hood to coast

last night danielle and i went to brunswick to watch the premier of hood to coast. im a relatively new runner and i live on the east coast so i hadn't heard about the hood to coast race until a few months ago when i read an article written by ryan hall about the races on his wish list. hood to coast was one of them. clearly i looked it up and loved what i saw.

for those of you living under a rock (like i had been), the hood to coast is a 197 mile relay from the top of mt. hood to the coast of seaside, oregon. a team consists of anywhere from 8-12 team members. but seriously, if you run with 8, you're crazy!! you run all day and all night until your team completes the 197 miles. you sleep in vans, schools, parking lots or not at all. annnnnd you pay lots of money for this experience. sounds fun, huh?  i had heard about these kinds of relays before. danielle has run the fall reach the beach relay the last two years and i am finally at a point where i can run it with her. this year reach the beach is adding a spring relay and danielle is the team captain for our all womens team. its sure to be a blast shit show. i. cant. wait!

ok back to the movie. it follows four completely different teams as they prepare and run the hood to coast. the dead jocks in a box, the heart ‘n’ soul, the thunder and laikaning and team r. bowe.

the dead jocks in a box are a group of older yet talented and experienced runners who usually finish in the top 6 of their age group. while they may be older, their maturity is about that of a 12 year olds. good fun.

the heart 'n' soul team highlights a 67 year old runner who has run 70 lifetime marathons. in the 2007 hood to coast she suffered a heart attack just as she was about to head out on to her 3rd leg of the race. in the movie she fights to keep her heart rate down so she can run her 3rd leg, the same one she collapsed on the year before.

thunder and laikaning might have been my favorite team. their training plan consisted of drinking as much beer as possible and not running. teammate rachel had no idea she was going to have to run past midnight and swore like a pirate through her legs. jason becomes my hero and eats a huge, greasy cheeseburger instead of oatmeal before his final leg... but fought all the way to the end.

team r. bowe was run in honor of ryan bowe who passed away at the age of 30 from a heart attack just one month before he was to run the 2007 hood to coast leaving behind his family and wife who was 9 months pregnant. his family and college buddies got together to run this relay in his honor.

it was such a great movie. it got me even more excited to run reach the beach in 4 months. will i have what it takes to run alone in the country at night? can i run without the comfort of my music (im seriously worried about this!), will i get lost? how many memories and new friends will i make along the trip??

did you see hood to coast?