Orange Line Round 2

After dinner it was off to the VTA to take over the wrist band from the Green Line. It was closer than the Green Line ever knew! The place we went for dinner was a few miles away from the course. But, we were given directions back to the VTA. Well, on the way we got lost. Very lost. Say 30 minutes past where we needed to turn lost! In a panic we called in to find out where the Green Line was. They told us and I then entered the last runner's time in the wrong cell on our spreadsheet. Yikes! Just 15 minutes to drive over 30! We are going to be late! Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and pointed out my error. Whew! We had nearly an hour to get there. Well we made it! It was close but we were on time. Why is this so important? Missing a transition is a major infraction of the pact between vans. There is little enough time to sleep and eat without your teammates forcing you to hang around cooling your heals until they show up. To make matters potentially worse, you should have heard me last year when the Green Line was late! I sure did not want to be on the receiving end of anything similar!

The Orange Line's second outing was a night run. All I can tell you is that running in the middle of the night with 350 other teams out on the road is something else. During my leg one runner, who I battled for a couple of miles after which I could not keep up, cheered me on by saying something like, "How often do you get to run a race at midnight? Soak it up!" Good call! It is something else.

Now on to the pictures! Fortunately for the Orange Line we had our own chauffeur to help us out. Dave did a great job.

He kept track of where we were, where we needed to be for our runner, and with all that he managed the occasional cheer to prod on the runners on course. Naturally, these were very quite cheers as the course turns into a quite zone after 6pm!

Pictures of our runners? Well they are tougher to get at night but not as it turns out impossible! First up in the van was Sue and here she is taking the wrist band from Aisling and thus sending the Green Line off to a well deserved rest.

After taking over Sue sped off to another great run passing runner after runner.

Lest you think that we only let Dave drive we have proof of him out on the course. Here he is in the middle of his hilly, 4.2 mile night run.

While the pictures you see here are from my camera my van mates were kind enough to take a shot of me getting ready for my leg.I am happy to report that I too pulled in a faster than expected pace, by nearly 30 seconds per mile! I had hoped to break a 7 minute mile and according to my GPS watch I did. Alas, the official map claims my watch was off on its distance estimate and I did not quite make it. Still, close enough and way faster than the spreadsheet had me pegged for!

Here we have Birgit during her spectacular run.Her second leg pace was nearly a minute faster than we had forecast! Great running!

What about the support crew? Dave not only drove, and cheered that night but also supplied on course aid as you can see here. Oh yes, once again the relay race managed to do the impossible and that is even tucker out Sue!
Once Merle was done with her run, a swiftly completed 3.4 mile leg, it was off to the hotel for a good night's sleep! Hah! A good night's sleep if your idea of one is about 2 or 3 hours of sleep immediately followed by your third set of runs! Night all.

Matt