Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK 2006

It was a cold morning Saturday, and the temps did not improve by much as the day wore on. I met my 8-person relay team, In It For the T-Shirt Too, all of whom were very nice. I could tell it would be a fun day.
My first run was the dreaded Leg 4: up the hill from Whipple Dam for 10 kilometers. For quite a while I ran with a guy named Tim, who knew one of the people on my team. When we got to the big hill, he pulled away from me. That was OK: as I'd said to another teammate, the key is to go at my pace. I won't gain anything trying to catch him if he's faster than me. I slogged up that big hill in 53 minutes, which is 2 minutes faster than my previous best.
As we drove around and got to know my running mates, the day flew by. Nobody was too concerned with our times, we were just out to run, do our best, and have a good time. A few times while waiting at transition areas, we saw some of the Ultra runners coming through. It was really inspirational: I definitely think I'll have to try it sometime.
I also ran the anchor leg (#12) which is mostly downhill. I crushed that thing: I actually thought I was going to beat my team who were following behind in the van. They had waited for the hand-off from In It For The T-Shirt I, to cheer on Stevie, the woman who had organized both teams. I ran the 4.2 miles in @32 minutes, although I forgot to stop my watch right away, so it was actually faster than that.

It was a great day in the woods. And I made a bunch of new friends, some of whom I will be running with again. In fact, as I get into the final weeks of marathon training, I am going to set up some group runs (masochistic, long, brutal group runs) over the next few weeks.