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Last week was the 2009 edition of the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey. This is that crazy 178-mile running race that I did last year, and I enjoyed so much that I signed myself up for to do again – and probably will do again next year. The RGJ has a decent article on it, which even includes a small interview with my team’s captain, Joe Dito.

This year, I was runner number 5 (out of 12). The course is divided in 36 legs, so each runner gets to run 3 legs of about 5 miles, on average. My leg assignments added up to 13.4 miles, and here’s the breakdown of how it all went.

• Leg 5: 5.8 miles – Moderate rating.
  The weather was great. Overcast skies, and the wind that an hour earlier was making me concerned was now a gentle breeze. I don’t think I’d ever ran such a long distance (even in my training!), but I was ready for it. My goals were to finish it in less than an hour, to never stop to walk and to avoid getting passed by someone running behind me.
  I accomplished all of my goals, and ran this bad boy in 48 minutes, putting me at a pace of a mile in 8 minutes and 16 seconds.
  Since this was such a long haul, and there were a few hills to climb, I brought along some Luna Moons for a little energy boost. They’re designed marketed for women, but I got them in my goodie bag for the race, and I was sure I’d put them to good use… and I did. I’m not sure how much they helped in my actual performance, but they certainly took my mind off of the task at hand when I had to go up a steep grade. The flavor was good, but the best part was that they’re so chewy that they got stuck to my teeth and gums, and I was too busy trying to clean up the mess inside my mouth with my tongue to wallow in the effort I was putting in.
  For the last couple of miles, I had a horrible side ache (aka Side Stitch). I wanted to walk it off, but I also wanted to perform well, so I exercised a little bit of focus, controlled my breath a bit more, and kept on pushing.
  Soon enough, my leg was over, and I was finally able to catch my breath and rest up. I was dead tired, but as soon as I found out that I beat my goal by 12 minutes, a feeling of accomplishment overwhelmed me, and I wasn’t in pain anymore. Or at least, I didn’t feel it.
• Leg 17: 4.2 miles – Easy rating.
  I thought this was going to be my strongest leg, but I feel like it was my weakest of the three. It was a pretty flat course, without much traffic. My goals were the same as before, and I was shooting for 25 minutes.
  I finished in 30 minutes, but I didn’t get passed, didn’t walk, and I also didn’t get eaten by a bear… which was a concern while running through the woods by South Lake Tahoe, at midnight.
  Maybe I was going fast (after all, I was doing a 7:08 – mile pace), but I felt like I was just cruising along. I blame the beautiful starry night and the silence, the feeling of being so small when you’re running in the darkness with a tiny headlamp lighting up only 20 feet in front of you, the lack of sleep and the fatigue from the earlier undertaking.
  The temperature was around 50 degrees, but I once again finished my leg nice and sweaty. No side ache this time, which added to my feeling that I didn’t push it hard enough to make my goal. Oh well.
• Leg 29: 3.4 miles – More Challenging rating.
  Saturday. We woke up at 4AM, south of Carson City. Our Odyssey was almost over, but we still had quite a few miles to go.
  I was nauseous, sleepy and starting to feel tightness in my muscles. One by one, the runners in my van did their legs, and my turn was coming up.
  My leg was going to be the toughest one yet, going up from Highway US 50, into Silver City. A whole lot of uphill. And even though it wasn’t even 7am when I started running, my shirt came off less than a mile into it, thanks to the sun and the toughness of the road in front of me.
  I was tired. I was going very slowly, yet I never walked. I just kept on going, hoping to finally pass someone. I hadn’t been passed by anyone, but I hadn’t gotten any “roadkill”, and some of my teammates had gotten to pass more than a handful of people.
  Halfway there, a lady in her late 30s (I guessed at the time) ran right past me. Holy smokes, she had energy, and she was going at least 2 mph faster than me. I try to go a bit faster, and I see her passing someone else, not too far ahead from me. I think to myself that I might not catch the lady that passed me, but I made it my goal to catch up, and pass, the other person that she’d just passed as well. At least to break even with the roadkills: get passed once, pass someone once.
  On the steepest part of my leg, I caught up to this other person. It was another lady, with a tattoo of a maple leaf on the right calf. I was right behind her for a good 5 minutes, slowly but surly closing in, and feeling like if I kept up the effort, I’d pass her.
  Sure enough, I passed her. Damn, I felt good. But I also noticed how tired I was right after I passed her. I wanted to give her a high five, say “good game” and walk the rest of my leg. But to hell with that, I kept on pushing, making sure she wouldn’t catch me. If I maintained my gain, I would finish the race proud of my performance, and that was my motivation to not give up.
  Less than half a mile to go, my teammates are cheering me on. They’re telling me I’m almost there.
  Eric hands me some water and tells me that if I really push it, I’m going to pass a guy right before finishing. And then, he starts running next to me, even though he’s dead tired and he’s all done with his assigned legs.
  I turn up the effort to “balls deep” and I see the guy. Eric tells me that right after a curve about 100 yards away, I’m done. I think I can give it my all, but I’m really hoping that he’s not lying so that I turn up the heat, because I’m really running out of juice.
  Turns out, he wasn’t lying. I’m doing my best impression of a sprint after going 3 miles uphill, and I pass the guy. In less than a hundred strides, I’m also done. Once again, covered in sweat. But also, with a huge smile on my face, feeling like I truly did give it my best shot.
  I ask what my time was, and they tell me that I finished my leg in 32 minutes. Slow, but I didn’t care, because I really didn’t feel like I could have gone any faster. I also don’t care because I’m done, the race is over for me. And I finished with a positive roadkill ratio, 2 to 1!

However, it wasn’t just about me. A big part of the fun of this race is the teamwork, the encouraging of your teammates as they run for miles and miles. I was very lucky to have an awesome crew, which definitely enhances the experience.
I’m not a hardcore runner, I do this kind of stuff for fun. I can’t imagine being in a team where everyone is dead serious the whole time, and I’m very thankful that that wasn’t the case.
Josh, Eric, Karin, Bryan and Amy: Thank you for making the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey about a lot more than just running. You are all wonderful people on top of being speedy runners.

Nevertheless, this was a race. Sure, we had fun. In fact, we had a lot of fun. But we also kicked ass. Our team, Venetian Skunk, ended up placing 7th overall, and there were 110 teams signed up. Oh yeah, we kicked a lot of ass.

Now, I leave you with a picture of me at the finish line, after having taken a shower and a quick 20 minute nap. If you click on it, you can get to the album with the rest of the pictures that I took.

Yesterday was the Great Ski Race. The third time I’ve done it, too.

Before the race even started, I arrived at the finish line in Truckee at 7 in the morning. I made it just in time to take a shuttle bus to the start line, in Tahoe City. Along with a couple of dozen strangers, we sat in excitement as we traveled forth. I sat alone.

When we got to the start line, I picked up my bib (#850), put on my skis and went for a small warm-up and losening of the pre-race jitters.
And then… about an hour to kill. So, I spent it walking around, checking out the people that came in. There are pros, who look serious, strong and fit… there are moms and dads, who tow their infant offspring in a sled trailer, high school kids, wacky old men and people in costumes – like the lady in the striped short dress who received many looks and compliments.
It’s really quite a show, and it puts you in a very jolly mood for the upcoming suffering that you’re about to bring upon yourself.

This year, only about 750 people registered. Last year, there were almost 1100. Recession? Fattening of America? I don’t know. I’m not complaining. It was nice to be able to fight only a few hundred people in the first mile as I tried to find my own pace somewhere in between them.

Anyway, here’s what it looked like at 9am, right before the start:

See those grey skies? Everyone kept looking up, wondering if it was going to snow or rain. Rumors were spreading that it had just been raining a few miles this way, or that way. The announcer gave out a warning about hypothermia, asking everyone to stay warm and hydrated. It was kind of concerning and frightening.

Well, no one cried wold in vain. It snowed. And then, it rained. Luckily, I had enough gear to stay warm, and only suffered from cold in the treacherous downhill sections.
However, I was wet. At first, from my own sweat as I went up, gaining 1200 feet. After that, from the snow and rain, as I tried to make it to the end.

The weather didn’t only affect the racers, but the race course itself. It was slushy, and therefore slow. My goal was to be faster than last year, but I didn’t even come close to that. I finished in 3 hours and 39 minutes, placing in at the 568^th position. But I’m not disappointed with my performance. I did fairly well at overcoming not only the exhausting course, but the weather conditions. Just like last year, my triceps started cramping with about 5k to go, and right after I ran out of water in my camelback.

The finish line was a mess. The hill that leads to the finish line was overly slushy, and after a 30k long odyssey of leg-burning skiing, it’s quite difficult to gracefully glide down the steep hill of shame. But I crossed the line, and at least I didn’t end up like this guy. But I almost did.

Official results are in! We took 5th place in mixed and 13th overall. Not bad!
The team, Venetian Skunk, took off from Reno at 3pm. My turn to run came up for Leg #8 a little bit after 8pm. I was excited, and I was off on the road at dusk.
After about two miles into my section of the course, my legs started cramping. Thoughts of “oh shit” ran through my head, so I slowed down just a bit and tried to relax. I had a long ways to go, and not only on this section, but on the rest of the race!
Soon enough, both my legs felt like wires with ants crawling through them. My left one, particularly, was in pain. From my toes to my knee, it felt like it was all one piece: no joints, no muscle. Just one huge mass of pain.
I ran through Truckee, huffin’ and puffin’. I was almost there! At the roundabout, I almost went the wrong way, but I eventually got to the exchange point and ended my leg. I was in extreme pain, but I had this huge rush: I completed my first 4.8 miles in 42 minutes. A whopping 6.85 mph was my speed, which definitely put me as the slowest runner in my team. However, I never once walked, which was one of my goals (the other goals included not dying, being run over by a lifted truck or swallowed by a bear).
After Jason finished his leg at Homewood, the six runners that were in my van were done for at least 3 hours. It was midnight when we arrived at the exchange point in South Lake Tahoe, and we tried to get some rest. The temperature was 36 degrees, and most of the team slept on the ground of the Raley’s parking lot, in sleeping bags. I curled up inside the van’s passenger seat.
I wasn’t able to sleep much, but I was at least laying down and resting my legs. I didn’t want my legs to cramp up anymore, so I did something I hadn’t done in over ten years: I ate bananas. Two fresh, ripe and smelly bananas. My body was craving the potassium, so I put behind my self-imposed dislike of the fruit, and went to town.
At around 3am, Josh H. started from South Lake Tahoe, up Kingsbury Grade. He had to climb 1000 feet in 4.2 miles. Now, Josh is a hell of a runner, and he was done in about 34 minutes.
I was waiting at the top of the hill, ready to go down Kingsbury Grade. 4.3 miles of downhill, in the middle of the cool, starry night waited for me.
I had a headlamp on, and I’d never even heard or though of the goggle effect that it would have on me. The shadow of my eyebrows that was cast underneath my eyes made me feel like I was wearing some bizarre goggles, and messed with my eyesight for the whole stretch. At times, I would just close my eyes and run down the hill.
My legs weren’t cramping, this was a good feeling. I wasn’t going fast, but I wasn’t going slow either. Every single step I took reverberated through my body, ending up at the jaw. Thunk, thunk. A couple of guys ran past me, and I was wishing I was in better shape to be able to step it up.
I finished in 32 minutes. I was happy. My goal for this leg was to beat Josh’s time… I went just as far, but down the hill instead of up. He climbed 1000 feet, I dropped about 1300.
My body, however, was not happy. My shins ached, my shoulders were suddenly sore, and my stomach was making a number. I didn’t know if I wanted to throw up or go #2. I did the latter, twice in 10 minutes. All that bouncing from running down a hill sure shook up my dinner.
I felt pretty good when Nate, the runner that went after me, ran the second half of Kingsbury Grade at about the same pace as me. Our van’s legs finished south of Carson City, just a bit after sunrise.
We headed up to Virginia City, where we once again tried to get some sleep… and once again I wasn’t able to. I was too excited, and the cool breeze that blew on my face kept me wide awake.
After hydrating, some more Bowel movements, and the improvised application of Neosporin on some chafed parts, we were ready to go on the final stretch.
Leg 32 waited for me, it was sometime around 10 am. The sun was starting to be a factor, but I was ready.
I had a pretty big hill to climb (not as big as other runners’ climbs, but big enough to whine about!), and I was dreading every minute of it as I slowly made my way up it. I got my first and only “roadkill” of the whole race on this section, as I passed a guy that was walking up the hill. Yay! Another goal achieved.
At the top of the hill, I could hear the exchange point. My teammates were making noise, and I knew that after I got to the van, my part of the race was done. I ran as fast as my body was letting me, and finished in a mix of feelings of pain, accomplishment, fatigue and joy. My legs were throbbing, my shins hurting more than ever.
The team finished in less than 22 hours, which was one of the goals. I had a sandwich and a beer, and fell fast asleep on the grass of Idlewild Park.

This certainly was an Odyssey. At a few points during the race, I thought to myself “whoa, we’ve really gone a long way already“.
I was awake from 6am on Friday until 3pm on Saturday. I made new friendships, and by the end of the journey, I felt a strange, different and special connection with the 5 teammates I shared a van with.
I will certainly aim to do this again next year, and I plan on being in better running shape. I think all the bike riding I do helped me be ready cardio-wise, but my body was not ready for the impact of running on the road.
Today, Monday, I still ache, but I still feel what I felt when we finished: awesome!

I’d like to thank Jason, Josh, David, Nate and Bob for being awesomely supportive and fun to be with.

Pictures from the adventure can be found on my Flickr page, here.

Last week, browsing through Reno Baby! (a ning site), I found out about the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey. I read a bit about it, sounded like fun, and expressed my interest.
Yesterday, this guy Jason posted there to say that they were looking for a runner. I replied, excited, saying that I was up for it.
But then I was afraid someone would get a hold of him before I did, so I asked my friend and roomate Cory if he knew him. After all, Cory is a pretty networked guy. And it turns out that he does know him!
So, Cory “twittered” him, and a connection was made.
Hours ago, I got an email from “the team”, and I’m in!

And shit. I didn’t know the race started on Friday and doesn’t stop until you get to the finish line, a whole 178 miles later. Enter panic mode!
Just kidding. It’s sort of a relay race, and it’s divided in 36 legs. Each team has 12 members, so I only have to run 3 legs, so I should be able to survive without any internal bleeding.

I’m heading out to REI to arm myself with a headlamp and some sort of reflective vest… and maybe some bear spray. Holy shit.