Our determined Boulder Road Runners team earned the Hood To Coast Relays Men’s Super Masters (age 50+) course record covering 197+ miles in 20 hours, 39 minutes, and 43 seconds, an average pace of 6:19 / mile (or 39:00 per 10K). The result also put us 17th overall among the 1,200 team field.
BRR members who took on this HTC challenge: John Borthwick, Ian Berman, Flavio De Simone, Rick Granquist, Jason Hect, Kevin Konczak, Mike Mallon, Chris McDonald, John Prinneas, John Probst, Todd Straka. Glen Mays was out for the run, but crushed with the team as a full-time driver.
With 8K+ feet of elevation gain and 14K+ feet in elevation loss, the route runs like a roller coaster. It took an all-in, all-time, effort from each team member to overcome heat, headwinds, red lights, a wrong turn, dust cloud-covered gravel roads, sleep deprivation, and traffic jams throughout the second third of the race.
Cresting a four-mile long climb with 1K feet of gain at 1 am on leg 20, we were over 10 minutes behind plan. The team dropped some sub 5:30 mile splits and pushed hard to finish within 29 seconds of our race plan to earn the record.
Three days before the race we lost a key team member to injury becoming an 11-runner team. Reworking the logistics added complexity, risk, and reduced rest time. Like we do, our team trusted in each other and rose to the occasion.
Shout outs to the race organizers and the army of 5K+ volunteers it takes to produce this remarkable event. The camaraderie and positivity of everyone involved reminds me there is a lot of good in our world.
Special thanks to two teams – “Making America Fast Again” and “The Geisel Geese” – for advancing our hitchhiking runners to exchanges further on when our vans were stuck in exchange traffic.
