That Saturday morning, I headed out for a five hour drive to meet up with two members of a seven member team that I would be running with on Sunday. It was April 20th, and less than 45 minutes away from my house, I hit the first of many snow squalls of the drive. Beyond the snow, the drive was uneventful and easy; I enjoyed listening to the radio stations of my choice.
The lake house was beautiful and spacious. The three of us were assigned a bedroom that had three twin beds in it. We dropped our stuff and headed back downstairs for some introductions and socializing; eventually, we made dinner and ate at around 9 pm. Many laughs and discussions of when we were going to get up and out of the house later, we made our way to bed a bit before midnight...definitely a late night for me, and far later than I have ever stayed up the night before a race. But we had a great time, and I didn't drive five hours to just sleep!
The rules said that we were to arrive by 7 am to pick up our race packet. Our entire team had to be there to sign something; the race started at 8 am. Not everyone in our group agreed that we should abide by this rule. In fact, by the time we left the lake house, it was 7 am. I was quite worried that we would miss the opportunity to pick up our packet or that we would somehow be disqualified. Those fears intensified when I realized the lake house was almost 40 minutes away from the starting point.
The third car in a three car caravan, we nervously watched as the lead drivers spoke out of their windows to race officials and police officers. They were given instructions and information. A couple of people got out of the car. One shrugged her shoulders at us. I was sure our race was over before it even started.
We finally were able to find a parking space and reconnect with our group. I was amazed and relieved when I was asked to sign a paper and our team leader was told where to pick up our packet. We quickly got our bibs pinned on and headed back outside. We attempted to get a group picture, but the race was minutes away from starting. The first runner made it to the starting line with no time to spare; the second runner ran after the shuttle that would take her to the first checkpoint as it drove past us. The remaining five of us got in the Yukon and drove to the second checkpoint. The adventure had begun.
The race was around a long, skinny lake - Seneca Lake in New York - and was 77.7 miles long. There were seven of us that would cover that distance as a team, each with three legs of a total of 21 legs. I was runner six. Being that I had no coffee or breakfast to speak of, I was quite happy to have a bit of time before I had to run and was hopeful that somewhere along the route I could get a cup.
After we waited in line for quite a while for the bathroom at the second checkpoint, we saw a shuttle arrive and our first runner get off. Now a group of six, we anxiously awaited our runner #2 and cheered her in as runner #3 took off. We had a couple of loose goals: first, to finish the race; second, to not get kicked off the course or picked up by the sweeper van because we didn't finish by the 7:58 pm race cut off. Our third and most lofty goal was to keep up with the time estimator in the back of our map book. It told us when to arrive at each check point if we were to average an 8:30 pace. Our group was composed of women with a wide variety of experience and training - one was training for a marathon and had missed qualifying for Boston last year by 35 seconds, one had gone to college on a cross country scholarship, one had just run her first race in March and it was a five-miler. Our paces ranged from the mid-7's to the mid 10's.
To be continued...
I love this, so fun!!
ReplyDeletexo, Amanda