The Born in the USA 4 miler and relay is one of Strictly Running’s 2 summer events (along with Hot Summer’s Night 5k) and features a course through the Forest Lakes neighborhood. Essentially it uses the majority of the Cold Winter’s Day course with an extra mile tacked on.

Although I’ve run the full course hundreds of times, its been 5 years since I actually did the 4 miler. This can be explained in one word: relay.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am a relay freak. I live for the 12 people in a van, 200 mile variety, but I’ll take any version I can find.

I love the team concept, running like a bat out of hell in short distances, and of course..the trophy hunt factor.

Most relays bear the prejudice of “real runners” who deem them the event for newbies, kids and old people. I, for one, don’t think this way. I love me some newbies, kids and old people. They dont get in the way of my lust for golden trinkets.

Case in point: the relay part of this race was a total cake walk for most of its existence, setting up my first entry into the event in 2010. The result, is below:

Trophy and I (the aptly named team “Trophy Hunting”) won the damn thing. We got fifty dollars and a couple of watermelons. Eight individual runners beat us in the 4 miler, but I”m apparently completely without shame when it comes to hollow victories. I mean look at that grin – it  looks like I won a week in Bali with Scarlett Johannsen rather than 25 bucks and a fruit I don’t even like that much.

That was the end of our glory though. Once actually fast people saw that jokers like us won, it was all over. We have never come close again, even with Code subbing out for Trophy the last couple of years.

Code was in again this year, and Trophy Hunting, Part 5 was trying the waters again. I keep hoping that the cycle will come back again, that teams will get discouraged and the competition level will get lower. I’ll save you the suspense – it doesnt. I had already done a quick “Strictly stalk” of the registered teams and it was looking grim. A bunch of cross country kids, the Spring Valley CC coach, plus the super fast team that won it last year were signed up. Yeah, we were dead on arrival.

Oh well, at least it would be a good test of a 2 miler. I was taking leg 1 and giving the anchor to the Code. I usually get to races an hour early, but I was feeling lazy and wound up with under a half hour to go by the time I drove up. Code was having a panic attack but it at least gave him some time to jog out to the exchange point.

Everyone and their mom was out there, though they didnt have the elite crowd they drew last year (won by Michael Banks in 19:20 something).  Justin was in ATL for the Peachtree 10k, but we had a decent Team Utopia presence with Julie (doing the relay with Jen Clyburn), Michael Nance, Stevie Dee, Jeff, Lucia, Mike Compton, Ivanka, the Yerg, Kris, Chris Fawver, Tracy, Michael Jensen, Hunter and Laurie.  Lots of Tour de Columbia regulars with Howie Phan, Scott Flicker, Jeff Godby, Shannon Iriel, Randy Hrechko. Billy Tisdale, Birgit Spann and husband Holger, Geary McAlsiter, Pete Poore, Pete O’ Boyle, Andy Mikula, Parker and Joe Roof, Naomi Rabon, Larry Bates, Jim and Sherry Fadel, Albert Anderson, Kathryn Cavanaugh, Meme Spurgeon, the Griffins, Pam Inman, Angel Manuel, Bill Iskrzak, Arnold Floyd, Harry Strick, Henry Holt, Ken Lowden, Rocky Soderberg, Jason Thompson, Jesse Smarr, Sharon Sherbourne, Laurin Long, Cait Costello, The Wards, Coleen Strasburger, Lisa King, Linn Hall, the Ferlautos. I’m leaving out a bunch of people but you get the point. Great CRC turnout.

Since we had no chance of winning, maybe we could at least race the girls. That would be fine except the top womens team had MC Cox and Kenzie Riddle, so I would have to spot the Code a nice lead for us to have a chance at that.

Well, with the start, MC let me know there was no way in hell that was happening. Took off like a beast out of the blocks and left me for dead. The start was weird because they relocated it from the Coplon’s parking lot (which had steeplechase pit like pot holes last year) to a small loop off of Trenholm. Although the footing was more secure, it was super narrow and I got boxed in. As soon as we left the loop (less than a quarter mile) we had the fun of ascending Mount Trenholm – a low grade but endless hill. It sucks jogging up this thing but going sub 6 pace makes you want to cry. At the top I was a half mile in and wanted to stop. Not only was MC way ahead but Angel and the Yerg were kicking my tail, and they were doing the whole four miles. It probably doesnt help I weigh about the three of them combined. Thankfully there’s a long downhill after this, but I’m never good at flying down declines, particularly steep ones in tropical locales.  I make out the mile clock and I can see I’m going to be way over my hope for a 5:50ish pace. Actually did about 6:09 – 2 whole seconds faster than my post cliff 5k pr pace. Way to go hero.

OK, a mile to go, just headless chicken it. It doesnt help that you have yet another nasty incline right after the mile marker, which essentially sits in a valley. At the top of that hill is a turn right and I know its basically all downhill or flat from here. I start trying to ramp it up some. It would probably help if my lungs would stop trying to free themselves from my chest. Those hills take a toll. I finally track down Angel, and I can make out Parker Roof, MC and the Yerg just ahead. Unfortunately I am pretty much toast though, and I’m not making up much ground. Just one short slight incline to the finish but it feels like a roundhouse to the gut. Any chance at sub 12 goes out the window but I do manage a feeble kick right on Parker’s heels. I apologize for the future “being chased by a rabid bear” nightmares, Parker. Hit mile 2 in 5:57, but I had an extra .04 by Garmin, probably due to my jockeying around in the early going.  Code took off after the hand slap and I collapsed in a crumpled heap, making sweet love to the asphalt.

I hung around to take some pics and then jogged back to the finish, some with Jen and Brooke, who was cursing her mother’s name for dragging her through all these hills. Code finished in about 12 minutes and we came in at 24:19 total – both chicked and Yergered, and in 7th place. Still a lot faster than the 2010 win but with competition 100 times more brutal.

Below are results from the Columbia Running Club newsletter. That editor sure is a great guy.

Let it be known that Shannon crushed the competition to take the overall female win.  Michael Lantz won on the mens side. John Charlton dominated male masters with a  blazing 5:49 pace 23:13., while SR’s Linn Hall  won among the women.  No surprise to see Birgit Spann and Billy Tisdale win grandmasters.

In the age groups, Brady Ward took the Under 10 division and Matt Fadel placed second in the 11-13.  Anna Jenkins, fresh from beating down the Blue Shoes at Red Bank, easily won the 11-13 females with an impressive sub 7 effort.  The Golbus twins won the 14-16 while Sarah Hudgins made mom and dad proud with a  first place in the 17-19. Eddie Lopez won the 20-24.  Jennifer Lybrand claimed yet another 25-29 victory in a PR 28:36.  Rob “the Yerg” Yerger topped a competitive 35-39 division over Angel Manuel and Michael Nance. Naomi Rabon won on the women’s side. Jeff Godby and Scott Flicker battled it out for 1-2 in the men’s 40-44, while Meme Spurgeon and Shanequa Coles placed among the women. Pam Inman and Sherry Fadel  took 2nd and 3rd in the 45-49, with Randy Hrechko placing 2nd in the mens division. Lisa King placed second in the 50-54, with Howie Phan taking the mens win.  The 55-59 men was swept by a trio of racing studs: Tisdale, Peter O’Boyle and Geary McAlister. Alsena Edwards won the 55-59 women. Mike Compton placed third in the 60-64 while Lynn Grimes placed second among the women. Ageless Albert Anderson won the 65-69 while Bill Iskrzak finished third. Nita Eichstaedt placed second in the 65-69 and husband Frank did the same in the 70+.  Arnold Floyd and Henry Holt placed first and third in the 70-98.

Oh, and don’t forget the relay. Competition was brutal this year, though I heard the 7th place team was very fast and devastatingly handsome. Mini Van on the Run (Julie Bitzel and Jen Clyburn) placed second among the female teams, with Super Foxes (Bri Hartley and Marie Demetriades) taking third.  Lets not forget Laurin Long also—winner of the costume contest!

http://www.strictlyrunning.com/results/14busa.txt

The Run Red Bank 5k is now in its 3rd year – it was initially was put on by a dental practice in 2012 (still trying to figure that out), then switched over to being a YMCA race last year. It has  faced some stiff competition from other races the first two years but has drawn a respectable crowd each time. It was previously held at White Knoll High School and featured a pretty brutal course with a killer hill right at the finish. I did the race last year and about wanted to die – went over 20 minutes and fell into a crumpled heap afterward. But at least the race was great with awesome volunteers and organization by Erin Roof – she and Todd Heinecke always put together a quality event with great prizes for the overall winners, which always tempts me to trophy hunt.

Speaking of trophy hunts, this year looked good for one. The race was being held the week after Jailbreak, which I figured would mean all the actually fast runners would take the weekend off. When you’re Clydesdale-ish and have a bowling ball for a head, you dont want to be competing against skinny guys in singlets. In addition to a change of venue (moved to the Lexington YMCA) the event added a 10k, which I thought would create the “undercard” factor for the 5k. The flip side was that there was no other race in the area competing with this one. Good for the race, bad for trophies.

I signed up for the 5, partially for the aforementioned trophy factor but also because its South Carolina and its almost June. Read: there’s a good chance its going to be brutally hot. I was hopeful about the course, since I was told that the venue change was to provide a nicer, less hilly route.

Umm, yeah, we’ll get to that.

I showed up about an hour early to the race and there was already a decent crowd there. One step outside my car and I was enveloped in a thick coat of South Carolina 100 percent humidity. Fantastic. Temps already in the 70’s too. I started complaining like Trophy (except he whines when it gets over 50). Packet pickup featured a line of volunteers cheering for you just for showing up. Wildly enthusiastic unearned adulation? This is my kind of race. Also – blue fitted cotton shirt – perfect! I could clothe a third world country in seldom used race shirts that fit like a Coleman tent. This is one I might actually wear.

The first thing I notice is that my trophy chances are going down the drain. I see Plex and Billy already there and they are both doing the 5k. Turns out the 5k is on Strictly’s Palmetto Grand Prix. DOH! Critical trophy hunting fail. Brian Talkington has shown up to even make my age grouping difficult, though he informs me he’s been way off his training and hasnt even run in recent weeks. Dina Mauldin, the Outlaws, the Griffins, James Hicks, Ted Hewitt, Angel, Meme, Alex Wilcox, Alex Ponamarev, Pete Poore, Arnold Floyd and Henry Holt are all on hand.  Stephanie “Stevie Dee” Dukes showed up with her husband Henry, so we could be assured there’d be about 2000 pictures of the race available (literally). Justin Bishop was there to pace Brittany Robbins.

Justin had tipped me off at the SR Pizza Run that this course was definitely not “flat and fast”, and my brief warm up around the start area didnt look encouraging. He said there was a lot of climb in the first mile.

The start , though, was an immediate drop, so it was a total cattle stampede the first tenth of a mile. Once we bottomed out there was a slow climb out of the YMCA grounds and onto YMCA rd.  I was trying to lay back some because of the hills to come, but damned if I’m not already hating life. Feels like I’ve decided to go for a jog with a fur parka and a face mask. Just suffocating. We hit a nasty hill after joining the paved road and I figure this is what Justin was talking about. I’m getting destroyed by Talkington and Tisdale so I try to ramp up the pace a little so I can really push it once I get over this hill. I suck some wind with the effort, crest the hill, and I’m rewarded with the real monster – probably a half mile slog up a mountain to Two Notch Road way in the distance. This is going to get ugly.

Halfway up the mountain I get my first mile split at 6:53, a full 50 seconds slower than my last 5k. Nice. Not to mention I’m feeling like death after this tempo mile. The hill just never ends and sucks my will to live. Finally, probably at least 1.25 miles in, we get to Two Notch and have about 100 meters of glorious flatness before turning back down the mountain on a parallel street. Normally I’d be crushing it down the decline, but my lungs are still in my throat after rappelling up  Mount Red Bank, and someone’s added a another layer to the fur parka and stuffed cotton balls in the face mask. I had been running by myself but at least I’m starting to make up ground on Talkington. Angel is way ahead too but he’s doing the 10k. I think mile 2 was around 6:40 which dives me into an even deeper funk. I finally catch Brian right after the 2 mile point and the course levels out onto a dirt road. Just when I start to get some wind back, when I am shamed by some teenage kid who looks like he’s in middle school – just leaves me for dead. I’m in the middle of justifying this fact, that he must be on the cross country team or something, when some girl who looks like she’s one of my 5th grade son’s classmates passes me too. I’m not only getting chicked..I’m getting chicked by a child. Man, this could be a worse shame than getting double blue shoed by the Pale Beast in March. Well, maybe not that bad. One more painful hill and an out and back loop up a cul de sac. I’ve actually started to approximate real 5k pace at this time. I’m blasting it out as fast as I can go, but I am just a wreck. And I’m not gaining any ground on the underage duo in front of me. At least Talkington is hurting too when I see him on the turnaround. One last plunge into the YMCA grounds again and I’m flopping around like bass on the dock. I finally see the clock and I’m surprised its still on 20. I finish in 20:49 in a sweaty, gasping mess. Slowest 5k since I did the Dry run as a full on gimp post fall. But hey – first in age group and 9th overall. A hollow victory indeed but I added a Red Bank glass to my YMCA collection. And congrats 12 year old Anna Jenkins – you outkicked the blue shoes.

Plex won the 5k by over 2 minutes in 17:41, with Billy Tisdale rocking second place in 19:59. Erin Suttman and Anna Jenkins went 1-2 in the women’s race right in front of me. At least Erin is 21. In the age groups, Brittany Robbins took 2nd in the 14-16. Alex Wilcox won 1st in the 25-29 and was 5th overall. Meme won the 40-44 by like 7 minutes, and no recurrence of the Jailbreak walksies. Stevie Dee took 2nd and almost broke 30 again with these brutal conditions. Mike Griffin won 2nd in the 55-59 behind Billy. Alex Ponamarev and Pete Poore went 1-2 in the 60-64 to no one’s surprise. Grand Prixer Brigitte Smith won the 60-64 female while Jan Hardwick and Peter Mugglestone took the 65-69. Aronld Floyd, Henry Holt and Rocky Soderberg swept the 70+.

In the 10k, Angel won easily in 41 minutes, with Syd’s rival Whitney Drozd taking first female and 2nd overall. James Hicks took 2nd in the 35-39. Pam Griffin won 2nd in the 45-49, while Joe Roof won second among the men. Cheryl and Tommy Outlaw both won their age groups and Gizmo was so proud.

http://www.strictlyrunning.com/results/14redbank.txt

This is a brand new race put on by the Able Club of Lugoff-Elgin High school, their athletic booster club, to honor two of their longtime supporters (Rob Evans and Joey Dorton) who recently passed away. Proceeds went to a scholarship fund in their memory.

I originally had See Spot Run on my calendar this weekend, but the Diesels were helping promote this race, so I had to support the Sunday morning marathon training wolfpack. Although I love me some See Spot, this race met key trophy hunting criteria as well – first time event, relatively rural, and of course competing with a more competitive, established race. I admit, I had some grandiose beliefs that it could be a holy grail (i.e. first overall) opportunity. At the very least, I knew it would be a chance to redeem myself against Trophy, who so unceremoniously dropped my ass at the Palmetto Half. It was on like Donkey Kong.

Pale Beast had already declared he was See Spotting it, thus avoiding another episode of the Pale and the Clydesdale-ish. I showed up way early because I always overestimate how much time it takes to get to the Kershaw County area. It was even faster than downtown Columbia from the casa de Blue Shoes in the northeast.

Jordan and Jen Lybrand were already on site when I got there. Luckily Jordan was working the SR timing, because the dude can smoke a sub 18 5k these days in his sleep. A few minutes later I see Bedenbaugh show up, so holy grail hunt was officially over. Coach B may come and go with his training and injuries but since he is a Columbia racing legend, he can pretty much crush me whenever the mood strikes him. Whitney Keen and his wife Caroline showed up a little later, thus ensuring at least a three way battle for second place. Chad and Betsy Long, Jennifer Reeves and of course all the Diesels were on hand. Diesel was on Brady pacing duty while Jen was wussing out and spectating. I punished her with picture duty so I could have plenty of facebook-worthy shots of my giant melon and ridiculous photo hogging.

Did a lap of the Lugoff Elgin high school grounds with J-Lybrand and the Trophy. I confessed I had done an unthinkable and not even looked up the course. Hope it was going to be well-marked. Diesel said it was fairly flat, but maybe he was colluding with Trophy to take my giant ego down a notch. The finish at least looked cool, since it ended on the LE track inside the stadium.

With the start, I figured it was probably going to be Coach B and the rest of the field chasing him, unless one of the many LE kids was some cross country stud. By the time we left the high school grounds though, some girl is torching the field already. Then I heard someone say it was Heather Costello, who basically can hold her own with any of the top females in Columbia. Guess it would be a fight for third. Or not..because there is still quite a bit of traffic in front of me a half mile in. I dont know any of these guys, though most are teenagers and one random guy in a singlet. On top of that, Trophy and Whitney are jockeying back and forth right beside me and I’m starting to feel like death before mile 1. This is not a good sign.  And we are going downhill forever, which I know we’ll have to make up in this loop course. Costello is destroying us and Bedenbaugh is way up ahead as we near the mile marker. Since we’re way behind, and there are still a few randoms ahead of me, I figure I must be going really slow and this is just going to be a bad day-which sucks because the weather is so nice and my training is going well and…BEEP..MILE 1 6:03.  And expletive number one for the day is dropped. OK, so some of this is because of the long downhill, but in any case this is pretty speedy for my post-Kauai self.

I think everybody just blew up after the mile marker because all of a sudden I surge ahead of the entire pack. The downhill has ended and some inclines start popping up. I have a sense that Whitney and Trophy were nearby initially but then it gets very quiet. Mile 2 seems to take forever and there are a couple of long straight stretches that kill my motivation. Thankfully the course is very well marked so at least I dont have to think too much about navigation. Plus, I can still see Bedenbaugh and even Costello at times. I’m able to keep up close to the same effort from the first mile, but the hills drag me down to 6:15. Mile 3 is just brutal. No major hills, just my sasquatch body is having trouble paying back the oxygen debt from that frisky first mile. I zone out for a while as I jump on the pain train and go for a ride. Just when I think I’m toast I get a jolt of adrenaline when I see Coach B start to get reeled back in a little bit. Maybe I can catch him!  He must be deathly ill or injured, but believe me, I’ll take first male- especially over a beast like Mark. No shame in getting chicked by Costello either. Bedenbaugh decides he’s had enough fooling around though, and he’s not going to let some melon headed sasquatch take him down. He ramps up a kick and I’m no longer making ground on him. At some point I realize I have no idea where we are or where the finish is, and I take a look down and see 2.77 miles. Holy crap, time to throw down! Finally we make a turn and I see the start area. In my oxygen deprived fog, I totally forget about the track finish and start looking for the clock. I’m in a world of hurt when I see Bedenbaugh turn into the stadium. Oh jeez, I dont know if i can make another 300 meters. But as soon as I hit the track its like Team Utopia monday nights , so it seems oh so familiar to be gasping for dear life on an orange oval. As I hit the last straight I’m really bummed by the time already in the 19:30’s. WTH? Did I really slow down that much in the last mile? I make one last headless chicken blast and finish in 19:48. I hit the Garmin and it shoots back 3.2 miles. Well, that explains it. The course is certified, so I know its legit – probably just one of those longish ones. I was all over the place on the course since I didnt know where I was going , but two other people had 3.2 also. Oh well. I had a 6:11 pace per Garmin, so around 19:18ish for 3.11. 3rd overall, 2nd male, 1st in AG. I’ll take it!

Heather Costello took the overall and female win in 19:08, with Coach B taking the men’s win in 19:35. In the (very weird) age groups, Brady ran a 24:31 at age 9 to take 2nd in the 2-14. Garrick Douglas took 1st in the 25-34 just a few steps ahead of Jennifer Lybrand, who won the female 25-34 and 2nd female overall. Monica Frazier took 3rd. Whitney and Trophy took 2nd and 3rd in the 35-44, while Race to Read director Betsy Long won the women’s division. Sharon Cole took the 45-54 in a very competitive group – third was 26 minutes. Sorry J-Reeves.

Bummer I have to miss Jailbreak next week because of a wedding (don’t these people consult my race schedule first??), but I’m signed up for Run Red Bank on May 31. See ya then.

http://www.strictlyrunning.com/RESULTS/14PRESSBOX.TXT

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/501073299

http://www.usatf.org/events/courses/maps/showMap.asp?courseID=SC14025DW

So every once in a great while I stop my relentless trophy hunt and sign up for a race for reasons other than the maniacal obsession with metal trinkets. I hadnt done a 10k since March, so I figured I’d give it a shot at the Get in the Pink 10k.

This was the absolute worst race this weekend for stroking my ridiculously oversized ego. The GITP 10k is in its 5th year and has typically had a pretty competitive field. Usually Ashton comes out and dusts the field, but there is usually a decent sub 40 crowd as well. The 5k has mostly been soccer moms and kids. The Cones for the Cure 5k and Rotary Run 5k had trophy hunt written all over them. What was I thinking??

But with my recent return to sub 20 land in the 5k, I wanted to see where I was in the ten. I should know the answer already: I suck.

I love the 5k of course, and  I’ve run some pretty good 8ks, 12ks, and halfs. Even my marathon PR is ok. I have never run a good 10k. Like, ever. My PR in the distance is 40:38 at last years Cooper River, when I was coming off a bunch of sub 19 5ks, which should translate to at least a minute faster. My 12k PR is actually at a faster pace.

But I keep trying. So I bit the bullet after a beer on Friday night and signed up.

Felt pretty good the next morning and got there my customary hour early.  Trophy was already there because he’s a freak too. We knew the Pale Beast was trying his luck once again at the Cold Winters Day course at Cones. Coach Justin ” A Standard” Bishop had made a plea for all TUS members to wear the black and gold, so once again I had to blind everyone with the black singlet against my Edward Scissorhands complexion. Lots of fast peeps are already there – we latched on to a pack of 621 ninjas (i.e. Pete O’ Boyle, Shufy Rowe, Jeff Godby, Leyden Hane, Steven Johnson) and the whole SR ladies team (Erin Miller, Kenzie riddle, Shannon Iriel, Linn Hall, MC Cox..well minus the trophy hunting Jennifer Lybrand) for a couple of miles of  a little sub 8 minute pace  “warmup”.  Usually my warmup consists of jogging like an 80 year old, so it was a little brisk. We get back and all 4 Diesels have decided to show up, along with the Robertsons. Blue Shoes rivals Billy Tisdale,  Joel Pierstorff and Randy Hrechko have made an appearance. Micah decided to come back after Rosewood and I finally got a chance to meet yet another blazing fast age grouper. Speaking of age groupers, Jim Lichty showed up with Jason “Toonce” Lockhart and it was a mini USC class of 1997 reunion.  CRC age groupers Coleen Strasburger, Alex Ponamarev, the Lowdens, Sharon Sherbourne, Lisa King, Lynn Grimes, Lois Leaburn, Jim Fadel and Teresa Harrington were on hand.  Team Utopia teammates Ashley Horton, Andrew Touzel and new member Michael Jensen were present and accounted for.  Elites Eric Ashton, OJ Striggles, and Kathryn Cavanaugh were out to give Bishop and the SR ladies some trouble.

Oh, and my age group was going to be ridunkulous. Ken Cobb and Phil Midden were going to kick my tail, and I would have had no chance at all if OJ hadnt switched to the 5k at the last second. Now that is a masters level trophy hunt maneuver, OJ. I thought Flicker would take me down too, but then I remembered that he had just aged up to 40. Yes!

They had couple of bagpipers lead us up to the start line, which was odd but kind of cool. The start was typical for a big, competitive race like this – super fast. The first 3 miles are pretty much all flat to downhill. I was getting dropped like a bad habit despite feeling like I was blasting out 5k pace from the get go. I had thought I’d keep Shannon and Billy in range for pacers, but they had other plans and just destroyed me from step one.  Oh well. About 3/4 of a mile in the crowd had thinned out and I saw Micah and Hrechko just ahead, so I decided to make them my substitute pacers since Billy and Shannon were so rude to me. Mile one in 6:30ish as we neared Beltline, then a mostly downhill mile 2 in 6:36. Ruh roh. Pre cliff 10k pace. This was going to either be great or headed for an epic bonktastrophe. My bet was with the latter, since the warmth and humidity were starting to make things suck in a hurry. At just over 2.5 miles is the very long Shady lane, which is pretty flat but goes on forever. Plus, I know the almost all uphill finish starts just past the 5k mark. Randy is gapping me a bit but im keeping Simonsen in range. There’s like nobody else around. Feels like I’m out for a training run. A really hard, wind sucking training run with no music except for the sound of me panting like a rabid elephant. Just before the turn off Shady I look down and see just under 21 minutes for the 5k split. Oh man, this hill climb is going to hurt. I finally catch Micah just past the turn after he was almost assaulted by a pair of geese. He was hurting about as bad as me and he was delighted for me to tell him about the upcoming hill fest. I attacked the first mountain up to Nandina drive because I knew there was some flatness to recover there and on Brennan. I guess there was, but I had already taken a few steps in the pain cave and I was too winded to use the water stop at the top. I was somehow making some ground on Randy at this point, despite my 7:05 mile 4 split on the mountainside. From Brennan you turn on Kilbourne and face a long slight incline all the way in. Randy stopped to walk at the water stop, and I thought I had him but he took off as soon as he gulped down the cup. Still made up some time though. The whole section on Kilbourne was tough because you merge in with a bunch of walking 5kers, creating a minefield of potential collisions and losing your sense of where you stand in the 10k. Luckily Randy is like 6’5″, so pretty easy to keep track of him.  I didnt look at the mile 5 split since I figured it sucked and I wanted to die anyway. The happy and smiling 5k walkers seemed to beg me to join them. But there was roadkill ahead. Must. take. down. Hrechko. I finally pushed in all the chips once we hit Devine st, but turns out thats a pretty long freaking way from the finish. And a nice little incline before the millwood intersection. Wonderful. Head flopping and trex arms have started. Finally the course levels out and I can make out the finish. If I can see those red clock numbers, there is no limit to how far I’ll spelunk the pain cave.  I finally catch Randy about a quarter mile before the finish and it feels like forever. I’m dying a thousand deaths when I finally hit the finish area and hear Trophy sea biscuiting me from the sidelines. I  ramp it up one more notch when I see the clock, just to make sure I get sub 43. Finished in 42:54.

Its a 10k, and a warm and hilly one, so I’ll take it. Almost identical time to my last one at Get to the Green in March, which was much flatter and a whole lot colder. Crushed in my age group though – I got 4th . Seems Mark Tibshrany turned 35 and even took down Cobb, who finished 3rd. Phil Midden killed us all in just a shade over 40 minutes.

In the overall, Eric Ashton cruised to another win despite still nursing an injury. A Cory Tretsky took 2nd, who’ve I’ve never seen race before. Bishop took 3rd. In the women’s race, Kenzie rocked out a sub 40 to take the win, followed by MC Cox and Shannon Iriel around 41 minutes. Total SR sweep. Billy finished a few seconds behind Shannon and took the male masters win. Flicker got second.  In the 10k age groups, Randy got first in the 45-49, with Jim Fadel second. Phil Tognieri placed 2nd int he 50-54, Total CRC sweep in the 50-54 women, with Coleen Strasburger, Lisa King and Teresa Harrington taking the category. Lois Leaburn and Carol Wallace went 2-3 in the 55-59. Lynn Grimes won the 60-64.

In the 5k, OJ had a successful trophy hunt to take the 5k, though women’s winner Kathryn Cavanaugh wasn’t too far behind in 18:23. Erin Miller also crushed an 18:45 to take second female, third overall. Steven Johnson and Jeff Godby won 2nd and 3rd male with Linn Hall winning 3rd female. Joel Pierstorff and Pete O’Boyle placed in male masters.

In the age groups, William Zemp placed 2nd in the 15-19, while Ashley Horton made TUS proud by placing 2nd in the 25-29. Touzel had the best performance of the day with a 21:45 huge PR and 2nd in age group (30-34). He also blue shoed 3rd place in the last 20 meters, so I was so proud. Trophy worked the McGaha magic and took 1st in the 35-39 in 20:15. 621 ninja Leyden Hane won the women’s 35-39.  Travis Cowan pushed a stroller but was still good enough for 1st in the 50-54. Shify Rowe blasted the 55-59 competition by almost 8 minutes to take the win. Alex Ponamarev and Shaoron Sherbourne dominated the 60-64, while Ken and Patti Lowden did the same in the 65-69.

http://www.strictlyrunning.com/results/14pink.txt

So its been a couple years since I’ve done the Crawdaddy – I was sick last year and I think it conflicted with Get in the Pink in 2012. I figured I’d go back this year, since I was all jacked to see Everclear at the Crawfish fest (with which the race is associated)  and you get free admission with registration. It depresses me to see all my college era bands relegated to nostalgia tours these days, but when you get old, what are you going to do?

I felt a little guilt about not defending my epic 2013 double down victory at the Rose Fest in Orangeburg, but when some chump like me takes a win, you can bet the race will be loaded with elites the next year. Sure enough, Justin was going down there with Spence and Syd, so that left me third if no body else showed up. Turns out Michael Banks came out, ran a 4:59 pace 12k and set a new state record. Kenzie Riddle also won the women’s race and would have smoked me too. Good call. Sorry Erin, I’ll be back at Run Red Bank.

Still, Crawdaddy was definitely not the trophy hunt pick of the week. I had that pegged for either the Empower 5k or the Firebreak 10k, but I knew the Empower was a holy terror of hills and Firebreak is at Harbison, for which I still have nightmares about my shirtless delirium at the 2012 Xterra half.

So Rosewood it was. I had no idea about the competition at this one, but historically its been a pretty big race and fairly competitive. They usually have some elite types doing sub 17ish, and over 500 people total. I figured I’d be good with 3rd in AG. I had no idea what my archnemeses were doing. Trophy was being his usual mute self when it came to declaring his weekend race, and Vowles was being all cryptic in his texts. Code was staying off the grid.

Wusses.

I get there an hour ahead and there’s a decent crowd there, though not a whole lot I recognize. Looks like a large bunch of newbies and a bunch of crossfit types doing the Crawdaddy challenge (race + weight lifting/crossfit stuff) . One day I’ll look into crossfit, since it looks like something good for speedy sasquatches. Charley turns up for a rare race appearance with canine pacer Winston. Julie “Flashbang” Bitzel  is high on the crack of  2 overall placements in her first two races, and was back for another fix.  My age group looked pretty good, but with all the randoms, who knew. No trace of a surprise Trophy or Pale Beast sighting.

I did a mile-ish warmup with Charley and Julie, because the Bitz is deathly afraid that she’ll get tired out by our brutal 10 minute pace jog on a flat road. Speaking of flatness, most of Crawdaddy is pretty level. The start/finish has been changed since I last ran it, but its the same loop. Starts and ends at City Roots near Owens Field. Unfortunately the one nasty incline has been moved to the beginning, and for whatever reason, an early hill has always sucked for me. I get back from the warmup and decide I gotta hit the portapotty, but the line is like 50 people long. Apparently 6 isnt enough for like 800 people. I decided the bushes at City Roots looked a little dry and proceeded to water them.

By the time everyone lines up, this race is looking huge. I cant even see the back of the pack. Lisa Smarr, Sheila Subbarao, Alex Wilcox, Mickie Ishizue, Teresa Harrington are a few of the CRCers on hand. Linn Hall showed up for Strictly, which I told Julie would probably prevent her from playing DJ Khaled today. Eric Ashton and Jud Brooker were on hand, presumably to face off for the win.   Even Merritt decided to show up a week after going suspiciously MIA at the quarry. Mike Wainscott showed up to spectate and Ashley Horton graciously agreed to man my iphone to take pics. She said that she, Sheila, Laurie and the Trophy had just done a longish run. So weak, Trophy.

The start went off OK despite my worries about a huge bottleneck – the start area was super narrow. Luckily no one was being a hero about their running ability except for possibly the large headed beast on the first row. Of course, the oh so useful power save function on my Garmin has decided to silently shut down my watch. It takes a good quarter mile for the thing to sync up to a satelite, so I’m basically running on feel from then on. Linn is crushing it but I try to keep her in range, since she’s consistently around 20 minutes. I fight the urge to slack on the opening hill and charge up the long incline followed by a short steep turn to the left. Im so hating those early hills because its like a punch to the stomach right off the bat. I slow a little at the top to catch my breath and Wilcox, i.e. the fitter/younger/blonder Alex, blows by me. Once I catch my breath I notice the field is actually pretty sparse on the top end. I see a shorter, kind of muscley dude not too far ahead, and somewhere my evil age group mind recognizes this as the enigmatic Micah Simonsen. I’ve never met this guy, but he has a way of weasling into my trophy hunts and stealing my precious trinkets. He must go down. But damned if he and Linn aren’t kicking my ass. We turn onto Rosewood and they are both several meters ahead. I swear I still havent recovered from the early hill action because I’m pretty winded for mile one. At least now the course has pretty much flattened out. Once we pass Rosewood Elementary and turn on Ott there’s a very long flat to downhill stretch that goes on forever. It’s nice and shady, and I figure this is the best time to pick up some speed, because I know the last stretch at Owens Field is out on the open and slightly uphill. It may be slightly downhill, but it still sucks since I’ve decided to suck wind a half mile into this race. Just before the two mile mark I pass Simonsen and I realize I’ve just pushed my chips into the table. Oh Dear God this is going to hurt. I’m scared of Simonsen passing me back, and some paranoid part of my oversized melon starts wondering if Vowles hasnt stealthed this race and is right on my heels. Its bad enough running against your actual competition , not to mention being haunted by the ghost of the Pale Beast. Linn has started to fade just a bit and I finally catch her just before the owens field stretch. I think she offered some words of encouragement, but all I could utter were the breathless sounds of my will to live leaving my body. The turn on to Jim Hamilton blvd is just torture. Slightly uphill and three quarters of a mile long, it just never seems to end.The sun has come out, its way hotter, and I feel like death. Does that mean slow down? Hell no – if I do Linn will chick me and then that Micah character might get away with another trophy theft. My form is going to complete crap – I’ve got T-rex arms, all tight and drawn in, my giant melon is tipped back and gasping for breath, listing over to one side.  This is going to be one ugly finish face. I’m trying to chase down Wilcox but he’s just out of reach. I finally, mercifully, hit the last turn and make out about 19:30 on the clock. I take a few more steps into the pain cave and cross the line in 19:43. I stagger a few more steps and then make sweet, sweet love to the asphalt. Takes me about 30 seconds to stand up again and I see Linn and Simonsen finish. I swear I thought they were right behind me. And Pale Beast’s ghost is just that – he’s not there. I’m pretty jacked about the time – good to see the 19’s on a regular basis again. Though I’m still a long way from pre-cliff, the Team Utopia South Monday nights at the track are paying their dividends.

Linn took overall female in 20:07, and Julie flashbanged to the finish with an awesome kick to break 21 and take second (20:58). The men’s race was super fast, with Jud Brooker breaking 16 minutes and taking down Ashton, who looked to be limping a bit afterward but still clocked a 16:15.

Not a whole lot of familiar names in the age groups – Wilcox took 1st in the 25-29. Thankfully there were no superfit soccer dads in front of myself and Simonsen, who went 1-2 in the 35-39. Charley finished 2nd in the 40-44, while Shenequa Coles placed second among the women in the same group. Katherine Harris took second in the 45-49. Lisa Smarr won 2nd in the 50-54.Barroll Leeds, who is turning into a blue shoes style racer, placed 2nd in the 60-64. Peter Mugglestone placed third in a brutal 65-69.

Oh, and apparently the Pale Beast pulled a stealth trophy hunt in Irmo at the Empower (previously Going the Extra Mile) 5k. His reward – another second place finish…to a 64 year old guy. Norm Ferris, you are my hero.

http://racesonline.com/events/crawdaddydash5k/results/2014

http://racesonline.com/events/crawdaddydash5k/results/2014/awards

The Resurrection Run is a small 5k put on by a women’s church group the day before Easter. It borrows the Cold Winter’s Day course and even borrows Strictly’s infamous “flat and fast” tagline. Historically, its been all over the map in how many people show up for the race, since the date of the event changes from year to year (i.e. whenever Easter falls). They had over a 100 people in 2012 but usually 40-60.  We’ve had it on the Tour de Columbia a number of years, but you’d be hard pressed to find out any additional publicity.

Which of course, makes it an excellent trophy hunt. The trophy conditions were excellent this weekend. Cold, rainy weather and about 4 other competing area races were a good bet to drive down registration. To boot, the Boston Marathon siphoned off quite a few of Columbia’s best runners (i.e last year’s champ Justin “the A standard” Bishop) . And, in Charleston, there was a tri going on, so that took care of Brandenburg – a perennial podium finisher at this race.

Despite the favorable chances of shiny metal trinkets, I was considering blowing off this race. I had done a bunch in a row, including 2 halfs in the past month, so maybe it would be good to rest.

But then Trophy told me Vowles was running. After an epic( and losing) battle with one of the three amigos last week, I wasn’t about to let the other one come in and steal some age group glory. I was in. Apparently the Trophy let the Pale Beast know, because I start getting trash talk texts in the middle of my easter bunny shopping at CVS. Oh hell no. Bring it, Beast.

Still, I wasn’t signed up, and hearing the steady rain when my alarm went off made me second guess leaving my warm, soft bed. But then I thought about the “crap weather” trophy hunting principle, and I figured I had to give it a shot. I had put in a solid month of weekly speed sessions with Team Utopia South on the track and hadn’t had a 5k to try them out.

I get there and its a trophy hunter’s dream. Pretty much a ghost town. Cold rain. Perfect. My Palmetto 200 teammate Julie was on hand for her first race since college, and she was all nervous like the first leg of the 200. But I had indoctrinated her into the Blue Shoes race addict philosophy, and suddenly the girl who ran with a timex by herself was sporting a new garmin, enrolled in the CRC, and had 3 races on her schedule for April. I was so proud.

We did a mile warmup and by the time we gt back it was still pretty desolate in the parking lot. Stephanie Dukes was on hand, unfortunately without her husband, who takes (literally) thousands of pictures when he comes to races. She had been hitting the TUS training pretty hard too and was looking to throw down a good time. CRC regulars Pete Poore, Alex Ponamarev and Brie McGrievy showed up, along with TDC age group winner Lisa King. Vowles showed up as promised, assuring the age group showdown.

There were “opening ceremonies”, complete with a group stretches and a 50 meter jog up a hill. These small races rock.

At the last second, Jesse and Lisa Smarr showed up, along with James Hicks, so at least we had a solid CRC contingent to what was looking like a very small race – 40 -50 tops. As we all strode up to the start line I took a good look around. No singlets (except for the Pale Beast), no lean looking elite types. Oh dear God….this wasnt for age group glory. This was for the holy grail, the ultimate achievement for the trophy hunter – the overall win.

The race starts as 3,2,1..HE’S ALIVE! and we’re off. Sure enough, I take off up the hill with Vowles on my back and instantly it gets very quiet. No one is following us. Wow. The total Eric Ashton experience..if Eric was about 80 pounds heavier, 5 shades paler and hell of a lot slower. And he usually doesnt have the Pale Beast breathing his neck like a rabid bear taking down his prey. Vowles is right on my shoulder the first half mile and then wisely slips behind my sizable wake, letting me take all the wind and pacing duties.

It occurs to me that maybe I should race this tactically, as in doing just enough to beat your opponent. I consider this for a while and we hit mile 1 at 6:36, which is slower than I wanted but not too terrible considering the two decent climbs early on (one right at the start). I suddenly realize that this won’t work. Vowles has a killer finish, even besting the legen..wait for it..dary Blue Shoe kick at times. We get into a sprint at the end and its anyone’s race.  I decide, like Drago from Rocky IV, I must break him.

But when and where? I have no idea. By this time I’ve kicked up the pace a notch but Vowles is still there just a few steps behind. Then we get to “the hill”, a nasty long incline at least a quarter mile long at about the 1.5 mile mark. I have no idea how Ken is on hills but its my relative strength (paradoxically, considering how much freight I have to tow). I’ve already commenced the wind suckage but I figure this is my chance. I attack the hill hard, and although it about kills me, it has given me some separation. I’m too afraid to look back. I suck on downhills but I try to power down the next one because I can still hear the Pale Beast behind me. Mile 2 then beeps but I’m too afraid to even look at the split.

Here it is – the holy grail – a mile away and symbolic retribution for that platform walker, the hours on the couch, the MRIs, the x rays, and all the frustration and pain. At the Resurrection Run no less. On the course where the race addiction started in December ’08. Time to throw down – hard.

Oh, and it sucks. I start stumbling deep into the pain cave, but I can feel the improved strength of all the speed training. As I turn the corner with a half mile to go, I am completely redlining it. striding out, headless chicken style. The taste of lung and death is now being matched by the pure euphoria of the finish line approaching. I still have a whisper of fear of Vowles coming to get me, but its not like I could give more effort anyway. The last stretch plunges you down a short hill and there’s the clock. 19:20’s?? Holy crap. I sprint it out and cross in 19:36, completely spent. 6:04 last mile, 5:19 pace last tenth. 1st overall.

Yes it may be a race of 44 people, only 25 of whom broke 40 minutes, but I’d totally be lying if I said I wasn’t giddy as a freaking schoolgirl. Overall win with a post-cliff PR? With a victory over the Pale Beast? It was poetic. Everything is awesome.

I suck wind for at least 30 seconds and I’m unfortunately too gassed to catch a photo of Vowles finishing in 20:12. This is probably his best time in the last few months, but as he put it “the most unsatisfying 2nd place ever”. I seem to have had similar feeling when he double dipped/double blue shoed me back in March.

Thrilled for Julie, who captured the women’s win in 21:45. Must be nice to race for the first time in 6 years and take the overall. I should have known since she introduced me to her theme song at the 200

Lots of trophy hunting in the small field, but some fast times nonetheless – Lisa King took women’s  masters in a sub 25 performance. James Hicks placed 2nd in AG with a strong 23:47 and 5th overall. Brie McGrievy had a girl ruin her trophy hunt (Trameka Persaud – finished 4th overall in 23:40, never seen her race before) but still took home 2nd in AG, 9th overall in 25:53. Stephanie “Stevie D” Dukes crushed her age group and just 2 painful seconds short of a sub 30. Lisa Smarr took the 50-54 by 13 minutes, which is less time than she gave herself to show up and register for this race! Jim Manning took the 55-59, while Alex Ponamarev and Pete Poore went 1-2 in the 60-64. Jesse Smarr won the 70-98.

http://runningtime.info/2014/041914R.htm

http://runningtime.info/2014/041914A.htm

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/482775095

Finally I get a chance to come back to the Palmetto Half. This race is near and dear to me as it is run on my “home course”. Like the roads I run every time I step out of the house. In fact, the Blue Shoes homestead lies just a few steps from the 7.5 mile mark on this route through Village at Sandhill, the Woodlands and Wildewood. Ken Calcutt, the race director, is a friend and the leader of my Sunday morning marathon training group, a ragtag bunch of age groupers that meets at o dark thirty out in Blythewood.

And most importantly to my grandiose, shallow ego , it was the site of one of my greatest racing triumphs – a glorious 14 minute PR in 2010, Palmetto’s first year.

I came back again in 2011 in a windy, nasty day that was the exact opposite of my previous year’s race, and I gave back 6 minutes. Then, the Palmetto 200 started trying to back their date up and coincided with this race the last 2 years. This year, the 200 decided to go even 2 weeks earlier, and while it messed up my chances to repeat at the Bunny Hop (surely I could have taken Justin Bishop down)  it did allow me to come back home (literally) to this race.

As anyone who knows me, I am definitely not a distance specialist. The shorter the race the better I get. I’ll take anyone in a 200 or 400 meter race. Beyond that, the suckage begins. And a half is pretty far from a lap around a track. That being said, I actually have tended to do better in this distance than my kryptonite, the 10k. The half requires you to go fast, but somewhere in that “comfortably hard” range, i.e. not the whirlwind of torture that is the 5k or 10k. In the past, I’ve been able to find a groove for the first 10 miles before blasting out the last 3.1 as hard as I can go. Unfortunately I couldnt find a flat and fast half since the Charleston race in January 2012, where I painfully missed out on my sub 1:30 attempt (1:30:22). I was just contemplating coming back to Charleston in 2014 before that split second in Hawaii that cost me most of last year.

So this was my first chance to try the half marathon as a race since then. The Newberry half was a nice confidence builder – basically a 10 mile hard training run followed by a 5k as hard as I could go after that. That produced a 1:39, so I figured I could target 1:35ish for a race half at this point.

And who better to pace around 1:35 than the Trophy. Trophy is a human half marathon metronome. He has probably raced 10 of these things, and I think about 80 percent have been 1:34:xx. I think his last two were literally like 9 seconds apart. I almost bought him this race shirt:

That’s pretty damn close when you consider you’re out there for 90 minutes. So I figured I’d glom on to him like white on rice and see where the Trophy could take me.

The week leading up to the race kind of sucked. I decided a great way to celebrate spring after last week’s Climb the Clay was to wear my old battered pair of flip flops. My left toe, which had been so nicely quiet of late, decided to scream at me, something about taking the brunt of a 20 foot fall about 9 months ago. Yeah, it was sore as hell all Sunday. Felt better on Monday so I decided to reward my toe with a brutal 7 x 800 interval session with Team Utopia. The toe was beat into submission, but then Mr. IT band decided to speak up, first time since the Richmond marathon. After another obsessive Tuesday run, I decided to shut things down the rest of the week lest I ride the injury train straight into an extended layoff.

By the time Saturday morning rolled around, neither toe nor IT band seemed 100 percent, but I figured I could take it out easy and see if I needed to bag it. At worse, I figured I could just drop at 7.5 miles and walk 50 feet home.

I showed up about 45 minutes early and did about a mile or so warm up with Trophy, Spence and Syd. Trophy was ready to go with his “new” Trophy shirt, which he was afraid to wear for 4 months since he was “too fat and too slow”. Hey, never stopped me. Lots of familiar faces – the Yerg, Jeff, Lucia, Ilia, Mike Compton, Julia Early, Stephanie Dukes and Sheila joined Syd and Spence from Team Utopia (with Ashley doing the 5k), J-Lybrand, Linn Hall and MC Cox were representing from the SR elite ladies. Tommy Kahaly, Brad Marlow and Larry Jourdain were there from the A-team. Hrechko, Howie, Larry Bates, Mr and Mrs Diesel,  and Alex Wilcox were also some of the people I saw at the start, but tons more regulars were in the crowd judging from the results.

With the start, I saw Omar Sharif take off like a bullet and Yerg and Spence were up near the front immediately. There had been a mini facebook pissing match earlier in the week about who would win between Trophy, myself and Syd. Syd apparently was taking it to heart because she took off like a beast immediately out of the gates. I was already locked on to Trophy in mile one, and surprisingly it was me doing all the complaining. Debbie Downer was in full effect early on. It was too warm, I wished I had switched to the 5k, we’re going too fast….wah wah wah. We hit mile 1 in 7:23, which was pretty much right where we wanted to be. Cresting the overpass over Two Notch, I could see Omar striding out and ditching the rest of the field by almost a quarter mile already. Damn.

After the overpass is a brief stretch on Two Notch followed by rolling hills in the Woodlands all the way to mile 4. Cruising down the long hill on Valhalla road reminded me of how much this would suck in another hour or so going up the other way. Trophy was getting a little frisky but I made sure I was riding him like a monkey (or perhaps oversized albino gorilla) on his back. For a long while we were running stride for stride with Jason Thompson, who was also in our high school class. Total Irmo High ’93 mini pack. Jason has been getting in pretty good shape and it took an epic effort at Get to the Green to take him down in the last mile. He actually started to drop us a bit as we left the Woodlands, crossing over Sparkleberry and heading into Wildewood, homeland of the Blue Shoes. I know Mallet Hill rd like the back of my hand and its pretty nice and flat. I was starting to hate life around then, just sucking more wind than I should. Plus, I must be slowing down because the Trophster and Jason are both starting to kick my ass. I start entering into Debbie Downer mode again and the “go home” option is seeming more attractive. I’m in the middle of my depressive ruminations when all of a sudden I look up and damn it if Trophy hasnt gotten a major bug up his arse and decided to leave me for dead. OK, I must be slowing down hardcore. Mile 5 pops up as 7:24 again so this is mildly encouraging,though the Trophy shaming is so painful for my giant head. As I start withdrawing into another funk, all of a sudden I remember Mr. Superfit. Mr Superfit is one of those soccer dads in Wildewood that could probably come out on a whim and take an age group. And I saw him at the start. The Superfits know I am president of the Columbia Running Club. No way in hell am I going to lose to that dude. Pick it up! I at least try harder after that realization but jeez, Trophy is another zip code even after my 7:18 mile 6. Who the hell slipped some crack in that guys corn flakes? At least Thompson is still reeled back in a little. Mile 7 passes in another 7:24 and then you face what I think is the nastiest hill on the course –  Beaver Dam and Miles. Shorter than Valhalla but steeper, its just at a crappy point in the half when you can start to fade. It doesnt help that I face the same hill practically every day. It still sucks. I reach a low point coming out back onto Mallet Hill and go by my house. It takes a lot of willpower not to just call it a day right there, since the hill has sucked my will to live. But I actually start catching some people despite the fact I’ve definitely slowed down. Apparently the hill killed some other people besides me. The course then folds back on itself at about mile 8.5, so its good to start seeing some familiar faces in the crowd still heading out. Stephanie Dukes and Jennifer Tudor are rocking it out and even Merritt “McFraud” McHaffie (of quarry crusher video infamy) has decided to run this (on a whim, apparently). Mile 8 was by the slowest at 7:51 (with the hill) but heading back towards the finish and seeing the rest of the crowd is a morale boost. OK, time to make the pace at least luke warm again. I finally take down Jason after tracking him down for the last 3 miles.  J-Lybrand is not too far ahead now, so I make an effort to keep her in my sights. I had opened a gap for awhile and then Barrett Boozer’s brother in law (I think) tracks me down and helps distract me for most of the run up to Mt Valhalla. I pass the mile 10 marker where Coach Phil is camped out, when all of a sudden I see Syd walking back and saying she feels faint. I struggle for a few seconds with whether I should stop to help, but we are right at the mile marker with volunteers so I continue on. Still feel a little guilty though. But at mile 10 is where I push all the chips in and go for it like a 5k. I power up Valhalla, sucking some serious wind but taking down Lybrand in the process. I am running scared the rest of the way fearing she will repay the favor. By the time I get back to Two Notch I am hurting pretty bad, but its only 1.5 to go from there. I’m half delirious but I see Wilcox up ahead and try and take him down. I try not to look like a headless chicken in front of Kenzie and Erin, who are camped out near mile 12, but I’m not doing a very good job. No points for style. But Wilcox is getting reeled in. The overpass to Clemson is just cruel, like Newberry’s finishing mountain or Blossom street at Gov Cup. OK not that bad, but it hurts. I thought I saw Trophy on the bridge but I cant tell between the blinding sunlight and my oxygen deprived brain. Wilcox is just 10 feet away at the top of the overpass, but then he pulls a major Emeril and kicks it up a serious notch. I got nothin. The bridge was triumphant in 2010 but I am dying this year. Pace has dropped to sub 7 and my legs are toast. I’m hating all those low mileage weeks about now. But who knows, maybe Lybrand, Jason or , God forbid, Superfit may be lurking just behind. No way, dude. I burn it to the finish and see 1:36’s on the clock, and flail around some more to get it under 1:37. Official finish 1:36:46.

OK, not the 1:35 I had hoped, but 3 minutes faster than Newberry and on no half -specific training, so I’m good with it. Nowhere near an age group, and yes, I got wickedly, viciously Trophied. Take a wild guess at Lady McGaha’s finish time. Shocker, its 1:34. 1:34:50 to be exact, apparently with a crazy kick that took down Randy and almost nipped Howie at the line (same finish time). Congrats Trophy, you straight up kicked my ass.

Omar brutalized the field in 1:14 and took the race almost 11 minutes. That’s almost two miles ahead of everyone. Nuts. Larry Massey and Mr. Jourdain also made all of us under 50 look awfully slow, taking 2nd and 3rd overall in 1:25. In the women’s race, Heather Costello took 1st in 1:26, with MC Cox taking 2nd in 1:28.  In female masters, Linn Hall celebrated her recent 40th birthday my taking 1st, with Sharon Cole placing 2nd.

Spence took 1st in the 25-29, with Wilcox taking 3rd. Lybrand took 2nd on the female side with a 1:37. Yerg was disappointed with his 1:27 but still good for 2nd in the 35-39 men. Flicker was pacing someone else but ended up 3rd in the 40-44. Julia Early took 2nd in the 40-44 women while Hrechko placed 2nd in the 45-49. Brad Marlow finished 1st and Howie 3rd in a brutal 50-54.  Coleen Strasburger and Lisa King did the same in a similarly tough women’s 50-54. Larry Bates easily took the men’s 55-59. Brigitte smith placed 3rd in the 60-64 while Jan Hardwick and Shawn Chillag went 1-2 int he 65-59. Jesse Smarr took 3rd in the 70+.

In the 5k, a familiar trio took the top3 with Jason Dimery, Parker Roof and Brandenburg sweeping the overall. Wait, did JB just get trounced by a 14 year old? Ouch. It’s OK JB, he would have beat me down too. Barb and Sue Porter went 1-2 in female masters. Ashley took down the 25-29. J-Reeves took 2nd in the 45-49. Lisa Smarr won the 50-54, while Alex Ponamarev captured the 60-64.

Oh, and Superfit finished 10 minutes behind me. Crisis averted!

Next week: Resurrection Run 5k

http://www.strictlyrunning.com/results/14phm.txt

http://www.strictlyrunning.com/RESULTS/14PHM_5K.TXT

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/480914908

Climb the Clay is actually a renaming of the old Earth Fair 8k, because apparently the Earth Fair festival at Saluda Shoals is no more. I actually always got it confused with  Earth Fare, a crunchy grocery store that was my main stop for the best beer on the planet, Reissdorf Kolsch.

My main fear with the festival going defunct was that the race would too. Columbia has so many races that its hard for some to exist, especially when spring or fall hits and there’s like three every weekend. I still mourn the loss of the Falcon 5k, Strides for Health and the Labor Day fitness challenge, but some years the organizers decide “Aint nobody got time for that” and call it quits.

But not this race. Which is cool because this is one of the better trail races in the area. The race director Smith Harden apparently didnt know squat about racing to start off (by his own admission)  , but he has  fine-tuned this race over the years into a really nice one. Interesting course, well-marked, and timely awards – plus a cheap 20 dollar advance registration rate.

It’s also a great trophy hunt. The field is usually relatively small (i.e. 50-70ish) and the race is often held on a popular weekend with lots of other competition. I think it had to go up against the Palmetto Half last year which really hurt it and made me fearful of race death. But this year was better. Most race organizers avoid the Cooper River weekend, fearful it will suck away all their potential runners. Sure it will take some, but there’s often been bridge run weekends with virtually no races in the area. I’ve always thought this to be golden opportunity for a local race to step in and avoid what usually is a brutally competitive environment for races in the spring. Climb the Clay decided to test the bridge run weekend waters this year.

Which apparently paid off, because they had a record number of runners this year. They also provided online registration, which helps, because its not 1985 anymore. They used go-green, which, although I am a bit of a Strictly loyalist, is nice to provide a participation list. This list is a trophy hunter’s dream, because you can scout the whole field at a glance. One look on Thursday showed that the fastest guy on the list was Ken Vowles. What? It was totally on like Donkey Kong. No way I was going to let my archnemesis claim this glory, and quite possibly the holy grail – the overall win. I had already imagined a Duel in the Sun between two pasty thirty something dads battling it out in Saluda Shoals. I texted him to make sure he was prepared for such an epic showdown.

But then I saw on facebook that Brandenburg and Robbie “OG” McClendon were going to run it too, so that pretty much eliminated the holy grail. Still an outside chance at the top 3 and there’s always the 35-39 AG up for grabs.

I got to Saluda Shoals and it was beautiful weather – a little on the warm side even. When your last weekend involved 2 runs in tropical storm like downpours, you will take 65 and sunny all day. A nice crowd was on hand – Ted Hewitt, the OG, JB and Barb, Sarah Blackwell, Joe and Luke Naylor, John Richards, Wes Spratt , Dina Mauldin and of course the Vowles were all representing. Meg Weis decided to come out after me, JB and OG hijacked her facebook post the day before about not doing the bridge run this year.

The course was switched up this year so we were actually starting the race right near the finish line instead of up the road near the river center. With the start JB and OG surged ahead immediately, while I tried to hold back. I know I still dont have my endurance back, and trails have a way of sapping my energy in way that the roads just dont do. I settled into a pack with the Vowles, Meg and Ted in the first mile. Ted was getting a bit frisky and was slowly gapping us while Meg and I traded places a few times. Garmins are always suspect on the trails but hit mile 1 in 7:24, which was about what I was expecting with all the twists and turns. I kept waiting for “IT”, i.e. “THE CLAY”, the nasty monster of a hill in the middle of Saluda Shoals for which this race is named. I mentioned this to Vowles who thought I was engaging in psychological warfare, ala my March for Meals strategy. OK, maybe I was. Finally I see OG way up ahead start trucking upward and I realize its coming soon. The OG has already seemingly put a quarter mile on our mini pack. A couple of turns later and bam – there it is. The clay monster rising suddenly out of the forest. Low 7 pace turns into a crawl as I awkwardly try to scale up this beast. There is no cool way to do this. I’m pretty sure I looked like a blue backed albino spider escaping from the light. Thankfully all the deluge from last weekend has dried and its not nearly as bad as in years past. That doesnt mean my legs dont feel like theyve been dipped in a hot lactic acid bath by the time I reach the “summit”. First wind suckage commences and Vowles decides to drop my ass. Meg takes the hill hard and is already talking about having a crap race. I wish I could do that and still have first overall, which was exactly her position at the time.

I started settling into a major debbie downer funk at about this point. Just couldn’t get comfortable and Ken and Ted were leaving me for dead. Started thinking about how bad I suck on trails, how the inertia of the giant melon and sasquatch physique make it hard to turn all these tight corners, how the warmth and humidity sucked, how maybe my training wasn’t  paying off..Wah wah wah .

As we hit the 4k point (CTC is the only race I know using metric markers) we finally hit a fairly long stretch on flat pavement, which couldn’t have come at a better time. I was able to stretch out and seemingly flush out some of the lactic acid bath from the clay mountain. Meg was having a rough day and I think I left her at this point. I could see Ted and Ken in the distance with one 30 something looking race-shirt wearing dude in between. I was about to go from fighting for the holy grail to barely getting third in age group. Wah wah wah. Once we finally hit some more woods, I was feeling better and started trying to pick up the pace. I managed to catch up with race shirt guy who was hardcore boxing me out on the trail. I tracked him down like a rabid monkey until I found an opening and totally off trailed it elephant stampede style. He tried riding my tail for awhile but I pulled an Emeril and kicked it up a notch until I couldn’t hear him. I was pretty close to phoning it in after this, but I finally looked up after a technical trail stretch to see Ted and Ken noticeably closer. We hit a clearing and I threw down a hard surge. Just before another woods section, the Vowles must have noticed a blue blur and looked back.  Oh, its on now.  Another notch got kicked up as I chased Ted and Ken through the woods and caught them just as we hit a paved area. As soon as I pass them I’m already worried I expended too much energy catching them. Its at least a mile and a half to the finish. Oh well – the chips are already pushed in and all I can do is hold on for dear life. I pass the 6k sign and my rough, oxygen deprived metric conversion in my brain says there’s about 1.2 miles to go. I catch a glimpse of someone up ahead. Its the OG! Apparently I can be running completely on fumes but the mere faint possibility of me blue shoe-ing someone jolts me into action. I’m slowly gaining on him but I know he can sense the finish too. The OG’s kick is legen…wait for it..dary. I hardly ever get passed in the final quarter mile of any race, but the OG geezered me hardcore at the 2010 Get to the Green, producing this classic finish photo:

I was starting to make some major headway on OG when all of a sudden we came out into a clearing where you had to run along a bank and then onto a wooden bridge across a swampy area. If he didn’t know I was coming before he sure as hell could hear some elephant bearing down on him from the noise from the bridge.  He’s not more than 20 meters from me now but since my cover was blown he is really getting it. Damn that kick. I am blasting it out now in full blue shoe mode but like Drago from Rocky IV, he must break me. And he does. Just cant find another gear and I’ve come up against a wall in the pain cave. I finish in 35:50 something, about 5 seconds behind the OG. Not too bad considering my suckage on the trails. Good enough for 5th overall and 1st in age group. My real prize was getting to capture Vowles’ finish on camera. It was beautiful.

This race is still old school on the finish, as they rent our 25 year old Columbia Running Club clock and do bib tags on a ring instead of chips. So I dont have results as yet. Good to meet TDBS reader Malechi at the finish line – good luck at the Quarry crusher!  I know Brandenburg took the overall win followed by 2 guys I don’t know. Meg took the women’s win. Ted took his age group and 6th place overall, with Vowles next in 7th and 2nd in AG. John Richards took 3rd in AG. Sarah Blackwell had a brutal day with an IT band issue but still took home some hardware. OG took the masters win. Barb Brandenburg took at least at AG win if not masters.  Wes also took home some age group glory. Joe and Luke Naylor each got an age group award – Luke had a tough day but ran all the way with our warm down group to the finish, picking up his dad along the way. That was awesome.

Next up…Palmetto Half next week.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/474100243

At the start, Columbia speedway

This is the race I swore I’d never do again in 2010. Forced into a walk of shame in the complete dark at 4 something in the morning, on one hour of restless sleep, after 20 miles of racing, seeing spots, and still having 3 miles to go, I was done. Never again.

I guess I lied – this now marks my fifth consecutive Palmetto 200.

Team Van on the Run was born back in 2009, when the Palmetto 200 first started their publicity for the inaugural event to be held the next year. Tour de Blue Shoes was merely me, “ColumbiaSC5ker” posting in the Runners World forums in the “Sub 22 5k” group. A random “MrSig” in the group turned out to be from Columbia and basically recruited me, sight unseen, to join the team he was putting together for the relay. Luckily this wasnt a Chris Hansen Dateline special and “MrSig” aka Brian Clyburn and his team turned out to be pretty normal and fun. And fast. Despite our complete hodge podge of local runners, we all rose to the occasion and turned in a very respectable 27 hours 55 minutes (8:18 pace) in our first try.

Over the years, people have dropped from the team, but Brian kept reloading with total beasts. Our once middling team got competitive quickly. 26 hours in 2011, 23:54 in 2012 and 23:56 in 2013.  The 2013 time, with 7:13 pace, gave us the coed full team win, so we were coming back as defending champs.

Once having to carry the team, I was now more worried about them carrying me. Brian puts out his famous spreadsheet complete with paces, start/finish times, locations, degree of difficulty, phone numbers, etc. weeks before the event. The guy has this thing down to an absolute science. I mean how can someone be so obsessive about running? Oh wait..don’t answer that. He emailed me my pace of 7:30, which was 25 seconds slower than last year. I think he probably took last years time, multiplied by the new angle of my left toe, divided by the cliff height and came out with a post-Kauai corrective factor. I calculated everyone else’s pace from the spreadsheet and my suspicions were confirmed…I was slowest. My goal – to wreck that sheet and try and hit my 7:05 assigned pace in 2013 from “before the fall”.

A lot of the same crew was back from last year – Brian, David, Joel and myself were from the original 2010 team and all on our fifth consecutive relay. The Code, Connor, Brandon, Julie, Jen Clyburn, and Andy McNiece were on board for repeat performances. Local beast and blue ridge relay vet (but Palmetto 200 virgin)  Drew Soltau joined Andy for  “ringer/workhorse” duty.  Our last recruit was a little dramatic. Thunder Dan got called in to a work emergency so we were down a member with about 48 hours to go. After some hardcore recruiting we were able to secure Ty Thomas to jump aboard. He’d have to meet us late, but he said he could meet us in St Matthews in time to run leg 12. Always nice to have another sub 20 5ker/Boston qualifier to come off the bench. Thanks to Trophy for also being willing to go.

A quick tutorial – the 200 miles are split up into 36 parts, called legs, varying from 1.7 to 10 miles. In the full team category, 12 members each run 3 legs. The 12 members travel in 2 vans, 6 per van. When a runner starts a leg, their van drives to the end of the leg and waits for the runner, who then passes the “baton” ( a slap wrist bracelet) to the next runner. The 12 runners can go in any order except you cant do consecutive legs.

The Palmetto 200 has a staggered start on Friday so that everyone will arrive in Charleston sometime in the afternoon the next day (Saturday). The teams with the slowest projected pace (usually 10 min/mile average) leave at 6 am. Our team of beasts now leaves at 12 noon. There seemed to be less competition this year since there were only 4 other teams leaving at our start time and only one after. Clemson has fielded some cross country teams that have crushed the rest of the field, even with as little as 6 members. They were leaving at 1:30.

Click to access P200_2014_StartTimes.pdf

FYI, 90 percent of the field doesn’t care about time. They are in it to finish and for fun. Crazy idea. These are the guys I see strolling up to the exchange zones,  sharing reflective vests, taking walk breaks, smiling, etc. Our team does exchanges like the olympic 4×100. Mostly because we are a bunch of grandiose age groupers hell bent on a 24 hour trophy hunt. With us in the 12:00 start were the Banditos and the Rock Hill Striders, whose general theme is “50+ year olds than can kick your ass”. They included Geary McAlister, Howie Phan and new recruit Tracy Meyers. They also had a rogue 30 something guy that runs sub 3 marathons as their ringer. Luckily (for us) they were a few guys down and having to run at least 4 legs each. We were concerned about the “Flying Tiger Ninjas” in our start time, because we were afraid of another covert 621 Ninja late team trophy crushing entry (see also Columbia Marathon relay), but it turned out it wasn’t them.

When we arrived at the start area at the old Columbia speedway, things looked ominous. It was noon but pretty cloudy and dark. One look at the Weather Channel app and we were cringing. It appeared a tidal wave of green was about to crush us on the radar. This was going to get messy.

As a Van 1 member this year, we were first up. For years, I was driving Van 1 and let the El Capitan, his wife and Joel have the glory legs in Van 2 in Charleston. Why? Because Van 1 gets to start right away, has two nighttime (read: not hot) legs and most importantly, finishes in the early morning on Saturday (read: plenty of time to stuff your face on breakfast, rest and celebrate early). Brian gave me the glory leg (finish line) last year and unfortunately discovered the Van 1 secret. Its no coincidence he took Van 1 again in 2014. At least he let me, the team mascot sasquatch and resident gimp, back in Van 1.

Julie got the first leg this year – a lap around the speedway and then onto the course, 5.6 miles. To say Julie was keyed up about it might be a bit of an understatement. I think she was stretching and warming up for two hours. To her credit, the first leg is scary because everyone is watching and you really feel you are racing the other guys in your start group. I expected her to start way too fast, but she played it smart – letting three of the guys burn up the track, only to almost catch the second place guy at the finish. While we waited at the first exchange zone , Char Richards (wife of barefoot John) let us know John’s team already had a flat tire. I started having nightmares about the van/ditch incident of the 2012 Blue Ridge relay, so I made sure to remind Joel not to take Van 1 offroading. Julie passed off to Brian, and he tackled what I call the Dust in the Wind 10k  (leg 2 – my leg in 2011). Its mostly on a very dusty dirt road through the middle of nowhere and under interstate 77. Brian rocked it out in less than 7 minute pace, but had the shame of the Strider ringer beating him and everybody’s tail on the leg, despite him being minutes behind everyone else at the start of the leg. Brian handed off to the Code. I didn’t know what to expect with the Code, he always seems to be battling some injury but refuses to stop running. He also hasn’t raced except for our training pace Newberry half last weekend. And this was 9.26 miles – the leg that about killed me in 2010 where I was half delirious and dehydrated with the heat (the old dates were  a more summer-y 4/30-5/1).

Code absolutely destroyed leg 3. The Striders had a big lead on us and Howie (who has a 3:05 marathon PR) had been out on the course for a few minutes before the Code even started. I started getting ready for my leg (leg 4) when Howie came into view, figuring I’d have a few minutes. Um, try about 30 seconds. As soon as Howie comes into view, the Code comes rounding the corner. All of a sudden I realize I’m going to be virtually racing with Geary on my leg.

Geary is not more than 50 meters away when Code comes flying around the corner so fast we botch the bracelet handoff. I have all of 2.6 miles. This is the leg I viciously mocked the Trophy for whining about in his year. Like taking pictures of him collapsing at the finish, asking if he was feeling so fly like a two-six, etc. Until the next year, when I had it. Yes its short, but it is pure torture. You go all out in the flat and downhill start, especially because its your first leg and the distance is less than 5k, then you die a slow and painful death for the next 1.6 miles. See elevation profile below. In 2012 I went out in 6 minutes flat and was breathing so hard at the end I could taste my lungs. So I tried to rein it in. Did 6:30 this time, cruising along, thinking how I was going to make this hill my bitch this time.  Geary was going to get tracked down. Oh yeah!….Uh, no. All the euphoria of the first mile turned south in a hurry because someone turned up the treadmill to 8 percent incline and wouldnt let me off. Dear God. I tried to power up this monster but it by halfway up it was all too apparent who was doing the bitch-making. My lungs and heart were having a boxing match as to who could escape from my chest first. Geary was destroying me. Pace was going to crap. What’s worse, no one sees you until you’re finishing, and all I could think of was me confirming my slow-gimp status by race facing it on a 2.6 miler. Well, I basically did. Had a 6:57 2nd mile and a wicked 7:15 positive split “kick” that looked and felt like I was giving birth. But hey, at least no one passed me.

I handed off to Joel who took off on a nasty 6.2 which went through an uncharted mountain range in central SC. I could describe it further but I was still panting like an injured wildebeest and delirious from my 4k. Brian had did some lineup shuffling and brought in Soltau to run leg 6. Why? Because only Jen was left in our van and you dont give leg 6 to your wife. In fact you don’t give leg 6 to anyone without apologizing profusely. It has a few miles similar to Joel’s mountain 10k just before the piece de resistance, “Mount St. Matthews”. It is impossible to fully grasp the magnitude of this monster in pictures, because it never seems to capture the pain and suffering that this thing creates. Because of the 8 mile length of the leg, it only shows up as a blip in the elevation profile. http://www.mapmyrun.com/us/oak-grove-sc/palmetto200-leg-6-congaree-baptist-churc-route-63086128

This is no blip, trust me. Despite the warnings, Soltau takes the bracelet from Joel and takes off in a full sprint. Not a “going out too fast” start. More like 4:00 pace. It was awesome because the other teams all had this WTF? look. We then journeyed to a school at St Matthews which is usually blazing hot, being out in the open. It was surprisingly cool, probably because of the clouds of the apocalypse on the horizon. I think we were just barely outrunning the storm.  Some singlet wearing dude comes flying into the exchange zone next having left Drew for dead. He started a few minutes ahead and he must of done low 5 minute pace the whole time. Cruised in without even breathing hard. Drew follows a few minutes later, having rocked it out way below 7 pace despite all the mountain climbing. Jen then took the baton and crushed the shortest leg on the course, a 1.6 miler through St Matthews. She almost caught the older woman on singlet dude’s team despite being a half mile behind. The handoff went to David in Van 2 and we were officially off for several hours. We waited a little bit to pick up Ty, and dropped him off with the rest of Van 2 at the next zone. On to find some food.

There are many theories on relay nutrition strategy, but I am firmly in the “you need to eat real food” camp. I tried to subsist on crackers, gatorade and GU the first year, fearing GI disasters, but this most definitely did not work. I think we did Hardee’s thickburgers the next year, and while certainly creating nuclear grade portapotty moments, produced much better racing. Luckily, Brian is in the same camp and makes the awful Waffle, i.e. Waffle House, part of his relay ritual. I had already destroyed a 12 inch subway sub an hour before, so all I had was a day’s worth of caffeine with the bottomless “America (‘Murica?) the Beautiful” cup refilled by the ever present quick draw coffee pot waitress Tasha. The others threw down some serious grease, though balked at my suggestion to get the hash browns scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, diced, peppered, capped, topped and country. Lord help us what is in Bert’s chili.

By the time we had journeyed to the Santee Waffle House and arrived at Santee State Park (with a brief CVS side trip for Joel to get a toothbrush – because oral hygiene is critical when you dont shower for 36 hours)  there wasnt a whole lot of time to relax. Our team was decimating the spreadsheet and we were close to a half hour ahead of schedule. But the tsunami of green on the radar had started to win the race. It started with some sprinkles at the Awful Waffle but it was coming down pretty steady by the time we were at the park. This was going to be a rough night. It had just started to get dark when Ty comes rolling in ahead of schedule and handed off to Julie for our second round (leg 13).  She only had 4.2 miles so we high tailed it to Lone Star barbeque, site of my next leg, and also where I stuffed my face last year. Sooo good, by the way. Did I mention it was raining? It was. In freaking buckets. Joel held an umbrella for me at the zone but it was about 0.43 seconds before I was drenched head to toe after Julie handed me the bracelet. My leg was 5.6 miles right through the heart of downtown Santee. I was on a mission. Jacked up on three cups of Tasha’s finest Waffle House brew, I was going to put a major hurting on that 7:30 projected pace. Bedecked in the required Palmetto 200 nighttime couture of reflective vest, double blinky lights and headlamp, I went blazing down the main downtown drag in full beast mode. Mile 1, 6:42.  It was a total monsoon.I was dodging lake-like puddles, jumping onto sidewalks, avoiding certain death from unaware locals barreling down main street at 55 mph. Bring it, bitches. Luckily we had caught some earlier teams by then and I just focused on the lights, Carol Ann. The leg was just a straight shot for most of the next 4 miles and almost completely flat. Pace faded into the 6:50’s but was holding steady. I knew the last half mile was a sudden turn off the highway and into a school parking lot, where the next leg would then turn around and go back. As soon as I was sure of the turn, the chips got pushed all in and the pedal hit the floor. Except they moved the zone a few hundred yards down the road from last year…DOH. But I could see the finish, and I could see another road kill in my sights, and I came in like a wrecking ball past the high school. Scared the crap out of a poor girl who is probably having nightmares about rampaging sasquatches this weekend. Passed off to Brian and finished in 37:23/6:49 pace. As soon as I finished and stopped tasting my lungs, I was a little frightened, because this was not leaving anything in the tank for leg 3. Fortunately I had the longest break of the relay scheduled before my last (and longest) leg – 11 hours. I knew I would need every second of it.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/469729786

Brian then had a nine miler back on highway 15, crossing I-95 and ending just short of Holly Hill. I was completely wrecked but managed to recover by the time we reached the next zone, Target AME church, which rocks. Almost all of the exchanges are churches or schools but Target has awesome volunteers and a sweet locker room like bathroom set up. Perfect to defunk after running 5.6 miles in a complete downpour. I ran into Jenny Prather and Travis Cowan, who were also on Barefoot John’s team, First Losers. These guys are always positive, so definitely great to see them, especially when its dark, in the middle of the nowhere, in a complete monsoon. Andrew Touzel was also there with his team, so it was a total Columbia party going on. After getting marginally dryer, my stomach decided to wake up and demand to be fed ASAP. I had missed out on the Waffle feast but I figured I could get something in Holly Hill, site of the Hardee’s thickburger gorging of 2011. Brian crushed the nine miler like it was nothing (must be all that Boston qualifying and Mount Mitchelling) and handed off to Jen for her 5.6 miler. I told Joel to hit Hardee’s and we got there a few minutes before 10, where we got the silent treatment from the drive thru. Thanks guys. We then rushed down the road to the Subway which still had the door open. My sandwich artist told me sweetly “We’re closed” with eyes that said F$%K OFF!. So I was SOL with the food, since Holly Hill is not noted for their impressive selection of after hours cuisine. Luckily Julie had a virtual Sams club running in the back seat. I had some of her crackers and was praying the church that serves food in the middle of the night would be open again this year. Jen finished her leg under pace and handed off to Code, but said her calf was really giving her problems. Injuries are always scary in relays, because they can cause someone to do the dreaded 4th leg. I had to do one at Blue Ridge in 2011 and count it as one of my most unpleasant runs of all time. Fortunately the Code stepped up like a champ and traded in his last 3.7 mile leg for her last 7.5 mile one, before even doing his second leg. He is a better man than me. Joel was now out on the course doing his short and sweet 2.4 miler and the rain just seemed to get even more relentless.  Joel said he had a fast start but a lousy finish..sounded a lot like my 2 miler. He passed off to Soltau as Brian had done a van switcheroo to let Drew take this 9.67 mile beast. At the end of his leg was the answer to my prayers. St Pauls was open with food. They were charging six bucks but I would have gladly given them 20 for the sandwich, chips, banana and a water. Best midnight dinner ever. After Drew arrived, Code was off for 3.75 to wrap up our 2nd round. It was around midnight and I think everyone was wrecked. I seem to remember Clyburn breaking into a solo danceathon to #selfie in the front seat. We declared it Joel’s new favorite song.

Code blazed through his leg and we then journeyed another 5 zones ahead to try and possibly get some sleep. I was worried because I usually camp out on the grass with my sleeping bag and pillow, as my gargantuan physique does not take kindly to sleeping in vans.  This was clearly not going to happen this year with the rain. But when we got there I realized I could just about squeeze into my row in the van, so problem solved. Another major bonus is that it was completely quiet. Usually all the teams coming through, jacked up on coffee and GU, catch a bad case of loud talkeritis, between bouts of screaming. You could hear a pin drop this year though, as absolutely no one was outside with the rain just continuing to intensify. I remember seeing sheets of water coming down when I conked out for about an hour and a half. Awoken, not surprisingly, by even harder rain.

Brian is preparing for his leg 3 when there’s a flurry of texts and calls between him and Brandon. We cant seem to find each other and Ty is nearing the end of his leg. Someone finally realizes the problem. We are at the wrong freaking exchange zone. In his #selfie induced euphoria, Brian had led us to our old exchange zone from previous years when we should have been 2.3 miles down the road due to our van overlapping. Code came back from one of his signature epic portapotty breaks around the same time as Jen, and we get them to jump in the van and take off. But its just not going to happen. Even with clear roads we cant make it there in time, and certainly not with all the teams starting to converge. David agrees to take one for the team and take Brian’s leg at the last second. He gets doubly rewarded for this act, because not only has he saved the team precious minutes, he gets 2.3 miles for his last leg and is done at 3 in the morning. Nicely played, Mr. McNeice.

Once we see David we have to turn around and head two zones down, since his brother Andy was taking the nine miler from our erroneous sleep zone. Two zones down happened to be our least favorite exchange – Huger Francis Marion Forest rec area, aka the House of Horrors. So named because of their restroom – basically a seat over a hole in the ground. No light. All you see is unspeakable things from your headlamp in that hole that will stay with you forever. One year David had to puke in the woods there. I got viciously attacked by my thickburger in 2012 and made it back from the woods just moments before our exchange. No happy memories here. Andy just destroyed his nine miler leading up to House of Horrors in low 6 pace. Amazing also since it was pouring rain the whole time. Code was due up but graciously let Jen take the short 3.6 miler next. Because of the rain there were frogs everywhere. I’m sad to say that Jen claimed the life of one of these poor creatures on this miserable night. She was injured but somehow soldiered through the leg in low 7 pace. Do not doubt this girl’s toughness. She got violently ill from nasty hotel water the first relay and still finished her legs – it was incredible. Code then took the Huger fire station leg, site of my hallucinations and walk of shame in 2010. While it was bad then at least there was some light. This year it was pitch black and the rain was unrelenting. He rocked the first 5 miles and then his leg locked up on him but still managed about 7 minute pace. Joel headed out for the next leg, which usually has beautiful scenic views of the marsh as the sun rises. Thanks to the team’s blazing pace (now 30+ minutes ahead of schedule) and the mini tropical storm going on, it was just miserable and very dark. The next exchange was at the most awesome Seewee outpost, home of the best sausage biscuits on the planet. Unfortunately I was up soon and couldnt partake except for more coffee. Joel race faced it to the finish of his leg and was done, and handed off to Julie for a trip down Highway 17.

I was up next. Leg 3 always sucks. I don’t do well on little sleep and my legs are always toast since I have no sense of restraint. Now here I was having to go run a race pace 6.48 miles in the rain when I’d have rather crawled into the fetal position at Seewee and cuddled with a sausage biscuit.  Plus, there was pressure. Brian was sure we now had both the coed and overall full team lead. We were also now running near the head of the entire relay. This is difficult to fully assess but can be indirectly measured by the fresh smelling  portapotties and much fewer vans. Julie came in ahead of schedule and I thought I had caught an awesome break – the rain had completely stopped and now the sun was up. I made sure not to go out too fast because I was running on fumes. The fear of the walk of shame always lingers. I hit mile 1 in 7:08 and was slowly tracking down a fast girl. Perfect. I ended up catching her just past the mile marker but I was half afraid she might catch me back – she was getting it.  Legs felt like crap but my gimp toe was actually causing me no problems. Things were great by the mile 2 marker but it started to sprinkle just a bit. And then sprinkle turned into firehose in about 30 seconds. I have less water pressure in my shower at home. I did a couple of 7:15 miles and then got a little delirious. Screw the rain! Just started flailing away as hard as I could go. Rifle Range road seemed to go on forever – just flat and straight. I’m sure you can see forever on a clear day but I could only see to the next stop light with the wall of water crashing all around me. Shoes started weighing like bricks and ankle deep puddles were everywhere. But I was on a mission. Took down a couple more roadkill and turned on the very aptly named 6 mile road, as I was approaching that mile marker. I’m sure I looked like a complete maniac – full race face and yelling out at times trying to keep myself going. And dont forget the lovely blinky light and headlamp ensemble. As soon as I hit 6 miles I pushed the chips into the table once again and emptied the tank. Total headless chicken. Dear God where is the finish?? Finally I rounded the corner and saw Julie and Jen yelling up ahead. I sprinted into the DMV parking lot and didnt see anyone until Brian suddenly jumps out of a pack of people, grabs the bracelet and takes off. Well I can say one thing – nothing was left on the course. Just completely spent. Managed 7:08 pace with virtually no sleep in the pouring rain after going 100 percent in my 2 previous legs. I will take it.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/469729729

Brian blazed another 5.6 miles over the Isle of Palms Connector (which is cool for me since this was the site of my first 5k) and our van was officially done. I’d like to say we rode with Van 2 all the way to the finish, supporting them all the way. Nope. We instantly jumped in the van and went straight to IHOP to stuff ourselves. OK, then we went to the finish. We were so far ahead of schedule that they were still setting up the finish line when we got there. It turns out a team called Moose Knuckles sandbagged about as bad as we did and finished in 23:48, crossing the line first at 10:48 am. We knew we were ahead of this pace when we exchanged with Van 2, but a lot can happen in the last leg when everything catches up to you. Julie made sure to play “All we do is win” by DJ Khaled just for good karma. Just make sure your hands stay there when they get thrown up. Although there were some tense moments, Van 2 arrived well ahead of time and said Andy was on schedule to finish by 11:20 something. Sure enough, Andy comes blasting into the park just after 11:20 and we cross the line as a team in James Island County Park with a huge team PR in 23:22. First full team! For a brief moment we thought we might get first overall, but those pesky Clemson kids ultra team crossed 24 minutes ahead of us. Oh well, they usually crush the field by a couple of hours. There was a very nice afterparty with beer and Moe’s at the park, where we got to drink from our finishers mugs and celebrate the victory. This will be a hard act to follow for next year’s team, but I’m sure we’ll be there.

But first… let me take a selfie.

http://www.palmetto200.com/palmetto200/2014-results