Even Better than We Thought

The official results have been posted, and we rocked this thing even more than we knew! Our time was 27:31:46, for an average pace of 7:57. We were 25th out of 123 teams in our category (mixed open men/women) and 112 out of 399 teams total.

Not that we care about time.

But it's nice to know.

We R'ed the B

In record time: 27 hours, 30 minutes, for an average pace of 8:15! At the moment I can't remember exactly what we managed last year, but I think we beat our record by a fair bit. And more important, we all had such a great time that everyone, more or less, has already signed on to the RRFC for Reach the Beach 2010. They did this even before the actual and remembered pain has faded, and that's saying something.

And now some of our favorite quotes from the vans:

"I'm cramped up and I'm totally nude."

"The sun, man...it just keeps comin' up every day."

"You can spank the devil!"

"Who brought the bag lady?"

"Good work!! Nice socks!"

"Ewww... I shouldn't have picked THAT up!"

"You're still flashing, Leslie. Could you knock that off please?"

(When passed by a speeding Ultra racer, who makes you feel like you're standing still): "It's like, I'M running and HE'S doing some other thing"

How's the weather, you ask?

Perfect!...now. Not so in the beginning. Weldon flew in from flat,dry Texas to run straight up a mountain in a monsoon. In fact the first 3 legs or so were executed in the worst rain we've had in our 3 years. Then it cleared completely and the night running has been starry and sublime. Temp is cold for spectators, just perfect for runners.

sun's comin' up

There is light on the horizon and energy in the van! Chris's run was "focused" and excellent (in his own words),Joe killed his hero's leg, and Kathy is working a real runner's high. Leslie is out there now on her longest leg, and Rodrigo and Erica both did the impossible:got some sleep in the van.

No Sleep for the Orange Line

That's the new motto for us on the Green Line. We're certain the Orange Line is running so fast out of spite, to deny us sleep, and we're on deck waiting to return the favor. At this point,2:30 am and exactly halfway through the race, we are running a full hour ahead of our pre-race projections! The Green Line had a few hours sleep in a nice hotel room: our fortunes have certainly risen compared to the first year! Chris is about to kick off our 2nd legs and Joe is coping with the prospect of his impending 600 foot gain over 9 miles... Stay tuned. For now, all are healthy and if not exactly happy, at least not outwardly hostile.

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Testing our midnight remote posting capabilities...

Introducing the 2009 Rosie Ruiz Fan Club

Welcome, Fans of the Fan Club!

We arrived in Sugar Hill, NH last night at 10:30 and quickly got settled into 5 rooms of a B&B that would under other circumstances be called romantic. For those of you new to the race, an orientation:

Reach the Beach is a 200-mile, 24-hour (in our case, more like 30-hour), round-the-clock relay race. This is the 3rd year the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club has made an appearance in the race, albeit with a slightly different membership each time. Rosie Ruiz, as you may know, is the woman who famously won the Boston Marathon in 1980 with an assist from the Boston subway system.

You can read more about the race here and about our honorary team member, Rosie, here.

And now, our team! These are the brave/naive souls who will be taking us through New Hampshire this year:

In Van 1, the Orange Line, we have (in order of runner):
Judson Lew, Weldon Johnson, Zak Megeed, Barbara Farell, Ali Crum*, and Tammy Feldman.

Van 2, the Green Line, is:
Chris Dawson*, Joe Simmons, Kathy Ball-Toncic*, Leslie Martin, Rodrigo Canales*, and Erica Dawson*

* means the person has run this thing before. Note there is only one * on the Orange Line. That means that the non-*s are basically running the show over there with no experience of van transitions, night running, etc. (Of course they also have no experience of nearly missing the transition point or sleeping in a room so dirty you wouldn't use the bathroom, so it all evens out I suppose).

Sadly missing from our team this year is my sturdy co-captain (whether he knows it or not!), Matt Spiegel. Mend well Matt and we hope you are back next year. I mean REALLY hope.

I can't go into the full educational experience for those of you new to the race, so feel free to look through posts from previous races on our blog (Spet. 2007 and Sept 2008) to discover what it's all about and why we would need Christmas lights and window markers.

We will try to keep you all posted on our progress here as the race goes on. Our start time this year is 12:40. It's now 7:09, so that gives us enough time for Barbara to barely make the start line ; )

Let the van decorating commence!

Good Luck to the 2009 Team

Yours truly is not running with the team this year due to my time on the DL. Alas, the loss is mine. The weather looks like it may hold up and spare everybody from running during a major downpour! Wow that will be different! But, I could have predicted that with me on the sidelines they were sure to have clear running weather over the whole course. So, good luck to this year's fan club. Fleet feat to all.

Matt