Not So Bright on the HTC

Some Last-Minute Madness Goes a Long Way.

was lying on a floor mat in a high school gym in the small Oregon town of St.

Helens, trying to get some much-needed shut-eye. At least 100 other people, including my teammates Linda, Dave, Erin, Rayne, Tom, and Francesco, were sleeping nearby. It was remarkably quiet, but every few minutes, the silence was broken by the muted piping of a wrist alarm. A groggy head would arise and murmur to teammates, and another group would gather its sleeping bags and pad into the night, soon to be replaced by the next batch of newcomers.

We were two-thirds of the way through Oregon’s Hood to Coast Relay Race. Even though everyone in the gym had already run nine to 12 miles, the collective adrenaline was almost palpable. In a few more hours, we would be on the beach, having finished a race that generates nearly as much excitement as the Boston or New York City marathons but which is so long that even the winning teams take the better part of a day to complete it. My own team was well ahead of schedule, but we still expected to spend 28 or 29 hours on the course.

The Hood to Coast is the world’s largest relay. Held annually since 1982 in late August, it draws more than 1,000 teams. Even so, slots fill quickly; this year the organizers turned away 700 teams.

As the name indicates, the race (lovingly dubbed “HTC” by its fans) begins at the tree line on 11,200-foot Mount Hood and ends on the beach at the coastal community of Seaside. En route, it traverses 197 miles of alpine splendor, oldgrowth forest, and coastal hill country. It also runs directly along Portland’s waterfront and spends 20 miles following the Columbia River to St. Helens and its school gym.

Teams are comprised of 12 runners and two drivers, although in a pinch, runners can serve as their own drivers. To reduce congestion, teams start every 15 minutes in batches of 20 to 25 teams. That spreads the start across an entire day,

with the fastest teams leaving late but finishing first. Each runner does three legs totaling about 16.5 miles; individual segments range from four to eight miles.

It’s a concept that easily lends itself to riddles and guessing games. What has 36 legs but only 24 feet? A Hood to Coast team! How many portable toilets are needed for an all-day event with 12,000 runners? If you have the energy to count, you are not running hard enough!

BLOOD AND GUTS AT THE FRONT

At the front of the pack, the HTC is extremely competitive, drawing teams from all over the nation. A few hours after I left St. Helens, the Foot Locker Elite team from Portland would upset the Bucknell University Alumni team (from Pennsylvania), winning by a scant five minutes at an average pace of 5:10 per mile. The winning women’s team, from Princeton, New Jersey, would average 6:21 per mile.

Upsets are an important part of Hood to Coast history. The most famous, in 1986, helped draw the media attention that has converted the race into one of the Pacific Northwest’s most prestigious events. That year, shoe-manufacturer Nike fielded two teams, unimaginatively named Nike A and Nike B. The A team was stacked with the best runners Nike could find; the B team got the also-rans.

Nobody minds being an underdog. But being relegated to the B team felt like being one of the last kids chosen for sandlot baseball, says B-team member Paul Mattson. He and his teammates were determined to prove that they were every bit as deserving as their A-team counterparts. Calling themselves the Killer Bs (because they were going to kill the As), they not only met their goal—they won the race. The following year, they were back, proving that their first win wasn’t a fluke.

For most teams, simply finishing is victory enough. Only one of my teammates had ever completed the HTC before, and most had never run a race of any length.

Former marathon great Alberto Salazar, who was on the winning team in 1993, 1994 and 1995, estimates that giving the HTC an all-out effort is roughly comparable to going all out on a half-marathon (13.1 miles). The legs are shorter, but on a fast team, you are running every four or five hours. By the third leg, Salazar says, you are stiff and tired before you start.

Back in the pack, it’s considerably easier. Many people do the HTC on about 20 miles a week of training, at speeds not much faster than their normal training runs. Nobody on my team cared whether I ran 6:30s, 7:30s, 8:30s, or a good deal slower. “The slower you go, the longer we get to rest!” our captain, Erin, said in a tone that was only half-joking.

Even so, as the appointed time neared and Rayne, our leadoff runner, headed for the start, our entire team was energized.