197 Miles, 12 Runners, One Crazy Time and a Victory!

Last Friday, I was standing at the starting line in Bethel, NY, the site of Woodstock ’69, and appropriately enough, Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” was playing over the sound system.

At the sound of the gun, five other competitors and I surged out of the gate. The finish line, in Dobbs Ferry, just north of the Big Apple, was 197 miles away via backcountry roads, through forests and farmland and beyond the brutal slopes of the Catskill Mountains.

Not that I was running this by myself. There were 12 of us in two vans, and we were all ready to take the slap bracelet baton from another runner and wear it for our sections of the course — anything from 2.5 to 10 miles.

Everyone would run three times at various points throughout the afternoon, night and the following morning. The time in between we could enjoy sitting in the vans; fatigued, sleep-deprived and stewing in each other’s body odors.

If this doesn’t sound like your idea of a fun time, you might be surprised to learn that the Ragnar Relay is a popular nationwide race franchise, drawing thousands of people to run in events in places such as Southern California, New England, The Florida Keys, Vegas, Chicago along with the race in New York State. Though I was starting in the last heat with six other runners, there were a total of 214 teams competing already spread out along the course in front of us.

The name of my team is (ready?) The North American Distance Squad – an ingenious acronym conceived by my friend Dave who wanted more than anything to have us cheer “Go NADS!” when a fellow member of our team charged past.

Our victory last year was entirely because of our special-ordered purple uniform tops. With the team name printed in the front and the green outline of a howling wolf in back, we were sure to be an unstoppable juggernaut (of fashion anyway). This year, we complemented the tops with acid green short-shorts, which would blind the competition with their radiance, and expose them to our pasty legs.

We were not alone in either our colorful team name nor our outfits. Out of the 214 competitors in the 2011 field, some of the many creative team names included “The Sad Cheese Burgers,” “Going Commando,” “Bizarre Gardening Accident” and “Rock Stars From Mars.” This last group started with our team and ran in clothes that would look more appropriate at an 80’s hair metal concert than on a racecourse. A closer inspection revealed that their acid-washed skinny-jeans were in fact athletic tights.

I had a total of 21.5 miles of running ahead of me. The first leg I ran was 5.8 miles, over rolling hills. The pack raced out and I fell back as I fiddled with my watch. But not for long. I unwisely decided that I wanted to take down the leader. This fellow wore a bicyclist’s speed suit and was probably going at about 5:30 pace. His team was called “Robin Hood Endurance,” from the name of their New York City Running Club. No joking around there.

 I had my watch on, but there was no first mile marker, so I had no idea that I was going way faster than the 6:00-6:20 pace that I had planned for the race. I stayed alongside the leader for about a half a mile and until he pulled ahead—but I kept him close for a few miles longer.

While it had been cool outside just a few minutes before the start, suddenly the weather had turned warm and I was parched, despite the fact I had gone through a gallon of water and Gatorade earlier in the day. My breath came out in a weird wheezing sound, that suggested that I was going way too fast for my first leg. About halfway through, the Robin Hood guy pulled away, and I focused on keeping a steady stride as the course went over hill after hill.

Just when I came to terms with the fact that Robin Hood was out of reach, I heard another set of footsteps from behind me. Damn. Another guy, one of the Housatonic Road Hogs pulled alongside, and then started to race in front of me. After a couple more hot miles I brought it in to the exchange, perhaps a minute behind Robin Hood and fifteen seconds behind the Road Hog in a time of 33:57 or 5:51--pace. I felt bad for not giving my team the lead, but also knew the others on my team would have a good shot at catching up in the miles to come.

Our second runner, Anders grabbed the baton and was off. I steamed in the passenger seat as our van rolled off to the next exchange. The six of us in van one took turns driving—well all except for me, because my foot had been too heavy on the accelerator last time. Even this early in the competition, the interior of the van had become a jumble of loose clothes and sports drink containers as the forces of entropy took over our habitat.

Anders managed a speedy 3-mile leg, and caught up to the Road Hog before he passed the baton to Dave. As someone who has run the Death Race and recently did a 36-mile run in the wooded forest, Dave was well suited for the hill-ridden sufferfest of the next 8.2 miles. Driving ahead of him in the van, we were able to see the hills that he needed to climb. In scientific terms, he had to climb a net elevation of 1017 feet, though a chain of expletives might offer an accurate description of what it feels like to stand at the bottom of one of the monster slopes and start the agonizing climb.

At this point, the NADS was in second place to Robin Hood Endurance who still had a sizeable lead. When we came to the next exchange however, Dave was in first. We were as surprised as the Robin Hood Guys, but then we figured out that their runner had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the course. The lead felt a little ill gotten, but the race was still on and we weren’t going to wait up.

After teammates Zack and Sean took an aggressive pace for shorter legs, the slap bracelet went to our next martyr, Pete, who took on the longest single leg at 9.9 miles over hills that were about as brutal as Dave’s. With Pete’s leg finished, the course became the responsibility of Van 2, which gave us time to rest before our second round.

As the members of the other van sweated and suffered along the course, we took the scenic route over a pass through the Catskills—affording us a view of the spring growth on the mountains, set aglow by the warm rays of the descending sun.

Soon, we emerged from the alpine grandeur and pulled into the town of New Paltz. The college crowd was already out crawling the streets, dressed to the nines and ready for the nightlife. Though there were several fashionable bars and restaurants in town, we opted for a Subway. I got a 6-inch veggie and a refill on my 2-liter plastic water jug.

We emerged sated, and drove back to the course. Since we had left our team had moved up in the ranks and there were at least a hundred vans in the parking lot when we arrived. It looked like some kind of ominous religious revival under cover of darkness. One van had rigged Christmas lights on the inside. Trippy.

The runners came streaming by, all wearing reflectors and headlamps, along with blinking butt lights to increase their visibility to traffic. There was something surreal about watching the competition come and go, faceless and defined only by points of light. The other half of our team was somewhere out there, miles away through the darkness. Now we waited.

I was slated to begin my second leg at around 10 p.m. — still hours away. A couple of people in our group caught up on sleep in the van. I was too restless and anxious about the upcoming miles.

My left knee has been a recurring aggravation for me and when I took a tentative jog up and down the parking lot, I found that the tendon in the back was tweaking painfully. I popped an ibuprofen and wrapped the area up in athletic tape, praying that the endorphins would kick in enough so that I wouldn’t feel anything when I ran the next leg. The question of how the hell I was going to run a marathon in two weeks was one that I preferred not to ask myself.

I had 7.6 miles for the second leg, which wound back through New Paltz. We got a call from the other van about half an hour before they showed up on the line. I waited nervously at the exchange point while the other teams streamed by. Finally, we heard one of the race-officials call out our team number and I heard our 12th runner call my name. I grabbed the slap bracelet from his hand and started running. Sure enough, the knee was not pleased at the continued abuse and told me so, but soon the complaint was washed away in a wave of endorphins and adrenaline. I was on a flat piece of course for once and took advantage by upping the pace. The blinking lights on the other runners’ butts danced in front of me like fireflies along the darkened race-course. I started chasing them down.

I crossed a bridge and then began the ascent through New Paltz. The town was still partying and I found myself dodging the nightlife. I was lucky enough not to get held up at any of the busy intersections. After about a mile uphill, the course flattened I started picking up the pace some more. I could have sworn I was going at sub 6:00, but I was in fact closer to 6:15 when I crossed the line. Others in our group said they thought they were going faster than they were some legs. This might have something to do with inaccuracies in the course, or the fact that it simply feels like you are running faster in the dark.

Over the next hours, our team crossed the Hudson and by midnight, Dave had traversed the streets of Poughkeepsie. We were passing more and more teams and had established a sizeable lead over the Road Hogs and Robin Hood. A win was looking likely. Our new goal: pass all the teams that had a head-start on us and be the first across the finish line.

My final leg was also my hilliest and my longest with a distance of eight miles and a total elevation gain of 628 feet. I got the baton at around 4 am, starting off with an ugly hobble. For about the first mile I was running side by side with another guy, but I was able to pick up the pace again once the knee pain faded. I held out a little energy for the big hills that I knew were ahead. Fortunately, the inclines were long and gradual.

When I got to the top, I opened up my stride and started hammering. Because this was the last leg, I didn’t want to have anything left by the end. As the pre-dawn spilled over the land, I managed to put ten or so more taillights behind me.  I wanted to have a flat section for that ultimate finish sprint. Instead, I had to take on a final, 100-foot hill. With legs drunk on lactic acid, I barely managed to stagger up to the exchange. Still, I was pretty pleased with the 50:07 finish—about 6:16 pace. I had done my part, now it was up to the rest of the team to bring it in to victory.

In the legs that followed, I offered what moral support I could at the exchange points, and enjoyed resting in the van while the rigor mortis set into my muscles.

Close to the end of the race, we had a minor crisis one of our teammates in the other van got wrong directions from a cop and got lost for 10 minutes. Despite the lost time, we managed to be the first across the finish line before 11 a.m. Saturday. Second place went to the Housatonic Road Hogs, who came in about 10 minutes behind us.

It had been almost 21 hours since I had started in Bethel. As our finishing prizes, we got rectangular medals, with handy bottle opener attachments. At least they knew where everyone’s priorities would be when they got home.