The weekend of March 23-24, the Sweatbanded Heathens embarked upon their third year of conquering the Texas Independence Relay. This year our team consisted of Jeff and I, Michael, Lisa, Charles, Tyson, Curtis, Susan, Shelley, Vicente, Bradley, and Katie. Pat, Nikki, and Natalie were our driver. We headed to Gonzales Friday evening. We stopped for dinner at Robert's in Flatonia. We checked into our hotel, got our race packet, visited, and got everything ready for the relay. Our start time this year was 7:30 AM. It was a very windy morning!!
I love our team!!
Pat and Nikki - the drivers
Sweatbanded Heathens
Tyson, Lisa, me, Bradley, Jeff, Shelley, Katie, Curtis, Vicente, Michael, Charles
Here we are lined up by our ages. The youngest on the left to the oldest on the right.
Since Jeff is our team captain, he got to light the cannon. Once he did, our 200 mile adventure began. We all ran the first mile together, then Jeff kept running the first leg.
And, we're off!!
I loved the Texas shorts, we may all need to invest in a pair:)
Jeff then handed off to Katie. Katie was our driver the two previous years. We told her last year that she couldn't drive anymore, she was going to have to run. She took the challenge and did AWESOME!! I am so proud of her!
Then Katie handed off to Tyson. Notice how Tyson doesn't have his bandanna on. He had to stop a little way down the road and get all situated.
Here he is getting all ready...
and he's off
The funniest thing that I want to remember about that run was when a girls hurt her ankle. Tyson passed her up and kept going. A little while later, the girl with the "broken foot" passed him up and he asked her if she was okay.
Tyson handed off to his Dad. This was his first year to run with the team and he did awesome!
Not it's Charles's turn.
If you notice, I have all kinds of black tape up and down my leg. About a month before the race, I hurt my leg/knee. I went to the doctor and he told me it was an overuse injury. It needed time to heal. He told me to let it rest, but if I did keep running, I probably wouldn't mess anything up. I tried letting it heal and would run once a week to see if it was feeling any better. Everytime I ran, it would start to hurt within the first mile. So before the race, I rested it for about a week and a half, hoping for the best.
Charles handed off to me and I ran my first leg. It started out okay, but them more I ran, the tighter my leg got. I almost felt like it was dragging behind me, but I accomplished my goal and finished my leg.
I handed off to Lisa, who ran into Flatonia.
Lisa handed off to Vicente. He is an ultra runner. This guy could have run the whole race by himself. He loves running and runs all the time.
Vicente then handed off to Curtis so he could run his second leg.
Not, it's Shelley's turn,
and Bradley's.
Stay tuned, more to come!
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