Photo Gallery 2

The second rotation

By the time Patty received the handoff from Sara, the full moon was almost directly overhead, and made for some very pretty nighttime running. Patty continued her steady running through the Sonoma county hills and negative split her second leg while the moon shimmered over the small ponds along the course.

While Patty was running, the other runners in Van 1 were making friends with other teams. One team, possibly in the "military" division, saw us roll into the exchange with our cool van banners, walked up to the van and said, "So YOU'RE the Artie Party, eh?". Noticing that this was a perfect set-up line, Artie responded, "Sure, I'm Artie, and this is my party!". The military boys were not amused by the joke, and said "Well, you guys are starting to piss us off." (Hmmm, we must have been doing something right in order to impress them, and I think it must have been our stellar running).

Who were these guys? Van 2 had been constantly talking about the "Marines" during their runs. As far as Van 2 knew, they *were* the "Marines", a team which was clearly ahead of The Artie Party at every exchange, but a team that was seen at every van exchange. Whoever they were, they were not pleased that the Artie Party's Van 1 had leapfrogged ahead of them during the second rotation.

As the early morning settled in, the Van 1 runners were methodically cranking out the miles. Ted seized the opportunity to have a cool moonlight run, and cruised down the Sir Francis Drake Blvd. without a flashlight at a 6:05 clip. At the next exchange, there was Mark from team #84 again ready to do battle with Corinne. Ted gave Corinne a good enough lead to hold off Mark, but unfortunately Corinne made a wrong turn out of the exchange and Mark made the best of it to charge ahead.

While Van 1 was having fun and making friends, Van 2 tried to grab some brief shuteye at the exchange in Sausalito. Unfortunately, few of the Van 2 runners managed to get a wink. There wasn't much time to sleep, as the Van 1 runners were making good time as they made their way through Marin county. Dave Hill surprised Artie with his solid run into exchange 17, and Artie kept up the team's pace through Sausalito. At one point in Artie's run, Mark's team van (team #84) was parked at a turn to make sure their runner made the turn OK, but Artie got there first. In the spirit of Relay camaraderie, Mark directed Artie to go straight (up a steep hill) instead of making the correct turn. "Up the hill, Artie, straight ahead!", yelled Mark. Artie's response: "Yeah, right."

The run over the Golden Gate bridge was truly breathtaking: a golden moon shimmering over the Pacific on one side, the sparkle of the city lights glistening over the Bay on the other side, and no one else on the bridge at 3 AM in the morning! Ah, what a moment, if only it could be captured and bottled!

Dave Polidori's second run of the night had some interesting moments through the Sea Cliff area of San Francisco. Van 2 decided to follow Dave until he got out to the Great Highway, so he wouldn't get lost. In the process, a disgruntled resident came out to talk to the runners in the van, and during the conversation, Dave continued on ahead and managed to take a wrong turn! He fairly quickly recovered and put himself back on the right track, so not much time was lost. The disgruntled resident was complaining about all the hornhonking and other noise he had been hearing through the night, but also commented on how nice and quiet The Artie Party was. When he approached the van, with hair sticking up, and wearing old sweats, no one was sure if he was some drunk about to ask for spare change or what...

Van 2 was accompanied by the team's mascot, Bern the Bear. Bern stuck his head out the window and cheered for the Van 2 runners as the van drove by. Bern's presence helped the Van 2 runners complete their second rotation just as it started to get foggy and windy around the Crystal Springs area.

Meanwhile, the Van 1 runners hung around Stanford and caught a quick nap at the workplace of one of the Van 1 runners, while another decided to sleep at home (since we were in the neighborhood, anyway). Van 1 didn't sleep much either since it was almost daybreak, and Van 2 was putting in some great runs.

One of the highlights of the Van 2's performance was the awesome running of Jolyn Warford, who turned in some of her best runs ever in a Relay. Her great runs were all the more impressive when you realize that she spent the early part of the season suffering from injuries so significant that she had to miss the Jasper-Banff Relay this year. Through hard work and cross-training, she ended the season with a very strong showing with our team. Way to go, Jolyn!

By the time Sara finished off the running order with a cool run around the familiar confines of Canada Road in Woodside, the air was crisp and the sun was rising just above the Skyline fog.

The team was rolling right along, and everyone was still in good spirits!

(Continue to Photo Gallery 3)