Live. Laugh. Run.: River to River Relay

For those of you not familiar with the River to River Relay, it is an 80 mile course that takes a relay team of 8 runners across southern Illinois starting at the Mississippi River (LaRue Pine Hills area) and finishing at the Ohio River (Golconda). Tim has been doing this event the past few years, but unfortunately his team didn't get in this year. (The Tramps will be back!) The course is limited to 250 teams, so registration is pretty competitive. A lady I work was needing a runner for The Neighborhood Co-op team. Tim was a bit hesitant at first, but after thinking about it for all of 5 minutes, he agreed. They asked me to be an alternate, which involved me driving a 15-passenger van across beautiful southern Illinois. Yes, I drove a big van all day. With runners. Sweaty runners. :)

The morning was terrible. The alarm went off at 4:15am. I had a horrible headache and was trying my best to not be cranky around Tim. Mornings are just not my favorite and it was going to be a long day, I didn't want to start it off by being all snip snappy. We met up with the rest of the team members at the Co-op around 5:45ish. Everyone was very nice, but tired. As I was driving to LaRue Pine Hills, the fog was drifting over the ground the sun was rising. It was really quite beautiful and you could sense that everyone in the van knew it was going to be a great day for running.

The first leg of the race starts at the top of McGee Hill, so we dropped Runner 1 (Jake) off and headed down to the first exchange. The 2013 River to River Relay had begun!

I had the following routine: drive, cheer loud as we passed our runner and then hope that parking would be easy at the next exchange. Actually, parking wasn't that bad in the morning for me. The exchanges weren't too crowded early on, but as the day progressed it got a bit more, um, creative. There was another van that I seemed to either be parked behind or in front of and I made friends with the driver. He would joke about how I almost hit him or give me a high five when I "nailed" it. The ongoing joke for me was my refusal to parallel park a 15 PASSENGER VAN! I drive a Kia and Tim drives a Yaris. Very small cars that I can't parallel park well anyway. I wasn't about to attempt to park that beast of van in between OTHER vans with crowds of people. No way. I managed to find a parking spot at all the exchanges without parallel parking or hitting a van or, more importantly, a runner. I did have to have Tim park it for me twice. Ironically, it was actual parking lots that I had problems with. Go figure.

Along the way, we ran into Jaime's team. She was so nervous because she was Runner 6, so I totally understood the nerves, but I've also witnessed that girl at Murphy Lake. She does not let the hills break her! Tim and I were pretty confident that she would be fine. And she was! When I saw her in Golconda, she said she did great and felt fabulous. I am so proud of her! She has been a BEAST this spring with her training and trail runs. She is totally inspiring!

It was nice running into Jaime throughout the day!

As I cheered on Tim's team and the other folks I knew, I couldn't help but wish I was actually running the relay. It really was a beautiful day for running. Blue skies, cool temps. A runner's dream. Plus, with so many runners, you had all sorts of people there for different reasons. There were the goofy teams that were just partying it up (someone actually did a shot off another runner's stomach! Ahh!), teams in costumes (hippies, big ol' plastic butts- yep, your read that right), teams running for a cause (I saw a lot of "Running for Boston" signs on vans & t-shirts-AWESOME!) and teams like the Co-op, just there having a fun. One particularly touching moment was when I saw an alternate running to support a much older runner. How sweet is that?!? Seeing all of these things made me love running and love RUNNERS. We really do know how to be good people and have a little fun!

I'm not too confident that I could actually do R2R. As I drove to the exchanges, all I noticed was all the dang HILLS. Could I run three 5ks with HILLS? In one day? Also, I would be mortified to be walking as my team passed me in the van. I don't know. Tim says I could do it. He thinks I could handle being Runner 2 or 3. Um, here's a pic of one of the hills that Runner 3 has to do:

Um, that looks harder than Cemetery Hill!

Anyway, the Co-op Team rocked it! Tim had a lot of fun running his legs. I'm glad I was there to support him the other runners on the team. They ended up finishing in 11:21:26. Fantastic!