203.67 miles? You gotta be kiddin’!
That was pretty much the reaction my team of six runners had last May when we opened our bag of goodies from the Beach to Bay Relay in Corpus Christi, Texas. We were in our second year running Beach to Bay, and were already feeling pretty good about our prospects. More importantly, running Beach to Bay the year before had bonded us into not just musician colleagues playing with the Mid-Texas Symphony Orchestra, but into a group of friends who enjoyed the opportunity to run together as a team.
I kidded my teammates about entering us in the new Texas Independence Relay (TIR), announced on a flyer packed in with our t-shirts and various other race announcments. I remember we laughed and said: “Sure. We’re going to run that (not).” The first fatal mistake was opening up my laptop a little later and browsing over to the TIR website. As I looked at the welcoming webpage I was drawn into the possibility that maybe we could run this race. Just add a few more runners, rope my sister Brenda into managing some logistics, and well, maybe. I asked a couple of the other runners who were gathered round the television set watching the Spurs in the playoffs. “We might be interested,” they said. Then Brenda made the second fatal mistake of the evening by saying: “If you can find the runners crazy enough to do it, I’ll help with some of the organizing.” Of course, she didn’t think it would ever come to be nor, frankly, did I.
You run Beach to Bay, a standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles, with six runners, each running a little over four miles. It’s a cinch, almost. To manage the almost 204 miles of the TIR, divided into 40 legs, would require 10-12 runners. I got commitments from the rest of the Beach to Bay team and then set out to recruit four more runners, preferably musicians, or at least relatives of musicians in the Mid-Texas Symphony (MTX). The MTX, by the way, is a modest sized regional orchestra which is jointly supported by the cities of Seguin and New Braunfels. I had discovered bit by bit that there probably were ten serious runner musicians in the orchestra, some pretty accomplished at marathons, triathlons, and just fun-thons, running for the thrill of it. “Piece of cake,” I thought, “to make this team of ten.” How wrong I was!
Disparate schedules, and the fact some runners just prefer to do it themselves (no team for me, thank you), complicated matters. But still, seven months out from the TIR, I had commitments and some money pledged as well, from supporters of the Mid-Texas Symphony. I plunked down the $850 entry fee and set about finalizing my roster. Capping it at ten, I sought a couple of alternates, and the team was made. A few months later, one runner moved away. Darn, he was a fast one too! Then a couple more holes opened up, before the wheels came off with injuries to two key runners. They were both bringing relatives to the team with them. Two more dropped out and rather than ten runners and two alternates I now had only seven runners. Just 2 weeks before the race, I seriously considered pulling the plug.
What prompted one more stutter step in this seemingly inevitable march towards quitting the race was the realization that those of us who were left had been not only looking forward to the challenge, but also training for it. Runner Steve Hager sent me an email saying he would certainly understand whatever decision I had to make. Then he sent a second email, telling me how he had run three times the day before, for a total of 16 miles. “Now he’s ready to race,” I thought. I bit my tongue and put out a last appeal for runners, trolling wherever I thought there might be a nibble. The first strike came within hours. Two runners from Houston would join us. The next day I heard from a runner near College Station who agreed to fill the 10th roster position. I burst out of my house on an exuberant run.
Brenda, good to her word, kicked into action organizing the transportation, the shuttling of runners from one leg of the race to the next. A few more nagging details lingered, including an issue over a driver for the second team van. “Don’t plan anything for the weekend of the race, Dorian, because you’re going to be driving van 2. I would bet on it.” Dorian is one of our Beach to Bay team, and came up injured awhile back. She and her husband Fred are great teammates and I regretted more the loss of their optimistic personalities than I did their good speed. But now, as I warn, get ready to drive, Dorian.
I look at a map and the reality of the distance astonishes me. Gonzales to the San Jacinto Monument on the other side of Houston: 203.67 miles! How will it feel? It’s anyone’s guess. Alan Pekarik, one of the last minute additions to our team, has run 199 miles with a team which included his wife Marie. (Marie is also running with our band of musical fools.) According to Alan, sleep deprivation will kick in, and what looks like a reasonable demand of 20 miles per runner, divided into 4 legs each will, according to Alan, “feel like a marathon.” Am I glad we’re doing this? You betcha! Will I be so sure of myself when it’s over? I’ll take a gamble and say: “Yep. When’s the next one?”
Cheer for our team. The Mid-Texas Symphony runners are:
Liz Levin Pittel, Steve Hager, Jonathon Hager, Maeve Goetz, Brian and Denise Renaghan, Alan and Marie Pekarik, Holly Murphy-Brackin and Yours Truly, James Baker. The MTX team pushes off the starting blocks at 8:15am March 1 and we anticipate crashing the finish line 33 hours or so later at the San Jacinto Monument. How great will that be?!
