Race Report: Market to Market 2014

WRN Market to Market 2014 :)

Ohmygoodness! Not even sure where to start about our wonderful experience at Market to Market this year!  For those of you who don't know, Market to Market begun in 2008 and is a relay race run from Omaha to Lincoln.  This year, the event had 21 exchange points for a total of 79 miles.  After WRN formed this spring, we thought it would be a fun idea to put a group of us together and compete for the women's division title.  Eight ladies on the team were able to commit, and the entire group made it to the starting line healthy and ready to race.  If you have ever captained a team, you know that this is virtually unheard of--injuries/other commitments always seem to take someone away last minute, and then there are struggles to find replacements so late in the game...especially when so many people in the state of Nebraska are already participating!!

Several of us stayed with my sister and one of her teammates the night before, and woke bright and not so early the next day (our wave didn't start until 9:20am).  We dropped Jenny off at the start as she was our lead off runner and then headed to stage two to meet up with the rest of the team.  We got all of our gear organized and ready to go.  I was our second runner, so I did some stretching/jogging so I'd be ready.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous...crisp and cool as I got ready to run.  As Team Nebraska-Women and WRN were the only two ladies' teams to qualify for two vehicles, I knew that they were going to be our competition for the day.  

I ran three times for a total of 12.8 miles.  Here are the breakdown of my runs:

Stage 2: 3.4 miles

As Jenny, our lead off runner, and to start the race against an olympic trials qualifier (tough for any of us), Team NE had quite the lead on our team when the baton was passed off to me.  I felt great during this first leg--I was so nervous to run...this energy combined with perfect racing temps made for a quick first stage.  Little by little, I caught up to the Team NE runner and I handed off the baton to Amy neck and neck with our competition.  It was on.  I knew that Amy would hold the lead for the the next stage as she's a really strong runner (which she did).  I don't think Team Nebraska thought that they were going to have anyone to worry about, and by the third hand off, I saw their next runner mouth a few words to a teammate.

Stage 10: 5.6 miles

At this point, I have to admit that I didn't feel that well the week after the Twin Cities Marathon.  I have seriously runs tons of marathons (30+) and have done some of them a week apart, so figured I would be fine to race M2M 6 days later.  Well, between getting older and probably the volume I've put on my legs this year, I wasn't feeling it.  I was incredibly worried for this next run as 5.6 miles is a pretty hefty distance.  I can always gut out a strong 3-4 miles, but 5+? That, combined with the fact that I had people depending on me, I was scared...

Since Jenny only had 2.7 miles to run before handing off to me, I had hopped in with another van (Thanks, Angie and Ben!) so was awkwardly waiting by myself at the next exchange.  We had been neck and neck with Team NE through about stage 8, but now the gap was growing.  There was probably about 2 minutes between us when I got the baton.

I ended up feeling pretty bad on this leg, but went as fast as my legs would go.  I thiiiiink I was running about 7 minute miles by this point (I've stopped wearing my GPS), a far cry from the smokin' fast paces that my teammates were turning in.  Dang.

Stage 18: 3.8 miles

For some reason, I had it in my head that this run was 3.4 miles.  Upon looking at my last leg as the day went on, I saw that I was wrong...very wrong! That extra .4 was faaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr for a final leg! (Meh--not really, but I was exhausted!)  I once again didn't feel the best, but gutted it out as best I could before my final hand off with Amy.  At this point, we were at least 5 minutes behind Team NE, and I knew that the third place team was pretty far behind us as well (I hadn't seen them at any recent exchange points), so we basically just had to hold good splits for our last couple runs to secure second place.

Morgan had a great final leg, and our team ended up finishing in 8:59:53, which is an average of 6:47 pace.  We were 2/79 for women's only teams, and overall placed 15/511.  Even more impressive (to me at least) is that we would have placed in every single category (Open and Mixed divisions).

To all my teammates (Jenny, Amy, Ann, Alyssa, Leah, Kylie, and Morgan) THANK YOU for everything each of you did to make this an amazing day! I had so much fun with you all! Can't wait for next year! :)

Complete results can be found here: http://jms.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16370&RId=111

Happy running, y'all! :) It's been a gorgeous Fall! 

Race Report: Market to Market Iowa

I am a huge fan of the Market to Market Relay.  It started in Nebraska in 2008, while I was still living in Scottsbluff, but after moving back in 2009, I haven't missed a year.  So when I heard last year that race directors Ben Cohoon and Jason Bakewell were starting one up in Iowa, I was all over it.  If you aren't familiar, the concept of a race such as this is like a (very) long 4x400 relay...the first runner goes, hands the baton off to the next, etc.  In this case, the distances you run are between 3-6 miles and you run 3 times throughout the day for a total of 17 stages.  Last year, our team won the Women's division by about an hour, so 1) I was hoping that we could repeat that this year and 2) Looking at the how talented our ladies are, I didn't think it was going to be that tough.  I was very wrong about this...

After loading up my husband's truck and traveling to Iowa the night before, we arrived at the start an hour before our wave was set to head out.  (To ease course congestion, waves go off every 30 minutes from 5:30am to 9:30am.)  We were set to begin at 9:30am in the championship wave.  Checking out the starting waves and looking at the teams we were starting with, I only saw one other female team.  As we were picking up our packet, we ran into Ben...who told us that we could have an interesting day because on paper, we both looked equal.  Here we go..

As our ladies came in from their first legs, they said that the run was very difficult because it was so windy (30 mph headwind??)...I was our 4th runner and was slated to run 4.9 miles for my first leg (so, really, it's only 4....right ladies?! lol).  Hoooooly cow, what a tough run!  My garmin didn't locate the satellite until probably a mile in so I was thinking that I'd only have to run until it beeped at 4 miles.  What a tough run! The trail I ran on was mostly wide open, but a few places was sheltered by trees.  After passing off to Michelle, I ate a sandwich and drank some water to begin the recovery process and get ready for my next run.

Around this time, we started to notice that our competition, an alumni team from a local college, was following us extremely closely.  And so the back and forth battle began that lasted the entire day.

As the course wove around, the wind factor died down a bit, but running conditions remained difficult as the heat began to rise.  By the time I started my second run, it was over 80 degrees.  I was back on the trail for 5.1 miles.  This time, my run was very sheltered by trees, but since I can probably count on my fingers the number of nice days we could have run outside this spring, that temperature felt terrible to me.  When I got the baton from Amy, the "W" team (they had a big one on their jersey) was pretty close behind her.  I ran all 5 miles with the mission to not get passed.  Although I didn't end up getting passed, she was literally right behind me at the exchange which didn't put Michelle in the best spot.

Our next round of difficult weather was rain.  I typically do not mind running in just rain, but with the lightning, we were hoping that we didn't get pulled off the course during the race.  According to the radar, bad stuff was coming our way around 4pm.  Motivation to run faster? My last run was a quick 2.8 miles.  When Amy passed off to me for the final time, she had maintained the lead over W.  I feel like my strength is going hard for shorter distances, so I felt confident that the girl who was pursuing me wouldn't catch me.  However, I wanted to put as much distance between us as possible so that Michelle would be in the best position possible to start the final leg.  This third run felt great to me.  Although raining, the temps had now dropped to the low 60s.  The trail winded around, went up and down, and offered lots of variety that made this final run pass extremely quickly.  After passing the baton off, Shannon guessed we held the lead by about one minute.  We loaded up everyone in the truck and headed to the finish.

The way that the relay works is that you meet your final runner and finish a final short portion of the race as a team...I'm guessing it was about 600 meters??  The final runner is the one who needs to cross with the timing chip and the entire team needs to finish together.  The rain was REALLY coming down as we parked and waited for Michelle and W to come in.  When we spotted Michelle, she was IN FRONT of W!!  Everyone was super excited as we prepared for the last part of the race.  It looked like it was going to be a sprint to the finish between our two teams, so Shannon quickly formed a game plan.  When Michelle got to us, she was extremely tired but did a great job of pushing it to the finish line.

Honestly, this finish was ridiculously exciting!

Afterwards, we got a few pictures, congratulated Michelle on a stellar last leg, and gathered up our gear to go home.  I quickly ran over the W team and said, "Thank you for making this such a competitive and exciting day.  We had a great time running with you all!"  They were gracious, all smiles, and offered our team a congratulations.  Isn't this how running and racing should be?

Watch out, M2M IA 2015...we'll be back for round three! Shannon, Sarah, Amy, Lindsey, and Michelle...you are all great runners and I'm blessed to have you in my lives! :)

Complete race results can be found here: http://www.pigmantri.com/jmsracing/results14/mkttomkt_ia14.html