Wild West Relay Race Report

Photo by vanrooy_13

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Woke up early on Thursday morning after only about 1 1/2 hours of sleep for my flight to Denver. Drove to the airport and got checked in with no problems. I had about an hour until boarding so I pulled out my laptop and checked my email, played on Facebook etc. Once on board the plane I put on my noise canceling headphones and drifted off to sleep.

Photo by Mastery of Maps

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We arrived in Denver right on time. After I got my bag from the luggage carousel, I settled in for a long morning at the airport. At about 2 PM, I headed off to the Enterprise Car Rental lot where we were all meeting to get the rental vans. Got to catch up with Tracy, Bill (Tracy's Husband), Matt, and George as well as meet a few new folks like Missy and George's son Andrew. We got the vans we would be calling home for the 30 or so hours of the race and headed up to Ft. Collins. We met up with the rest of the team there. It was good to see Steve as soon as we walked in the door and the Kast Krew wasn't too far away either.

We got checked into our rooms, and headed back downstairs for a quick team meeting before heading out to dinner. We found a place in downtown Ft. Collins and got a bunch of pizzas. My personal favorite was this pesto based pizza we got. I'm normally not a huge fan of pesto, but whatever was in this pizza it was good! Afterwards we headed back to the hotel, got the vans all decked out for the next morning and got to bed.

Since I was in van 2, I didn't have to be up until 7:30 AM, but I ended up waking up at 3:45 AM. van 1 was taking off at 4 AM for our 5 AM start. I decided to get up and head to the start with them to see them off. We got there and Missy was starting us off with the first leg. (The 200 mile course was broken up into 36 legs.) George asked me if I would run the first mile with Missy and him. (She was understandably a little nervous about running in the dark by herself.) I agreed so we took off with Missy from the start line. We did the first mile, and then the second, and then the third, and then we just ended up running all the way to the first exchange! Van 1 offered to take us back, but we declined and ran back to the start where Van 2 was. We did over 8 miles before anyone else who would be in our van was even up! George joked that we needed to give Chad a hard time that we had already done a bunch of running while he was still in bed. (Chad did the Boston marathon this spring with the team with next to no training thanks to an open charity slot. Bob and George had a lot of fun giving him a hard time before that race.)

We got back to the hotel, grabbed a shower, got all our stuff packed into cars, and settled into van life. We drove on to exchange 6 where we would trade out with van 1 on the relay course. We made the switch off with lots of high fives and excitement. Our first few runners in van 2 made their way through their legs each commenting that it was harder than they expected. I was slightly nervous because each leg was labeled based on difficulty and my leg was the first "very hard" leg of the race. 900 feet of elevation gain over 5 miles. I got out and ran it comfortably, I chugged right along and got through it without really getting tired! Granted I could have ran it faster, but I wanted to start it off easy. This part of the course was beautiful and Chad got some great pics. (Apparently there is one where it looks like I am running into the sky. Can't wait to see that one!) Chad and Andrew finished us off on legs 11 and 12 and then Van 1 took over again.

We then headed to a restaurant down the road to grab lunch. We had a good meal and waited for George to come back. (He'd gone with Van 1 for a bit. At about 7:30, we realized that something happened and George wouldn't be able to come back. We went ahead and took the van detour to head to the next exchange. The detour was beautiful! We wound our way through a mountain valley next to a rushing mountain stream a lot of the way. It was great! We made our way into Wyoming where the next van exchange was located. We caught up with everyone there including George. Turned out there was no way to turn around and no cell phone reception. Everything worked out though so that is all that mattered.

Van 1 Crew Running Together

My next leg began about 11:00 PM and was the first leg for our van. 8.8 miles and 2000 feet of climb! I was doing great for the first 4 miles or so. Then things changed quickly. I started to get a bit lightheaded and cold really quickly. George walked with me for awhile and then took over the last half for me. I decided it was better to cut this one short so I could be strong for my last leg in the morning. George finished it and said it was one of the best runs he ever had so I was glad he got the opportunity to do it.

I dozed off for most of the rest of the night and morning. We ended up trading off with Van 1 around 4:30 AM. We decided to drive the hour or so into Steamboat Springs to crash in the hotel suite the Kast Krew were staying in. It was just too cold to try to sleep out there. We got about 2 1/2 hours of sleep in their suite, but it felt like a whole nights rest after being sleep deprived for so long. We headed back out to finish our last few legs. I went third and got to run on the last part of Rabbit Ears Pass. I had rolling hills for the first part of it, and after I crested the western summit of the pass we hit the downhills! No more uphill for the rest of the relay! YEAH! I picked up speed heading down and caught up with a woman running down. We talked for a few minutes, and then we rounded the last corner to see a beautiful vista over the mountains just past the exchange. I thanked her for running with me and then sprinted it out to the exchange. I was done! And I felt great! I hopped back in the van while Chad took the steepest downhill of the course.

Andrew was up next after Chad. He was struggling a bit so I got out and ran with him for the second half of his run. I pulled back before the exchange and let him finish on his own. Amy took the last leg. I met up with the rest of our van and loaded up to head to the finish to meet the rest of team. Once she got near the finish, we all joined her and crossed the finish line together. Definitely the greatestl finish I've ever experienced in a race!

Amy (Gigi's mom) leading us across the finish.

We headed to our hotel to check in and had dinner together at 7 PM. We ate and all got so tired that it was hard to stay awake. We all headed to bed. The next morning we had a meeting for ideas of where the team is heading. Lots of great ideas to help us get even better at raising awareness and money for a cure!

After that we packed up, and took a beautiful drive on US 40 back to Denver. Tracy, Bill, and Tony dropped me off at the airport, and I had an uneventful flight home to Indy.

There's too many people to thank for putting this trip together. Most of all Bob Skold who got the idea and convinced the rest of us to join him. Special thanks to George, Jill, and Tracy for putting all this together. A big thanks goes out to all my teammates as well. (Matt, Toni, Amy, Mark , Andrew, Chad, Steve (who got to relax for once!), Missy, Jim, Tracy, and Bob.) Special recognition goes to Bill Kast for wrangling 4 kids while his wife took part in the relay! That was an endurance event in itself!

Hope to be able to do the Wild West Relay again sometime. Probably the greatest race I've ever done! As with every race with this team, it's made me even more committed to raising awareness of NF and finding that cure!

(I'll be sure to get some photos up from the relay once I get my hands on them.)

Long Time No Post/ Wild West Relay

Photo by Joe Gunn

All rights Reserved.

It's true I've been away all summer long, but I promise it was for a good reason. I've spent this summer working yet again at a summer camp in Brown County, Indiana. (I believe I've talked about camp before.) It's a great job in which I am able to help a lot of kids have fun and grow at the same time. (I like to say I am half camp counselor and half child development facilitator.) I'm actually going to be there through May doing outdoor education and retreat programs which I am pretty pumped about. (I get to live in a real house during the school year though.) I'll talk more about all of that in a later post, but I really want to focus on some of the accomplishments with the team so far this summer.

One of the big things that happened this summer was we had three teams in the Race Across America! It was exciting because they also made an effort to blog about the experience and one team even tweeted as they went. I can't imagine trying to keep the rest of the world updated on how you are doing while doing such an exhausting event! It was great to be able to follow along as they progressd across the country. (And slightly frustrating because the course changed this year so the teams were only 3 miles away from me at one point, and I didn't know it until after they had passed through! Glad they got to see that Indiana wasn't all flat though I am sure they weren't too happy with those hills!

Also there were to other sets of folks who set out to raise money for awareness, and one of them blogged about their experiences as well! Then there were the Perfetti's who were on the Today Show, and of course everyone who ran any of the official NF Endurance Team races across the country this summer.

It's great to see what I have been hoping would happen take off. That is, people across the country using social media to share there stories, raise awareness, and raise money for a cure for NF!

I'm about to embark on my latest adventure with the team myself and hopefully you can come along for some of the ride. Bob emailed me back before I even ran Disney this year to ask if I would be interested in running a 195 mile relay with the team in August. (Keep in mind at this point I hadn't even registered for the Flying Pig Marathon yet. I have a hard time committing to things so far in the future.) Nevertheless, the idea of running a relay with the team and being cramped into vans with others for 36 hours sounded to good to pass up. :-)

So here I sit at the airport wondering what this latest adventure has in store. Especially since this run is a little bit different. If all goes well, we might see more of these team relay type events. I am really excited because I feel like we'll be able to build a stronger sense of team community at this race than I've experienced at other races. Not because the other races I've run with the team were bad or the people were not friendly, but because again... there's just something about being forced into close quarters with one another to help that community along.

Maybe I am counting my chickens before they're hatched, but I am more excited about this race than I have been in a long time. Be sure to follow my attempts to update everyone on our progress at http://www.twitter.com/NFEDWWR (If I can get good enough reception in the mountains that is.) While you may not be with us in person, we're all together in spirit to raise awareness and find that cure for NF.

Photo by Scott Ingram Photography

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Flying Pig Marathon Trip and Race Report

Photo by joseph a. Some Rights Reserved.

Saturday:

Drove down to Cincinnati around noon. I dragged my nieces Caitlyn and Khari along for this race because they had never been to a marathon. It ended up being a beautiful drive down.  The sun was shining and the leaves were really starting to fill in on the trees. We stopped by the expo first because it was still too early to check in to the hotel. My nieces loved the expo, but really what child doesn't love it when they get a bunch of free stuff? Of course, we also stopped by the NF Endurance Team booth for a few minutes to talk to everyone working there. We then headed to lunch at Subway over on the Kentucky side of the river near the hotel because I had forgotten to eat breakfast and I was hungry!

By the time we finished eating, it was time to check in. Once we got settled in the room, we used the three hours to relax until before the team pasta dinner to relax. My nieces were a bit restless at first. They thought it would be a good idea to go swimming at first, but thankfully ended up being content watching Hannah Montana and all those other new-fangled Disney shows the kids like these days. (It was too cold to swim.)

I dozed off on the bed for about 2 1/2 hours and used the last half hour to go over all the details to make sure I had times and locations correct for the race. I also went ahead and did the old ritual of setting out my clothes and shoes for the next morning. By that time it was time to head down for some good food, and team fellowship.

The pasta dinners are always a great experience. It's really the best opportunity to connect with everyone else racing to cure NF at a race. You meet parents who have had to put two kids through chemotherapy, but at the same time are always looking to the positive side of things. You meet NF heroes like Jesse Markland who deals with severe pain in his young life, but still won't turn down a chance to be in the spotlight. Hearing everyone's stories of the trials they have been through, but the hope they have for a better future is one of the things that keeps me coming back again and again to race for a cure. 

I also invited my friend Caroline from my summer job to come with her parents. She had been really helpful keeping me at least somewhat accountable for my training this year which I consider to be a donation of her "expertise". Turns out she even had a family member who had NF. (I think it was her grandmother's cousin. Apparently she dealt with a lot of social stigma because she had significant tumors on her face.) It just goes along with my theory that just about everyone in this world has some sort of connection to Neurofibromatosis whether they realize it or not. The food was good as usual, and Caroline even donned an NF singlet during the race to help raise awareness! the videos that are shown always hit me in the gut and remind me why we need to keep running for a cure.

18 Wonderful Years

After that, I dropped a room key off at the front desk for my parents. They were at a wedding on Saturday and wouldn't be in until late. I didn't want to have to get up to let them in since I was going to be getting up at 5 am. Back to the room. My nieces fell asleep before I did.  I finally fell asleep around 11 PM. Luckily my parent's didn't wake me up when they came in after midnight.

Sunday:

Woke up at 5 AM with no problem. First thing I did was get on the computer to check the weather. It was 8 degrees warmer than the weatherman had said it would be! Glad I double checked! I changed my base layer up, then headed downstairs to meet everonethe rest of the team at 5:30. The hotel created a buffet style line of food leading from the elevators to the lobby. Nice! Grabbed a banana and a gatorade, took part in a few photos, then we made our way across the river. There was a light sprinkle, and after a few minutes of walking I was comfortable. (The nervous energy I get before a race always seem to make me shiver at least a little bit.) Once we got to the corrals at the start, I split off for a last minute bathroom break. I had been planning on starting with the 4:45 pace group, but when I came back out of the porter potty a mass of runners had made their way into the corrals and I couldn't get close. No worries though. I could always catch up with them later...

Photo by Michael E. Anderson. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission. http://www.flyingpigmarathon.com

The firing gun went off, and we were on our way! I saw Steve (our team Director) and Amy Kast (Gigi's mom who was coaching too) around mile 1 on the first bridge over the Ohio River. I also kept "running into" someone from the team off and on those first few miles.  I'd offer words of encouragement every time. (I think it was her first race.) Ran through most of Newport and Covington on my own, but as we were approaching the bridge back over the Ohio I managed to catch up with the 4:45 pace group. 

Photo by Michael E. Anderson. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission. http://www.flyingpigmarathon.com

I pulled back a bit since we'd be approaching the hill in a couple of miles and I wanted to make sure not to push myself too hard on it. 

Photo by sonofgunn25. Some Rights Reserved.

After doing all my training in Brown County, the hill in Cincy felt more like a gentle incline. I felt strong the entire way up, but not strong enough to leave the 4:45 pace group behind. (I was planning on finishing somewhere between 4:30 and 4:45.) I started to get a series of mild side stitches beginning around mile 13. I could run through it, but it isn't exactly my favorite way to run. The 4:45 pacer Judy kept me motivated and going strong. I knew as long as I didn't fall too far beind her, I was going to land within my goal range. 

Past mile 18, I was in the zone where my body was fighting me. From that point on, I did very little without talking. I was using all my energy to focus on the run. I stayed strong, kept my pace up until we were about a mile out. That's when I saw Steve again. Ran alongside me to see how I was doing. Told him I was pretty exhausted but I was going to keep it up. he broke off to catch someone else with the team further back, but at that point I was coming up on Amy and Paul. (Paul is the guy who ripped his collar bone in December but still did the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge at Disney World.) He wasn't running for time, so he waited for me to catch up and then helped run me into the finish. I really appreciated that. Overall a 4:42:45 time. (Edit: No negative split. Not sure how I got that idea.) A new personal record though!

Photo by sonofgunn25. Some Rights Reserved.

A big thank you to everyone out their to cheer us on along the course which was really appreciated.  A big thanks to "Pacer Judy" and everyone else in the 4:45 pace group. Thanks to the Flying Pig Marathon staff and volunteers for putting on a great race! (And letting me use their photos.) And of course the biggest thanks goes out to everyone racing with or supporting the NF Endurance Team. You are the ones who are helping make a cure possible for all of our NF Heroes.

Thank You!

(P.S. More photos can be found on the Flying Pig website, and you can see pictures of me crossing the finish at www.runphotos.com.)

Quick Update

Photo By 60 in 3

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I am going to wait until I have some good pictures to write my race report. For those who are wondering, I came across the Finish Swine in 4:42:45. It may be slow but it is a PR for me. My previous best on the Pig course was 4:51:13. My goal for the Fall is to get it under 4:30. (I was on track for 4:30 until I started slacking on my speed and core workouts in April.) More on all that in the race report.

Two and One

I've been crazy busy the past few days so I haven't had a chance to put down my number two or one songs in the countdown. Here we go! See everyone after the finish line!

For #2 a little early 90s action.



And for #1, well what else?

3 is the Magic Number...

Who doesn't love this one! Especially useful at about mile 22 when you start wondering how you talked yourself into doing this again...

4 Days now!

Ok going with the sappy running song everyone knows today. You can pretend like you've never run in slow motion while humming this next one, but I won't believe you...



(I've been to the beach where this scene was filmed. That was long before my running days though.)