Inaugural Rivalry Relay

I could spend a whole day writing about the Rivalry Relay.  It was amazing.  There is also a lot of history behind it that I’ll try to cut out.  To keep it simple, I’ll break it up into a few sections:

Background

My good friend, Rus Southwick, is one of the race directors for this event.  It is really cool.  It is a 6 person running relay that starts at the University of Utah and travels 64 miles down to Brigham Young University.  Each person takes a turn running until you’ve rotated through and run 3 times.  The race would be held on August 27 (I know, a while ago).

Training

At the beginning of July I had been organizing the health and wellness program at Fishbowl Inventory (my current employment).  As details of this program progressed it seemed like it would be fun to have a group do some sort of athletic event.  Timing was perfect to participate in the Rivalry Relay.  It was also a very manageable event for beginner runners.  We thought we could put together one or two teams.  As the momentum got moving we had enough interest for four teams!!  There were so many people that wanted to get active and they just needed something to push them.  For me it was very similar, I had spent some time focusing on family and preparing for the birth of our second son that I was not very active.  I wanted to get back into things.  This was the spark!

With less than two months till the event, training preparation was not optimal.  I prepared a training plan for all of the members of the team, but I think only a few followed.  Eventually we would narrow the teams down to just three (which is still amazing).  We had one team that we thought could compete for the overall title (named “The Fast Fishbowlers”) and then two others that were evenly split to compete against each other.  We were so excited for the event that Fishbowl ended up sponsoring it and hosting one of the exchange points.  You can read a fun blog post about this by Fishbowl’s amazing copywriter, entitled “Fishbowl Runs More Than Inventory Software.”

One final hiccup worth mentioning came three days before the event when one of my team members (The Fast Fishbowlers) twisted his knee playing football and we needed a quick replacement (really, we needed one asap and he had to be quick otherwise we may not have a chance of winning).  After calling several friends to take the spot, my cousin was available.  He was a high school cross-country star who hadn’t run much in the last year while at college, but he would do just fine.

Race Day, Leg 1

Our team was in the last group to start (they had groups of teams leaving every 30 minutes, starting with the teams that had estimated their times to be the slowest, followed by faster teams).  I would be the number three runner (running the 3rd, 9th, and 15th legs).  This runner had the most hills and the furthest distance to run.  Yay!

Our first two runners did amazing and as I took our baton we found ourselves in second place, however, we were 6-minutes behind first place!  I had a lot of work to do over the next 4.9 miles.  I took off at a blistering pace just under 6-minute miles.  I got the pleasure of running along Wasatch Blvd in Salt Lake City, down towards Cottonwood Heights.  This has a great view overlooking Salt Lake Valley.  Honestly though I was not focusing on the view.  I had to worry about a running that was right on my tail, literally.  I could hear him breathing.  About a mile into the run and after passing 2 teams that must have started before us, this runner caught up to me and was now pacing off of me.  We were still running just under 6-minute miles.  As we neared mile 4 the pace was taking a toll on me and I decided that saving myself for the next leg would be more important than keeping up with this other runner.  The last half mile I slowed to about a 7-minute pace.

Right before finishing my leg, however, I passed the runner whose team had been in the lead.  This means I made up 6 minutes on him!!  We still remained in second place due to the runner that passed me.

Leg 2 – The Hill

Over the next six legs The Fast Fishbowlers passed over 60 teams that had started before us (including passing up the team that had passed me).  As I prepared to run my second leg there were only a handful of teams in front of us.  Because of our late start time we were running the fastest and thus in first place overall.

My leg would be considered one of the hardest of the whole course.  This was a 3.3 mile run up the north side of Suncrest.  There is no flat section, just up hill, 1200 ft!  I had run this a few weeks before to know what it was like and it took me 33 minutes.  My goal was to do it in under 30 minutes.

One of the most important aspects of this leg is mental strength.  It would be practically impossible with my current training to run the entire leg and not walk, so I set goals for myself before I could walk.  An example is when I wanted to walk I looked at my watch and said I’d run x more minutes and I wouldn’t stop until I got there.  Then I only allowed myself to walk for 30 seconds and then got going again.

The hill itself was not the only part of mother nature that had to be overcome, but the heat.  It was now in the upper 90s and only just after noon.  I wore white sleeves and a white cooling beanie to try to reduce my temperature.  When wet these items really helped to cool myself, but they would quickly dry off.

As I neared the last portion of the hill, and one of the steepest, my legs burned with agony.  They were feeling my sub 6-minute effort from earlier in the day.  I pushed harder though to reach the top, finishing in just under 31 minutes.  I was very happy with my improvement.

Leg 3 – The Other Hill

Within two more legs we had completely overtaken all the teams.  It was now up to us to not get lost over the last third of the course and maintain our lead.  Our team did great!  We continued to put time into the other teams.

My last run would be turn out to be the hardest.  My efforts in the first two legs would come back to haunt me.  This was was 4.5 miles, first with a steady downhill and then flat for a mile and a half.  The next mile and a half was two hills with a very brief flat portions in between.  The last mile and a half was flat, then a very steep downhill (almost uncontrollably steep downhill), then once again a brief uphill before descending a few hundred yards to the finish.

All went well until I started up the first of the hills.  My hamstrings were shot!  I had run this portion several times in training and never needed to walk.  It was all I could do to keep going though.  My team offered amazing support by stopping every few hundred yards to offer me water.  I hated it because I knew they were watching me and I couldn’t walk when they were watching.  I hated it because I just wanted to walk.  It was good for me though.  I walked for several brief moments up the second hill and then tried to go hard the last 1.5 miles (“hard” was a very relative term by this point).  Even though there was a lot of pain, I gave it all I had and I was very pleased with that.  I’m glad I got to help my team.  I also finished my last leg at the Fishbowl-sponsored exchange point.  It was fun to finish with all of the encouragment from so many other employees from such a great company.

Finish

The last for runners on our team finished strong and The Fast Fishbowlers won the inaugural Rivalry Relay in 8 hours, 13 minutes.  Next year we’ll have to do it under 8 hours!  It was a lot of fun to be a part of and encourage others to run in the event.  You can read another fun, brief recap of the event on the Fishbowl Blog: “Orange Trumps Red and Blue in Utah’s 1st Rivalry Relay Race“.