TIR 2010

0jeff • 11th Mar 2010 • exercise, projects • running

Wow.  Where do I even start?  At the beginning dummy…

Last weekend 9 of my friends and I ran the 2010 Texas Independence Relay.  This isn’t your average team relay race.  The TIR is a 203.2 mile long relay that starts where the Texas Revolution began (Gonzales, TX) and finishes where Texas Independence was won (San Jacinto Monument, La Porte, TX).  The route is broken up into 40 legs of varying lengths (2.3 to 8.78 miles) plus a Prologue (1.15 miles) and an Epilogue (0.38 miles).

Before I go any further, I want to say that this race is hands-down the best race I have ever participated in; period.  New PR at any distance?  Nope.  Finishing my first half-marathon?  Nope.  Finishing my first marathon?  Uh-uh.  The atmosphere, the volunteers, the towns along the way, and, most importantly, my team made this a totally unforgettable experience.  Okay, enough of that for now…

For such a large undertaking, we really signed up pretty late in the game.  A lot of teams spend all year getting organized for this thing and we decided to commit during the first week of February.  That didn’t leave us much time to get everything ready.  Luckily, one of our running coaches, Tony, stepped up and became our team captain.  Tony ran the TIR in 2009 so he had a really good idea of what we needed to take care of before, during, and after the race.  We didn’t have one logistical issue at all over the whole weekend and it really is all thanks to Tony.

The race has some pretty tight rules, one of them gives the race a pretty unique twist:  Each team is allowed just two team vehicles on the course.  This means that all 10 of us, plus our food, water, and gear, had to fit into whatever vehicles we had.  To make things easy, we rented two of those big, 15-passenger vans (just like nearly every other team out there).  The fun part comes on Saturday night where, for safety reasons, only one team vehicle is allowed on course.  At that point we have to shuffle people around so some can sleep and the rest can keep running.  More on that later.

On the Friday before the race actually starts, 8 of us met together, piled up in our vans and headed down to Gonzales.  The ride down was pretty uneventful except for Dan asking, “Are we there yet?” every five minutes.  Once we got to town, we had about an hour or so to kill before the pre-race pasta party started.  Between cupcakes from Dan’s wife (Thanks, Lauren!), shoe polish for the van windows (Thanks, Karen!), and a 12-pack of beer (Thanks, Tony!), we were in pretty good shape.  Then the “Mullets” showed up…

I don’t have pics of these guys yet, and words just aren’t going to do them justice, but here it goes anyway.  As we’re standing around waiting for things to kick off, one of the other teams comes around the corner.  10 or 12 guys in skin-tight, cut-off jean shorts with tank tops, fake tattoos, and beer guts hanging out.  The crown jewel is the mullet wig that each one of them has on.  Epic.  It was like some sort of disaster; we wanted to look away but were completely mesmerized at what we were seeing.  Then they started talking.  Let’s just say they were totally into the part they had written for themselves .  After their spell wore off, we made our way inside for the pasta party.

A pretty good number of teams made it out to the pasta dinner.  The food was fantastic and most teams were having a tasty adult beverage or two (or 10 in the case of the Mullets).  We still had a few left ourselves so a couple of us finished off what we had.  Now, I don’t drink the night before a run.  I can’t do it.  My body just says, “Sorry buddy.  This ain’t happening” when I try to go the next morning so I’ve just given up on it completely.  On the other hand there are folks like Tony and Karen.  Now Tony is a really experienced runner.   He’s run several marathons, tons of relays and just about everything you can think of.  He’s also our team captain and running coach so we trust him.  No one really new about Karen though.  I mean we knew and liked her, but had never really hung out with her outside the running group.  One beer turns to two, turns to three, turns to six.  Now those of us still at the table are trying to figure out who is going to run Karen’s legs on Saturday.  A little worry has set in.  Good thing we ran out of beer .

Once we finished up at the pasta party, we went to our home for the night; a middle school gym built in who-knows-when.  It was a pretty uneventful night.  I even managed to sleep a little despite the nerves and seemingly rock-hard floor through my sleeping bag and camp mat.  At 5 something in the morning the lights come on and it was game time.  We were in pretty high spirits, but you could tell everyone was pretty nervous.  No one but Tony had any idea of what we were getting into.  As we’re headed to breakfast BOOOOOMMM!  The canon to start the first group is fired and we realize that the run has officially started.

The teams start staggered from one another, based on estimated pace, to try and have everyone finish near the same time.  The slower teams go out first and the faster teams go out later on something like 2 or 4 minute intervals.  Our start time wasn’t until 7:50 AM which was probably 2 hours after the first group started.  At the start, each team poses by the canon in front of a huge Texas flag for a team picture.  Then the team captain gets to start us out.  Once the canon (or gong….don’t ask) goes, the team time starts and we’re actually racing.

Leg one is a 1.15 mile long prologue.  The entire team runs it together and it’s meant to be sort of a parade down the main streets in Gonzales.  I had the first real leg of the relay so I asked us to start intentionally slow to keep me from going out like a jackrabbit and bonking part way through my leg.  About 3/4 of the way through, two runners from the team that started behind us go flying by.  Now, this surprises us, because first, they can’t be that much faster than us just based on their start time.  Second, it’s kind of bad-class to go blowing by people on the prologue.  Unless you’re a truly competitive team in it to win, it’s really meant as a friendly start to the race.  We just got passed.  We’re a little upset.  You won’t like us when we’re upset.  1.15 miles done.  Prologue over.  Game ON!

At the end of the prologue, the rest of the team peels of to go back to the vans and I head out on my first leg: 4.26 miles out of Gonzales towards Shiner, TX.   We’ve gone out slow in the prologue so now I’m feeling warmed up and ready to go.  I picked up the pace from our 10:00/mile prologue to about a 9:45/mile.  There were a few hills that I wasn’t really expecting in that first mile so I just kept it there for the second mile too.  At two miles in, I’m actually feeling really, really good.  I pick up the pace again to about a 9:15/mile.  Considering the injuries I had this past season, that’s a pretty good pace for me right now.  At the end of mile 3, I don’t really feel a thing, so I pick up the pace again to about 8:50/mile.  That’s haulin’ the mail for me.  Then I notice that I’ve run up on someone and am getting ready to pass them.  Cool!  It’s the guy that blew by us in the prologue.  Payback!  He’s really sucking wind at this point and is literally waving me around him.

Him:  <Gasp> Go on dude <Gasp> I went out too fast. <Gasp>

Voice In My Head:  Ya think!?  Serves you right!

Me:  No worries man.  You okay?  Got everything you need?  I’ve got water and gels if you need or want some.

Him:  <Gasp> Yeah <Gasp> I’m good.

Me:  <Gets a slight smirk on my face once I get just past him>  You want the distance?

Him:  <Gasp> Yeah <Gasp>

Me:  Just about a mile to go!  You can do it man.  Finish this thing strong!

Him:  <Gasp> Thanks <Gasp>

Once we finished our ever so brief conversation, I sped up again to about an 8:30/mile to emphasize my point .

Quick Aside:  I’m not a jerk on the course.  All of the teams and runners are out there together.  It’s really almost like a huge family between all of the teams.

By the time I get within about 1/2 a mile of the finish for my leg, I can hear people cheering runners in front of me.  I finish at pretty much a dead sprint.  My first leg time including the prologue was a 9:24/mile pace.  I’m totally dumbfounded.  I hadn’t run anything faster than a 9:45/mile since like December.  My team was surprised too; they run with me every weekend and know how fast, or slow rather, I am.  The entire team is now exited and pumped as Amber tears off on leg two.

Leg two, three, and four go pretty much like we thought they would Amber, Dan, and Andrew are all really strong runners.  They run extremely well and pass quite a few more teams on the way.  Now it’s time for Karen’s first run.  It’s a short one, but after the previous night’s festivities, it’s also the moment of truth.  We’re not really sure what to expect.  She takes the hand off from Andrew and heads out.  She looks pretty good so we take off to the next exchange which happens to be the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, TX, home of Shiner Bock and all of the other wonderful Shiner beers.

At an exchange, the next person running gets prepped to go.  They make sure they’ve got everything they need/want and get warmed up as best they can.  At the brewery, Tony is warming up and we’re taking pictures by the huge stacks of empty kegs outside the brewery proper.  We figure it’s going to take Karen about 24:30 to finish her leg.  This is based on what she told us for her 10k time which is about a 10:00/mile pace.  19:30 into her leg, Karen comes around the corner on a tear.  Tony has barely had time to get his shoes on and has to literally run from the vans to the exchange in time to make the tag with Karen and start his leg.

Karen just ran her leg in a 7:55/mile pace.  We’re astounded.  When she reads the pace off her Garmin, we all have a moment of insight:  Karen is beer powered.  Those tasty oat sodas from the night before?  She knew *exactly* what she was doing  .  And it wasn’t a fluke thing either.  She ran all of her legs way faster than she herself thought she was ever capable of.

We kept going and rotating runners throughout the day according to our assigned legs.  On average, our team was running a minute faster per mile than we expected to based on our past individual performances.  I can’t explain it other than the team was the reason we were running faster.  No one wanted to fail.  No one wanted to be the person that let the team down.  Everyone gave everything they had on every single leg and it showed.  Personally, my second leg was faster than the first by 0:28/mile at an 8:53/mile pace.  My third leg was at an 8:52/mile pace.  Those are both a full minute faster than anything I had run in a year.

At leg 17, things got interesting.  This is where we had to split up and one van got to rest.  Steph, Andrew, Amber, and Dan took the second van ahead to another middle school (this one in Weimar, TX) to clean up and rest.  Tony, Brandon, Dustin, Karen, Belinda and I got the honor (?) of running the middle-of-the-night legs through the countryside.  Outside of a lot of dead skunks and Dustin getting chased by dogs (!) there wasn’t anything special that happened over night.  Unless you count the pizza.  Oh God…the pizza.

The start of leg 16, before we split up, is in Columbus, TX.  This is a decent sized town and the only real opportunity to get food for the team over night.  Based on his experience last year, Tony stops to buy pizza for both vans.  We were good; we got veggie and supreme for the night van and supreme and meat lovers for the rest van.  It tasted awesome and we didn’t think anything of it.  My third leg was the last of the single-van legs around midnight.  I had some pizza before that, ran just fine (my fastest pace actually), and didn’t think anything of it.  I had another slice when I got done because I was so famished.  Once I finished we went to the school, got cleaned up, and then headed to where we needed to meet our other van a few hours up the road.

We pull into the parking lot by the next exchange and it starts.  I don’t remember if it was me, Belinda, or Karen first but none of us felt good.  It started with some nausea and then the Montezuma’s Revenge kicked in.  Everyone that ate the pizza was in rough shape; me, Karen, and especially Belinda.  When the second van rolls in around 2:00 AM or so, we realize they’ve been hit too.  Nothing like running for 18 hours and then feeling like you’ve been punched in the gut.

Luckily for Karen, the next leg was her 4th and final one.  She dug down deep and finished really strong which gave hope to the rest of us.  Belinda was two legs later.  She had to run in the dark, on a trail, through a wooded park while trying not to fall over sick for 5.6 miles.  By the time Belinda finished, I thought I was done for.  I would have been better off dead.  I still had a few hours before my last leg so I tried to get some sleep and prayed things would clear up before I had to run again in the morning.

I woke up a few exchanges later and felt better, or so I thought.  Throughout the race, teams had been pranking one another by tagging other teams’ vans in various ways.  The most common was to just write something using shoe polish when the team wasn’t looking, but stickers and other stuff were also used.  In this case, when I got up, it was the “other stuff” that put me over the edge.  I got out of the van and was hit by a horrendous smell; the smell of something rotting.  Something that was once alive rotting.  Looking behind the van next to us, we found out what.  This team had been tagged by a another team team tying a road-killed opossum to their bumper with some string or rope or something.

Hands down, it was the best prank we saw of the weekend (I’m laughing about it now, honest!), but the worst time for me to come across it.  I ended up dry-heaving for a few minutes in a porta-potty.  No, it’s worse than that image you have in your head.

Oddly enough, after that, I slowly started to feel better.  Our team morale hadn’t really been phased by so many sick people.  We were still cheering each other on.  We were still running just as fast as when we started if not faster.  We all started feeling better.  The sun is coming up.  We’re in Houston.  We’re on the second day.  We’re on the finish day.  We’re going to finish.  We’re going to finish well in the standings!

Belinda hands to Dustin; leg 30 done.  Dustin hands to Brandon; 31 done.  Steph then Amber then Tony.  We’re downtown now.  Dustin takes off on leg 36, his last leg of the weekend.  So about Dustin.

Dustin was a big unknown to everyone on the team at the start.  Brandon knew him from their gym, but the rest of us didn’t.  Dustin turned out to be a super-nice guy that fit in just perfectly with the rest of us.  We were stoked to have such a nice guy with us.  The fact that he was a good runner was a bonus.  By the time this was all said and done, Dustin had actually run the highest individual mileage of anyone on the team.  This takes me back to his last leg.

Dustin took off just like he had on his previous three legs.  He looked strong and was moving along really well.  I was the next runner so my van took off to the next exchange while the second van stayed near him through a less-than-favorable neighborhood.  With about a mile to go, the second van went ahead to the exchange too.  I mean, it’s just a mile to go, right?  That mile took a lot longer than it should have and we were worrying about Dustin.  Was he okay?  Did something happen to him?  He finally popped around the corner to finish the leg, but he was moving slower than he had earlier.  In my mind I’m thinking, “Okay he bonked.  I’m probably going to do the same thing right now.  I hope I can finish as strongly as he is after that.”  He hands off to me and I take off on my last leg not giving his finish a second thought.

Come to found out after my final leg, Dustin was running so hard on his last leg that he literally blacked out while running.  He didn’t fall or anything, but everything went dark.  He said he sat down, caught his breath, his vision returned, and he got up and kept going.  <Blink> What?  Dustin did what!?  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing until I heard it directly from him myself.  Here’s a guy that doesn’t know any of us.  We met him for the first time at the starting line of the Prologue.  He just literally ran out of his mind for the team.  Our last few runners ran inspired.

We finished at the San Jacinto monument shortly before noon on Sunday.  Our total official time was 27:34:18 or an 8:09/mile pace.  That’s a full minute faster over 203.2 miles than we expected to run.  We were the #6 team to cross the finish line.  We finished #36 overall out of 129 competitive teams (144 total counting non-competitive).  When I said I thought we were moving faster in the city, I was right.  Our last 17 legs averaged 4 seconds faster per mile than our first 23.  Only one other team on the first page of finishers did that.

Every single person on our team averaged a faster pace across every leg than they had over the past month or so.  As Brandon put it, “I don’t think we left 0:01 out on the course.  Kinda hard to imagine a 8:09 min/mile pace for 203 miles but its because everyone gave 100 percent except Dustin who decided to give 110 and black out.”  I still laugh at that

I’m not only proud of what I did as an individual, but I’m proud of what my team accomplished together.  We ran as a group for nearly 28 hours.  There wasn’t any complaining.  There wasn’t any bickering.  It was just running.  Everyone running to accomplish a common goal.  This isn’t something that runners get to experience too often.  We train with other people all the time, but when a race comes around, it’s every (wo)man for himself.  This was really a unique and unbelievable experience that I know none of us will ever forget.

This is admittedly a little cheesy, but I want to thank everyone individually:

Tony – Thanks for the leadership.  We needed it!

Steph – Thanks for the “sibling” rivalry.

Andrew – Thanks for putting up with us calling you Andy-drew all weekend.

Belinda – Thanks for getting me through the sickness.

Dan – Thanks for the blue shorts.  Do I know you?!

Karen – Thanks for the cheerleading.  Wicked Haahd Coraah!!

Brandon – Thanks for not eating the pizza; at least one of us kept our senses.

Amber – Thanks for putting up with all of us old people.

Dustin – Last, but never least.  Thanks for going all out for a bunch of strangers.

Guys, it was a total blast and I absolutely cannot wait to do it again next year!  See you out on the road.