A Windy Relay Race Report

The marathon relay is done and there is a lot to tell. The race started at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, but to get the whole gist of the weekend we need to rewind to 20 hours before the race. Saturday I started to have some lower GI issues. Knowing the race was the next day, I did my best to keep drinking fluids and to not alter my diet too much. I went to bed early with stomach pains and eventually fell asleep. When I woke up Sunday morning the troubles had moved up my GI tract and my muscles ached. Great (insert sarcasm). I laid in bed and listened to the wind whip around the house and through the trees. Just great (insert more sarcasm). I did what I usually do before a race; I drank water, had my normal breakfast and then got ready, all the while trying to ignore my stomach.

I was first to get to the race, so I checked our team in. It wasn’t too long and Felice and Amanda were there. I went out to warm up and saw them right before the race when this picture was taken.

10:05 (a few minutes late) the race started, it was 30F and north winds ~15 mph and all was going fine. Too bad I had to run more than one mile because my body would have been good with only one mile yesterday (my leg totaled 9.2 miles). The race course is the same loops I’ve been running for the Winter Series, so I’d been out there four times before and knew what I was getting into. Going away from the start the wind was at our backs. Going toward the start/end we were going straight into the north wind. So, not only was my stomach hurting, but with going away from the wind (getting hot)/into the wind (feeling cold) I was going back and forth between hot/cold and it felt exactly like the flu. (Thankfully, as far as I can tell I don’t have the flu – I think it was something I ate.) Who in their right mind runs when they feel like they have the flu? Apparently me. One more thing wasn’t working right: my mp3 player crapped out a couple weeks ago so I had limited and very un-motivating songs to listen to.

I plowed on and missed my goal time (87 mins) and my max time (92 mins). I finished in 1:37:35 and watched Felice run off for her leg of the race. Fortunately, I was done running. Unfortunately, I felt like the Gu Chomps I took at mile 4 were going to come back up for most of the rest of the day. I apologized to Amanda for taking so long. I later apologized to Felice for the same. I felt bad for taking longer than expected, but they both said it was fine and I’m taking their word on it. Yesterday wasn’t my day, but I did the best I could given the conditions.

Felice finishing her leg of the race; Amanda half-way through her leg of the race

I went out to cheer on Felice as she finished her leg of the race. We cheered on Amanda when she did loop 1. We were back out in the cold for Amanda when she finished the race. 3 blogging mamas, all wearing pink finished the marathon relay in 4:22:59! Here’s a final photo of the three of us once we were all finished and happy to have accomplished one more awesome (albeit cold and windy) running event.

Congrats to the other crazies out there. 90 people ran the full marathon and there were 59 relay teams. I can only assume we are all crazy because it is WINTER and we were out there running a race.