2015 Reno Tahoe Odyssey: Where is Sean?

Ha! I love the team name. It was named for OB. Sean volunteered to get deployed again, so Nagisa named the team after him. This was the first year it was going to affect the team. And the name unintentionally missed the Where’s Waldo structure. The hidden beauty.

This year though was a bit of a nightmare to manage. Returning people from last year included: Bridget, Rob, Kristin, Nagisa, and me. Everyone else was new. And we ended up getting our last person, Cydney, a week before the race. Despite this, we had a great time.

This year I had leg 1. I was a bit more relaxed on my leg, which was nice. Bridget also had leg 5, which she seemed to have fun with. And the best part, was training with the crew. It was great to run 8 miles with Opa, Uncle Rob, Nixon, and Bridget on Saturdays. We’d run around side streets and I’d push Nixon right behind them. And then afterward? Yeah, we might have a breakfast burrito at Walden’s.

The race itself we initially thought we were projected to finish in 27 hours, but that was ridiculous. Too high. Despite this, we began our venture at 10:30am.

• Leg 1 – The first and only first leg of our race. It was fun to start this. But again like any first leg, it was HOT! I started off a bit faster than I should have. In fact, I saw Danny Heinsohn who was running an ultra. He had just qualified for New York, so we’re running together. I then look down to see that I’m doing sub-8 miles. Okay, and as I hit Idlewild, I told him to keep going ahead. I pushed through the heat, with a crazy dry mouth, and finally finished at Dorokstar park. Despite the fast start, I was still able to stay ahead of quite a few peops.
• Leg 2 – I started in light and finished in dark. This was a great run for six miles. It was a beautiful run next to the lake, and luckily I was able to see it. And then it transitioned to night, with the silhouettes of trees towering over me. I made good time and finished strong.
  On a side note, Bridget’s leg 2 ended up running in the midst of the night. While she was alone, a car came in front of her and said, “Be careful! We just saw a bear down there.” Not the best news to hear.
• Leg 3 – This was a quick run for 3.5 miles. I was looking forward to it. I wasn’t though looking forward to having to wake up and run first. Ski setup our trailer in the Walmart parking lot, which we loved. (He borrows it from Eric for us.) But, the shiny light that he parked under, the loud fools outside, and anxiety of missing the first leg… well.. I think I probably got 1 hour of sleep. The leg though was pretty easy. I booked a quick run, passed a few people up, and finished as the sun was thinking about coming up. This was my first experience of having two night runs. And I loved it.

After a bloody mary in Virginia City, hooking the trailer up in Carson, and nodding off all the way home… we finally got back to Idlewild park. And we finally see the Nagisa turn around the corner. We rocked it! Everyone had a great year and we had a good finish. Cheers to another year.

Overall Results

Division Results