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Hood to Coast Van 2 Part II

September 28, 2011 / mary and trevor / No comments

I got a little carried away with my first post, and given I’m writing this a month after we finished, I’ll try to wrap this up.

This image at the beginning of the post is of vans arriving to Exchange 18 at the Columbia Country Fairgrounds. We arrived to the exchange fresh from our break at Todd’s place and ready to run. I think this set of legs was the most exciting for everyone because we would be running at night. We readied our night gear (head light, front and back blinkers, and reflective vests) and wished Amanda good luck on her leg. Good thing a few of us brought some night gear, almost every leg resulted in the loss of some blinkers.

The night run was my favorite run by far. It was crazy to take off from the exchange and start running into the woods (I had finished with a 6:52 pace). Even with the head light, you couldn’t really see much. Every now and then I would see the back blinkers on a runner in front of me and all I thought was “roadkill” – which I think helped with the quicker pace time.

Following Todd’s second leg we decided to skip the available showers at the next exchange and continue to the next van exchange. This decision, while keeping my dad up all night driving, proved to be key in keeping us on time. We pulled into the van exchange around 3:30 – 4:00am (I’m not really sure on the time since I actually managed to catch some sleep on the drive out). We laid out a tarp, set our alarms, and fell asleep. Next year I’ll be sure to bring a sleeping bag and not just a blanket. It was cold so I put on my running tights, long sleeve running shirt, long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, and socks. If it weren’t for my ear plugs, I’m not sure if I would have slept well (vans coming and going all night).

Now my favorite non-running part of the event happened on Saturday. I was completely passed out when all of a sudden Marc shakes me awake, “TREVOR! GET UP! WE HAVE TO GO!” I’m in a total daze and slowly start gathering my stuff. It is about 6:45am and we haven’t heard from Van 1. Our walkie-talkies we had been using weren’t working for some reason and we had no mobile reception. We start packing up the van and Marc goes, “Great, I’ve lost a shoe. Where’s my shoe?” I’m not sure why, but this seemed like the funniest thing to me. Maybe it is because this was the first time I witnessed Marc as something other than calm and collected. We packed up, sent our runner down to the exchange where they met up with Van 1 and off we went.

We also learned that many Van 2 vans were not able to make this exchange after sleeping and shower at the earlier exchange. Traffic congestion from having Van 1 and Van 2 on the road caused hour long back-ups. Lack of sleep paid off for us.

My last leg was . My pace dropped significantly on this one (7:59) partially due to being tired, but I also started out slow and picked up my pace too early. At one point in the run I heard another van tell their runner, “You’re halfway there.” Assuming they were telling the truth I kicked things up. Instead, I was more like 40% through, which meant I gassed myself out.

Following an episode of wondering whether or not we would beat Todd to the beach (we did), we met up with Van 1, ran through the finish line and enjoyed some celebratory beers.

Registration is almost here for the 2012 Hood to Coast and I’ve already planned on running again.

Team 2 Legit 2 Quit

Hood To Coast – Van 2

September 12, 2011 / mary and trevor / One comment

Part 1:

In hindsight I wish came up with nicknames. Even now I am not sure what they would be, but nicknames would have been a cool way to start this post. Instead, I will just list our van.

Leg 7 – Amanda
Leg 8 – Marc
Leg 9 – Me
Leg 10 – Ashley
Leg 11 – Megan
Leg 12 – Todd
Driver – Ski

Our plan was to meet at Todd’s at 7am, which was perfect for me because Ashley, Mary and I took the train to Portland and got in around 9:30pm. I must have felt bad for Mary (who was staying with the Jacobson’s), because I woke up around 4am, a half hour before Tessie (Van 1) took off down Mt Hood.

As luck would have it, Todd had rented Prefontaine (Jared Leto version) to have at his place during Hood to Coast. Watched the movie and was ready to roll by the time everyone else woke up. We took off around 7:30am since Van 1 was pacing a head of schedule and went toward the first van exchange.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Hood to Coast before we got to the first van exchange. What I saw was beyond any expectations I might have had. The Safeway parking lot in Sandy, OR doubled as the first exchange and was packed with vans and runners. Everyone was in high spirits as they cheered on their runners coming into the first exchange. While Van 1 had been apart of HTC for hours, this was our first experience. Within a half hour of arriving at the first van exchange, Amanda was off and running, we had said good-bye to Van 1, and headed on our way.

My first leg was Leg 9, a 7.04 flat run listed as “moderate” on the HTC site. My plan was to pace myself for around a 7:15 min/mile. I was pretty close that coming in at a 7:27 pace. To be honest, I was a little worried I would come out too fast and run myself out on the first leg. Surprisingly, even with all of runners and the cheering, it wasn’t too hard to keep a slower pace.

Back in the van after your first leg is interesting. Two others in my van had already run, so we had something in common to discuss. I also I had no idea how Marc had done, since he handed off to me. It was nice to catch-up and hear how his first run went. To be honest, I felt pretty bad for Megan and Todd at this point, because they still had to wait to run while watching everyone else.

The second van exchange was in Portland, below the Hawthorne Bridge. This was probably my favorite exchange because of the high energy…and because it was the longest stretch of time I got to see Mary in during the whole run.

With our first legs in the books, Van 2 headed to Todd’s place to crash, relax, and grab a shower (which was awesome). For anyone reading this who plans on running HTC someday, I would highly recommend finding a house along the route to crash at between one of your van exchanges.

Our team didn’t talk too much during this resting period. We put on Prefontaine and vegged out. I was able to grab about a 45 minute nap, but found it really hard to sleep with the excitement of the next run.

Hood to Coast- Mary’s Version

September 12, 2011 / mary and trevor / No comments

As our Thursday afternoon came to a close, Trevor, Ashley and I boarded the train in Seattle to head down to Portland for Hood to Coast. Todd was gracious enough to pick us all up at the train station and drop me off at the Jacobsons’around 10 pm. Since I was the only one that was going to be in Van 1 (riding with runners 1-6), Katie and David offered me their guest room for the night. Funny it wasn’t really much of a night or much sleep since Rich and the Escalade was there to pick us up around 3:00 in the morning! With a 4:30 am start time we needed to get up to the mountain and at the starting line.
While our van was full of our other runners and gear, we had one runner who was struggling with food poisoning. While carbo loading the previous night at the Spaghetti Factory might have sounded like a good idea, it was not. Poor Kelly Miller was in agony that hour long trip up the mountain.
As we got to the mountain around 4 it was good to see the other vans and runners but I still didn’t know what I was really getting myself into or what the weather was going to do. Whereas we had all heard the weather was going to be great, the mountain gave us a lighting storm which Tessie had to run through (I think running from it made her faster!) and a ton of rain that David got blasted with. By the time it was my turn as runner number 4 it was still raining but not too bad. Enough to keep my feet wet and have to avoid puddles. My first run was helped by a gal named Melissa from Michigan, who kept pace with me and chatted to distract us from almost 8 miles of downhill. She was in town for her sister’s wedding and made the most of her trip by finding a team to run on while here.
At the first exchange I got to see the rest of the Jezierskis and a glimpse of all the other Van 2′s. Amazing to see that many people and having been awake that long to see where the race was heading. Our team members in Van 1 had a slight lead of their expected time and were happy to take a break at Todd’s house. So nice to wash our wet clothes, get a shower and lie down for a bit. This was only the start of Craig’s marathon sleeping. Amazing that he can just sleep sitting up or being cramped in a car because when he wasn’t running it’s often what he was doing. Considering he had the hardest of all the legs I really can’t blame him.
My second run was Friday around 6 pm in the hot sun. I knew the other’s were dying in the hot sun but trying to stay hydrated while also trying to avoid overusing the porta potties was also part of my mission. It wasn’t my best run and having to stop at two stoplights (once to cross the street to the opposite direction) wasn’t helping. After the second legs were done we headed back to Scappoose to get a hot shower and dinner. There was a high school there where we could pay to take a shower and it was certainly worth it.
Don’t know how Rich our amazing driver did it, but he stayed up and got us to our next exchange to wait for the rest of our team. There was difficulty making transitions here since there was no cell signal here and the walkie talkies weren’t always working in our favor. This left us lingering and waiting to see when Todd would actually come running in. He did come running in around 3:15 am so it was back at it for our van. Most of us got some good pitch dark running in at some point or another and this is where I got mine. Pretty crazy running through the forest with a flashlight and thank goodness Ashley recommended a good speaker for my iPod- without getting to use headphones it would’ve been pretty creepy in that forest. Unfortunately the battery in the car died while I was out doing my run. I hear there was a scramble and a nice van that gave them a jump to get back on the road. Too bad that meant that Craig had to get out of the van before the exchange and run an extra mile to hurry up and catch up with me.
When our van had completed all three legs it was off to Seaside for a shower, breakfast and wait for everyone to finish. We had breakfast at the Pig N Pancake and had some post race beers before Todd came rolling in around 12:30. All in all, a crazy and amazing race. I knew it was a big deal when Megan said she put us into a lottery and that there were so many entrants that we might not get it. Of course we did and what an experience. Trevor and I watched the Hood to Coast movie the other night and I’m glad we didn’t watch it beforehand- I think it would’ve changed my mind in doing the race.

I thought this was funny, this is a quote from our driver:
“Mary was the quite one in our van, I didn’t really get a chance to talk with her too much, she was focused on her running, which she did great with. She wasn’t into us getting out and cheering her on as she ran and lucky for her the legs she ran didn’t give us a good opportunity to do this, because her asking not to make a big deal for her is usually all it takes for me to make sure we are out multiple times with human archways and finish lines all along the way. Next year watch out Mary, we will be better prepared with cowbells and a vuvuzela to let you know how much we support your running! ”