7:05 min/mile pace for the team. 

If you ever want to try something new, I'd highly suggest putting  together a team and trying a relay race.  You'll laugh, you'll cry,  and who knows, maybe even say "F*%# YOU" a couple of times too.