How long would it take you to run 178 miles?
Could you do it faster with some friends, each of whom ran one portion then tagged another runner to continue the challenge?
How about if you had a team of 12 runners in which each runner ran three separate segments?
In this past weekend’s Reno-Tahoe Odyssey (29-30 May 2009), my 12-person team named DNR (“Do not Resuscitate”) completed the course in 22 hours 52 minutes and 1 second for a per mile pace of 7 minutes 43 seconds.
Expressed in a different way, we left downtown Reno on Friday at 1:30 p.m. and returned 178 miles (286 km) later on Saturday at 12:22 p.m. In the meantime we ran through Truckee, along the entire west and south shores of Lake Tahoe, and through Carson City, and Virginia City.
We ran day, night, and day again to get from Reno back to Reno. New relay legends were created (“fish tacos’ [don’t ask], Roseann’s mad dash to start Leg 34) and old ones were recycled (Van 1’s victory Bloody Marys at the Bucket of Blood Saloon, “You look pretty”). Time expanded and contracted in the weird way it does when people do an awful lot in a relatively short period of time.
Congratulations to my team for a terrific finish! And a big “thank you” to Eric Lerude, event director, and his team of associates and volunteers for putting on another great relay run.
DNR AFTER FINISHING AT RENO’S IDLEWILD PARK
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 30 MAY ’09
(l to r) Greg, Megan, Sean, Paul, Lisa, Chuck, Carla, Tom, Brian, John, Chris, Roseann
This is the first of four posts inspired by this past weekend’s Reno-Tahoe Odyssey (RTO). The second post will be about “big relays” like this. The third will be a look at the creation of the RTO. And the fourth will be about the continuing evolution of downtown Reno.
Good job Greg and I will look forward to the articles to come