Reno Tahoe Odyssey: Where’s the 2014 Post

Okay, that might not be the actual name of that post. But, it was “Where’s the Cancer Now, Doc? … Gone!” The name came after our fearless leader Ski, who end up beating cancer. Ski, an amazing Kiwi, is one of those people who are one of the nicest people you meet, with the courage/dedication to accomplish anything that life throws at them. In fact, I talked with Ski recently, and he mentioned he at one time ran 4000 miles in a year. (Here, I thought doing just 1000 miles was crazy.)

Our team had a lot of new faces again this year, so we didn’t know if we would be able to finish below 24 hours. I ended up taking leg 2, which was a lot harder than anticipated. This was also Bridget’s first run since Nixon. To add to this, our trip to Amsterdam finished up about a week before the race.

Leg 2 is a bit challenging. The first run is long. The second is up hill, and the third is through Carson. I was a bit nervous about it, so I ended up running quite a bit while on vacation. I can still remember a few amazing runs:

• My favorite was a run out of Belgium. At the time we were in Bruges. It was drizzling a bit, but I saw the opportunity. I followed a path out of the walled city that led to rolling hills of farmland. It was beautiful, with the greenery, the windmills, and the canal that I ran by. This came to be quite a bit of mileage since I enjoyed it so much: 9 miles.
• Normandy we ran along the beaches for a few miles. It was great to see the waves come in and also think about what had occurred here many years ago.
• When we were in Paris, we ran down the Eiffel tower and back for a nice 6 miler. I also ended up running back and forth for about 3 miles for a bit of speed training at times.
• In Champagne, I ran to the next village and back This was productive! I found a shop that had food! (3 miler)
• In Amsterdam, Jason took us to a large park that randomly had parrots in the trees. It was a really beautiful park.

So, that was our training, among some other runs. When we got back, here’s at least how my legs went:

• Leg 1: HOT! I did not plan for this. I was excited. I was happy. I was running through Patagonia. Oma and Opa even came by with Nixon to cheer me on, but then the heat it while I got onto the side-street of the freeway. I pushed through. I pushed through. And I finally finished. But, it wasn’t pretty.
• Leg 2: The night run up hills. This leg should have been pleasant despite the hills. I love the night runs and was enjoying myself. UNTIL… this girl passed me, who was in pretty dang good shape. Good for her.
  Until… the unthinkable… happened. I was trying to have the girl pace me a bit. Her van stopped and gave her a water bottle. And then 5 minutes later, she throws the water out into the forest. This infuriated me. Who was this person? Was she a human being? Did the whole world bow down to her that I was not aware of?  So, I decided to (with the breath I had) tell her what I thought of her. She wasn’t amused, and then told me she was going to go back for the water, to quite worry about it. Liar. I tried to catch up with her the whole time, but she was pretty dang fast. But, I kept close to ensure she heard me. To add to that, another van came by and thought I was just trying to keep close to get a good view of her. Not the case, esp for someone who has no respect for life.
• Leg 3: This run was through Carson. It was a bit of fun with the winding roads around town. And then the van told me to speed up. “That girl above is right behind you. Let’s get moving!” Well, I was proud to say that she did not pass me this time. I was not going to let that happen. Andy 1, Girl with no dignity 0 (I took off a point for not having any dignity).

We finished .We had fun. And to add to that, we got under 24 hours. Great job!
Overall Rankings

Division Rankings