Texas Independence Relay (Another one)

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Almost a year ago the race promoter begins travelling 'round the state and various races promoting the first ever TIR (Texas Independence Relay) which celebrates Texas' independence from Mexico. Race is 204 miles from Gonzales, TX where the fight started and ends at the San Jacinto monument in Houston where Texas gained their independence. The fight started in Gonzales over the canon (in the upper pic and a replica is shown below). The Mexicans wanted it and the Texans ( a group of about 30 men) told 'em "Come and take it". That was the race theme as well. The race is broken down into 40 legs and we had 10 "veterans" (over 50 Male) on our team so as to run 4 legs each. Below is just before leaving C.C., TX for the 3 hour drive to our hotel in Flatonia, TX. The first pic is in the little museum waiting for the start of the race. Teams started between 6 a.m. and 1 p.m. based on their estimated finishing times. We were seeded 9th and started at 10:30 a.m. There were some sandbaggers!<br><br><img alt="" src="http://i27.tinypic.com/33o1isl.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br>
The cannon is about the size of a baseball bat in length, about the diamater of an litre bottle at the firing end,and the opening is about the size of a raquetball. They shot metal balls about the size of marbels, nails, rocks, etc out the cannon for ammo. The replica cannon was fired periodically starting some teams. They wouldn't for every team because they said it took 5 lbs. of powder each time it was fired.<br><br><img alt="" src="http://i25.tinypic.com/2ni5rg6.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br>
My first leg was leg #3 and was 7.78 miles on country roads without vehicle support. I have been running hills twice a week for 6 months but at mile 3 of this run, as I looked up I thought about a stair way to heaven. Geesh. And at mile 5 -6.5 ran up two hills I swear was above timber line. There was a lone pine tree in the distance on top the hill and I began to think about the Ponderosa and Little Joe. My time was 1:02:56. Temps in upper 70's and high humidity. Some cloud cover and small tree shade and it was welcome. At the beginning of this leg a group of wimmins come talk smack to my team after the start of my leg. They were the"Not our runner; he just ran a 3:13 marathon". They laughed and said "well she just ran a 3:50 in her recent triathlon". My team tucked their tails between their legs and slithered back to the van. Later we found she made up 3 minutes on me. Carp! Had 3 road kills on this leg. Below is the recovery shuffle to the van. I'm in the orange fleet feet cap.<br><br><br><img alt="" src="http://i32.tinypic.com/35lynb5.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br>
Colorado Runner (see next to bottom pic) then bets me a beer she will beat me in our next leg which is leg 13. It is approx. 4.5 miles. I decline as I don't drink<img alt="biggrin.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/biggrin.gif">. This leg is beginning of dusk and is run on hilly 2 lane hiway. My support van pulls up and instead of asking if I need fluids or help; they ask if I want to know where Colorado runner is and laugh. I say no as I don't want to run scared. She beat me by exactly 1 second on this leg and we don't see each other anymore.<br><br>
The 2 pics below is a bar, pool hall, dance floor, etc where we had one exchange point. Town population was debated fiercely. It was either 20 or 21. Typical Texas.<br><br><img alt="" src="http://i31.tinypic.com/2myydkh.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br><img alt="" src="http://i25.tinypic.com/jr7d3l.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br>
Leg 3 for me was #23 and was on highway 71 S and was again just over 4.5 miles. It was pitch black save for support vans and our flashlites. Temps down to 59 degrees, humidity had dropped, and the hillls were minor. Flew thru this leg.<br><br>
Leg 4 was suppose to be #33 but I traded my short 4.5 leg for a 6.5 leg and threaded thru Memorial Parkway in Houston. This leg was all rollers up and down and it never allowed legs to recover.<br><br>
One runner couldn't mentally go for his 4th leg so I got a 5th leg and it was the 38th. Again it was 6.5 miles and my slowest in 7:25 per. I got passed for the first time by a young male runner at about 3.5 miles in. This was the most rewarding though as I picked him off with less than a mile to go and he had nothing left.<br><br>
I ran 5 legs totalling 30.31 miles, avg'd 6:58 oa., and picked off about 30 road kills. Our team finished 14th oa. with an avg. of 7:51/mile. Our predicted time was 26:42:00 and we ran 26:40:16. There were only 2 teams of male veterans; us and a group who had to be minimum 70-80 years old. Only 1 male master's team 40 and up. We won o.a. masters by 9 seconds over 204 miles. The "Colorado Running Co." wimmins finished 4th oa. 127 teams entered and 88 finished under the cutoff.<br><br>
Below is the San Jacinto monument where we finished.<br><br><img alt="" src="http://i32.tinypic.com/mbtp47.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br>
Below is the the Colorado runner . Anyone know who she is? I'd like to know.<br><br><img alt="" src="http://i28.tinypic.com/2ihm736.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br>
The end.<br><br><img alt="" src="http://i32.tinypic.com/2njvk8o.jpg" style="border:0px solid;"><br><br><br>
Here are our pics from this race. I'm always in an orange cap.<br><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/4m_pictures/" target="_blank">www.flickr.com/photos/4m_pictures/</a>.<br><br>
Here are final results.<br><a href="http://www.texasindependencerelay.com/csv/2008TIROfficialResults.pdf" target="_blank">www.texasindependencerelay.com/csv/2008TIROfficialResults.pdf</a><br><br>
Texas Independence Relay website.<br><a href="http://www.texasindependencerelay.com/" target="_blank">www.texasindependencerelay.com/</a><br><br>
Sign up for the 2nd annual begins in April. The majority of teams were mixed and I think the majority of runners were wimmins.<br><br>
Thanks for reading.