Triggers and Trash Heaps

Hola, muchachos. Got back from New Jersey late last night. It was quite a weekend. The River to Sea Relay was a blast, exhausting, frustrating, rewarding, and infuriating all at once. We got down to my bro-in-law Matt's place Friday afternoon, hung out for a few hours, and then Matt and I drove down to Clinton (about 20 minutes from the race start in Milford), where we checked in to the Holiday Inn Select. Our four teammates (my other buddy Matt, Rick, Jon and his wife Kerry) showed up a little while later and we went out to dinner for some Italian food and a few beers. We went back to the hotel and decided to have a final beer in the hotel bar, where we were told DJ Joel would be spinning the hot rock tunage. Turns out this particular Holiday Inn Select bar had a bouncer and a dress code; at first we were told we couldn't go in because we all were wearing t-shirts and shorts, but the bouncer relented, although he warned us if the manager showed up, we might get kicked out. We decided to live on the edge and take our chances. As you can imagine, it was pretty uneventful, despite the presence of a wedding party; a woman on hand to shill for Jack Daniels was disappointed because the group was Christian and didn't drink. Of course, we didn't partake in the JD, either, but we were drinking beer. We called it a night around 11.

I woke up around 5:30 and my mind started racing about all the logistical elements of the relay that were about to unfold. We drove to the start and picked up our bib numbers in preparation for our 8:45 start time; the first groups started at 6 a.m. Looking around, we quickly realized we were given the wrong start time; the slower groups went first, and we were no match for the many high school and college track teams that surrounded us. Our first runner, Jon, left and we got ready to get on the road. We had two support vehicles; one would support the runner by driving a little ahead of him or her and providing and directions where needed while the other would take the next runner to the next stage and wait. There were 14 stages and 92 miles total, with the route starting at the Delaware River and making its way southwest toward the ocean in Manasquan. It quickly grew hot and sunny out. The closer we got to noon, the harder the running got. I was the last of the six of us to run, starting just after 1, so it was scorching hot by then. I had a hilly 8-mile run and I saw five or six young runners pass me, but I felt okay; Matt had the stage before me and I only found out afterward that he got sick after he ran. The same thing happened to Jon later on. It was a tough day to run, but especially tough to be running hard and more than once. We switched up our planned stages to give people more rest. We discovered after a while that we were one of the last groups, which was disheartening; there was some discussion after the ninth stage about quitting because of the heat, but thankfully, we decided to keep going. I ran again a little after 6:30; right before my run, one of the organizers came up and asked if we wanted to stop because we were going to come in after 8:30, when police support would no longer be provided. I told him we would finish; it was their screw-up that had us starting later than we should have, and we didn't pay the fee and drive all that way to quit early. By this time, the heat had lessened and my 6.55 mile stage was a lot flatter and straight; I ran harder than before and finished with 7:47 splits; our final two runners were even faster. We finished up around 8:35 in the dark, with a total time of 11:52. The race party was over just before we got there, which sucked, but we were glad to be done. As it turned out, our time put us 59th out of 101 teams; we ran 7:45 splits, which was pretty good. Of course, the winning team finished in 8:30, with 5:33 splits, which is just amazing. We went out to eat in Manasquan, which is quite the hopping little beach town, before Matt and I drove the two hours back to his house, getting in at 1 a.m. During the relay, I swore I had no interest in doing another, but now I'm thinking that was pretty fun. Matt and I had to rally on Sunday for his son Danny's fifth birthday bash, which featured a knight theme and had a working water-balloon catapult, in addition to the 30 or so kids running around. I was pretty wiped last night, to say the least.

That's it for now.