I had a BBQ chicken wrap and it was just okay. The chicken was dry and the pita bread was pretty dry too. Some of the other girls got tater-tots and I was pretty envious of their choices.
After killing a bunch of time at the restaurant (service is always slow when you're trying to feed 14 people it seems!), we headed off to the next van exchange - a bit of a sketchy area under the bridge. Beautiful views of the city lights though:
And then we were off and running again! Once again, being the last to go makes it rough - both in anticipation, and in staying awake, and in knowing what to eat. It'd been a good 5 hours or more since we ate dinner by the time I actually ran, so it's difficult to decide what's safe to eat.
We settled on some peanut butter, more dried mangoes (get those away from me!), and I gave myself a glute massage with more Bengay. Totally normal for 3 in the morning. Things got a little bit delirious somewhere in here...
Until finally, FINALLY, it was my turn to go.
Saturday, August 25, 4:29am
I was hoping we would somehow get a bit more behind so I would be running when the sun came up, but no dice. It was just starting to get a teeny tiny bit light as we drove away from the exchange AFTER I finished.
My run was a pretty pointless circle around West St. Helens - I guess they felt they needed to add some mileage so sadly I didn't help us much in getting to Seaside. Kind of like Ragnar.
This was to be my hardest leg and it was hard all right. It was steady uphill the whole time, but mostly in the last 1.5 miles or so was when I really struggled. In the last mile a very strong headwind added to the uphill, it was partially on gravel, and it was DARK.
There were times when I definitely wasn't sure where to go, because again, since we started so late, we were around NO ONE. I had an identical leg as my first, passing 2 people and getting passed by 2 (Molly passed me AGAIN!).
It was seriously pitch black in places and I wished I'd carried more light. I just had my headlamp on and it wasn't enough. There was also an intersection that I wasn't sure where to go where again there was no volunteer nor a sign, and no one in front of me leading the way. I did NOT like that. We need signs people!
Total Distance: 5.27 miles Total Time: 44:04 Average Pace: 8:22
Splits: 8:08, 8:12, 8:08, 8:21, 8:53, 8:37 (.27)
Total elevation gain: 214 feet
No 7's this time. I was just happy to keep moving despite the hills, headwind, gravel, and darkness. I was so happy to be done with this leg!
And finally FINALLY it was time to try to sleep for a bit. But of course first we had to wind our way on the most curving road ever in the middle of the night to get there. Jay is a rockstar and got us there safely. THANK YOU JAY!
And we like to fake brush our teeth in the middle of the night. We're cool!
Leg #2 aka Leg #18 done - only one leg left to go!
