Week 13: A Race Before The Race
The Tuna 200 Experience.
Week 13 was Race Week! No, not the Marathon like you’ve been reading about but the Tuna 200! What is it you may be asking? It’s a 12-person team, 206.3 mile race running from Garner to Atlantic Beach, NC. This event was a lot more than just a race, it truly is something that must be experienced as a runner, not something that can be truly understood from reading this meager blog. However, I will do my best to describe it further on down.
Tuesday: Run Before the Sun Track Training (10.25.2022)
“HEY! WAKE THE HELL UP!” My wife was yelling at me in the middle of the night! I realize immediately the room is dark. There was a sense of urgency in her voice that startled me. Instantly my mind thought someone was breaking into the house, but I didn’t hear the dog barking and weirdly enough I didn’t hear the alarm. I was confused. Why was she shaking me and yelling at me, I was just sleeping like a baby.
“Turn your damn alarm off!” she demands. I quickly realize the situation at hand. My alarm was going off and I never even heard it. It woke up my wife at 4:30am on one of her work days. I turn it off and suddenly realize it’s going to be a rough day. In an earlier post I explained the need for ninja like abilities to get up and not wake up my incredible, beautiful, elegant wife for my morning runs. Today was going to be a rough day.
I showed up to the track and met up with a few others from the club who were ready to train.
We knocked out 12 laps of training and called it a day. It felt great to be back on the track with friends after spending almost a month away. I felt comfortable on the track and felt good to be back running with people I know.
Results: 3.14mi | Avg Pace: 8’03"” | Avg HR: 149 | Best Mile: 7’23”| Feeling Happy
Wednesday: 5K with the Club! (10.26.2022)
It felt great to be back on the steps of First Street Tavern with my friends and back to a familiar route. Robert and I decided not to push ourselves too much tonight as we have the Tuna 200 Relay Race in just a few days. The pace was reasonable and we had a conversation the entire time. It was a nice, simple run to keep the blood flowing in the legs in preparation for the Tuna 200 and the following Marathon.
The group tonight included a few new faces and some familiar faces that I know rather well. I wish I had more time to talk to everyone who shows up, get to know them a little better and hear their running story. How they got started and how they found us. Running with friends truly is better!
Results: 3.11mi | Avg Pace: 8’43"” | Avg HR: 151 | Best Mile: 8’38”| Feeling Excited
The TUNA 200
I signed up the run club for this race back in May of 2022, mainly because there was a steep discount for signing up early. I’ve met a few people who had done this in the past and my friend Dave has done multiple relay races in other states, all of whom had great experiences with this type of race. It all sounded like something I wanted to do with my friends and thus our team was started.
We were a team of 12 runners and 1 driver/support runner who split up into two different vehicles. A 12 passenger van and a 8 seater Chevy Suburban. I found myself in the Suburban with Dave, Robert, Jon, Thomas and Mandy. It was a tight fit with all of our gear but it made for a great adventure!
The team met up at 7:45am at Lake Benson Park in Garner for the start of our race. It was great to see the entire team in one spot and we got our team photo before the start. I’ve never done a relay like this before so I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I was the first runner in the chute and was so excited to get started my first two miles were pretty quick.
I was responsible for three legs totaling 15.8 miles, that was my share of the total 206 miles. My first leg was 5.65 miles and included more than a handful of hills. With the excitement of the race my first mile clocked in at 8’31” followed by mile two at 8’34”. I finally settled down in mile three with a 9’05”. Overall I finished with an average pace of 8’59”, which was 16 seconds faster than the 9’15” I predicted for my portion of the race.
My van (Suburban) was full of great people, who never complained, dealt with the suck and ran strong on each of their legs.
There were 36 exchange zones along the 200 mile course. Each van had 6 runners and was responsible for 6 legs, then at the 7th exchange the vans met up and the other van started their 6 leg portion. Once one of our runners took off, we would drive down the road and hoot and holler at them, cheering them on. If it was a long run or had some tough uphill’s, we’d stop at the uphill and cheer them on. At each stop, everyone in the van would get out willingly and cheer on our runner. This happened in the daytime, at night, in the wind and in the rain. My co-runners would do this when they were tired or when they felt good. It was a team event and they really made it feel like a tight team!
The fact is, when I was running and the ‘Burb drove by and cheered me on, my pace would pick up an additional 30sec per mile. It felt good to know there were people cheering me on and expecting me to do good on my leg.
It started raining about 6pm and didn’t stop until the following morning. It rained on us all night long, thankfully temperatures hovered around 58F all night so it wasn’t horrible. Running in the rain wasn’t too bad, it as standing still in the rain that made it uncomfortable. I started my second leg at 5:50pm on Friday night and that’s when the rain started. It didn’t end until the following morning.
At some point during our van’s leg, we stopped at a church that was just absolutely incredible! They opened up their food-hall to all of the runners and there was an entire Battalion of men and women in there greeting people, cooking and serving! They had everything from baked chicken, Spaghetti, Chicken n’rice, biscuits, soup, country ham, sweet potatoes, chili, breads, cake, cupcakes, corn on the cob and more. All Home Made by hand! They didn’t ask for any money or donations. They were simply reaching out. Great Christian people doing great things! I wish I would have taken a picture of the inside. However, here is a picture of their flyer. I highly recommend making a donation if you can!
After the incredible meal at Snow Hill Church, we moved on to get our last runner Mandy as she made an incredible finish at around an 8min/mile! We gathered up and made it to the Comfort Fire Department to get our baked potatoes, hamburgers and hotdogs. After yet another quick meal, we went to our next exchange zone in hopes of a few hours of sleep.
The rain was relentless and with 6 people in a packed suburban, I decided to make a Lean-To with a big tarp I brought and some 550-cord. With the help of Dave and Jon, we got the lean-to setup using some handicap signs as our posts and some stakes from the privacy tent to hold down the other side. It was great, it kept out the ran and a decent amount of wind. I shut my eyes at 1am hoping for 3 hours of sleep. I set my alarm for 4am.
“WES IS ON THE ROAD!” said the text after the ding woke up me. I glanced at my phone and it was 3am! Wes is an incredible runner with great speed, he’d be at the exchange in about 30 minutes. Somehow I managed 2 hours in a quasi-sleep state, woken periodically by yelling people, van doors shutting and the consistent headlights blaring in our lean-to. Not sure why other runners thought it ok to shine into our lean-to. Anyways, up we got, packed up the lean-to and I got ready for my last run of the Tuna 200.
Yes, it was still raining. Yes the wind was still blowing, so off I went. It was a short leg at just over 3 miles and I wasn’t sweating it. At this point in my marathon preparedness, a three mile run is easy work.
This event was about teamwork, plain and simple. It was about relying on your fellow runners to put in their best effort and those in your van to be there when you needed them. It was about the team, helping each other when we needed water (or beer) or some motivation getting up the hill. It was having trust in the team that they would be at the next exchange, with the next runner ready to go and the van ready for you to change and get going.
Teamwork and trust. Harsh weather and shared adversity in the accomplishment of a unified goal. It took each of us to be selfless in action to help the team as a whole. It was a shared experience of sleep deprivation, hard miles earned and the support of the team to carry us through that brought us all together. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be able to experience this again outside of my military experience. In this Tuna 200, I felt that level of trust in others and sense of camaraderie that I’ve missed so much.
Thank you to the team! Robert, Dave, Thomas, Mandy, Kelli, Jason, Allison, Ben, Carlos, Jon, Mike and Wes. Ya’ll are incredible runners who took us to a top 5 finish.
We’ll be back at it again next year! It really was a great time, because of the great people.
