The Blue Ridge Relay Is In The Books

It's over! We did it! Team MG Easy ran 208 miles in 30 hours, 45 minutes, and 41 seconds. That's an 8:52 average pace. 

I thought I would write a long post about the race but I don't think I'm going to, for the main reason that an experience like this is so hard to capture and I fear not doing it justice. I could tell you some of the details - maneuvering a 15-person white cargo van up twisting mountain roads that aren't wide enough for a moped; stashing wet smelly clothes in airtight plastic bags; eating GORP by the handful; tracking our kills (runners you pass on the course); the snap bracelet; the jokes (Nathan - You go, girl!); the dark hours between 1 and 5 AM when it was cold and everyone has passed the point of exhaustion and we still had to suit up and run; how much we looked forward to the transition zones so we could see Van #2 and hear their stories; the total camaraderie of being surrounded day and night by runners on the same crazy adventure as you... it was an all-encompassing experience. I feel like I've been gone for a month versus 48 hours. 

I did okay on my runs. I started out way too fast on my first leg and it cost me. Lesson learned. Start slow, finish fast. 

The other thing I learned is that the human body, particularly my body, is capable of handling much more than I give it credit for. My former way of thinking which looked like, "I can't run hard today because I just did a leg workout yesterday and I need to rest" no longer cuts it. If I can run up a mountain after being awake for over 30 hours, most of that time spent in a van, I can handle a P90-X workout followed by a run, don't you think?

Now that I've caught up on my sleep (I slept almost 16 hours yesterday), I already miss the race. I would totally run this monster again. I'm headed outside right now to plaster the 208/36 sticker on my car. 

We earned it.