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Comments: I ran legs 2,12,22. for a total of about 18miles. Leg 2: 8.97miles. 1pm As we were leaving the initial race start site it started to sprinkle. By the time I started my leg an hour later, it was a steady rain but warm enough that it was a nice run. The first 4 miles of my leg was more gentle down hill than up, along the same highway Oache was running. I was flying and feeling pretty good. I was a little concerned that I was running in the high 7s, low 8s but it wasn't steep down hill just a gentle decline down. I felt good!..At about mile 5 the decline got slightly steeper and it was payback time! I should have held back earlier because my left ITB started to bother me. I tried to get all zen about it and run through it but it didn't feel great. So the last 4 miles of this leg I slowed way down to a 10pace and did the bum legged shuffle to the transition area. I still managed to out pace my projected time by a few minutes so was not totally disappointed. Leg 12: 3.99miles 9pm Despite rolling my ITB out, stretching,icing and taking a couple of advil, I was quite apprehensive about my next leg. When we pulled into the transition area, I had this wave of dred come over me when I got out of the van and it was extremely painful to even walk let along run. Was more than a little concerned about what the hell I was going to do. Really wished I had brought my knee straps that I wear when I had ITB issues. Finally I decided to fashion my elastic race belt into a strap around my knee. Wasn't sure it would work but at least it was something. I gathered my night running gear..turned on my head lamp, put the flashers on my vest and headed down to the transition area early, because I didn't want anyone else to see how apprehensive I was. It was good that I did that because Oache came in early and we now had a full half hour lead on our projected race time. Yay us!! (ok its meaningless because we sandbag our paces in hopes of getting an early race start.) Anyway, I took off into the woods following the path and the volunteers standing out there in the pitch black darkness using glow cone directionals to tell us what turns to take. All the while thinking woods? come on,really? What about running on the road?? At one point I tried to flip my headlamp to the brighter mode and it crapped out on me. The volunteer ahead of me said "um maam you need a headlamp".. I thought to myself..duh no shit sherlock, gotta spare in your back pocket? Anyway a girl came up behind me and I asked her if she would let me run with her just until we got out on the road which she kindly obliged even though she was faster than me. There was about 4-5minutes of running through this path..it was kind of eery but at least I was with someone else. I think she was happy I was with her too. Finally out on the road she stayed with me a little longer while we chatted and then we came upon another girl who was running slower so I told her she could take off,as I was sure my van would be coming up sometime soon, and I that could just follow this slower girl. I didn't slow down to hang with the other girl because she was REALLY slower and I figured I could just scope out the road ahead as cars passed. It worked ok. Well heh those bums had me running out there on the dark for well over the next mile!! I took my headlamp off and held it in my roadside hand so when they came up to me they could tell I needed a different one. Finally they pulled up and I tossed the old headlamp to Heater (Chris our designated driver) and he gave me someone elses. I was soooo happy to not be running blind and the rest of the run felt pretty damn good. I was so busy dealing with my headlamp dilemma, I forgot about knee pain!! when I finally got to the transitions area, RunninginNYC was standing there but she isn't who I was supposed to hand off to..Where the hell was Nnej?!? RunninginNYC went off to find her and came back three times without her! On the 4th try she finally found her at the van and brought her back. I was a lil frustrated but had a good laugh about it when I got back to the van...this shit happens EVERY year..this time it was my turn! Leg 22 5.5miles 6am Initially I was psyched because I thought I had escaped having 2 runs in the dark but we still had a half hour surplus and started this leg a little before 6am. Still using my race belt, my knee was not happy, but it didn't feel any worse than it did before the last leg, so was hoping for the best. It was not to be. I ran about 100 yards out and there was a short but steep downhill.dang. By the time I got to the bottom, my left ITB was in full lock down mode. So back to the one legged shuffle but alot more painful than Leg 2. I got to the one mile mark and stopped and stretched out my left hip, quad and ITB. Then started doing the bum leg shuffle again. Repeated this everytime it went into full lock down. Finally when I got to mile 2 my van showed up and I gave them the thumbs down and told them to pull over (I wanted to use the roller stick.) Did that and the knee loosened right up. I told them to go a mile down the road and wait for me in case I needed it again. Once I started running again I was able to maintain a low 8 pace for quite a bit until the next sloping downgrade that locked it up again. Stopped stretched repeat until I got to where the van was pulled over. I told them to just give me the stick I was going to run with it. This worked like a charm so when ever I started locking up I rolled with the stick, then ran. During this leg WHEN I was running I was able to keep the pace in the low 8s almost the whole time as it was mostly flat. I was happy that I still stayed under the 9:30 sandbagged pace I had signed up with so didn't feel like I was letting the team down...not that they care, but still, I do. Thankfully I was done running RTB 2009 not sure I could run after that fiasco. What would you do differently?: Have a bigger running base. Not go out fast on the downhills (which is hard to do.)  Post race
Warm down: heh warm down?!?!..its more like tail gate city..what makes more sense when everyone is deliriously tired than to throw down a boat load of beer...and forget about eating!!! What limited your ability to perform faster: Low running base..Im always a mess after this race regardless of that though. The terrain and the run..sit in a van...run..sit in a van..run..sit in a van wreaks havoc on me legs...its still one of the funnest races to participate in!! Event comments: Ive done this race with various coolrunning and kickrunner peeps since 2006. Its riding in a van with 5-6 peeps for 30ish hours of no sleep, lotsa of running and lotsa beer at the end..Its always a great experiance but this year in particular my van mates (Notey, Oache, Nnej, RNYC and Heater) rocked!!!.. No drama!! Woohoo!! (well except for the visit to the ER)!!...makes it soooo much more fun! Last updated: 2009-07-25 12:00 AM
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Normally the game plan is we all meet up in Hampton Beach and go out to dinner the night before the race,hit the sack early, then get up at the crack of stupid and head up to race site. Twas not quite the way it went this year!
I drove up to meet everyone at the hotel we were all staying at (Hampton House). This year I had 4 roomates so I brought the air mattress and volunteered to sleep on the floor because I don't share a dinky double bed well with anyone no matter what sex they are!
Anywho, I arrived and Jensparks and VogelMd were already there. We hung out in my room and had a beer while waiting for the rest of the Mass. contingent who had to pick up the vans and also the Ohio and Illinois contingent from Logan airport. They all arrived within the hour and as we were standing there greeting each other, Oache says that he hadn't been feeling well on the plane trip out here. He said he was going to wait until he got to the mountain to decide what was going to happen. Wait WHAT?!?!?!...I asked him what was wrong and he told me he had some chest pain, and numbness in his left arm..hmmm Beth is thinking...."Um uhhh DUDE wtf???" After very little discussion we all agreed that none of us were up to performing CPR out in the middle of East Bumblefuk and that he should be getting checked out at the local ER. I volunteered to take him since I was the only one with a medical background and also had my car. Anaphase volunteered to come for the adventure too.
8pm we are off to Portsmouth Hospital to get this all investigated. He got checked in and knowing it was going to be awhile, we took off to a local truckstop and I had the greasiest pattimelt ever..honestly probably would have eaten a plate of dog food at this point I was so hungry. In the mean time Notey is texting me nonstop wanting updates as he and the others were trying to make up an emergency game plan..all I could do was tell him to relax it was prolly going to be awhile before I heard anything. Got back to the hospital around 9:30ish and we were allowed to go in and hang with Mr. Oache. His EKG was normal and I asked his nurse if he had his blood work taken and what time. I know this routine well since it is part of my work routine investigating this stuff prior to the testing we do. After sitting there chatting with him for an hour or so, I think we were all getting a little tired, so I popped my head out the door and asked the nurse what their protocol was and how much longer for the first set of blood work to come in. It turned out they were going to be drawing another set at 12:30 and then would decide if he could be released. Which could have been as early as 2am or as late as the next morning. We made the decision that we would go back to the hotel so we could organize our crap,find out what kind of new race plan Notey came up with, and hopefully get a little sleep.
Back at the hotel, filled everyone in about what was going on and Notey told me about the potential race plan if Oache was out. Ugh 5 legs..shorter ones, but 5. and also it would entail running leg 4 which is the all down hill leg..I told him fine but be prepared for a total fail if you have me doing that one because I know for a fact that my quads can't handle it..been there done that. Next I did what I needed to do and went to bed. I got the phone call at 2am to pick him up and learned he was cleared to run if he chose to. Yafrigginhoo! we get to stick with the original game plan!! Gingerbread woke up when the phone went off so she came with to bust Oache loose.
There was no warm up. We get there, decorate the van,get our race numbers and other stuff, line up for pics, then stand around for the time our 1st runner is assigned to start the race. This year we were given a later start time (12pm) because in general we had faster runners. Oache was first man up for an 8miler along a path and then highway.