Its a Miracle we finished!

Team Camel Toes

8 of our 12 man team at the finish line with our medals and mascot Toe (he's the camel)

The relay race was unforgettable! what begin as just another year of insane running all through the night became a nightmare of runners getting lost and running routes being rerouted.

My brother Jerry and I drove up to Calistoga and I was dropped off with my team . I was assigned to van #2 which is the van that starts their run later in the day since van 2 starts off the race with runners 1-6. Needless to say we had plenty of rest time in the beginning but that is all we get.

The first part of the race went really well no one got lost and runners 1-6 were smoking the other teams we knew of. once my van began we did OK until runner #2 began her leg. Crystal just before we sent her off was joking along with us about getting lost and how its so easy to do. Little did we know we predicted exactly what was about to happen to Crystal. Crystal's route was simple so we thought. but the beginning of Crystal's route was through a trail our van could not follow her on and we had to wait at the end of it to meet up with her on the route. We waited 40minutes for her to finish her first 2 miles but she never came out! so we began to worry and sent the van a head to the exchange in case she passed us and we didn't see her . 20 minutes later we get a call saying van 2 found her and she got lost on the trail. needless to say we were put back in hour in our race. we didn't worry to much since the rest of us had good runs and finished faster then we thought.

After we exchanged with van #2 we left to go and rest before we began our 2nd legs . while we were resting during the middle of the night we received a call about 1:30am that runner #4 is lost and not only that he doesn't have his insulin with him since he is diabetic! yeah can you believe it? diabetic and didn't carry with him his insulin? so 2hours go by and he is finally found after receiving help from other vans and getting drinks and food to help bring up his blood sugar.

We then began to run our legs and were losing hope we would ever finish this race in time before 530pm. we then exchanged with van 1 again and there was word that many of the runners in van 1 wanted to quit. Jesse who is a friend of mine and in my van suggested we begin our legs early before van 1 can exchange with us for the final time. So to pick up time and get in by 530pm and not 9pm as we predicted with the lost time. we all agreed to start early on our last legs and meet up with van 1 at the finish.

During my last leg I had no idea how hard it was going to be. let me just say mile 1 of 6 miles was straight up hill and mile 2 all down hill. its not over yet ! miles 3-6 all up hill and just seemed to continue up forever. people from other teams and passing vans really kept me going. a runner who was running along side of me said to me " you have had enough time to walk and rest now lets go, start running I will even let you pass me" I whined of course and ran as he told me and did pass him for about 5 minutes until he passed me again. other vans would wait for me to pass to give me words of encouragement even if their runners had already passed. My van of course stopped a few times too to give me shouts of praise. once I reached my last .2 of my run which was down hill I screamed at a van that was parked in my way and said " get the hell out of my way, I want this over with, I want to be done, move that van" people looked at me and screamed too at the parked van and the van MOVED! I then handed off to the final runner Wendy and wished her good luck on our teams final leg of this extremely crazy race.

All I have to say is I am sooooo happy to be done and not running right now. whats next for me is Team in Training mentoring and maybe a half marathon in July but I will keep you posted. until next time thanks for your support .

Wendy (team captain),Lester with team mascot Toe, me and Jesse