paul reed

This past weekend (September 15-16) was the 8th Reach the Beach Relay (RTB); a crazy event which involves teams running 210 miles from Bretton Woods to Hampton Beach through the back roads of New Hampshire.

I’ve wanted to do this race for a couple of years, but good teams can be hard to get on and it hasn’t fit in with other things I’ve been doing. Only a week before the event this year, due to injury, I was asked to fill in a spot on Kicking Asphalt — a team comprised of people who informally run out of Marathon Sports. With nothing else planned for the weekend, and already in training for the BAA half, I jumped at the chance to participate.

Typically teams consist of 12 people, split into 2 vans. Each van does 6 legs back-to-back then hands over to the other van for the next 6 legs. There are 36 legs in total, consequently each runner does 3 legs with a total mileage between 15 and 20 miles depending upon which position they’re in. Teams can be men’s, women’s or mixed, and can consist of fewer than 12 runners (but you must run in order no matter how many people you have). Teams of less than 6 people are considered an ultra team (and are quite insane!). We had 7 men and 5 women, putting us in the Men’s Open category.

Rather than starting all 300 teams together, each team is allocated a start time based on their projected pace. This ensures that everyone arrives at the finish some time on Saturday afternoon, no matter what their pace. I’m sure this helps out with logistics on the course, and certainly makes for better spectating towards the end. Our start time wasn’t until 2:30pm (projected pace 7m04), which turned out to be the second from last start, with only 4 teams starting behind us. The slowest teams were to start a full 7 hours before us at 7:30am! It still boggles my mind that we could possibly catch (and in many cases pass) these early before the finish.

So, on Thursday we headed up to Bretton Woods, where we had a condo for the night. I was in the late van piloted by John which left Brookline after work. The early van was leaving closer to lunchtime, and would pick up our evening meal which had been graciously cooked by Beth’s Mom! We arrived at the condo, after an uneventful drive, dinner was ready and everyone was in good spirits for the next day. We feasted on spaghetti and meatballs, nice fresh salad with homemade dressing and garlic bread. All washed down with Gatorade and water!

Joel had a fire going, and we sat around watching Caddyshack for the 1,000,000th time (and it’s still funny!). It didn’t take long before people started to drift off to bed, and the marshmallows didn’t even see the fire … maybe next year!

The next morning, we started to stir around about 8am, brewed up some coffee and hung out eating breakfast, playing Catch Phrase, wiffle ball and watching the runners head up the first leg which you could just see from the deck. John and Dom did the team captain duty and went over to the start to do number pick-up, safety equipment check, and attend the team briefing.

Around noon we made our way over to Bretton Woods where the start was. We hung out and watched other teams do leg 1 — a 3 mile loop up and down one of the ski runs! I was the 5th runner in van 2 (leg 11), so I wouldn’t run for quite a while. This was an opportunity to cheer on the other teams and generally relax.

Finally it was time for us to start, and Joe kicked it off with exactly 7 hours already on the race clock! After the short, but steep first leg, he handed off to Beth at T1. One down, 35 to go! We said congratulations to Joe, and good luck to the rest of the team as they piled into the van to get to T2 before Beth.

Van 2 headed into North Conway to pick up something to eat at D’Angelo’s and some additional headlamps at EMS for the overnight legs (we had 2, but it would be easier with 2 per van to avoid having to hand them over). Around 5pm we made our way to T6 the first vehicle transition area (or VTA1) at Echo Lake. When we arrived there were a couple of dozen other teams hanging out waiting on their runners to come in. Teams came and went, and we started to recognize vans and runners that we’d be running through the night with, trading places as we caught up with the slower teams who started before us.

About 5:30pm van 1 called to say they that Joel had just started leg 6 and that they were on their way to VTA1. They arrived in good spirits having had a good 6 legs — no injuries and everyone still smiling. Joel handed over to Bill to start our 6 leg stint. We piled into the van and headed down to T7: we were finally off!

Bill handed off to Lauren (after being passed by Team Google 4 and, in his words, “Googled”), Lauren to Dom (after running through a forest trail in the pitch black), Dom to Heather (after being stopped in his tracks by porcupines!) and then finally at 9:20pm it was my turn. My first leg was supposed to be a 5.5 miler; the first 1/2 mile being uphill, then a steady downhill for the rest. At this stage we were the 2nd or 3rd last team on the road since all the faster (later starting) teams had already passed us. So I left the transition area fired up and ready to start catching people. Before the uphill was done I had passed one team which left transition a minute or so before us, the next team was a long way ahead but was determined to take some time out of them before I was done.

I turned the corner where the hill was supposed to stop only to be faced with … yet more hill. Huh? It was pitch black and my headlamp only illuminated so far up the road, but I could see that it wasn’t over. After another 1/2 mile of up, things finally flattened out but my pace had slowed enough that the runner I had passed earlier went past me. I dug in, determined to get my pace back, and about a mile from the transition I drew up alongside him again. We chatted and I thought I’d just stay with him until the transition, but he was fading so I pushed on past. I pulled into T11 with 6.1 miles showing on my Polar, and handed over to John for leg 12. My pace for the (longer than anticipated leg) was a respectable 6m24.

John’s leg wasn’t too long, and we knew he’d be quick, so we made our way to T12/VTA2 to meet van 1 again. They’d been for a swim in Echo Lake at VTA1 and had dinner at Flatbread in North Conway, which at that point sounded like luxury! Herein lies the ongoing “van-envy” that seems to be part of RTB; the other van always seems to have easier legs, run at better times of the day, stop at better transition areas, have more opportunity for sleep, etc. Van 1 believes it of van 2, and vice versa.

From this point on, time begins to blur a little. We left VTA2 and headed to T18/VTA3 at NH Technical College. It was a long drive despite the fact that we took the highway rather than driving the course. When we arrived it was packed full of vans, and people were strewn around the lawns in sleeping bags and even a couple of tents. For me there was too much commotion going on to sleep and we felt like we should try to eat something substantial anyway. The local Girl Guides had setup a pasta and soup kitchen so we grabbed (more) spaghetti and meatballs. Lauren and Heather tried to sleep in the school but it wasn’t comfortable. Dom, John and I took the van and got maybe an hours sleep before we started to wonder when the other van was due and begin preparing for our next legs. Bill watched a little TV and paced the halls.

Van 1 pulled in at around 3am and handed over to us, with Bill ripping out another excellent leg to get us going. The legs began to fly past, with barely enough time to drive the course, stopping to give water/Gatorade or just a cheer to our runner, and get to the next transition area.

Around dawn (5:55am!), it was my turn again. When we pulled into T23 it was crowded. Over the course of our last 5 legs we’d been seeing many more teams and had started to pass some. I was fired up and ready to go again and blasted out of the transition determined to put in another good leg. This one was mostly flat or down hill, on a newly surfaced road, so it was ideal for getting into a good fast rhythm. I passed a couple of teams early in the leg and slowly reeled in another 3 or 4. Despite the fact it was dawn, there was a dense fog so you couldn’t see too far up the course to pace yourself. It was quite surreal to be running down a long straight road disappeared into the fog. I handed over to John after the 6.4 mile leg in 39m55, happy with the 6m20 pace.

T24/VTA4 was at Bear Brook State Park, where van 1 had spent part of the night. This VTA is known as Tent City and NEMO, one of the race sponsors, had setup 30+ of their tents to be used by the teams on a first come first serve basis. Joel had brought his own tent, so between that and the van they got a couple of hours sleep. This transition looked like a much better place to sleep than the school we had … or maybe that was just van-envy kicking it at 7am in the morning :-)

After handing over to van 1, we skipped the breakfast offered by the local VFD at that transition, and headed down to T30/VTA5 hoping hit a Dunkin’ Donuts on the way for a much needed coffee. Despite the fact that I was supposed to be navigating for Dom I kept drifting off to sleep. Thankfully, the course was well marked so he just had to follow the yellow course signs. Throughout this drive we were continuously passing runners and team vans pulled over giving cheers and support. It was quite a different scene to the dead of night where we saw almost no other runners and at most a half dozen vans in the transition areas.

The hunt for DD’s coffee on the way was fruitless, so we pulled into a petrol station to get our fix. When we arrived at VTA5 the parking was almost full, with maybe 100+ teams hanging out. It was madness. Ironically, we were greeted with free Starbucks (another sponsor) and the Girl Guides selling breakfast sandwiches. Needless to say we were well and truly awake shortly after arriving!

Despite this, time seemed to move very slowly waiting for Joel to come in. We were all pretty antsy to get on and finish these last 6 legs. The mid-morning sun had burnt off the fog and clouds, and we were all getting concerned about the heat. Eventually van 1 called to say they were on their way. Understandably they were in high spirits as they were done!

The last 6 legs went without incident. My 6.5 mile leg started at 2:17pm and was a relatively flat course so I tried again to keep my previous pace. Having sat in the van for 24 hours and not slept, my legs were tight and I couldn’t quite keep the speed that I wanted. Van 1 came out to give me en route support and some water, while van 2 headed straight to the last transition, T35. I passed numerous runners and teams and their support vans throughout my run which helped me push on. I hit the transition in 46m09, at a pace of 6m53 (I had a distance of 6.7 miles). Not as good as my previous two legs, but still below our projected average pace so not at all shabby.

At the finish area it was crazy — hundreds of vans parked up, the runners and other spectators crowded around the finish chute. As John came past us we all jumped in behind him to cross the line as a team. We were done: 210 miles in 24 hours and 58 minutes. What an experience!

Update The results are out! Official time was 24h58m21 at an average pace of 7m08. We came 12th overall out of 296 teams, and 5th out of 50 Men’s Open. As Jason said, we kicked some serious asphalt!