Paper: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution
Title: IN THE SPOTLIGHT: RUNNING: A race with a sense of humor

Atlanta teams laugh their way to strong finishes in Oregon's Hood to Coast Relay.
Date: September 7, 2001

        Runners generally don't smile, except at the Nationwide Insurance Hood to Coast Relay.

        The country's largest relay and one of its most unique running events, Hood to Coast isn't easy. Runners from 1,000 teams of 12 take turns pounding through the night until they've covered 195 downhill miles from Oregon's Mount Hood to the rugged coast.

       What takes the edge off that misery is the competition's sense of humor. How can you be too upset when the team passing you is called Twisted Blister, the Pale Kenyans or Tanked & Spanked -- and the rest of their team is in a van decorated with inflatable dolls?

       Teams from the Atlanta area apparently put more thought into their training than their team names. Elite men's and women's teams from the Atlanta Track Club entered simply under that banner; the men finished second in 16 hours, 51 minutes and 9 seconds (a mile pace of 5:11), and the women second in 22:20:49 in the late August race.

        The ATC masters team, which finished third in its division in 19:30:02, got a bit more into the spirit, calling themselves "Older But No Wiser" -- a play on their average age of 46 in the over-40 division.

       But that moniker was tame compared to the winning team name,  which like many of the other clever double entendres is more suitable for listing on the Playboy Channel than in a family newspaper. The bawdy name competition was inspired by a team at the first relay in 1982 that named itself after body parts.

       Other metro teams: Team Testosterone of Norcross (19:39:52), Out of Thin Air of Marietta (24:33:49), Shiitake Happens of Peachtree City (25:39:43), and Atlanta's If You Tap it They Will Come (27:38:28).

       Every team comes home with lots of stories because of the inevitable snafus involved in jockeying 11 runners in cargo vans (so they can stretch and sleep) to the rendezvous points -- in the dark, cursing at cellphones that are way out of range. Runners make wrong turns; vans leave the wrong runners behind.

        ATC runner Maggie Visser, huddled in her sleeping bag in the dark, grabbed a piece of cheese out of the food bag. "It wasn't until she'd nearly finished it that she realized why it was so hard to chew -- she'd forgotten to take off the paper," said team captain Carole Rivera.

       "It's a moving community through the night, and it's just nuts," said ATC captain Michael Strickland, who outkicked the third-place finisher by 22 seconds. Runners averaged 15 to 18 miles, but because of the sleep deprivation and start-and-stop travel, describe it as more grueling than a marathon.

      "It sounded crazy but it sounded fun," said Kirk Rosenbach of the ATC masters team. "Ultimately that was my experience."

      Already the Atlanta teams are planning to return. They don't have long to think about it. Next month the race opens 2002 registration, and Hood to Coast fills in a day.