Hood To Coast Relay

This was an interesting race. I had a great time, but the people are really what make relay races fun.
Most folks wouldn’t find being in a van without sleep, baths, or much space for 30 hours as your team relay runs from Mt. Hood to Seaside, OR not much fun, but with over a 1000 teams, we have somehow convinced ourselves that it is!
After running a few Ragnar relay races (same approx 200 mile distance; different cities) I’ve got to say that I really appreciate that Ragnar is more organized than HTC.
HTC is huge. The race has been around for 33 years. With that long history, I figured that they would have this race planned out pretty well, even considering that the course sometimes has to change a little… but they could use a lot of work.
The exits and entrances to our relay exchanges (passing the team bracelet to the next runner to run their 4 — 9 mile leg) were not conducive to be efficient and my team got stuck in traffic to the exchange so thick, that I actually ran PAST them; met the other team van to pass my bracelet to their van’s runner… and ended up running a mile BACK to jump in my van and sit in traffic with them. But the worst was yet to come…
But first, the volunteers were terrific. Instead of relying on course signs like Ragnar, they had volunteers physically waving you through – to let you know you were on the right path. It was HOT during the day and neighborhoods had people set up on their lawns to cheer us on – and spray us down with hoses as we ran through. It felt amazing during the hottest legs of the race.
Here’s the awful part. Last leg of the race. One poorly schooled volunteer forced my van team to take the trolley into Seaside from their parking spot almost a little over a mile away. The trolleys were so full, they missed two rides. So I ran into the finish line… and my team wasn’t there. The other van’s team was there but weren’t expecting me for a bit. Later, we found out that you didn’t have to take the trolley in, according to another volunteer :/​
It’s a beautiful race, but it’s a one-​and-​done kind of event. Check it out if you live in the area! I wouldn’t recommend traveling for it like I did.

Heaven.
1000 teams.
197 miles.
24 hours.
12 people teams.
7 cups of coffee
3 Snickers bars
1.5 hours of sleep.
1 Volcano
1 Beach
0 meals.
I’ll be back.