And boy, was it this year - fun, that is.
Our first runner, Andy, lined up and was off. We sauntered back to the van, drove a ways along the route, and cheered him a bit. Then continued up to Dorostkar Park, where I got ready for my leg.
After I too off, Abby and Amber decided it was time for some gymnastics. Only on leg two, and we're already getting silly.
I handed off to Abbey along Highway 40, Abbey ran into Verdi and passed the bracelet to Dave for the big hill up Dog Valley.
Dave powered up the hill and tagged Amber, who had her longest leg as her first. She had to sprint the finish to avoid a last-minute pass - think she actually enjoyed that. Our last runner, Ryan, took it into the Van exchange at Hirschdale where he passed off to Van two.
From here, Van one drove straight up to Tahoe City, where we had a nice dinner at the Bridgetender. My fish tacos were the perfect meal at the time, and I think everyone else was happy with their food. After dinner we rolled down the street to Homewood, where we parked and waited for Van two to show up.
It was in here that the weather started looking pretty threatening. Some crazy wind was blowing signs around and stuff. But by the time Van two showed up, it had calmed down a bit and actually wasn't too bad out. So, we geared up with our nighttime stuff - vests, blinky lights and headlamps - and got back to business.
This set of legs went pretty uneventfully. Everyone just went out and got it done, and the most exciting thing was trying to find parking spots at the exchange points. So Abbey made her own excitement by putting reflective tape down the back of her legs.
Before we knew it, we were at the Raley's in South Lake meeting Van two and relinquishing control of the timing clipboard again.
We were fortunate to have team members who live in Carson, and we took advantage of the hospitality of Dave, who lives just south of town. We slunk into his place around 2:00 AM, where his wife had made beds up for us - and even had ridiculously good, scratch-made cinnamon rolls ready for us when we woke up a couple hours later. Shook ourselves awake and made our way to the next Van exchange, at the Wal-Mart in South Carson. We pulled in right behind Van two, and even got to park right next to them.
Van two was on course now, and Van one was done. We treated ourselves to a big messy breakfast at the south Peg's, who were doing a brisk business with all the hungry runners.
While the Abbey and Amber did some more gymnastics.
And that was it! A little van clean-up, some laundry to do, and an afternoon of nodding off on the couch for me. What a crazy, great, fun, silly race. Proud to be on such a great team with such cool people.
Excellent recap Turi! Can I copy this and post it on my blog too? ;) What great fun! All the greatness of running mixed into one event: all the great snacky food I could eat, running until my legs were sore with lotsa other people, and best of all, the opportunity to spend a day and a half surrounded by my favorite type of people: other runners! Yay RTO!
Ooh la la, Hot Peppers! That totally looks like fun. Nice job, you guys! And yeah, a place to crash with fresh baked cinnamon rolls? I'd say you guys were livin' large.
Very nice summary of our adventure. I will definitely have to get you those pictures soon.