GMR 2007

What else can I say about GMR 2007 other than it was a blast in a kind of sick way. Yeah you heard me. So grab your favorite beverage, put your feet up and enjoy my rendition of GMR 2007.

-The almighty van #1 before leaving

The adventure began when Barb and I waited for over 3 hours in line at Hertz rent-a-car to pick up our 2 12 person vans. It was nightmare! We waited in a line which went out the door and wrapped almost around the building. After hours of bitching, moaning and inching to the front of the line, we finally got our beasts. We made our way back to our condo where our team was patiently waiting for us while drinking our beer. After a couple of laughs and quickly scarfing down dinner, we went on our way. Big thanks to Jason for driving the all mighty van #1 to Madison.

Since everyone else has pretty much explained majority of the adventure, I am going to get into my legs and some other fun things.

Leg 4 (7.2 miles):
My first leg was a little intimidating because it ended up being my longest run of the relay. But I was pretty excited to get it started. I was so excited where I almost used all of my fuel in the 1st mile. The path was pretty cool because I got to run down a gravel path with old train and farming equipment followed by a tree covered path with many bridges. After the 1st mile I accidentally stepped in a gopher hole which messed up my rhythm and made my right ankle a little sore. But I kept going. Even though I got passed by 5 people, I thought things went ok. I did set my sights on a rabbit during the run which helped me maintain more of a consistent and steady pace. When I finally caught him, we ended up going back and forth till the end. I did all 7.2 miles in 1:06:42 with an average pace of 9:36/mi. I was pretty glad to have Josh and Jason run me in at the end because I felt like I had nothing left for the last mile. Let me just say when it was over, I was very happy!

-The Pass off! GO LISA!

-Brothers from different mothers?

Leg 16 (3.5 miles):
My second leg was awesome and the main reason why was because Van #2 was complaining to us that we were going to fast and that we should slow down. You are welcome Van #2. So, after Leah passed me the slap bracelet, I was ready to go and kick some ass. The first 2 miles were on a paved running path which was a straight shot and pretty boring. The best part of it was the sunset. I gave this leg my all. Once I got to the end of the path, the original map they gave us with the route was not really that accurate. I booked it under some pretty scary bridges with a ton of graffiti until I got to an almost completely dark wooded area. While running on this street, I was almost hit by a car racing along which pissed me off but it made me go faster. I was hustling until almost directly in front of me was a deer standing in my path. I stopped for a short time and just admired it. The deer looked back at me and then went on its way. It was kind of like that scene in the Queen. It was pretty freakin sweat! After that my legs felt great and I pretty much did strides to the next transition zone where I handed the bracelet off to Lisa. This leg, I did 3.5 miles in 31:00 minutes which was awesome.

-Mike to Lisa

After van #1 finished our second leg, we were all pretty beat. So instead of finding dinner, we headed for St. Andrews Lutheran Church to get some shut eye. Since I was driving the beast at this time and pretty freaking tired, I swear I almost drove the van off the road many times. When we were getting close to the church, I thought we were home free until we saw a bunch of cars stopped in front of us. We ended up hitting a freakin freight train, which I think just started to pass when we got there. I thought I was going to freakin cry, because I was so tired. I thought everyone in Van #1 was going to lose it. I texted barb to let her in on my frustration, when things started to go even more down hill. The freakin train stopped and started to go backwards. Once that happened barb called me and I let her know what was going on. Once I said that it is now going backwards she began to laugh, which my response following was a sudden disconnection. I wanted to kill her for laughing at van 1's frustration. After 15-20 minutes pasted, the train pasted and we made it to the church. Van #1 got lucky because we found what we believed to be the last room in the church (room #7). Even though the ground was hard and the room was cool, I definitely got some good sleep from it. It was a sad moment when we had to leave it.

Leg 28 (4.1 miles):
My last leg of GMR was not really that stellar. It actually really sucked. The course itself was beautiful, but very poorly marked. I became running down a hill overlooking the lake in Kenosha, Wisc in the early morning. My legs felt amazing, even thought I was pretty tired. I continued running along the lake path which kind of started to get a little confusing. There were many forks in the road, which made things a little difficult. So I pulled out my map and did the best I could. And that really didn't work out so well. Since I realized that I was off path, I saw a cop on a bike and I asked for help. He looked at me like I was a moron, and then was like "sorry, I have no idea." So after calling my van which I used some colorful words with, I somehow found my way back on path after about 5 minutes of being lost. Originally I was pretty excited about this leg because it looked like it took me to the edge of a pier. Jokingly, I kept saying to my van that I would be walking on water. But yeah, not so much. I basically ran out on a dock which had construction everywhere. While coming back from the edge of the pier, I got pretty pissed because I saw a runner take a short cut. But oh well. They cheated themselves from the full 190 miles of fun. The remainder of the run was not exciting at all. I just wanted to get it over with. Once I got to the end, another fork in the road happened. There was the fork, and an arrow pointing to the middle. By this time I was pretty fed up, so I followed another runner in, which ended up being the wrong way. I was pretty glad when that was over! It took me 41 minutes to complete 4.12 miles.

Once Van #1 was done kicking ass and taking names, we headed to IHOP for breakfast. We were freakin starving, especially since we haven't eaten since lunch the day before. I wonder if that’s why my last run sucked so badly.

Once breakfast was over, Lisa who I believe was the best beast driver got us from Gurnee to downtown Chicago. She has some mad skills behind the wheel. I would have lost it if I was driving that thing in the city. Once van #1 made it to the finish line, we celebrated our victory by having a celebratory beer which then followed by waiting for van #2 to finish.
Overall, this experience was amazing. I couldn't have asked for a better team and even a better Van. Van #1 rocks! Van #2 is not so bad themselves.

Random rants/sayings during the relay:
-Jesus take the wheel (Over and over and over again)
-Toby take the wheel

-Next time instead of using a slap bracelet, we should just use a stuffed cat!
-Lets pimp our van using Persian rugs and tassels
-Jesus take the wheel