Epic Relay

My brother Glenn came and ran the Salt Lake Marathon with me in April. Now it was my turn to go to Oregon for a run in the "Epic Oregon Relay". My sister-in-law Renee put together a 11 person team from her LDS congregation in Eugene, Oregon. She then invited me to come up to be the 12th member.

Me waiting for my first run

The relay is 170 miles and winds from Portland to Eugene. The team name was "Section 89", (see D&C 89:20 "...shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.") Each team consists of 12 runners and two vehicles. Each runner runs 3 separate legs in a 24 hour period (approximately every 8 hours). There are 36 legs total and the legs range from 3 to 8 miles. I was runner #10 and my runs were 3 miles, 8 miles and 3 miles again. Doesn't sound bad at all until you realize that you are running the 2nd and 3rd stretches with almost no sleep. I had the goal to average under an 8 minute mile for all my runs combined.
My first 3 mile run was around 6pm. It was a wee bit hot but I was able to average 7:45/mile. When I finished my run I got to the exchange to learn that my team mate (David) was across the parking lot in the bathroom.

Exchange 12- Second Vehicle Exchange

When all the runners in our van finished we had dinner at Burgerville, then drove to the school were the next vehicle exchange would be. I pulled out a sleeping bag and was able to get about 30 minutes of very interrupted sleep.

Action shot of the exchange from Renee to Glenn

My second stretch started at 1:45am. For the night runs you are required to wear a flashing light, a head lamp and a vest. Well I quickly learned what else happens on night runs. I started out running and about 1/2 mile into it another van stopped me to let me know I had missed the turn. They picked me up and took me back to the turn. Apparently some kids had stolen the sign and several of us missed the turn off. So I started again. This 8 mile run was by far my favorite run of the three even if I missed the turn. The temperature was cool, I watched the partial lunar eclipse, saw shooting stars, passed 3 or 4 other runners and occasionally dipped into a little fog. 8.4 miles - Average pace 7:58.Our van finished our second set of runs in Corvallis, Oregon and we all showered at the high school. Had breakfast at Shari's and then drove to our final exchange spot.

Drive from Corvallis to next vehicle exchange, Thank Goodness Renee was somewhat awake with me on the drive. The rest of the bums slept!

My last 3 miles started at 10 am. There were a couple teams not to far ahead of us and I wanted to pass them so badly. When I got the hand off I took off but I just couldn't seem to catch the runner ahead of me. I started thinking that this made sense with very little sleep that my pace had slowed and that I was too tired to catch him. When my Garmin beeped at me I realized that I had run my fastest mile of any yet, 7:11. So it just turned out he was a lot faster then me but I was still clopping along at a great pace. This was my least favorite run because of the 4 stop lights. I ran through one dodging traffic, one no traffic but crossed the red anyway and the others I hit green lights. Just didn't like all the cars getting in my way. Average 7:39 Pace.

After my hand off there was only one more until runner 12 would bring us home. We waited for Runner 11 to hand off to Runner 12 and realized there were about 5 teams all with-in 7 minutes of each other and we were the last of them. We drove to the finish line to wait and all of a sudden to our surprise Dustin (runner 12) comes over the hill. He had passed the other 4 teams.

Final Time: 170 miles- 24:01:07- 10th place finish of 41 teams. Had we finished 30 minutes earlier we would have still finished 10th, but had we finished 30 minutes later we would have been 18th. We had talked during the race that 26 hours would be an acceptable finish time...we crushed that. This was such a blast. If you have never done a relay. It is well worth it. I am already planning on going up there again next year.