colorado relay

.....because i've only procrastinated blogging it for a week

the co relay is a 24 (+) hr running event that starts in georgetown and ends in carbondle (which is just west or south or some direction farther than grand junction).

there are 10 people on your team (ours was all girls)
our team was called "we can glow all night long"
and wore glow sticks at nighti realize this is a dog, not a glow stick. but the dog's owner's team was just as slow as ours and we got to play with hurkey at every exchange point.

there are 2 vehicles:
van A carries runners 1-5. so while they are out running we are (pretending to) sleep in a car, eating, or wishing we were asleep. every runner has 3 different legs to run
i'll use my legs as an example for this

the beginning
dropping off runner #5...we had some extra time so we decorated the vehicle
loaned to us by liz's very generous friend4:00 pm
i finally get to do leg one
6.something miles
from the downslope of georgia pass to breck's golf coursei was #9. handoff to #10.
after she comes back from her leg our van is done while the other one is out. we got a condo in vail to shower and try to sleep. i think if you got 2-3 hrs of sleep you were going great. we have to leave again at 10:45 in order to get to the next exchange point

1:00 am
my team sees me off on my 11.something mile stretch that ends in the town of eagle. i have glow sticks on my shoes but you're running along this creek in the middle of the night wondering "i wonder when the mountain lion is going to come out and attack me"
and then run faster

finish at 2:40 am.
we wait for #10 to finish and drive to grand junction for the beginning of the last legs

(between this time life is hazy. there are 5 girls + driver in this vehicle and really there is no room to sleep but you lay your head on the pillow.... and pretend....)
liz's friend volunteered to drive. he stayed up all night driving us around
so we tried to help him out a little bit with free advertising

7:00 am.
van b is up again!
everyone is on their last legs!

10:00 am
LAST LEG! of course, my last 5.something mile leg is 700 feet of climbing.
for those of you that dont know--- i HATE going up
i took the neon/glow theme literally
i suckered liz into doing this too

the finish!
for being not-so-competitive we came in 4/8 in the women's team division.
maybe next year we should train?

this was a fantastic experience
i would do it again in a heartbeat!