SheSue Experience

It was 4am. Should have been sound asleep, but instead I was milling around with several thousand other people. The air was crisp and clear and filled with anticipation. There were huge lights illuminating the crowd and several tables. On a stand was a man announcing team names, 20 at a time every 15 minutes.

An avid walker and hiker, I was perusing Craigslist for activities and came across an ad to walk in the Portland to Coast Relay which is the walkers portion of the famous Hood to Coast Running Relay. I responded and was soon a member of the Legal Briefs, a ‘supermaster’ team of all females age 50 plus.

Each team consists of 12 members. These 12 are divided into 2 teams of 6, each sharing a van. I was in van #1. Each lady walks 2 legs out of the total 24 legs; each from 3 ½ – 7 ½ miles in length. The total distance we walked was 127 miles from downtown Portland to Seaside, Oregon. The ladies in van #1 each do one leg, then van #2 takes over and does 6 legs, then back to van #1 for 6 legs, then van #2 finishes out with the last 6 legs.

With a start time of 4:30am, I didn’t get much sleep the night before the relay. All the van #1 team members from all the teams met at one location. I may have been tired, but there was so much excitement in the air, it was hard not to get caught up. Plus I didn’t want to miss anything. We cheered on Debbie, our starting team member, and then we piled back into our van. We followed the road until we found Debbie and cheered her on through the van windows. This cheering continued through-out the relay. Sometimes we cheered from the van, often times we pulled over and cheered as our team member passed us. Sometimes one of us would bring water or pick up an un-needed coat from our team member.

Around 5:30am it was time for the first exchange. There was a flagged off section of the road where the exchange took place. The volunteers would shout out your team number as your team member was nearing the exchange point. Everyone had a team number plastered on their chest. The ‘baton’ we passed was a slap bracelet. As Debbie came into the flagged off section, she handed the bracelet off to Patsy, our #2 walker.

At 7am it was my turn. I don’t know if it was the excitement or the chill in the air, but I needed to go to the bathroom. While there were about 20 porta-potties for everyone else, there was only 1 separated off for those next in line to walk. But the line didn’t move fast enough, so I had to just head out. I rushed up to wait for Patsy, our team captain. It was kind of tricky finding her among all the other walkers, but I did and I was off. I felt good.

I passed several people right away, some speed walkers passed me and then the walkers stretched out some. I would choose walkers in front of me and make it a goal to pass one. One such walker was this young thing with tight stretch pants and a hot pink skimpy sports bra thing. She passed me at the beginning. It took me half my time, but I managed to pass her as she was messing with her Ipod. I didn’t know I had such a competitive streak in me! It was goals like this that won me a 13.4 minute mile. I was pretty excited.

Road Kill is a term used for when you pass someone as you are walking. I’m not sure when this term was invented, but it has become a tradition during the relay. All the vans keep track of their team “road kill” and mark it on their van windows. On my first time out I had 14 road kill. It does give you something to think about as you are walking. A lot of people have their ipods. I tried to hum, but got stuck on one song, so gave that up all together.

Our remaining 3 team members did their turn, and then it was time to rest and let van #2 take over. We joined hundreds of other teams in a big open field and laid out some air beds to rest. I managed to sleep for about an hour. Then we just hung around and talked, had some dinner, then got ready for our second leg. Around 8pm, Debbie took her place to begin our second set of legs.

Stay tuned for part 2.