What a great event. As I mentioned in a few earlier posts,I was a bit daunted by this race, but it was AWESOME! Myself and 9 other people (including my boss LOL) did a relay race from Madison Wisconsin to Chicago. Started at 9am on Friday June 12th and we finished in Chicago. What a great, great experience. Our team did indeed talk smack and made sure everyone knew who we were Team "BAD IDEA",but it everything but a bad idea. YES you saw the van as we honked thru the state ringing the cowbell and yelling out the windows. Even though we were the loud ones, we were also the ones who would, and did, give you water and words of encouragement the whole time, not only to our team members, but to every runner we encountered as we journeyed thru the race. CRAZY-lack of sleep (maybe an hour or 2 total), living out of a 15 person van for 30 hours. No arguments, great synergy among everybody in the vehicle. It was split up 5 per van, so I spent time with 4 others. Ran in the heat, rain, sleet, cold, day, night EVERY which way. It was a great way to feel alive. I loved it. There were tough times for sure, and looking around on the 2nd day as daylight broke, and the heavy rains started, the participants looked cooked (most of us anyway) but the madness continued... My gameplan worked really well. The first leg was a bit rough, and ironically happened to be my shortest leg. However the 2nd leg I flew. It was my finest hour. The funny (not so much at the time) was, as I finished what I knew was a very good run, the other van's runner was nowhere to be found and EVERYONE within shouting distance heard me YELLING for the team. "BAD IDEA"! I would be lying if I said I wasn't pi$$ed at the time. Minutes later a sleepy eyed runner emerged from the other team van and hit the road with running tail between her legs. It was the last time we would encounter a transition screw up such as this, and everybody stepped up. It got a bit stressful on the final legs as lack of sleep turned all of us stupid. We got REALLY turned around when we were getting to the transition area for one of our runners who was hurt and VERY questionable due to an unfortunate injury on her first leg which wreaked havoc on her Iliotolobial band due to reletless hills. She dug deep, and finished all of the legs she had to do. We pulled up JUST as she was entering the finish of her leg and the next runner took off without incident, WHEW! That was the craziest moments of our race. As the race went on, we all dug deep, and I'm sure each and every one of us learned something about ourselves this weekend. It's epic events such as this that makes you feel ALIVE. I certainly did. Thirty hours of pureness allows a lot of time for reflection... So, Yes, my prep leading up to it was smartly planned, and worked out well. One of the things that I was reminded of was to use my gift's from God, and use them to the best of my ability in thanks. With so many things to sidetrack us in life it's sometimes easy to get a bit lost, and not remember that VERY important philosophy...
203 miles 29 hours 51 minutes, and an experience that I'm sure changed my life and everyone else who competed - at least a little bit...
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