Bourbon Chase Race Report

First off, Thursday night I had to take a friend to the ER because he has 2 new born pre-mature infants and his wife had to stay home with them. I thought for sure he was in for an appendectomy the way he was bent over and writhing in pain. It turned out to be very bad intestinal colic. So I was in the ER with him until 2:30am. Got home & slept from 3-9am. I thought great I'm already down a few hours on sleep.

We left Lexington at around 2pm Friday with our projected start time to be around 3:30pm as we were the second group of runners. Our 6th runner actually had to wait on us for 5 mins as we were late. My first leg(leg 12) started at around 9:30pm. My first leg was a 5.7 miler into downtown Danville which was a slight climb the entire way. Somehow I ended up lucky enough to run in nothing but a few sprinkles which was pure luck. I pickedoff around 18 runners on my first leg. I ended up with an average pace of 6:21 for the first leg which was a touch too fast considering that I still had 14-15 miles to run. However, I felt pretty good nevertheless. We then went to a couple of hotel rooms which we had reserved in Danville, ate a meal, took a shower. and got 2.5 hours of sleep before our first runner was up again. We headed out at about 2:30am, Saturday to make our next exchange point. At this point I was very tired so I tried to catch a few zz's at each exchange point and to prop my legs up to alleviate any swelling. My next leg(leg 24) was at 7:30am or so and it was a hilly 7.6 miler to Woodford Reserve which was probably the most beautiful run that I have ever had. Reminded me of the Pitbull Run only prettier. I passed another 15 teams on this leg. Somehow I averaged around a 6:45 min pace despite the hills and being tired. To be honest, I felt better during this leg than any other leg. Taking off that 25seconds a mile made the run feel alot easier. So then we headed back to Lexington, for some food and rest before our next legs which started at around 12pm. I actually, came back to my house ate and showered. At this point, I didn't rejoin the team though as my last leg and the final leg of the relay was over in Mastersonstation Park which is less than 1 mile from my house. We decided I'd rest alot better at home, and I got my neighbor to run me over to the exchange zone. I arrived about 30 mins before my exchange was to come through so I was able to see every team I had a chance to chase down. When I came in at Woodford we were just the 4th team to come in... granted the times were staggered on projected pace so its not like we were first. Still that made it more exciting to possibly be the first team to cross the finish line. Something was odd about this exchange zone though it was way farther back in the park than the maps indicated. My final leg was to be 6.6 miles, but I found out at the finish it had been 7.8 miles due to misplacement of the exchange. So I ran a total of 21.1 miles which was 2 miles more than any other runner. Anyway, about 9 teams came through while I was waiting. To my dismay 2 of them were elite teams so there was no catching them of course. Anyway, I got my handoff and hoped I had saved something. The final leg went right by my house so I new the course very well. I pickedoff 5 teams on my way to downtown Lexington. I ran a 6:31 paced final leg. I was pretty stoked that all 3 of my legs were under 7 min miles. I figure I averaged something in the high 630s so that's really fast for me.

Another surprise was that we finished second in the Corporate division and only missed first by 3mins and 10 seconds. Too bad we were late on the first exchange or we might have won.