TWELVE BRIDGES ONE DAY RELAY RECAP

Fear the Turtle at the start line thirty seconds before the start. Yes, that is 5:29am. (Photo credit: Michael Allen)

On Saturday I did the inaugural Twelve Bridges Relay with my team "Fear the Turtle." The relay is basically a shorter version of Hood to Coast or Ragnar. Teams of six complete a 67 mile relay course, with each team member having two legs averaging around 5 or 6 miles a piece. Everything is done in one day, around ten hours or so. So you get the relay experience but get to skip the sleep deprivation and other more unsavory parts of a full length relay. However, you also miss the craziness, goofiness, and intense team bonding of an all night relay, so it's a trade off.

Our team was unique in that we have two teams, Turtle One and Turtle Too. The husband wife team that organized it is all about fun so they wanted two teams so everybody would have a "running buddy" on each leg. So our two teams stuck together the entire race and it was really like one big twelve person team. Our vans had a CB radio and there was lots of inappropriate inter-van talk and it was just a fun group of people.

A downside of the whole thing is that we started at 5:30am. Yikes! I had to wake up at 3:45am because of this and got maybe about four hours of sleep. So much for not having the sleep deprivation come into play! Actually, once I was up and had a coffee I felt alright! We started at 5:30am and finished around 3:15pm or so, just under ten hours. Most of the relay was run along the Banks-Vernonia Trail, which I have run before and is absolutely beautiful.

My first leg was leg six (of twelve overall) so I had to wait a while. I ran 6.1 miles with Katie (not the famous one), who had ran leg one. So she was done after our run while I was just getting started. It was a lot of fun and she was really nice, it was good to get to know her. Our leg was pretty flat and very scenic. It is called the Twelve Bridges Relay because you get to cross twelve bridges along the way and we had about five on our leg. We also got to run around Vernonia Lake to end our run so overall it was an awesome leg. We ran at 9:05/mile.

Katie and I on my first leg, leg six. (Michael Allen)

After that I pounded half a BMT sandwich from Subway and sucked down a bunch of Doritos the van had bought. My next leg was leg nine, so a quick turnaround. So I was back running again about ninety minutes after being done with my first leg (which was the final leg of the first half, after we went around the lake we basically retraced our path to the finish line). This leg was longer at 8.4 miles, but mostly downhill. After a tough, steep climb in the first half mile it was about 500 feet downhill in the next six miles.

My partner on this leg was Jeremy, who was a pretty athletic guy but dealing with some injuries from running. He was just getting back into running and his longest run to this point had been five miles. So he was a little cautious but I could tell he was quite the athlete when healthy. We embraced the downhill and slowly had our 8:00 miles creep toward 7:30. Really comfortable run, slightly downhill in the shade... you couldn't ask for more. The last mile was flat and exposed but we were both almost done with our relay and determined to finish strong. Overall we averaged 7:55/mile.

Finishing up the 8.4 miles of my 2nd leg. (Michael Allen)

Once my leg was done only three more sets of people had to run. So the finish came pretty quick (#). I really liked this format... it was a lot of fun to do the relay but so much easier than an overnight 200 mile relay. While similar, they are two different beasts... this was more like a 10k and the Hood to Coast type relay is more of a marathon. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

This was the first year of this particular race so they limited the field to 40 teams. It worked out really well because some of the exchanges had limited parking and it was far less chaotic. Traffic or parking were never an issue though, which was nice. We also were the first team to cross the finish line (a product of an earlier start and faster than expected legs) so we likely missed any congestion if there was any. Overall for such a small event I thought it was really well put on!

There was a BBQ afterwards at the finish line complete with beer garden. The medal we got was really cool, one of my favorites so far. Our team hung out at the finish and cheered for about two hours before heading back. I got home around 7pm and was pretty exhausted. 14.5 miles of running and a 3:45am wakeup call will tend to do that. I slept like the dead Saturday night.

Power tunnels were definitely a theme! (Michael Allen)

To recap, I had a blast with my team and really enjoyed the event. If you have a chance to do one of these shorter relays I'd highly recommend it!