Monday, September 24, 2018

Hood to Coast - Now With Video!


I think I can finally have us cross the Hood to Coast blogging finish line ... at least for 2018!

I had visions of making this awesome documentary type video of our experience. I failed. I forgot the GoPro batteries in Tillamook, and the charger in the rental vehicle really didn't have enough oomph to keep 7 people all charged, so I didn't end up getting all the video I wanted. I did, however, end up with hundreds of photos! By the end I started figuring things out, so I can promise next time I will have better results. Plenty of room for improvement! So feel free to enjoy the video below and see what life is like during a relay. Not just any relay, but the Mother of All Relays HOOD TO COAST!

The race itself is incredible. Easy. Challenging. Hard. Fun. You feel every emotion during a relay, HTC included. So much energy is out there in those 200 miles. Energy from your team. Energy from complete strangers. Most of the time you feel like you're alone on the course because it isn't like a standard race where you all start at once and have masses of people sharing the area. That peacefulness during the run is something I really love. When you do pass (or get passed by - in my case) other runners there is this sense of community and bonding. During my final run I talked to nearly every single runner I encountered and we all seemed happy to be out there together. It was awesome! Also awesome are the views. If you just look around and take it all in, we are pretty lucky to be able to run through all of these places. We see small towns, downtown Portland, cows, flat fields covered in mist, snow on a mountain, beautiful green forests, the beach, and so much more! Hard work, with incredible rewards!

But for me while the race was so memorable, it wouldn't have been that way without the team. Lady Storm Squad is what I didn't know I needed! Running had been my life for years. Two marathons, 30 half marathons, a Warrior Dash, and tons of shorter distances. Then it all came to an abrupt halt when I decided to start that crazy adventure of In Vitro Fertilization and was declared too delicate of a situation and too old ... meaning NO running for me. Then that IVF idea worked and I had to really behaving during this thing you may have heard of called a geriatric pregnancy Great ego booster, right?! Geriatric! That's what they called my really old animals!

After having the most adorable baby in the world (she is, don't even try to argue. My baby is cuter than yours is. It's my blog, so I can say that!), I was allowed to run again - but this was quite a break where I wasn't allowed to. Since then it has been an up and down ride. I have continued to race, but just here and there, a lot of times pushing a stroller. My motivation to fill my race calendar was pretty much non-existent. And then I became a member of this team! 

Ever since Hood to Coast, and really since getting on the team, I have been rejuvenated! It could be 90 degrees and I was still outside running. Nobody to watch my baby? No biggie, I bought the fancy stroller for a reason. I can't run solo until night? Well, thanks to relays I have all the nighttime safety gear I need. Heck, the other day I felt I was getting a cold (I was right), and I was dealing with vertigo from Meniere's Disease and I STILL went out for an awesome run. Thanks to Lady Storm Squad I have 3 more races on my calendar before 2018 is over (one of them with multiple members of Lady Storm Squad). Who knows, I might add in even more just because!

So here's why I babbled about all of this for so long.... if you ever have a chance to join a relay team DO IT! They aren't all good, I'm not gonna lie. But I bet you will leave your relay experience with so many memories and at least a couple new friends you'll hope to race with again. If you're lucky like me you'll meet new people that continue to motivate and inspire you and help you to keep striving to push yourself more and more so you can do your best for your team and yourself!




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