Paper: Spokesman-Review, The (Spokane, WA) Title: LIFE ON THE RUN< FOR A WEEKEND, 12 STRANGERS FROM NORTH IDAHO LIVED OUT OF A VAN, SLEEPING, SWEATING AND EATING TOGETHER. WHY? ALL IN THE NAME OF A ROAD RACE. Date: September 5, 1999 Living in a minivan with five strangers for 30 hours. Running through heat and darkness. Sharing portable toilets with 12,000 sweaty and often nauseous runners. Snatching sleep in five-minute increments. Dining on bagels and bananas. It sounds like hell, so why am I so grateful I participated in Oregon's Nationwide Insurance Hood to Coast 195-mile relay last weekend? Let me explain.An interview for a story about three dedicated Coeur d'Alene marathoners introduced me last December to Don Witulski, Judy Shannon and Keke Stoesser - the Three Amigos. We spoke the same language. Words like endorphins, euphoria, intervals and fartlek (speedwork) were comfortably sprinkled into our sentences. Race finishing times were admired and appreciated. We wanted to run together, but schedules got in the way. I'm a solitary runner anyway, and don't often seek company. Months passed and the Three Amigos had dimmed in my memory when I heard Don's voice on my answering system. He was inviting me to join his Hood to Coast relay team, the Lake City Leggs. Bizarre. The Leggs had run the relay in 1998. Six of the 12 runners weren't returning. Don was on the hunt for replacements. I was flattered and intimidated. My impulse was to decline. I'm not a joiner. But instinct said otherwise. My youngest daughter was leaving for college in the fall. My training for empty-nesterhood included mingling with people outside my family. Why not start with a 24-hour, round-the-clock running relay with 11 people I don't know? Don's enthusiasm was irresistible. Hood to Coast was the brainchild of Bob Foote, a high jumper for the University of Oregon. After college, he ran ultra-marathons, but they weren't enough. In 1982, he organized a 165-mile relay race from Mt. Hood through Portland. Eight teams competed. The race was crazy. Runners ran on busy streets and highways. One exchange point was on the traffic island of a busy Portland intersection. Nevertheless, the race evolved into the nation's largest running relay. This year, the course stretched over 195 miles, from stunning Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood to Seaside, a town with an inviting stretch of sandy beach and frothy surf. It was limited to 1,000 teams with 12 runners each and attracted competitors from nearly every state and Great Britain. A second thousand teams were turned away. A friend of mine had run the relay. His smile as he described the grueling experience convinced me that he'd somehow graduated to a higher plane. I wanted to go there. Don was delighted. He's a master of organization. He found sponsors - primarily Idaho Forest Industries - to help with costs, which exceed $3,000 with van rentals, housing, team jackets and running singlets and race registration. He required nothing more from his teammates than $100 each, commitment and good spirits. A team meeting in June introduced me to everyone. The group was friendly and seemed competitive without being intense. I was relieved. The cross-country route is divided into 36 legs. Each runner on a team runs three legs - from 3.9 miles to 8.2 miles each. Runners of the first six legs ride in one van; the second six runners ride in a second van. Maps provide drivers directions to exchange points and descriptions of the course conditions. Several major exchange points include grassy areas for sleeping. I was the eighth runner. Don, driving Van 2, picked me up at 8:30 a.m., Aug. 27. Our van included Keke, Judy, Neal Leen and Jan Berdar. The day before, we'd all had jazzy runners temporarily tattoed on our right calves. Van 1 started the relay at 3:15 Friday afternoon. Our van didn't start until about 7:30 p.m. A roaring sinus infection subdued Judy more than I'd ever seen her. Still, she prodded quiet Neal into painting her toenails bright red before she slipped into a nap. Conversation quickly drifted from getting-to-know-you to current injuries. Neal had torn his left quadricep in speed training. Don's back was bad. Jan's Achilles tendons were acting up. Keke had just recovered from stress fractures in her hips. Something was loose and painful in my right hip. No one wanted sympathy or hinted that an injury would prevent running. The van was stuffed with ice, dry ice and ibuprofin of every strength. This group was prepared to run. By the time we reached Timberline Lodge, I knew these people better than I knew most of my colleagues, and I liked them. The Mt. Hood parking lot was a sea of minivans proclaiming team names - Sworn to Run, Cardinal Sinners, 12 Butts a Draggin', Hood to Comatose, Slugs with Feet, Scrambled Legs and Achin'. Compared to other teams' hand-scrawled signs, we were a class act. Our reflective lettering was professional and noticeable. But gloating wasn't cool. The first few runs were straight downhill and knee-killers. The relay continued along a busy highway where speeding semi-trucks sprayed runners with dirt and debris, and rocked them with 70 mph winds. The race began for our van in Sandy, Ore., about 165 miles east of the Oregon Coast via the running route. Adrenaline and nasal spray had dimmed Judy's headache, but she still freaked after a race official announced that no runners could leave without nighttime reflective vests and flashlights. Judy had neither, and our No. 6 runner was heading into the exchange area. We scrambled, and outfitted Judy before all the blood drained from her face. She didn't lose a second. Forty-five minutes later, she was speeding toward an exchange with me. I was a bouncing bundle of nerves and adrenaline, precariously close to exploding. Don wanted to feed that energy and prodded me to try GU (goo) - a gel-form carbohydrate boost. I washed down the vanilla paste with water a minute before Judy tagged me, then burst down the dark road as if someone had stuck a firecracker in my shorts. Within a mile, I was heaving and wheezing and doubting I'd live through my first short leg. The darkness was unnerving, the oncoming cars frightening. And then it ended. I handed our team bracelet to Don and fell into the waiting arms of my team, swearing I'd never GU again. Every exchange was crowded with excited runners, sharing fruit and kind words, tips on the course and injury advice. Just about every out-oftowner got lost in Portland. We found Keke, our last runner, just before she finished. An hour of sleep in the weedy Columbia County Fairgrounds parking lot, halfway to the finish line, hardly refreshed us for our second leg. Judy's head hurt so badly, Don considered pulling her from the race. She refused, used some nasal spray and took off at 4 a.m. with Don running beside her. By her second mile, she was singing country songs. Three miles in, Don jumped in the van, confident Judy would finish. She handed off to me in the deep darkness before dawn at the start of several miles of hills. The forested area intensified the night. My tiny flashlight didn't help much, and then it went out. Passing vans illuminated the road, but not for long. Three miles in, the road turned to gravel. I ran on faith or delirium, trusting I wouldn't twist my ankle on rocks or step in a hole. Other people were warier. They slowed, picked their way through the tire ruts. The nighttime temperature was perfect for hill-running. Despite the conditions, I was exhilarated when I handed off to Don, as if I'd defeated an invisible enemy. An hour later, I was so groggy, my head bounced off the window as we drove toward the next exchange point. An 8 a.m. dip in the chilly Nehalem River, about 60 miles from the finish, washed off our sweat and dirt. Don was brown from racing five miles on gravel. He and Neal swam. Keke, Judy and I sat in the water in our shorts, enjoying the cold on our tired muscles. Jan slept in the van under team jackets. A breakfast of string cheese, bagels and bananas and a 45-minute nap fortified us for the last leg. We knew from our accumulated time that we wouldn't win any medals. ``Take it easy and enjoy,'' Don generously advised us. No one listened. Twenty-four hours and seventeen minutes after we started the race, Keke crossed the finish line on the beach at Seaside. Thousands of runners and spectators cheered every finisher. We hurried, limping and aching, across the merciless sand to finish with her as a team. ``Lake City Leggs from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, welcome to Seaside, Oregon,'' the announcer shouted for the whole coast to hear. We hugged, ate, danced and celebrated until 11 that night. The streets were filled with hobbling runners - not a moment to recruit new people into the sport. But an enviable clarity radiated from just about everyone. Tired as we were, we didn't want it to end. Lake City Leggs finished 10th of 58 teams in its division - mixed teams over age 30 - and 136th overall. We left Coeur d'Alene strangers and returned home fast friends. We're already planning for next year.