Reach the Beach

Thursday, September 22, 2011 · Mike Davis

Good morning!

Wow, what a weekend! Extraordinary weather, great running and new friends! A few readers experienced another new running adventure beginning Friday at Cannon mountain and ending on Hampton Beach! “Reach the Beach 2011”

I have been asked in the past to substitute for a runner late in the process, but it really never appealed to me, but last year when a few of you approached the idea to me, it seemed to make sense. The idea of running with a great group of friends is easy, but spending over 40 something hours with these people is what really sold me. Reach the Beach or RTB as most people refer to it, is certainly most unique in many ways, wear the easiest part may actually be the running! For those that have yet to do it, let me tell you about it from my view and for those that have run it, I would welcome your thoughts and memories.

Thursday night (the night before)

Bit of a SNAFU in getting 2 cargo vans from Boston to NH. Didn’t get to bed till after 11:00. Not the plan!

Friday, 7:00AM

Pull into C&J parking lot to meet all our team members. First objective, get to Dunkin Donuts! After a couple stops and getting familiar with our driver Brian, we pull into Cannon mountain ski area right on time. The fun part about this is seeing many friends on other teams assigned to leave at times close to ours. So, we get our safety briefing, get a team picture, and find out that instead of 4 something start for van 2’s runner (my van) from Attitash ski area, we have been pushed to 5:15 (roughly 8 hours away). We go to the start line to see off our teams first runner, then we hug those and van 1 and pile back into van 2 for a 60 minute drive to Attitash. As we drive, we continue to get comfortable with each other. At my request, we stop at a welcome center so I can use the rest room. This may have been the moment that Erin and I bonded as she commented that I needed to learn how to hold it better. My new friend. Anyhow, after walking out of the men’s room my eyes spotted the perfect head gear for RTB. I quickly grabbed the hat off the rack and snuck over and paid for it. As I walked up to our van I put the moose ears hat on my head and the van went crazy! The perfect ice breaker.

I know most everyone in the van with the exception of the driver and his runner wife, but everyone is starting out proper and courteous, which is not how it will stay. We get to Attitash and we are all in agreement that lunch is next followed by…… waiting. Lunch gives us more opportunity to bond and become comfortable with the sarcasm that would dominate the next 40 hours.

After lunch we talk strategy, okay we really didn’t, we just waited more. More friends came around that would be leaving before us and we just continued to work on team building skills (code term for sarcasm). Next year bring a football or deck of cards. As 5:00 draw nears, Kathy (my wife) and our first runner seems nervous, but eager to get running. Everyone seemed eager to run, but at the same time most seemed nervous and some seemed over the top nervous. I like the nervous thing as it indicates we are doing something that’s meaningful to us. In this case, despite the playful jabs at each other, no one wants to let down the team.

Kathy lined up and some guy dressed as a toilet led her group in some stretching. The first time I watched that (about 2 hours earlier), I thought it was funny and now I was wondering if it would ever end! Because of the logistics there would be no hand off at this leg, just an assigned take off time. 5:20 hit and Kathy was on her way! We pile into our van and our 2011 RTB is has begun. We drive about midpoint of Kathy’s run and wait with water. The sun has set, it’s cold and getting dark, but our spirits are high! Kathy comes running and we are hooting and hollering! After giving Kathy her water and encouragement, we get back in the van and head to our transition point.

The next transition point would be leg 8, my leg. Yes, how romantic, my wife would be handing off to me throughout the race. We get there and like everyone else I’m a bit nervous but eager to run! I take my last drink, use the porta-potty and do my lunges. Kathy comes running in and I’m off. I had lectured everyone about taking this first of three legs easy, saving their legs for the last 2 legs. Kathy didn’t listen and as I took off, I pretty much ignored that strategy as well. I guess sitting around all day just got those juices flowing and there was no holding back. Despite knowing that I had my most difficult run after this, I pushed through my 6.4 mile run at a 7:23 pace. As I came into the transition point and turned the race over to Justin, I was happy to be done with my first leg

After Jaime our team captain finished her leg around 10:30, we all went into one of the many schools we stopped at and ate some pasta. Next was to drive a ways to another high school, park and try and sleep until 2:30AM until Kathy would start us all over again. This spot is where all van ones teams would spend 3-4 hours getting rest. A few people got some sleep and I was not one of them! So at 3:15AM without much rest and very cold, we saw Kathy off for her next leg. As with all legs, we got to her midpoint, gave her some water, gave her a kiss (just me), some quiet cheers and headed on to the transition point. This next leg for me was to be my most difficult. 9.2 miles, with the first 5 miles climbing over 1500 feet. My past few weeks have been filled with anxiety over this leg! I was glad for it to be time.

Kathy fought through some side pain (from stretching or something in the van), to have a great second leg. She handed off to me and I started my journey at around 4 something AM. I pushed up the hills and as planned at mile 5, my teammates where there to give me gator aide and some quiet encouragement. Thankfully, I had some nice downhill stretches and was able to make up for the time lost going uphill. After a cruel uphill finish to my leg, I was ecstatic to hand off to Justin. Two-thirds of the race was done for me!

Without going on and on about the rest of the legs, I recall so many fun and funny moments. Our van was full of laughter thanks to our driver and a group of people that kept it all in perspective. Some in the van didn’t know each other when we started, but were now making fun of each other. No one cared and everyone laughed. I gave it out and took it as well, but mostly enjoyed it. Everyone continued to be nervous when it was their time to run, but that only shows that running was important to each of us.

We got to Hampton Beach and the team joined Jaime as she ran her final 100 yards along Hampton Beach to the finish. We won’t know for a few weeks what place we finished in and while I’m interested, I won’t really care one way or another. My guess is the 11 others on my team won’t care so much either. What I care about and am grateful for is; we laughed, we had fun, we made friends and ran! OH, running was what brought us all there, but running was not my greatest memories. No, my running was just a side light to the many hours I got to laugh or commiserate with 6 other people.

Sorry if the email is a bore to you, but it was my RTB experience. Will I do it again? That I will decide on another day. Our captain, Jaime was wonderful and provided us with everything we needed to be prepared. Thank you Jaime! Should every runner, run this race? Yes!! Just don’t run leg 8! I hope those of you that ran RTB had as good a team as I did, but if not, next time choose fun over talent.

Great weather ahead to be a runner. Hope to see you on the road. If you ran RTB, rest those legs!

Next week I will be moving the weekly to a blog on nofinishlinerunning.com. Much more to come with the website for runners!

Have a great week and hope to hear from some of you about your experience.

Mike

Running for fun!