Sep 8, 2000 The Hood to Coast Relay By Laurel Park :: Views- 53

Anyone who has participated in a team relay event knows how much fun they
are. I was "coerced" into running in the 1991 Great Lakes Relay and it
remains to this day one of the highlights of my running career. The
camaraderie, the effort and the beauty of running through rural northern
Michigan was priceless. I participated in a total of 4 Great Lakes Relays
and had a marvelous time with each one.

Runners in Portland, Oregon, have a similar kind of event. It's called the
Hood to Coast Relay and it covers the 195 miles from Timberline Lodge on
Mt. Hood to the sandy shores of Seaside. The Hood to Coast ("HTC")
originated about seventeen years ago by a group of runners who, having
downed a few bottles of the local elixir following a long training run,
thought it would be a wonderful idea to see if they could cover the
distance from Mt. Hood to Seaside on foot. For several years the relay
consisted of a few local runners who formed rag-tag teams and convinced
their spouses/significant others to drive the course with them and supply
food, water and dry clothes. Eventually word of this madness spread, and
more teams wanted to enter. Fast forward to 1999, and 1000 12-member teams
participated in the 17th running of the event. Almost as many teams were
turned away. The HTC has become the biggest relay event in North America.

For the past five years, alumni from my husband's college, Bucknell
University, have put together a team which has competed in the elite
division. My husband, Rich Stark, has been on the team all five years. For
the past four years I've accompanied him as a member of the "support
crew". It has been a lot of work, a lot of planning, and one heck of a lot
of fun.

HTC and the Great Lakes Relay differ in a few key areas. While the GLR
takes three days and breaks at night for sleep, HTC is a start-to-finish
event - the relay continues straight through the night. GLR is somewhat
loosely organized, with a few rules and a general outline, while HTC is a
model of planning and organization (with 2000 vans, 12,000 runners, and a
course that goes through downtown Portland, you have to be organized). At
HTC exchange zones are strictly monitored, parking areas are strictly
enforced, even van size is strictly controlled. And don't even think about
answering the call of nature anywhere other than in an officially provided
porta-john - that'll be a 30 minute team penalty, thank you!

Planning for HTC starts months in advance. The race itself usually fills
within weeks after applications are available. Lodging accommodations in
Seaside are snapped up nearly a year in advance (although Seaside is a
resort town, it is small and there are only a finite number of hotel
rooms, and no other significant towns nearby). "Legal" sized vans
disappear from rental agencies within a fifty-mile radius of Portland. The
day before the race, grocery stores start running low on bananas,
PowerBars and Gatorade.

HTC consists of 36 carefully planned legs. Each team member completes
three legs of the relay, and the legs are organized in a strict rotational
fashion; for example, the leadoff man runs legs 1, 13 and 25, while the
second runner handles legs 2, 14 and 26. Teams are not allowed to deviate
from this pattern. Most teams split their runners: the first six runners
are in Van 1 and the second six in Van 2. This allows each van to have a
few snatches of "down time" during the race. The race begins on a Friday
morning and the last teams arrive at Seaside late Saturday night. The
average finishing time is about 26 hours while the elite teams finish in
under 20.

The first time I agreed to help "crew" I was more than a little nervous
about my ability to stay awake throughout the night. I'm not particularly
pleasant to be around when I'm tired, so my husband was equally anxious
and I think he feared for the lives of his friends. Our fears were
groundless. As soon as the race begins, the adrenaline level is so high -
and stays so high - that fatigue isn't usually an issue until the end
(when it hits like a rock). With the elite teams, everything happens so
quickly that there is little time to stand around and get bored. Each team
is responsible for recording its own split times, and (obviously) the
drivers must make sure that the runners get to the exchanges in time.
During the middle legs, when van congestion is at its heaviest and the
course is run on narrow dirt roads, there is often barely enough time to
drop off the "new" runner, record the split, and pick up the runner who
just finished before the van must take off in order to get to the next
exchange in time. The only significant "down time" is when the runners in
your van are not "on duty" and the Bucknell team uses these breaks to stop
at their hotel in Portland and shower, stock up on Gatorade, and put gas
in the van.

The HTC people have thoughtfully staged "food stations" at several
exchange zones and those stations usually include a cappuccino stand. One
of these exchange zones is located at the Columbia County Fairgrounds, and
it is a rather surreal experience to be out in the middle of nowhere,
standing in line for the food tent at 2:00 a.m., surrounded by more than
one hundred parked vans, runners everywhere (some asleep, some awake, most
in the porta-john line) and - if we're lucky and it isn't raining - the
stars twinkling above.

Depending on your team's goal, the purpose of the relay is either
camaraderie or competition. Some teams participate purely for the fun of
it, with no real concern about their finish time. But there are always
several teams who show up hungry for the win. For several years local
corporate powerhouse (and HTC sponsor) Nike entered a team of world-class
athletes which blew every other team well away, but three years ago they
decided enough was enough. That opened the door for teams such as
Bucknell, Runnin' Woodies and the Princeton Running Company, which are
comprised of talented runners who also happen to have "real jobs" and in
many cases family responsibilities as well. The competition can be fierce
but respect amongst teams is equally so; by the end of the race your
adversaries have become your friends.

For my husband and his buddies, unquestionably the best part of the relay
is the opportunity to come together and compete as a team "just like in
the old days," although I doubt that in the old days one of the team
members would be calling his pregnant wife every two hours to make sure
she hadn't gone into labor. The "Y2K" Bucknell Alumni Team brought
together runners representing graduation years from 1980 to 2000. Despite
the disparity in ages, the team gelled immediately and it was as if these
twelve men had been competing together all their lives. It was a wonderful
experience, and I've heard the same thing from many of the other teams.

If you think you've conquered the Great Lakes Relay, you may want to give
the Hood to Coast a try. The HTC website (www.hoodtocoast.com) provides
all the necessary information and even has a "team matching" service.

See you at the beach!