Blue Ridge Relay

Wow, what an amazing race! We first formed the team and all worried about making the 10 min pace that's required to finish. At end, the team, mostly with the original members (we only had replace one due to injury), and with a couple injuries before and during the race, we finished in 31 hours and 46 minutes, which is 9:09 pace!

This race is so much more than just running. Actually running is not even the hardest part of the race, despite it been the steepest terrain that most of us have ever raced in. It takes an amazing amount of work to organize the gear, water, gatorade, food, driving, sleeping, all the things that 12 people needs for over 30 hours while living out of vans. The fact that we managed to do it without any real conflicts was incredible.

Our fastest runner suffered a partial MCL tear in his right knee the week before the race. This gave us a bunch worries but he convinced us he's gonna run with a knee brace. To our relief he did not make the knee worse and though he did not run as fast as he would liked, he still posted the second fastest time for our team.

The unexpected injury was our team Captain. She had leg 12, 24 and anchoring the race with leg 36. Leg 12 was a long one on the Blue Ridge Parkway and at end of that leg, her left foot was painful, but she kept it to herself. Leg 24 was a short 5k which she cranked out and really aggravated the foot. When she told us about the pain, we were super worried. The pain was around the the 2nd and 3rd metatarsal area and we thought it maybe Morton's Neuroma or stress fracture. She insisted running leg 36 and carried a cell phone with her just in case sometimes happens. We waited anxiously at finish line in Asheville, and to our shock, she came in around 10 min pace! On Monday after the race, she was diagnosed with stress fracture. Tough girl, running all over the mountain with a fractured foot!

I tallied my sleep, and counted about 4 hours total from Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon at end of the race. Needlessly to say, I crashed in the hotel Saturday evening. Still feeling a bit tired from the effort, but hopefully will be ok for Hinson Lake next weekend.

Pictures