Reach The Beach

Hampton Beach, NEW HAMPSHIRE--The 11th Annual Reach The Beach Relay is in the book! And what an event it was...great weather, great teammates, and fresh legs. We finished 193/400 averaging 8:17's for 200+ miles (finish time of 28:40:38). The "other" acidotic RACING entry in RTB, acidotic X (Capt'n by Kurt Hansbury), beat us by only 11 minutes. It's worth noting that this was the first RTB for each of them making their victory over us even more impressive. Our 12-person team had 4 newbies and Erik ended up pulling a 4th lap when Bobby John went down with a hammy he suffered within the first 100 meters of the start of the race! Our group (Van #2) laughed the entire way from Cannon to Hampton thanks in large part to RTB lifer Nick and his RTB virgin wife Sarah. My face actually hurt at one point from smiling so much. Guess I need to do that more often. Karen was tough, as usual, and actually ran faster as the race went along. She claims the cooler temps were the difference, but I think we both have learned a lot in the past three years of the event with regard to pacing, nutrition, and resting. It was great to have Kevin, and his calming leadership, back in our van again. And of course Capt. Rousseau did not disappoint...once again. If there's ever someone you can count on to hammer hard for 28 hours it's Matt. He ran 6:09's for his final 2.0 mile leg. We barely managed to arrive at the TA ahead of him. Finally, I felt as good at this event as I ever have. The two doubles a week for the past two months paid off. Zero health issues, minimal soreness, and only a little leg weariness during my last 2.2 miler. My times were 42:06 (6.61 miles @ 6:22 pace), 1:06:15 (9.23 miles @ 7:16's), and 12:52 (2.2 miles @ 5:51s). Q: With 3000 something runners from all over the country spread out over 200 miles what are the chances of running with someone you know? A: Pretty good if it's Reach The Beach. With approximately 2 miles left in my first leg I caught PR Racing's Chris Benson and slowed to run with him 1.) because I didn't want to kill it the first leg and have nothing left for the other two and 2.) it seemed like bad mojo to catch him, chat with him, and then leave him in the dust. Not real neighborly. It actually helped the last few miles fly by very quickly. Chris is a great runner and doesn't mind the chatter during RTB. Turns out I saw him a number of other times throughout the rest of the event but never had a chance to run with him again. It was great to see so many acidotic RACING teammates representing us at this fantastic event. Here are the teammates that raced to the beach this weekend; acidotic RACING: Karen Dunn, Kevin Burt, Matt Rousseau, Nick Lavoie, Sarah Lavoie, Erik Roy, Marc Lesniak, Tammy Hickey, Ron Pelton, John "Bobby" Keely, Austin Stonebraker; acidotic X: Kurt Hansbury, Scott Graham, Dave Burns, Steve Sprague; and lastly Steve Wolfe, Rich Lavers, Jay Myers and Liz Hall racing for other entries. And thanks to our great friends at Redhook we enjoyed some cold beers at the finish!

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