Tearing up the TIR

This weekend myself and 11 others from my office ran the Texas Independence Relay. The race is a staggered (slowest team first) start from Gonzales, TX near San Antonio to the San Jacinto Monument in Houston 203 miles away. These are the sites of the first and last battles in the Texas war against Mexico for independence, hence the name. That is also the start and end of my knowledge of Texas history.

The race had 40 legs, teams could be from 8-12 people (but there was one solo and a team of 3 ultra-marathoners also). Most legs were 4-6 miles and I did 4 for just over 20 miles this weekend. Everyone on my team did awesome and mostly beat their pre-race paces so we finished well ahead of schedule. Overall time was 31:51:30 and our trip took us through many tiny towns in country all through the day and night Saturday starting at 6:36am. Then continued with the long run across the expanse of urban Houston Sunday finishing around 2:30 in the afternoon. The race is non-stop so it is a challenge of both running and overall endurance to stay awake and active.

Some of the highlights were the general team bonding occuring from being only semi-coherent in the middle of the night, a relay baton presented to me when I finished the leg in Weimar from the town residents, having Houston PD stop traffic for me (and only me) to cross streets in downtown Houston, and seeing all the people I conned into this enjoying themselves and the challenge.

I think one of my teammates said it best earlier today, it was "miserable fun" we all look forward to doing again! Here is the least bad picture of myself while running (it really was a hill and not a crooked picture) from my camera. I'll post some team shots or other pictures later.