THE RACE: This race is a 44-mile relay from Kansas City to Lawrence, Kan. It starts at a Brewery and ends at a Brewery, so there is plenty of drinking involved. Each team member runs two legs of the relay. I had been given legs 1 and 9, and really wanted to get another one in, preferably 7 since it involved crossing a river!

LEG 1: Started with "Heath Ledger Joker" guy from our other team. I told him I was gonna run "fast" for me, and if we didn't end up at the same pace that was okay. I kind of took off and didn't see him again. Little did I know he was RIGHT behind me the whole time LOL! This was a nice little run (longer than the map said, of course). We had to climb up a 4-foot cement barrier to get onto a levy, go down two flights of stairs to go under it, and climb up and down it a few more times on rocks. So that slowed my pace down a bit. I was trying to go fast on this first one, since I knew I'd probably be drinking or tired for Leg 9. The sky started spitting on us, but just a little. Like I said.. nice run.

LEGS 2-6 I was in the team car or driving it to the next location. Getting pictures, having fun. The weather slowly deteriorated, and by Leg 3 it was full blown raining. And windy as hell. I felt sooooo bad for the people out there running. I got a picture of some team mates in their ponchos that were blowing up around their face it was so freaking windy. Unbelievable! By Leg 5 it had turned to snow. That was actually a LOT better than the rain or freezing rain that had falled briefly. Then by Leg 6 it turned back to RAIN. So you can tell we were hovering around the 30-35 degree mark the entire time. Lovely.

LEG 7 came, and Jen and I decided to DOOO IT! There were two routes. If you wanted to cross the river, that route was 1 or 2 miles shorter than the other (nobody seemed to know exactly how far the distances were). So Tom and Eric ran the longer route and raced us to see who would get done first. It was raining lightly, and blowing wind FIERCLY. Jen and I found a running buddy about halfway through and talked to him for a mile or so. Them we came to the RIVER!!! OH BOY we were excited. We had to wait about 10 minutes to cross it by raft. Some local firefighters were volunteering and had been shuttling racers across this river since 6:30 in the morning without a relief crew! They were sweeties, and still in good spirits making jokes and such. When it was our turn, we gingerly made our way down the crazy muddy banks and got helped in to the crazy muddy rafts, after donning crazy muddy lifejackets. Everything, as you can guess, was instantly muddy! Hahaha... we took a really cute picture and we were off! When we got out on the other side, we had to literally pull ourselves up the muddy riverbank (20 feet?) with a provided rope. It was awesome. We felt like we were in an adventure race! Then just a quarter mile and we were at the stopping point to see Tom and Eric already there. OH well, it was worth it anyway.

The ladies running Leg 8 had already taken off, and Jen and I were slated to run Leg 9! So we only had like 10 minutes inbetween those two legs... ooops! That kind of bit us in the butt.

LEG 9 already... OK we can do this then we're DONE! We set off and the winds were just trememdous. AT LEAST 30mph sustained. It was quite impressive. There was debris blowing around, sand kicking up... I had to shield my eyes more than once and wished I had safety glasses on. Oh. And this leg was hilly. I'm talking Lawrence, Ironman Kansas bike course hills. In the wind. In 35-degree weather. In the rain. Uuuuugh. Two words describe this: Bru.Tal. OMG. We could not WAIT for this leg to be done with. Hill after hill after helecious hill. My legs were on fire, and not in the good way. I hurt. Bad. We stopped three times to walk. Finally, at the top of one hill I saw BTer OTTE!!!! That was a surprise and I was glad to see him out and about. Finally came to the end of this leg and just wanted to collapse. I.Was.Spent.


Nada. This is an awesome run that is not serious at all. You can't "do" things differently for this kind of a race. It is what it is.

Headed to the finish line to see our finishers come in. I'm pretty sure I saw BTer WinTimTim finish the SOLO version. Yeah 44 miles in that weather. Wow.

Changed into dry clothes at the hotel and went to the post-race meal at Free State Brewery. We were promised (and we paid for) a gumbo dinner like last year, except by the time we got there it was ALL GONE! They had pizza on the tables, something I wouldn't eat. I ate some fruit and had my beers but it kinda pizzed me off that they ran out of food so soon. I mean, they know how many tickets they sold! Grrrrrr.

Got some Chipotle on the way out of town so not all was lost. Drove back to Ta-Town and the sun was out - how fiting.


Liquor.