Seth’s World View

Last weekend, I and 11 other people ran the Wild West Relay, a 192 mile relay race from Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs. I signed on for the challenge, and the cause (The Matthews House). As the event approached, I kept reminding myself to train, and the training just didn’t happen, at least not to my satisfaction. So, not being a lover of running, I thought this might be my last race.

The morning began early, after a late night, arising at 4am. Earlier that week, I was up till 4am twice. Yeah. Arrived at The Matthews House to load up at 4:45am, and went to the start, at the AB Brewery. First team launched at 6:30, ours at 7am. The yellow banana and ‘White and Nerdy’ also ran. Our team was Just Passin’ Thru. We had teams of 12, plus a driver for each van. Runners 1-6 were in van 1 (I was #6), and runners 7-12 in van 2. Dave got us started, and then the van drove to the next exchange point, where we waited until Dave arrived and then passed the ‘baton’ to Erin (the baton was actually a wristband). This cycle continued until after my run, which ended up being 4 minutes faster than my projected 10 minute pace! The other van then took over and we stopped for lunch. After driving to the next exchange point, we rested on the grass, and felt a bit of rain. Before long, it was our turn again.

There is much more that could be said, but in the end, we made it, and we all did well, and more importantly, got to know each other REAL well. We finished in just over 29 hours, with about 3 hours of sleep. It wasn’t easy, but it was fun, fun because we felt like a team and supported each other, fun because we were all in it together. Now, need to start training for 2008!