My Experience at the 2014 Hood to Coast relay

I’ve been enamored with Hood to Coast since I first started running back in 2007. And when the documentary came out a few years ago it only fueled the fire.

I was intrigued by the whole relay race concept, I’ve been in love with the Pacific Northwest for years and Oregon was the only state left that I hadn’t stepped foot in.

After looking into running the race, it became way to much of a challenge to A. get in B. put together a team C. organize all the logistics from across the country and D. take the time off from work to deal with B and C.

Enter Nuun. I became a brand ambassador last December and was given the opportunity to apply for a spot on its Hood to Coast team. And for some reason, I was accepted!

Fast forward to late August and after a day of fun in Seattle, I load into a van with (from front to back) Casey, Arielle, Sean, Elisabeth, Melissa and Jenny and off we go to the top of Mt. Hood to start what the race calls, The Mother Of All Relays.

After being accepted to the Nuun team, I was given the opportunity to choose the legs I would run. After looking at the ratings (Easy, Kinda Easy, Not So easy, Hard, Pretty Hard and Are You Fucking Kidding?) I chose a series of three legs (the same as all my teammates) that I figured were right in the middle.

Here’s what I learned about relays, it’s a little secret that you’d never know about unless you’ve participated in one:

It’s not about the run.

I was put in a van with five other runners and a dedicated driver (thank you again Casey) whom I had met the day prior. When we emerged from the van 36.5 hours later, exhausted, dirty, sweaty, starving and elated, we were family.

We now had inside jokes about:

• Miles and miles of traffic (especially from 3-5AM);
• Never-ending porta potty lines
• The porta potty crew that seemed to be following us the entire race!;
• The porta potty crew that cleaned said pottys without gloves on their hands
• The fact that Jenny yelled at us to stop looking at her as she tried to figure out how to step out of the van with burning quads from a five-mile downhill run
• The foul smells that were emanating from the van
• The lack of sleep
• The lack of real food and the abundance of gummy bears (that never seemed to be depleted)

Did I mention the traffic:

I loved participating in the relay (I have a hard time calling it a race since we were in it for fun) and wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.

Case and point: At one point during my last leg, I literally stopped running just to listen. At this point on the course there were no cars, no other runners, no birds, no animals, no wind, in fact no sounds at all. It was just me on the cracked pavement looking at these ancient evergreen trees. It. Was. Awesome!

As someone who lives in NYC, I’m used to a baseline of white noise in the background and when it’s silent, it’s a little disconcerting. But this was different, it was really serene. And for a half second, I thought maybe living in NYC wasn’t such a great idea. Then I came to my senses, started running again and just for good measure, made a few sarcastic remarks to myself.

All that said, I think my very short relay career is over. Between the travel, the recovery from lack of sleep, the lack of caloric intake and the lack of showering for that long, I think I’ll stick to marathons.

All that said, it’s still a magical experience crossing the finish line with two vans full of runners who you’ve journeyed with for 200 miles.

A huge shout of gratitude to the folks at Nuun who made this possible, Kevin, Vishel, Zoe, (my van-mates) Casey and rock-star runner Arielle and last but not least Megan Fey, the ambassador liaison who treats us all like family.

And the race video