Props to Drew and Erica for their coordination of the whole thing - I'm not sure I'd be able to wrangle up 11 of my friends to run 3 times - various lengths - in under 24 hours!
The weekend itself is now a blur - I wish I had updated this immediately after the race was over...I had so many more thoughts running through my mind!
The race went exactly how I had described it in my previous entry - 1 team of 12 split into 2 vans...taking various legs of the 200 mile race. We were exhausted by the end...and I'll admit, I was a little cranky (especially since Sean and I had to head back to NYC) but it was so worth it!
I was very impressed with Van 1 - we were all very supportive of one another....did our best to stop along each others routes to cheer one another on... It made the time go by fast, and the long hours of being awake and running not so hard.
I think we all did a great job running - I was impressed with Aims who talked her self up to be this "inexperienced" runner, if you want to call it that - and then coming out and kicking ass, especially on the hilliest leg of all the routes! Sean, with his knee problems and all, managed to amaze us with his sprinting skills by running his first 2 mile leg in just over 12 minutes...Alexis made the night runs look easy, always had a smile on. Jon - claims he didn't even train but like Alexis, made it all look easy...And Drew - just looked like a super human or something...he even managed to finish his final leg, which turned out to be just over 11 miles - with a smile on :)
I think I did pretty well myself - I've never run multiple times in a day so the first leg I felt the best out of the all...by my final leg of 7.5 I felt like I had just ran a marathon! I was VERY thankful to see Jon waiting for me just over that hill at the end...
Because of the lack of preparation on my end....and zero stretching between runs - My legs were pretty much shot this entire week. I tried to do an "easy" run on the Tuesday following the race and barely made it a block before deciding riding the bike at the gym would be my best bet. The 5th floor walk up certainly did not help with my burning quads...
It's been a week since the race and I'm finally feeling back to normal! I'm looking forward to the weeks ahead and I'm actually excited to start marathon training! Just over a month to go!
If you ever want to do an "ultra" relay race - I'd highly recommend it! As long as you are ok with being stuck in a messy van, with 5 sweaty and smelly teammates then you are good to go!
