A Relay Well Done

As my blaring alarm awoke me from my peaceful sleep at 4:40 Sunday morning, all I could think was, why do races start so early? As a sprung out of bed (yes a spring was required to get up in the darkeness) and began to make breakfast and wake up, I began getting excited for the day ahead. Finally, it was here again. The Mt. Si Relay.

Last year, our Husky Running Club women's relay team won our age division, and this year we were returning to defend our title. Last year we won with an average split around 8:45 min/mi, and our fast team this year wasn't to concerned about being able to set a new record.

The sun began rising as we drove out to North Bend, WA. The nerves in me were beginning to build. I was running the first leg (and the 6th), and needed to start the team off right. By the time we got to the race start, it was light out and was the perfect temperature in the PNW: just warm enough for shorts, but not to cool to need gloves.

When the gun went off, the mass of runners and I left the high school to begin our epic (7 hour!!) journey on the trails in Snoqualamie.

I set in behind to guys and fell into the perfect rythm, enjoying the forest scenery around me. I knew I was near the front of the pack, but since its a small race, the group was pretty spread out. One of the guys was playing obnoxious music so loud in his headphones that I could here it from at least 7 feet away. The other, slightly older, had the same watch as me (Garmin 305) and as I was running, I really appreciated him turning off his beep-beep-beep-beep at ever mile, seeing as we were doing 8 miles together.

The transition came swifty, as I passed off to Caryn, and I took note of race numbers whose members started their second leg. The race for First had begun.

We looked up who was leading our category, the Running Divas, and dubbed them the green team. Also, Moms in Motion (in light pink) was leading the women's relays.

We couldn't have asked for a better race. After pasing the Running Divas around leg 5, we looked to Moms in Motion as our next target, making each of our second legs stronger than the first. Laury was the lucky runner to pass the Pink team on the 8th leg. As we looked towards the finish, we were excited to be leading the pack.

After the last transistion, we meandered over to the finish area to wait for Shannon to come into the shute, and snack on a few delicious bagels from Panera Bakery, after all, I had been telling everyone on the team about how delicious they were since the start of the race. As we stood there talking and enjoying hte sunshine, Moms in Motion appraoched us and said "Did all 5 of your runners run the right legs? We're curious how you guys ran so fast in the second half and passed us." We looked at them funny and replied that we had in fact ran our race fair in square.They continued to ask us about each of our split times, repeated that it was weird/curious/interesting that we all ran our second legs faster than the first. After the Moms walked away, having essentially accused us of cheating, someone mentioned that maybe we ran faster becuase we ere each about 20 years younger than them, so we could recover better in the 4 hours between our legs then they could.

Soon after, Shannon came into the finish, after I began the race, 7 hours and 2 minutes before then. As we recived our custom made first place tiles, we marveled in the fact that not only did we win our age category, but we also were the first women's team to finish. period.

I think the Moms wanted the honor of saying they were the first to finish, and were in fact faster than everyone not only older than them, but younger as well. Alas, our fast collegiate legs were able to out run them.

Happy Trails!

Soph