Thousands of runners journeyed to northern Oregon this past weekend for the 24th annual Fred Meyer Hood to Coast Relay, billed as North America's largest relay race.
With 1,063, 12-person teams, it seems hard to believe there could be a larger gathering of runners outside the Olympics. Among the thousands running were the Smokin' Soles and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, two all-female troops based in Ketchum.
Local runners Shannon Webb, Lauren DuBose, Gina Banchero, Sharma Walker, and Judy Webb joined up with running gal pals from Boise, San Francisco, and Billings, Montana to form the Smokin' Soles.
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun featured Angenie McCleary, Hilary Patzer, Katie Nasvik, and Johanna Olson along with friends from other areas of the country. Shari Kunz also competed on a separate team.
Both local teams completed the 197-mile relay from Mt. Hood's Timberline Lodge to the finish line beach party in Seaside Beach, Ore. with each member running approximately 15 miles on three, approximately five mile legs.
The women of the Wood River Valley did exceptionally well in Oregon.
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (22:21:28) finished second among 30 women's teams and 44th of the total 1,063 teams. Smokin' Soles (26:48:39) finished eighth among women and 326th overall.
The GJWHF team set a blistering 6:49 average mile time, one hour and five minutes slower than Baba Yaga (21:15:47), the winning female team from Monticello, Minn. Smokin' Soles average mile time was 8:10. Baba Yaga was a repeat winner and for GJWHF, this was their second consecutive finish as runners-up.
The overall winners were the NCIC All Stars with a time of 17:34:51 and an impressive and elite average mile time of 5:22.
McCleary, who grew up in Portland, Ore. has run the race seven or eight times, she said, and looks forward mostly to the camaraderie.
"My first priority was to have a good group of friends and people and the second was to run as well as possible," McCleary said. "The race takes 22 hours so you want a good group of people in the van."
Many runners go to huge lengths to make the Hood to Coast such a success each year.
Katy Masselam, of Team GJWHF, flew into Portland at 11 p.m. from New York. Her first leg began at 12:30 a.m. She was picked up at the airport and basically dropped off running, said McCleary.
Despite their performances, some local girls didn't realize how fast they had been until they heard the results.
"I was just having a good time," said Patzer, unaware that her off-season training run—Patzer is a competitive Nordic skier most months of the year—almost helped her team to the win.
Regardless of finish times, though, Patzer thought the overall experience well worth the trip to the coast.
"You don't sleep for two days straight and you run as hard as you can—in the pitch dark," she said.
DuBose, who has run in the last three Sawtooth Relays, described the Hood to Coast as a memorably fun event, one that exceeded our local Sawtooth Relay.
"It was huge—there were so many people. ... and we ended up on a beach," she said.
As a 24-hour race, the Hood to Coast saw roadrunners blazing their headlamps through the night, sometimes at their own risk.
"I fell off the road into a ditch," said DuBose, unfazed from her accident. She had been distracted by a honking van and after turning around to look, found herself off the road, she said.
Still, DuBose found the night running—her first leg began at roughly 11 p.m.—easier than day runs.
"You couldn't see the hills," she said. With a head lamp lighting only the next five steps or so, night running was an adventure, but Dubose fastest time came in the dark.
Dubose's second run was her toughest.
With many climbs and descents, the asphalt was brutal on her joints. To top it off, "The volume on (her) iPod wasn't working," so her regularly pumping mix of Def Leopard, Guns and Roses, Rush, and Outkast was absent when she needed it most.
DuBose suffered through it, though, and helped Smokin' Soles to their beach finish at roughly 6 p.m. on Saturday.
