Proud

Again I ended my summer with a BANG! What could be better than the Portland to Coast Relay Race? This year we decided to up the ante and have an 8-woman team with 1 van. Traditionally there are 2 vans and 12 people....what were we thinking? Game on.

So here we are bright and early ready to head to Downtown Portland. We are missing Kris--but no worries...she comes soon after! What a fun group of ladies! Um and do I feel short here or what??

Don't we all look so refreshed and perky? I hope so because this 127 mile race will require that we each do 3 legs a piece without any sleep.

Patty and I posing before we leave. Patty also did the Portland Marathon with me! She rocks!

Here is the starting gate. We were the 2nd to the last launch at 7:45 am. The last launch is the "Elite Teams" which are the professionals. Other launches started as early as 3:00 am. Yawn! Oh heck, who am I kidding--I was up that early anyhow. Nervous stomach.

And here is Liz--she started us off. She rocked and passed off to Allison who has an amazing stride!



Here is me at the end of my first and longest leg. It was 7.25 miles along Highway 30. I was doing it in the midday heat and no, they do NOT stop traffic. It was brutal to say the least. I tore up the course. That cop behind me? Yeah, he gave me a citation for SPEEDING. I brought it.

And here is Patty along her stretch of highway. See that arm action? Watch out!

And Kris is set up with her playlist and ready to rock and roll.

And here is Susan on the leg that I did two years ago. It is a climb from 500 feet to 1500 feet. It is rocky about 5.25 miles. Fun stuff. We told her it wasn't too bad. We are lucky to have lived after that--she was ready to strangle us when she was done!!

And when it got dark--we got a bit punchy. No sleep makes for some wacky girls. Not fun to walk in the dark in a small Coastal Town with NO LIGHTS. Scary, very scary indeed--especially with hardly another walker around.

And it rained on us, not too bad, but enough to warrant hoodies. YO! NE Portland Representin' And here we are at the beach. Overcast but not too wet. Sooo many people here. We got some fun free stuff to boot.

Everyone was all smiles though--uh, maybe from the sleep deprivation.

I am happy to report that we totally rocked this race. Not only did we try something new, but we truly pushed ourselves. Out of 401 Teams entering the race including Professional/Elite Teams, Men & Women Teams....Men Teams....we took 39th place! Yes, you read that right! AND out of the Women's Division of 144 Teams for our age bracket (which was lower because of our young pup Liz) we took 9th place! So, nary a Personal Trainer or Professional Coach and 8 mom's tore it up on the Portland to Coast. Consider it brought. I am just so proud!