29th Hood to Coast Relays: Running with Last Legs, by Gary Morgan/Michigan Runner, note by Larry Eder

     Going to the relay race Hood to Coast was going to be logistical
challenge as I drove from New York City to Clarkston, Michigan on
Wednesday night and then caught a plane out of Detroit Metro on
Thursday night. Changed planes in San Francisco and landed in Portland
Oregon at 12:30 am Friday Morning. Then waited there until 10 am for my
teammates, from the team called Last Legs, (a mixed masters team of 6
women and 6 men) to pick me up and headed up to Mt Hood for the start
of the “Mother of all Relays, Hood to Coast”, 197 miles of awesome
scenery, sleepless night and lots of runners. I did a relay race just
to get to the start.

 
     The race is even more logistics.

     As we get
there around 1:30 pm, teams were leaving every 15 minutes. There’s 1000
teams consisting of 12 runners. approximately 15 to 20 teams are in
each group. They have been taking off since 6:30 am and will keep
leaving until 6:30 pm. My team Last Legs started at 3:30pm. The race
started at Timberline Lodge which is at 6,000ft. Mt Hood is majestic
behind the lodge rising 11,265ft.

     As the sun shined on us as we waited
for our first teammate to run it was awesome. Great picture taking
time. Shirley our team captain takes off on a 5 mile downhill run and
we take off to the first exchange zone.

      We get to exchange zone one and theres lots of excitement as teams
are handing off the blue magnetic wrist band the each running team
member hands off at exchange zones. I ran leg number 6 which was a 7.4
mile stretch of up and down hills. It was getting to be dusk so I had
to run with a reflective vest and a flashlight. My quads knew I had
just run that leg. I still had 2 more legs to run in the next 18 hours.
I’m in van one and were done running for the next 4.5 hours.

     We head off to the number 12 exchange zone. We park the van in a
parking lot under the freeway bridges in downtown Portland next to a
camp of homeless people. They had to be wondering what to hell was
going on. A 1,000 vehicles with 1000’s of runners keeping them up all
night. Shirley our fearless leader took the next run from there. She’s
a relay veteran with 22 hood to coast relays under her belt and she has
run every single leg.

     I ran leg 18 at 3am and it was a short 4.1 miles
but a 300 foot elevation. Plus, running in the dark is always tough even
with a head lamp. When I finished that leg I took a long nap. we get
another 4.5 hour break as the runners in the other van run. We headed
to exchange zone 24 where lots of runners lay out sleeping bags on the
ground and sleep. So theres vans and runners sleeping out in this open
field. It was cool to see.

     I ran leg number 30 for my last leg. It was 5.25 mile downhill to
flat run. My quads were screaming almost as bad as when I ran Comrades
in May. That gave me 16.75 miles for the relay. Everyone ran between 15
and 18 miles for the relay.

     We’re done and we headed for Seaside Oregon, the finish of the race and
the finish spot for the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1806. That is
truly a fitting spot for the Hood to Coast Relay to finish. The beach
here is spectacular. Our last runner came in and we all ran through the
finish line together. Our total time was 25hours and 59 minutes which
gave us 4Th in the mixed masters and Shirley’s team Last Legs gets an
automatic entry next. Like most big races it’s a lottery to get in now.

     What an epic adventure this was and I’d do it again in a heart beat.
I’ve always heard about this race and how great it is. Well, it lived up
to it’s reputation. Next year is the 30Th running of this race and I’m
sure the race organizers will go to make it special. You gotta put this
on your list of races to do. Til next time Keep on Running.

You can see more from Gary Morgan at www.michiganrunner.net and at www.runningnetwork.com.