Rainier to Ruston Relay 2010

June 5th was National Trail Day!  I sure did my part to celebrate wonderful trails.  The Pacific Northwest has so many to choose from and what better way to celebrate to run a rail-to-trails relay with friends? 

Through running friends and friends of friends, we had our 6 person team all set and ready to go at South Prairie, Washington at 7:00 am for packet pickup of the Rainier to Ruston Relay a fundraiser for the Foothills Rails-to-Trails Coalition.  It was a really nice group of all masters (over 40, although we had a couple of grand masters too) with three men and three women and one husband who helped out by driving another car.  It's a just over 51 miles and divided up so each runner runs twice. 

After all the rain and cold we have had, it was such a relief to have such a gloriously sunny day.  As I waited for DB (runner #1) to come into Fairfax, we took time to marvel at the views, Mt. Rainer, the Carbon River and the gorgeous area that we live in.

Soon enough it was time for me to run!  According to the relay manual "Leg 2 is very rough and muddy and particularly challenging as well as isolated and should be assigned to stronger and more experienced walkers and runners." For some reason I had it in my head that this would be converted rail line on most of this trail.  I had emailed the director asking if trail shoes would be warranted and got a yes, trail shoes would be useful. Evidently I needed to ask if this section would have single track trail on it.

Boy did it ever!  After a short section on road and over a bridge, we turn a right and went under the bridge and started immediately on single track trail through lush forest.  The trail overall was going to be downhill from start to finish but this trail was along a river with many little stream crossings.  This always means a steep down, stomp through a stream/creek/rockbed/bog and climb right back out.  The mud was ankle deep in places and rocky and rooty.  While I'd been expecting a slower pace, I was not expecting to be doing a trail race.  Woohooo!

I was in heaven.  I tried my best to take peeks at the glacier fed river but all attention had to be for the trail.  I would not fall.  I would not fall.  I'd tweaked that ankle last week and I realized that the day of the race was the first morning I'd woken up with it not swollen.  I'd taped the ankle in preparation for the leg and had no problems.  It was so muddy that it was really slick in many places.  Slow going.  I had to stop to retie a shoe as I was going to lose it to the mud sucking bogs.

Over the section of trail, i very gradually passed a person here or there.  I believe these were mostly ultra walkers but there were a few relay runners as well.  I was not expecting to see any race officials but they did have a few stations set up to check on race participants and i was glad of that.  I have no doubt people took falls on this trail.  Good to know that there would be people around to bring help.  I heard a burro was set for emergency trail evacuation if some one was injured.  No really! 

After some miles, I finally did hit a rail trail. It was narrow and closely grown with brush and still marked with huge muddy puddles.  Faster running in here but I was still careful as the rail trail was fairly rocky as well.  I'd see people ahead of me really picking their way through the bogs.  Eh.  I tried to find the least deep section of mud and just plowed through.

I was at 6 miles and had been out running for far longer than expected.  I'd hoped team members weren't worried as they'd see other runners coming in covered in mud.  Nothing to do but keep running but then I realized I was coming up on what should be the exchange (6.3 miles) and there was nothing.  No indication that I should continue or if I'd missed a turn.  I could hear a road through the brush.  I stopped a few times to listen to see if I could hear an exchange and debated turning back as I knew I'd seen some trail access points not too far behind me. 

 I kept running but eventually doubted everything too much and came out to the road.  Then I saw a relay gal I'd passed earlier.  She ran up and I asked her if she was runner #2 as well and she confirmed.  She'd been told to continue on the road and the exchange was close.  Oh what a relief.  I took off and then saw M & JT in their car coming to check on me.  Yep.  I was fine just very, very slow for my almost 7 miles (not 6.3!). 

Trade off runners and then I got to take a bath trying to get my shoes off and into bags and clean the mud off my legs so I could get into a car.  All the next legs did great as it got sunnier and warmer.  It was just pleasant waiting around at the exchanges. We were going through an area that I'd biked before and is just flat, rural farmland.  I was very tempted by farm eggs and preserves but next time!

My next leg was run around 4 pm.  It was hot and sunny and windy.  So windy that at times I felt like I needed to lean into the gusts of wind.  However, if I hadn't had that wind, I'd have been dealing with high humidity and sun.  It was hot! 3.6 miles and basically gradually downhill (it wasn't noticeable at all).  I'd hoped to run pretty fast along here but I think the trail miles and heat got to me.  I ran 8 flat and was all out whooped and glad to be done running.

As the course continued closer to Tacoma, we were along an interesting section of the Puyallup River.  Very sandy trail which would've been difficult to run on and according to JT, there was a huge foot deep puddle of some size covering one section.  Yep.  We'd had a lot of rain and I believe the course organizers were worried they'd have to reroute the course because of it.  It all worked out.

Runner #5 (KK) had a tough course where it was poorly marked (they ended up on train tracks!) and then was running through a busy highway into Tacoma.  Yuck.  He did befriend an ultra runner and said that this gal whom he ran with most of the way was running Western States soon.  Good luck to her. She came in second place 50 mile female division I believe.  We had a nice time hanging out on the waterfront at the Museum of Glass.  It was extremely picturesque.

Last runner out and then we hit the traffic heading towards the waterfront.  Not only was it a gorgeous day it was also prom night and all the restaurants were full.  JE (runner #6) said he didn't have too much trouble dodging pedestrians and was extremely sorry he didn't have any cash to buy an ice cream from one of the push cart vendors!

Yippee!  I believe we finished in about 10 hours although I'm not certain.  After much calculation and staring at the board, we thought we were third master - mixed team.  EO showing her driven side (2 time IronMan finisher) got us our railroad spikes which were the prize.  Pretty dang cool!  

we had dinner at a local restaurant and made the trek back to Seattle.  Long, long day but well worth it.  Rainier to Ruston Relay and Ultrarun is a really nice event.  I believe it grew 100% this year from last and there were no troubles other than some crowded conditions at a couple of the exchanges.  there were some issues with course marking that I hope they fix.  I don't believe it could grow a lot more and that is part of the charm.  And there is no way you can beat the scenery on this one.  Stunning!