The Fabulous Fifties Withering Force team composed of 12 Northwest runners, all over the age of 50, competed in the 2004 Hood to Coast relay race, held on August 27 and 28, finishing in a time of 21 hours, 59 minutes, 2 seconds. Our team finished second in the supermasters (50+) category, averaging 6:42 per mile, and 41st overall out of the 1042 teams competing in the race. Hood to Coast is the largest relay race in the world.
For the second year in a row we finished second in the supermasters category to the Aging Heroes of Eugene, Oregon, yet our time was fast enough to beat the first place masters (40+) team. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get older.
The 196-mile race starts at Mt Hood's Timberline Lodge and finishes at the beach at Seaside, Oregon. As usual for this race, there were race-induced traffic jams on the
back roads headed to the coast and plenty of interestingly decorated team vans filled with tired, sleepy, and smelly runners. I wonder what the locals think of this crazy parade of vans and runners.
Each team member ran three of the 36 legs of the race. I ran my first leg (leg 8) at Friday midnight on the
back roads east of Portland. My second leg (leg 20) was on the dirt roads in the coastal hills northwest of Portland early Saturday morning. My final leg (and my final legs) was on the country roads south of Astoria Saturday afternoon. Altogether I ran about 16 miles and stayed awake 38 hours straight. I am not sure which was more difficult.
Our team coordination of vans and runners was excellent. Never did a runner come into an exchange point and not find the next team member ready for the hand-off. We did suffer a slight detour on leg 12 when Tim Oguri got lost in the heart of industrial east Portland at 3 AM. It wasn't his fault; the course was not marked and no volunteers were present to direct the runners through a maze of side streets. Tim stopped at a convenience store to get directions, but the clerk had no idea what he was talking about. Fortunately Tim was awake enough to flag down a taxi and ask the driver which way to go. The taxi driver pointed Tim in the right direction and although Tim came into the exchange point from the north instead of the south he lost only 15 minutes in his wanderings. It could have been far worse.
Our team consisted of Scott Piper (team captain), Charles Crompton, Steve Israel, Jim McGill, Ray Leone, Mike Chicka, Greg Boeh, Greg Beyerlein (my brother and the fastest member of the team), Steve Hamilton, Ron Taylor, Tim Oguri, and myself. Scott, Charles, Jim, Tim, Ron, and I all ran on the team last year.
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