I ran in my second Reno/Tahoe Odyssey this weekend. The Odyssey is a 178 mile relay race (reno – mogul – verdi – boca – truckee – squaw – alpine, – tahoe city – homewood – tahoma – meeks – emerald bay – south lake – genoa – carson – silver city – gold hill – virginia city – sparks – reno).
Last year after Andy got lost and ran and extra 4-5 miles in the wrong direction, so this year we decided to name our team Where’s Andy?. This became really appropriate when Andy couldn’t even run with us because he had a bachelor party to attend in San Diego.
It started off as a weird year for the RTO. Andy was going to be gone and my knee was still injured. I was trying many different things to heal it prior and I was already on plan E by the time the RTO started, still without an answer. The week prior I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to run strong and and didn’t want to let my team down so I found someone to take my spot. I was still going to drive the van and run a few legs with my brother so I could still participate, but was still sad about it. Then the day before the race starts Jason got called into work for IGT in Delaware and had to leave the next morning. We couldn’t find anyone to take his spot so last minute so I ran anyways.
The best thing about the RTO is the team setting and creativity. It’s always fun to drive around and see how the other teams decorated their vans and what names they came up with. Although challenging, it feels like a giant party with people drinking, chatting and dressed in costumes. I saw one team handing full beers to each of their members as they finished their legs. I also noticed that many of the vans had a “road kill” tally on the windows marking all of the people that they passed. In our first van alone we passed 56 people or “victims” as we liked to call them. Our team set out with a goal of just having fun, but it seemed like the more people we passed the more competitive we became.
Anya was kind enough to get us a cabin in Tahoe for us to crash at after our 2nd legs and van 1’s first legs. This worked out perfect for us since van 1 went to the cabin first and made dinner. All we did was show up, re-heat some food and take a 2 hour nap before it was our turn to run again. However, I didn’t get more than 1 hour sleep. It’s pretty tough to sleep when you know you have to get up again soon and are nervous about sleeping in or being groggy.
Sometimes you can be out running your leg and not even see any other runners around, which is strange considering there are 152 other teams. It’s weird to have that adrenaline rush like you are in a race, but without seeing any other runners. At times it’s like your just out for a regular training run.
It was nice to be in van 1 this year and to finish early in the morning on Saturday. The last van exchange point is in Virginia City so it was nice to relax there and enjoy the town for a while. This year we got really lucky because on of our runners in van 1 hooked us up with Bloody Mary’s at the Bucket of Blood when we finished. We also made Mimosa’s and relaxed while we watched other van’s exchange runners. We even had enough time for breakfast at Joseph’s Vienna before heading down to Idlewild Park for the race finish.
We placed 24th overall with at total time of 24:14:09. In the open mixed division (6 guys and 6 girls) we placed 9th out of 75 teams. Reno/Tahoe Odyssey 2011 teams better watch out!!
