Five Years A Belle

Five years of this ridiculous race went by pretty fast. This year I was not the Captain, and oh gosh, that was nice. Every time something started to worry me: “Did someone do this or that? Do we have what we need? Was the thing finished?” I just stopped my brain in its tracks and said, “It’s not my job this year. Relax.” And I relaxed.

Thursday afternoon we begin decoration. It’s an important part of the ritual of this race. Our team is all women veterans, except for our drivers, who are two male veterans. We put photos of ourselves in uniform on our team vans. The photo of me is right before my 19th birthday, when I was still in school at Chanute Air Foce Base in Rantoul, Illinois in 1989. I like the photo because I’m cute and young and it captures an innocence and anticipation that I have a hard time finding inside myself these days.

After all six women from Van 1 race, Van 2 meets them at the fairgrounds in St. Helens to take over and give them a break.

Ours is a 120-mile relay speed-walking race from downtown Portland, Oregon, to Seaside, Oregon. So it’s called Portland To Coast. The course winds through the streets of Portland, then along the highway until it cuts off and dives into the very rural mountain towns and roads in the middle of nowhere. Simultaneously, there is a running race from Timberline Lodge on the slopes of Mt. Hood, through the city of Portland, to Seaside, Oregon. It’s more famous, and is nearly 200 miles, and is called Hood to Coast. Walkers and runners race at the same time. Teams are typically 12 members, and we take turns racing on prescribed legs that are mapped out by race organizers. These are 4- to 8-mile sections that we take over from another teammate, then go as fast as we can, until we hand off to another teammate.

This year was brutally hot. Friday was the worst, but all three days were desperately hot. I had a persistent fear for all of us, even though I wasn’t the Captain. I worried for my team, and everyone’s team.

If you note the two 93s above (one at 4:28pm and one at 5:14pm), I included them both to show that while I was racing (I’m the one right after Genevieve) on dusty gravel roads for about an hour and 30 minutes, my phone weather app said it was 93 degrees the whole time. My NOAA app said it was 99 degrees. A teammate checked the weather history the next day, and the source she found said it was 100 degrees. That is just too hot to safely race. So we all told each other to slow down and be easy on ourselves. No one on our team was hurt because of the weather, and I am so relieved.

Genevieve survived her leg and handed off to me, and I buckled down for some serious work. Even on a cool day, my first leg has always been this tough one: a 1,000 foot (304 m) climb on both paved and gravel roads. One of the highlights is that my course passes the country road to Dorion and Rebecca’s house. They are in my tribe, and also very good friends of Pedro and me. I always take a photo of the road sign, and send it to them when I pass. This year, they were both home and asked me to give them a heads up for when I would be passing by. They came out to meet me!

After lots of hugs and some selfies, I had to go. It was the best 5-minute rest of my life. I felt like a new woman after that, and able to finish the climb to my hand off exchange point.

Getting back to van decoration. Decoration is important because this race is ridiculously hard, and decoration is something that makes us happy in the middle of a bunch of yucky stuff. We are all crammed together for two days inside a single vehicle. We don’t sleep well, or maybe not at all. We don’t eat well – a handful of pistachios, some turkey jerky, some gummi worms. We are smelly and tired and hungry and grumpy. We are also physically working very hard. So why? WHY do we do this?

Because it’s nuts, I think. It’s for the honor of being able to say “We did that!” To make it more of a celebration, we come up with silly team names, and themes, and outfits. We shoot out bubbles, we shake cowbells, we make funny team flags to find each other in a crowd. Most walking teams do this. The running teams are usually more serious, but not all of them are. It’s a tradition to get as silly as possible.

• Teams this year included:
• Hot Mess Express
• Twisted Blisters
• Kiss My Asphalt
• Walky Horror Picture Show
• Red Hot Chili Steppers
• We Thought This Was A Potluck
• Cottage Cheeks
• Buns N Roses

When all six of us are done, we get to stop for 8 hours while Van 1 takes over again. During this time we have to drive to the next meeting point, and we all need to eat actual food. There are no towns. Do you understand? No towns, no stores, no cell service. We use cash and buy what we can find from churches and baseball teams and scouts selling things on the side of the road. We look for showers (Jewell School sells access to the high school gym showers and they are wonderful), we look for a place to sleep for a couple hours. We don’t all fit inside the van, so we choose from a couple of options where racers are allowed to sleep in sleeping bags on the ground.