Hood to Coast 2011

Greetings all!

Well, we managed yet another completed HTC. This was the 3rd year for Stumbo's Prayer Warrior to embark upon this adventure. It didn't come without many bumps in the road. Our roster changed more in the past 9 months than Erik w/a K changed his underpants. One change that I certainly can speak to is that I didn't get to run for the first HTC since 1999. I have been nursing a hamstring and it just didn't happen for me, but I captained the team and even rode along with the crazies in Van 2. Here are a few of the highlights:

- Erik brought granola again and offered it up quite often... AGAIN. It appeared to increase in volume as the race ensued, not sure what is in that stuff, but probably not the best diet food if it grows.

-Another repeat experience is that Erik's bag seemed to vomit repeatedly and parts of it could be found all over the van, another phenomenon that we can't explain. (Love you Erik, thanks for making me think of Trent, so I wasn't missing him so much)

- Kara, our loudest and most excited cheerer and most fun lady ever couldn't run this year, battling a souvenir she brought back from Egypt named "Perry site" nasty little guy. We missed you terribly Kara. Even in her absence, she was felt because she sent along her famous Energy Balls and it turns out our infantile van never tires of laughing when one of us says "balls". Awesome.

- Shannon brings a plethora of wipes that could probably stock the shelves of a Walgreens. We all partook of them and enjoyed them very much. We also learned that during a run she can stop, drop and poop in 10 seconds, impressive by any standards, wow, I must pause here for how impressive that is.

- And speaking of poop... Erik giving a poop pep talk through the Honey Bucket walls... epic. I am standing in line waiting my turn with about 5 people and this uproarious laughter erupts from the line of HB's. Someone comments "They're having fun", I sheepishly look at them and say "Those are my teammates, that's how we roll."

- Steve Unwin, Stallion, warrior, awesome teammate extraordinaire and can puke like nobody's business. Oh man, you rock dude! You are my hero. Side note, watching how you love to tease Erik is one of my favorite things too. So fun watching you two brothers.

- Jaque, our driver and resident mom of all. Thanks for all you did to help our team and for bringing your sister along to run, very cool. You two managed to smuggle a small grocery store of food aboard, not sure how you managed.

- Beeks! Our last minute sub and Rookie of the Year! Having just had an appendectomy like 3 weeks prior, Beeker was feeling this weird feeling where her appendix used to be, I named it the "Appendix Void". What a trooper, powered through the pain and ran like the wind and also was awesomely funny, W00t! You rock girl!

- Mandee, our tall girl ;o) rocked it. Even though her buddy Kara had to back out last minute, Mandee stepped right in to the weird bunch than made up Van 2 and cracked wise and ran well and even recovered from the fact that Beeks kept calling her Megan. Bah!

- In a series of unfortunate events we were bumping up against not being able to finish. There was talk along the last legs about course closure and we were watching the volunteers pick up garbage, we had a looming time of 8pm for our last runner to leave that exchange. We did some math and realized that it was going to take some tough running and creative captaining to pull this off. I shall evoke my 5th amendment rights here in case the HTC officials are reading this, but basically, Erik had to run this 8.12 mile last leg that changed since last year. It used to be a flat 7 1/2 mile leg and now it's arguably the hardest leg in the race. Horrible. Oh my. As we drove it and realized what poor Erik had agreed to, my stomach lurched, my heart hurt and I was thinking I would be permanently "defriended" by him. The one shining silver lining is that he looked stunning. He had grabbed the bright pink vest just because it already had a number on it. He borrowed Beeks' hand held water bottle and, oh yeah it happened to be bright pink and then he got up to the exchange and had forgot his headlamp, so Shannon let him have hers, you guessed it... PINK! He looked glorious. He killed it! Ran that horrible leg like a champ. He came in, handed off and proceeded to wretch his guts out, so freaking awesome! Made my captain heart so proud.

We made it! The announcer at the finish always says each team as they cross. When Shannon was spotted, he said "Team 105, Stumbo's Prayer Warriors, your runner is coming." We all excitedly assembled, ready to jog the last 100 meters with her. He looked at us and said "What's a Stumbo?" I don't recall what we said, but I remember thinking that I would love to sit down with that guy and tell him all about John Stumbo. Our van did tell John's story a few times. There was a volunteer at one exchange who was very interested in it. He took a magnet and was going to go and read his blog. We prayed, we talked about John, we laughed, we pooped, we groused some, we did it. Sigh.