Photo Gallery 3

The third rotation

After Patty received the handoff from Sara, Patty continued her Relay tradition of negative splitting her legs. It appeared that the Galloway marathon training program was paying off as Patty made mincemeat of Whiskey and Sand Hills. As the team rolled into exchange 25, the team greeted the first of our three volunteers, Max McFarland, who was managing that exchange. Max had told us that he was given the task of being in charge of the exchange upon arrival, without any preparation or explination of what was going on, and within minutes was able to mobilize the other volunteers into a well-oiled unit. Max had truly earned his cookies.

Meanwhile, Bob Nee continued his fine running through Stanford and into Palo Alto. At the exchange in Palo Alto, we were again greeted by the "Marines", but this time they were prepared to do serious battle with the Artie Party. One of them was flashing a marking pen that was poised to sabotage our team's van banner, and was about to draw an "F" in front of the name "Artie". Fortunately, another one of the "Marines" complained loudly to the saboteur that the marking pen was a special one he owned, and that he needed it for his editing jobs at work. Whew, that was a close one!

While Ted was running, the sleep-deprived team had to think hard about what insults we wanted to hurl at Ted during his third leg as the van drove by. So, we positioned the van at the Los Altos/Palo Alto border and delivered our first feeble attempt: "You run like a gerbil!" yelled Bob, as a puzzled Ted looked on. We agreed that it wasn't enough and didn't quite have the impact we intended. So, we turned the van around and gave Bob a second chance at redemption. We caught up with Ted again, this time Bob was prepared: "You run like your mother!" he yelled. The van agreed that this second time was the charm, and Ted responded with a stunning 6:01 clip through Los Altos and Cupertino. Ted gave Corinne such a good lead that Mark (team #84) never stood a chance of catching her.

At exchange 27 in Cupertino, we happened to meet up with Kris and Guy, whom Patty and Artie (and Sara and Jolyn) teamed up with at the Hood to Coast a couple of years ago. Once Kris and Guy saw us and our van, they knew what to look for. "Where's the cookies?", asked Kris.

Corinne, Dave Hill, and Artie had some tough work ahead: the major climbs of Stevens Canyon, Redwood Gulch, and Highway 9 were some of the hardest legs of the course. Corinne surprised everyone with her very fast running up to the dam. Dave Hill made a strong ascent up the Gulch, and Artie managed a few roadkill on the way to Skyline. The team had a real shot at finishing in less than 24 hours!

After the exchange at the top of the Skyline, Dave Polidori screamed down the backside of Highway 9 at almost a 6 minute clip! For the next two runs, Jolyn and Stuart decided to swap places in the running order so that Stuart could greet spouse-to-be Lisa Conger at exchange #34 where Lisa was volunteering for the team. When Jolyn checked-in with the volunteer at exchange #32, she gave her name: "Stuart Tripp." The volunteer asked, "What's that name, again?" Jolyn responded, "Stuart Tripp". The puzzled volunteer wrote Stuart's name down, and must have thought that the sleep-deprived Relay runners were becoming delusional. Jolyn received the handoff from Dave Polidori and continued the quick pace down the mountain.

Stuart's run through Ben Lomand was something special. As he neared exchange #34, he was not only greeted by Lisa, but his daughter was also there, cheering "Go Daddy, GO!". The sight of both of them nearly brought tears to his eyes.

At that exchange, Mark was determined to do something about catching the "Marines", since they still looked like they were ahead of our team. Mark mentioned to Dave Polidori, as the "Marines" team made their handoff, that he would catch that guy and put it to rest once and for all. The "Marines" had about a 3-4 minute lead on The Artie Party, so Mark had his work cut out for him. After receiving the handoff, Mark was "bookin" through Felton. When Mark made the cutoff to the steep hills of San Lorenzo Ave., he saw someone (actually many people!) who had reduced their run to a walk going up the hill. Then up ahead, Mark noticed the "Marines" van had pulled into someone's driveway, and one of the other teammates was running back downhill with a water bottle to help their runner in pain. That finally put a cap on them, and some of our team members were quite happy at the top when we noticed this; we didn't see them again until we were standing past the finish line in Santa Cruz.

Dave Mull continued the climb up and out of the rock quarry, and was greeted with a beautiful clear ocean vista as he made the descent towards Santa Cruz. Sara capped off the Relay in grand style, with a very nice run through the streets of Santa Cruz and onto the beach, where the rest of the team joined her across the finish line wearing the team colors. WE DID IT!! At the finish, there were highfives and hugs all around!

Our finishing time was 24:09, and we almost beat 24 hours! Not bad for a team who was just out there to have a good time. And the times we had will be remembered for quite a long time. (Well, at least until next year!)