Winners Best Team Name: Four Score and 7 Blisters
Number of media hits for the name: 3 (NBC news, Washington Post, and the Record Herald)
Total team distance covered on foot: About 200 miles
Distance (gmaps) between Gettysburg, PA and Washington DC: 83 miles
Time at start: around 30F/OC (brrrrrrrrrr...)
Time at finish: 92F/33C (too fucking hot...)
Length of Bruce Springsteen concert: 2h50 (faster than my last half. Click on link to see my review.
Most photographed man on the course: The Man having a smoke. (Courtesy of Matt who is probably not going to read this.)
I hesitate to call this a race report because, honestly, the least interesting thing about this was the actual running. The course had a lot more hills than I'd imagined. It was definitely challenging for the weekend warriors among us, doubly so if she has a propensity for Oreos. I come away knowing that it is as important to learn to run down the hills as it is to run up them, and that I probably should have downgraded my skill level to easy.
But let's back up a bit, about a year ago. Karen, who needs to get her ass back to blogging, posted about looking for members for the American Odyssey relay. I hopped aboard. She said she needed men on the team so I volunteered The Man. It's a 12-person 200+ mile relay from Gettysburg to DC (not a direct route) run over 36 hours. Because that's not challenging enough, we decided to throw in unknown group dynamics with 12 people who, for the most part, knew only one or two people on the team. You know what... it was so much fun. I'd do it again.
The vans loaded up with folks, drop runners off at one point and pick them up at another while dropping off the next runner.
This is the gang from Van #2: From left: Me, The Man (not smoking), Katie, Juliet, Jaqualin and Cheryl.
And Van #1: From left Matt, Taryn, Jeff, Karen, Ann Marie and Dan.
Leg 19 which started around 1 a.m. found me running along some very
secluded farm land. The van would disappearing around a corner, or at
the bottom of a hill. Creepy. (It's not evident where you can pull over even
along these roads.) Yet, every runner that passed (happens a lot),
every van and every car asked if I was ok. The entire race was like that, there was definitely a sense of community among the runners. It was so much a race, it was more of a big group run.
Back to the night run, I would have run all night.
Peaceful yet I was happy to see the van. I'd love to try that loop again when I wasn't worried about unseen potholes and cracks in the road. Reminded me that perhaps I need to get back into early morning runs. The running was hard overall, and I walked most of my last leg because of the heat. It was 95F, my hands were like sausages, and well, running made me wheezy. Felt bad that The Man had to waste his last run with me, still I was glad to have him there.
What I will remember is an amazing fun, kind, hysterical group of people, who made the most of a 36 hour period to make the most of what is a really silly situation. I'd run with all of these turkeys again in a heartbeat. Although I hear Van #1 found some sweet sleeping spots in the battlefields among the snakes and the cannons. (That reads like a misplaced Leonard Cohen line.) Bring your own blankets.
All in all, I think I did ok sleep wise. Pre-leg 19, both vans meet up that "oasis" at a high school in Boonsboro. The idea is that all the runners meet up at this high school and can interract. Unfortunately, it's sort of a carnaval atmosphere with a lot of noise. After dusk, what runners really need is a quiet spot to rest. I had a much better time at Transition 11-12 where we chilled. (I think it would make more sense to have the oasis there.)
But back to Boonboro. I pay $15 for a 15 minute massage. I would have gone for longer but it's all I have in my wallet and I can't track The Man down to raid his cash. Still I reckon at most he'd have had, was about $100, which is still not nearly long enough. The massage helps my very sore quads/shins. I can face the 5.5 miles in the dark. Wandering out somewhere betwen Zen and zombie, Karen stops me.
Karen: Nat, you need sleep. Come sleep in our van. The Man's in there.
Nat: I just had a leg massage you should go do that. Why is The Man in your van?
Karen: Because he needs sleep too. Come on... I'll come get you when Taryn leaves for her 3.3 miles.
I settled into the driver side van. Karen finds a blanket and tucks me in. I think we may have had a short chat. I look over. The Man is smelly, and drooling -- soundly asleep.
Nat: You know we're totally having sex once you leave.
She gives me that "you didn't just say that" look, shakes her head and closes the door, 30 seconds later I was asleep. Awesome.
I'd hold the no-dead of night runs thing against Team 1, but I am pretty sure I slept through a lot of the night. I have these huge gaps in my memory. For instance, at some point we were looking for the transition between Jaqualin and Katie, The Man and I were both asleep in the van. But it seemed to me that we were lost in an odd Twilight Zone kind of place where the darkness seemed to permeate everything -- and we didn't seem to be going anywhere. I'd wake up every few minutes to try and help, but I couldn't shake sleep ... but it didn't seem we'd gone very far. Yet clearly we'd been moving all along. (Cue eerie music here.)
Some guy handed me toilet paper at a portapotty in the middle of the night but I don't know where... or who was with me in line. Katie perhaps? Was it near the canal at the last transition... I just don't remember.
I learned that way way way before sunrise the roosters start crow.
The gas station attendant in some burrow along the way sent us to a Menonite bakery that made the best cinnamon donuts EVER. I think they may have been suitably scandalized by our lovely smell/dress combo.
We drop pick up Katie. Jeff, The Team captain, points us to a closed outlet mall. It's early morning, near a highway. We all drift off for two hours and wake up around the same time.
Gang of slow poke that we are. We had to skip a few legs, and The Man and I ended up stranded for about an hour at the end of our last leg while our van ran around dropping the next team off. (Luckily the volunteers left us water.) Lesson learned -- planned which routes you'll skip and make sure all vans are relatively near the runners specially at the end in case the other needs back up. I'm ticked. The gang wins me back. Slowly but surely.
We arrive in DC, wait for van #1 (stuck in traffic or something) at the finish and medal together. Get the snark out. We kiss and make up. Well, no one kissed Van #2 folks ... we really smell. Still feel like it's not quite done because of those two skipped legs.
Maybe it's an excuse for a resurrection of the team in a few years -- do it again with all these lessons learned.

Soon we've tidied up, and are sharing a huge Lebanese meal. Dan and I discuss cannons and fish, in the kind of conversation you find in David Lynch films. We meet Debbie, Mrs. Jeff, who is having us over for brunch. She packed us cookies. I love her for the cookies. I love this gang. I miss them so...
We sleep the sleep of the dead. (Hence why we got the king size bed.)
The decisions taken over brunch to follow...