Portland-to-Coast 2012 edition

Earlier this year, the team that wins Portland-to-Coast almost every year asked me to be part of their 2012 team. How could I say no? So I became part of "Racewalkers Northwest: What Were We Thinking?".

The race was just two weeks before the 40k, but my coach said it would be fine to do two legs as speed work because there was plenty of time to recover. The race is 24 legs (#13-36 since #1-12 are Hood-to-Coast only) with 12 walkers who do 2 legs each.

The team met in Portland at 8:45 am, one hour before we were scheduled to leave at 9:45 am. Teams had been leaving since 2:30 am, and we were the very last team to leave. The Sierra Racewalkers, our nearest competitors, were assigned a 9 am slot, so we got to cheer them on (and some other teams) as we prepared for the race.

Van 1 got started immediately at 9:45 am, with Nana as our first walker. Van 1 had Nana, Carmen, Kelly (who just moved from Oregon to Utah!), Louie (from Washington), Jo Ellen (from Canada), and Andy (from North Carolina). I was in van 2, with Rob, Katie, Ron, Lisa, and Pat (all from Oregon unless mentioned otherwise). We enjoyed following van 1 through one exchange, but then we took off on our own and drove to the fairgrounds, where the first van exchange would take place. Van 1 does 6 legs, then van 2, then van 1, then van 2 finishes the race.

On the way to the fairgrounds we stopped at Safeway (grocery store) to get water for the van and also to eat lunch. The guys picked up deli sandwiches, and Katie and I elected to get some white rice and pretzels, and I had some deli turkey (just plain). I had to be careful to avoid GI trouble! Of the 6 in our van, I was second to go and thus had to be ready.

We took the food to the fairgrounds and spread out a tarp on the grass and relaxed in the sun and chatted with each other. I have to say that I really enjoyed the time to sit and do a bunch of nothing (I enjoyed the time on Thursday after I arrived in Portland, too). It was lovely to not have to worry about the kids!

At just after 3 pm it was time to get going. When the other van arrived, they told us about some excitement - on leg 17 our walker was narrowly ahead of a detour caused by a large fire at the Les Schwab tire store! The Hood-to-Coast runners all had an extra 1.7 miles on that route.

Once I had changed into my race clothes and started cheering Rob on his leg, I felt ready to go. We drove along with him, and I warmed up as I helped to give him water. I had leg #20, which has its own nickname: Pittsburgh Hill. I did it last time I did this race, in 2009. It's quite something - 500 feet up, then down a little, then gravel road starts at 3 miles, with another ~400 feet up, and finally downhill to the exchange at 5.75 miles. Gravel and uphill - not a good combination for racewalking. But I felt SO strong on this walk. It was warm - about 75F (24C) and sunny - but Katie sprayed me with water several times both before and during my walk, and I dumped water on my head and drank a lot of water, and I actually felt fine. I didn't feel overheated at all. I just felt strong and good. Yes, I was working very hard to power up the hill, but as I looked at my Garmin, the average pace was very fast for that hill. I was much faster than I'd expected. I had hoped to do 6:27/km, but could see I was going to do better. I was very excited! I worked it hard to the finish, and got there in 57:33, almost 3 minutes faster than the 1:00:23 I'd done last time (and what I'd predicted on the team pace spreadsheet). That works out to 6:16/km (10:01/mile) if the race course distance of 5.75 miles is correct, and 6:18/km (10:05/mile) by my Garmin. (Garmin data here). One more note - I passed about 25 or so walkers on this leg - lots of "road kill"!

After my leg, I was elated, fist-bumping my teammates and jumping back in the van to continue the journey. It felt SO good to do well for the team and to know that I was going to perform well. What a relief!

Lisa's turn was immediately after me. It was her birthday, so we sang to her along the route as we gave her water, and then got the next exchange to sing Happy Birthday to her as she came in! That became a running joke in our van, as we shouted "Happy Birthday" to each of our walkers as we gave them aid for the rest of the way. It sounds dorky, but it was actually very funny, especially in the middle of the night when tired.

We got through leg 24, turned the race over to the other van, and then drove to a local high school where we could get showers and some sleep. We paid $2 for a shower in the locker room (group shower...ugh......dislike! I could write several paragraphs on group showers and the fact that they are much better now that I have lost weight but still make me uncomfortable; there were quite a few really large women there, interestingly) and $2 for a spot on the hard gym floor for our sleeping bags, but it was nice to rest for all of 2 hours before we had to get on the road to make it to the next van exchange - #30. We arrived and tried to contact the other van via radio (no cell service) but they were not close enough (5 mile radius) and didn't answer. We had seen Kelly on leg 28, so we knew they were pretty close to on schedule as of then. But we didn't hear from their van and didn't hear and didn't hear. We wondered what was going on! We got Rob ready to walk but he kept his sweats on until their walker arrived, since it was quite chilly (48F, 9C). Suddenly, about 2:10 am, there was Louie! He yelled at Rob to get going and we helped Rob take off his sweats and get walking; we lost a minute here helping him (he later laughed about how fun it was to have women ripping off his clothes!). Louie didn't know why we weren't ready, but he did say he didn't know where the van was and that he'd received no support from them. Uh-oh. We told him to pile in our van because we couldn't leave him there alone, with no warm clothes! We got him in the van and gave him a towel; later I gave him my extra jacket and pants. More on the van saga later...

Four miles later it was my turn again, for a 4.09 mile (6.58km) leg in the middle of the night on a very dark road. I got a brief warm-up at the exchange and was glad to be going again and finishing. My goal was 40:13 for 9:50/mile (what I'd done at the last PTC, on an injured foot and as my 4th leg), but I also figured I should beat that since I am healthy and only did 2 legs this time. I started off on a gentle downhill and was going very fast; about 5:05-5:10/km! That didn't last as there is quite a bit of uphill on this one too (though overall it was a net elevation loss; 49m uphill but 75m downhill according to my Garmin). I was able to get to 5km in 28:00 and finished in 37:38 with my Garmin saying 5:35/km. (Garmin data here). I was VERY pleased with that! I just felt SO good and SO strong, and it made me very confident in my fitness level going in to the 40k. I don't think I've ever been this fit or this fast.

Several walkers thought I was a runner along the way because I was so fast; they thought the Hood-to_coast runners where passing already! I told them I was a racewalker and they got it (I think), since they said "ohhhhhhh" each time. I only passed 14 walkers on this leg; it was shorter, and we were getting close to the front of all of the teams by this point. By the time we got to the finish we were the 5th team to cross the finish line! We had passed all but 4 teams, who had probably started much, much earlier than we did.

You are probably wondering what happened to the other van. We were too. We didn't find out until exchange 35 - the very last exchange. We were sitting there in the van (it was cold) waiting for Katie to come in, and suddenly there was a knock on the van window! It was Andy, from van 1, with our team clipboard! We were very happy to see him. He told us the whole scoop - Carmen had been driving the van at exchange 29 after letting Louie (the walker) out of the van to proceed to exchange 30. Carmen drove over a pile of gravel/asphalt that she could not see in the pitch black at 1 am, and the van got stuck on one side, high centered on the pile of gravel. Yes, really, I am not making this up. They tried to get people to lift the van off the pile, and tried everything else they could think of, to no avail. They were stuck. Because of the race, no tow truck companies were willing to come up there; well, not many --- some Good Samaritan had driven downhill to where there was reception and called about 20 companies before finding one that would come. It took until late morning to get the tow truck out there, though. When Andy came to us at around 6:30 am he said a tow truck was on its way and that we should finish the race and eat and relax. We did that; however, by 11 am there was still no sign of the other van and no phone contact. We all became worried. Andy (who had gotten to us by hitching a ride downhill with some volunteers headed to the beach) and Louie (their other van-mate) drove up to see what was going on. Meanwhile, Rob and Katie and I went to the beach to get radio contact if possible (the race officials had ham radio connections). We were unable to find out anything, but not long after that we got a call that they had gotten out and would be at the beach soon. It was about 2 pm before they got to the hotel. They'd been at exchange 29 for 11 hours. Ugh! They were in pretty good spirits, though, and after a shower they made it to the post-race picnic that Racewalkers Northwest set up for us.

Back to exchange 35. We were waiting for Katie to come in when Andy knocked on our window. Shortly after seeing Andy we all got out of the van to greet Katie and send our last walker, Pat, off on the final leg. We waited and waited and waited - finally, about 15-20 min late, Katie showed up. She looked fine, but tired - there had been a huge snafu and a volunteer on a motorcycle had misdirected about 20 walkers (in the first group of teams) to go back because they'd missed a turn. Well, they hadn't. They ended up doing about 2 extra miles, Katie figured. She was VERY irritated, as it was already a 7.2-mile leg on gravel.

Finally, Pat started on the last leg, and we drove to the beach. We parked and walked to the finish line to meet Pat, where 8 of us (van 1 plus Louie and Andy) crossed the finish line together. We wished the other 4 teammates had been able to be there! Afterward we enjoyed breakfast at Pig N Pancake (PTC tradition) and then went to the hotel for a shower and nap, and then woke up to go to the beach to try to find out what happened to van 2. Later, after van 2 got back in town, we went to the post-race picnic on the beach and attended the awards ceremony before Rob, Kelly, Katie and I drove back to Portland that evening.

Wow...eventful race! I have LOTS of pictures but I've been SO very busy since getting home that I will have to post them later today (hopefully). I had a great time, though, and if I had unlimited funds I'd do it every year.

Want to join the race next year? Race homepage here.