Hood to Coast

Running is not really my thing.  It's the thing Rob makes me do, which I complain about and manage to quit more often than I quit drinking diet Dew.  But whereas drinking a nice, cold Dew is nice and refreshing after a long separation, running after a long break is AWFUL.  I would know.  I take lots of long breaks.  Rob doesn't.  He plugs along rain or shine, heat or cold, sick or well, shins splints, runners knee, Achilles heal, blisters, hip pain. . . well you get the idea.  And luckily he has been running long enough that he doesn't have these problems frequently anymore.

He started running about two years ago, but didn't get really serious until about a year ago, at which time he went at it like his life depended on it.  Which I guess he figured it did.  Within a couple months he had lost 50 lbs! He started looking like a kid in dressups, or a cancer patient--people actually asked if he was sick because his suits drowned him.  I may have mentioned all this before.

At any rate, a few months back a couple people that work with Rob contacted him about joining their Hood to Coast team.  It's a race where a group of 12 people run a relay from Mount Hood to Seaside, Oregon.  200 miles.  Three legs each.  Rob informed them he would think about it and get back to them.  A few days later he got an email welcoming him to the team and giving him his leg assignment. . . THE hardest leg of the run.

If I've learned one thing about Rob, it's not to tell him he can't do something.  Unless, of course, I want him to do that very thing.  He likes to prove people wrong.  Usually it's an attractive trait.  After I heard the description of his leg of the race (as posted on the OHSU Sports Medicine blog) I worried he might kill himself:

Leg 5: Thirteen miles of rolling hills are a mere warm-up to what awaits you at the end: the gnarliest hill you’ll see outside of a Swiss Miss ad. It just keeps effing GOING, and there’s nothing you and your little split shorts can do about it to make the pain stop. Do your team a favor: throw some absolute bad-ass on this set of legs, then do the honorable thing and look the other way when he’s crying at the 3-mile mark.

Fun, right!?

He was determined to do, and do it well, because even though the others gave him a hard leg, they were all pretty serious runners.  So despite not really being ready for a race that would last 36 hours and afford little to no sleep (the two hours he did get were in a sleeping bag in a farmer's field), he did remarkably well.  I am just thankful he didn't die on the way.  He was too.  He was also glad he wasn't one of the many runners he saw run until they puked and then run some more.

Did I mention they pay to be a part of all this torture?

The funniest part is that he thinks he might get me to do it with him next year!!

I may not have run the race, but my parents joined me and we drove to the coast to meet Rob at the finish line. . . and stay in a beach house and play for a few days.  THAT part of Hood to Coast I can handle, and would willing do again next year!