So the story picks back up when the active van arrives at the transition point. At that point, I’ve only run 1 mile, ate some food, took a nap; I’m having a great time. I switched from the rest van to the active van as Ed took off running his leg and we headed toward the next transition point. This is where I realized that it was going to be challenging to keep up with everything logistically. One challenge was figuring out where to go as we couldn’t just follow the course because on this leg it took a path over some railroad tracks and then a foot bridge across a creek. With it being a 2.5 mile leg, that only gave us 15 minutes to be in place and ready. Did I mention these guys were really fast? Anyway, we made it to the foot bridge and weren’t confident we’d make it to the transition, so we kicked Matt out half a mile early and told him to “warm up” the rest of the way. In the end we made it in time, barely. Most of the legs were about 5 miles, so our usual strategy was to let the guy who just ran cool down for about 5 minutes. Then catch the current runner half way and give him some water. And then to the transition point to let the next guy warm up. And then repeat. All of that was really non-stop action. There was definitely no resting in the active van.

I was the last one to run a leg and while Noel was running leg 9, Matt started crunching some numbers. Remember this is a bunch of engineers. It turns out that everyone was running much faster than their predicted “conservative” 10 K pace and by his calculations we had a chance of breaking 24 hours. Everyone was quick to point out that we were just doing it for fun but we’re also all pretty competitive. My first leg was started in Flatonia. I thought Flatonia sounded like a nice place to start; better than Hillonia. It actually was a nice little town. The fire department had set up some showers using PVC pipe and tarps behind the theater which everyone except me got to enjoy. But I was focused on my run, leg 10 which was 6.1 miles, just short of a 10K. It was about 6:30 PM by then so I was also the first one to have to wear the night gear. That included a headlamp, a reflective belt, and a clip-on blinking bike light. It was still pretty light out, though, so I didn’t have to use the headlamp. I was concerned about what pace to run since I had no idea what it would be like to run another 10K six hours later. My “conservative” 10K pace was an 8:30 min/mile. I knew I could do all of my miles at that pace because it would be my fast marathon pace, but I wasn’t sure what would happen if I ran faster.

Noel came running in and slapped the bracelet which was used as the relay “baton” on me. No really, it was a slap bracelet. Yes admit it, you remember it from the 1980′s. Anyway, I took off running and felt really good. Amazingly good from what my GPS watch was telling me since my pace was wicked fast. Then I realized that I hadn’t reset my watch from the Prologue and it was averaging in that 7 minute mile. After I fixed that my pace actually made sense, and was still good. The leg was somewhat scenic, some small rolling hills through the Texas countryside. About half way there was a sign for the town of Praha (which is the Czech spelling of Prague) which made me smile since I’ve been there (both in the Czech Republic and in Nebraska). The team was also there to give me Gatorade to wash down my Gu packet. I felt really good but that doesn’t mean I looked good. I’ve never had a picture of myself running look flattering and I wasn’t going to share this, but since you are still reading… here you go (thanks Rich). But then up ahead I spotted my mark. My first roadkill. No not an armadillo. Roadkill is what it was called when you passed someone or when someone passed you. It was different from other races I’ve run since there was the staggered start due to the diversity of the teams. So it was cool to be able to see someone up ahead and chase them down. Especially at night since everyone had a flashing red light on their back. Slowly I reeled him in and passed him. OK, so he was older than me. Much older, and running almost as fast as me, but I still passed him. Shortly after that some other guy roadkilled me and put me back in my place which was really running to push myself. The 6 miles flew by and before I knew it I was at the transition. It also caught our next runner off guard since I was more than a little early. Luckily he was ready. It was just getting dark when I finished and by the time I cooled down it was dark. I hopped in the rest van and off we went to the next rest stop. Just enough time to try to down some food (which mostly consisted of PB&J, Powerbars, and Cliff bars) and try to rehydrate.

Leg 1 complete. Distance: 6.09 miles. Time: 47:32. Pace 7:48.

Can I keep up this pace for 16 more miles? Stay tuned…