Hood To Coast Relay Race Report with Team Runners World - Part 1

This year, I had the privilege of winning a spot on the Runner's World Team (with captain Bart Yasso) at the Hood To Coast Relay August 26-27. I'm running behind on my race report because I was recovering from the relay, then headed out to Hawaii to run the Kauai Marathon, and now I'm back from that. So I'm catching up, and this is Part I of my multi-part Hood To Coast Relay adventure!

Thursday, August 25, I arrived around noon to Portland, Oregon, home base for this adventure. After getting to the team's downtown hotel, I met the first of my teammates - SQUEAL! Brawley (everyone calls him by his last name at Runner's World), Taylor, and Bart (yes, THE Mr. Yasso). Our mission: TO GET GROCERIES!

Bart Doesn't Need a List

Bart expressed urgency in us heading off to get groceries, and since he's done this race 14 of the 30 times they've had Hood To Coast, you go with what Bart says. He explained that with 20,000 runners descending on Portland, there would be a run at the grocery stores for all the usual relay supplies, so we were beating the rush.

We took a shopping cart, and Brawley, Taylor, and I basically followed Bart around as he shot out a list of items to grab and the occasional "Oh, we need..." or "Can't forget..."

No list, just 4 loosely-related semi-strangers, 3 of which are running after Bart grabbing up odd items to an onlooker - petroleum jelly, ziploc bags, bananas, peanut butter? etc etc etc.

"Clif Bars?" "Yes, lots of Clif Bars!"

By the end, we had filled the cart and undercarriage of this shopping cart completely and Brawley's carrying 4 big foam ice chests.

To an outsider, it looked like it was going to be an interesting party we were headed to, and it was... a RUNNERS' PARTY!

On to the actual running when I continue catching up on my blogging tomorrow! And yes, there will be more about what Bart's like, because it's something a lot of people asked me right away after the race weekend.