HBC to HTC

Summertime. I really want to love the summer. I like to think of it as carefree and fun, but in reality the summer is usual a lot more stressful than throughout the year. Summer kind of sucks in general. School’s out, routine is shot, it’s hot–or as is the case in Portland, it’s often not hot and you can’t really plan on anything–and people get cranky and annoyed. Everyone is in and out of town. Nothing is set. Drives me insane.
I have been trying to finish my record all summer, but it seems like it’s an impossible task. I am depending on too many other people’s schedules that never really seem to work together. I have basically accepted the fact that I won’t be able to work on it until September. So for the time being, I am focusing on running the Hood To Coast next week.
The Fresh Pot has had a HTC team for the past six years and ever since I started working there almost four years ago, I had hoped–and more or less counted on–running the event someday. I wasn’t supposed to be part of the team this year, but there were some last minute changes and so here I am. I’ve had only two weeks to actually focus on doing the run, but I did start running again in earnest in the spring. In May I started running just about every day with the short term goal of being able to go for a five mile run and not feel like total shit. That happened in mid to late June when I ran about five and a half. Since then though it’s been steadily down hill throughout the summer. I could count on running while the boys were in school or if I was unable during that time, it wasn’t too hot to run in the late afternoon/early evening. Now that they’re out of school and it’s hot as shit, my window to run has diminished considerably. Since I peaked in June, I’ve been running more like two or three times a week, running between two and three miles.
This past week I’ve run every day for at least three miles, the past two days going up to four and a half. I feel pretty good about my ability at this point. I don’t think I will die on the course at least. The race is broken into 36 legs run by teams of twelve (The Fresh Pot and Stumptown have a combined team). Each runner does three legs that range in length from 4 to 8 miles more or less. As a newbie, I’m given the relatively easy assignment of runner #8. As runner #8, I will be doing just under 15 miles within a twenty five hour period. The first leg is on the shorter side and is relatively flat, which is nice because I will be running in the dark probably around midnight. My second run, #20, is significantly more difficult and makes me a bit nervous. As you can see here, it’s rated “Very Hard.” Yikes.

Not only is it long and mostly uphill, I’m told it’s almost entirely on a gravel road and I can expect a shit ton of dust kicked up by the constant stream of vans passing me by. Yes! The third leg, #32 is a super duper short 4.09 miles, rated “Moderate.” At that point I should be completely stained in blood, sweat, and tears (hopefully not shit and vomit as well) and barely coherent. You can see satellite maps of all three legs here. Feel free to place side bets in the comments section on exactly where I will have physical and emotional breakdowns. You can use Google to pinpoint the exact coordinates.
I should also add that my dear, dear friend Amy Harwood will be runner #8 for her team as well. Their stated goal is to beat the Fresh Pot. We shall see. I get twenty percent of any bets placed on this page.