Hood to Coast: The Home Stretch

After spending several hours doing not much of anything, we were ready when it was finally time for our van to start running again. Heather started running her last leg and the van left to go to the next spot. It was a quick Exchange. Heather was fast–despite her knee pain–and her last leg was short.

Janell’s last leg was pretty long AND it was all uphill. We drove the van to a spot we could park and waited towards the top of the hill. The boys were in good spirits. I, on the other hand, had to pee every 5 minutes. Thankfully I wasn’t having the stomach issues a lot of other runners seemed to be having…but really, how much can one person pee?? At this point I was just finding a shady spot in the bushes where no one could see me. 😉

We waited for Janell and watched a lot of runners lumber up that brutal hill. Most seemed to be struggling–but there were a handful that zipped up that hill like it was nothing. I was really impressed! Finally we saw her. Allen ran up to give her water and some fruit snacks.

The hills in this last part of the race would succeed in hurting all of us I think. Except for Daryl–he was a champ and did seem too bothered by much! We went to the next stop and Janell and Allen switched places. The temperature had increased quite a bit by this time. It was in the afternoon on Saturday and it was hot out. Especially for the runners–there was no shade on the road we were on. Allen’s last leg was all up hill AND it was like 8 miles. We stopped at 2.5 miles and again at 5 miles to give him water and snacks and encouragement.

We left Allen after that and went to the top of a hill where the Exchange was. I was getting ready for my last run and when I turned around I saw him limping badly toward the van. He was in really bad shape. He said it was his hamstring. He thought he pulled it really bad. I felt awful for him. Since we were short on time we all had to just pile back in the van and head to the next spot, too. Poor guy!

The entire time we were in the Van, I never knew where we were. We were always on weird back roads, in the middle of nowhere, with no recognizable landmarks. I know the different routes to the beach pretty well but I was always feeling lost. We did go through some really gorgeous scenery though.

The rest of the time went really fast. My last run was approaching and I was getting more and more nervous about my ankle.

My teammates tried to catch some zzzz’s while we waited for our runners to finish.

I was able to call Michael one last time and he gave me a good pep-talk. I was all nerves and anxious energy. I was exhausted, dazed and hungry. I tried to eat some more food but was sick of Gatorade and bagels at this point.