Paper: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Title: RUNNING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN THE ROAD WARRIORS
Date: August 28, 1999

Summary:  17,400 Hood to Coast participants are en route to Seaside


Friday morning dawned Oregon fresh -- all peaceful and dewy and sweet smelling.


And that was the end of that.


Before noon:


* Stinky, sweat-drenched runners gushed like snowmelt down the flanks of Mount Hood.


* Perspiring pedestrians powered through Portland.* A minivan caravan -- each of the approximately 2,900 vehicles jammed thigh-to-thigh with bare-legged grown-ups eager to spend 24 hours in one another's close company -- rolled west.


The world's largest relay race had landed.


Combined, the Hood to Coast Relay, Portland to Coast Relay and Portland to Coast High School Challenge put 17,400 runners and walkers on the roads of Northwestern Oregon in what has become, in its 18th year, one of the state's most outrageous and energetic summer events.


Those who survive the heat, muscle cramps, blisters, togetherness and eau d'exertion will cross the finish line today in Seaside, where as many as 65,000 athletes and onlookers are expected to dip their toes in the sand during the state's biggest beach party.


Friends, relatives, co-workers, strangers and more than 4,000 volunteers watched Friday as the endorphin-driven parade passed through such towns as Zigzag, Welches, Linnton and Warren along the route from Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood to Seaside on the northern Oregon coast. This morning, they will muscle their way through Mist, Birkenfeld, Jewell and Olney before they feel the breeze off the Pacific Ocean.


For most of the 1,450 12-member teams, the trek takes about 24 hours; elite runners and race walkers, however, will pass far more swiftly. For instance, the gazelle-like men's elite running teams are expected to complete the 195-mile Hood to Coast course in about 16 hours and 40 minutes.


Depending on the distance of the segments they run or walk, each athlete covers 10 to 20 miles during the relay, with just enough time in between for legs to grow stiff and sore. They're up all night, or catch catnaps using a teammate's shoulder for a pillow. They snack from coolers jammed behind their van seats. Out of necessity, they stand in long lines just for the joy of using portable toilets.


The relay -- which filled up fast and turned away 1,000 teams this year -- engenders a spirit of camaraderie rarely found in road races, participants say. It was evident at 9:30 a.m. Friday, when the first runners bolted across the starting line in the Timberline Lodge parking lot. Their teammates lined the course and chanted along with clock-watcher and race announcer John Hammarley: "Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One."


The whoops and hollers were so loud no one could hear Hammarley say "Go!"


It didn't matter.


They were off -- some for fun, some for fitness, some for the benefit of their egos and some for good causes large and small.


"Ego is not the right word," said Jack Saling, 68, of Troutdale, who leads the Gold's Gym Super Seniors team of 11 men and one woman. "It's a feel-good thing for us to do it, and we seem to be a source of inspiration for others on the course."


Last year, one of Saling's teammates showed his aging mettle: Al Nakata, 76, finished the relay even though his pacemaker malfunctioned. He has a new one for this year's relay.


Early out of the starting gate Friday were the Road Goddesses, a women's team from Eugene, which hoped to raise awareness and $12,000 for the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund.


The Goddesses, most of them teachers, feel a strong emotional tie to Amy Frohnmayer, daughter of Lynn and Dave Frohnmayer, president of University of Oregon. The Frohnmayers have lost two children to Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disorder.


Sharon Schuman, Amy's violin teacher, stood at the starting line Friday under a hot, hazy sky and showed off the glittery letters that stretched from her thigh to her ankle: "4 Amy, Fight Fanconi Anemia," they said.


"For us," Schuman said, "this race is a race against time. Amy's healthy now, so she's an ideal candidate for gene therapy. But we need money for research. If we don't learn more now, she could die."


Four teams of breast cancer survivors hit the course Friday -- one running team and three walking teams collectively called Christine's Dream, in honor of Christine Workentine of Albany, who founded the team several years ago. Workentine, whose breast cancer has spread, is too ill this year to participate, but the teams said they will keep her in their thoughts as they travel toward the coast.


The runners among the survivors' group call themselves Peg's Legs, in honor of their friend and fellow runner, Peggy Taylor, who ran Hood to Coast with them for a couple of years before her cancer grew too debilitating. Taylor, who lived in Corvallis, died this spring.


Hood to Coast proves a powerful event for the survivors, said Cyndi Levine, team captain.


"We share stories, we share sorrows, we share fears -- and some pretty trashy jokes," Levine said. "We show each other our battle wounds, our scars. It's a lot of hours to spend together, and we get very, very close. We're very compassionate toward one another. . . . It feels like we're a bunch of warrior women heading out."


You can reach Katy Muldoon at 503-221-8526 or by e-mail at katymuldoon@news.oregonian.com.