Race Report: Blue Ridge Relay 2023

What a fun weekend with some crazy people living in 2 vans! Oh, and running up & down a few mountains. 

The adventure started out on Thursday evening when we loaded up and departed from Crossfit Corvus in Boiling Springs, SC. The team consisted of 7 dudes and 5 ladies, to make a 12-person open/mixed team. We made the ~3.5 hour drive up to Virginia and arrived at Grayson Highland State Park sometime a bit before midnight. Found our campsites, set up tents and hammocks (in the last bits of the passing rain storm), and enjoyed a few (maybe too many) beverages while we all excitedly chatted about the upcoming race. I was the only one who had run this race before, and only 1 other had done an overnight relay. The rest were relay newbies, which made the excitement level even higher!

After too few hours of sleep, we made our way to the start line in the dark on Friday morning. I was Runner #1 and our start time was 6:00 a.m. ... we finally picked up our packet and got our numbers at approximately 5:59 a.m., snapped a quick team photo (the only one we got the whole trip), and off I ran down the hill chasing the other starting runners who had already begun the race. 

Team CorvusRockers!

Lit up, ready to go!

Run 1: Leg #1 3.9 mi, Rated Easy

Did: 3.95 mi @ 7:30/mi avg

This leg was alllllll downhill within the park, basically from the campground to the park entrance. A beautiful run, but all in the dark for me. Got a brief glimpse of the first light of day over the mountains and yes, I stopped running to take a photo. Totally worth it - gorgeous! 🤩

Mountain sunrise 

I chased down the starters who were about 100 yds ahead of me by the time I got going. Passed 4 or 5 people before the finish, and felt pretty good. Didn't go 100% all-out since I knew the downhill on barely-awake legs wouldn't set me up for good runs later in the event. Still put up a great time that I was really happy with!

For the rest of the morning, we followed the remaining 5 runners as the sun came up, navigated through the mountains, and ended up at the Frosty's Choose & Cut christmas tree farm in West Jefferson, NC in mid-morning where we transitioned running duties over to Van 2. Got to hang out a little with the other team while we waited on Runner #6 to finish his leg. 

Team gazing at mountains

The Ladies: Kim, me, Kyra, Natalie (team captain!), Christina

The Dudes (minus Carson D.): James, Justin, Chad, Austin, Mikey, Carson M.

Once our 6th runner finished, we parted ways with Van 2 and headed over to Boone (the next location where we would become "active" again after Van 2's legs through the afternoon). First order of business was FOOD! We found Vicious Biscuit in downtown Boone and everyone enjoyed some amazing eats. 

Coffee

Ham, Egg, Cheese biscuit + Gravy biscuit

We were all SO full after this meal but it was much needed and amazingly delicious. Afterwards, we took a brief shopping trip to Mast General Store for some mid-race retail therapy and then made our way to Mt. Vernon Baptist Church where we still had a couple of hours before Van 2 was expected to arrive. We all spread out under shade trees and enjoyed some napping. 

Naptime

Once we got word that the last runner in Van 2 started, I got myself ready to run the longest and hardest of my 3 legs. 

Ready to run in the sun!

Run 2: Leg #13, 9.3 mi, rated Very Hard

Did: 9.13 mi @ 9:08/mi avg

This was definitely the toughest run of my three. It was about 5-6 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway, with about a mile to get there and then a few miles afterwards through the town of Blowing Rock to the exchange zone. 

Exchange Zone hand-off - off and running

After making my way to the Parkway, I was greeted with hills, no shoulder on the road, and lots of tourists driving. Oh, and some nice views... those were good. The lack of shoulder was challenging, because I kept having to run on the grassy shoulder when cars passed a little too closely. I allowed myself to walk anytime I felt like I wanted to (and did quite often) but managed to pass about 7 people through this leg. Felt great about that!

Aside from the cars, it was quite a beautiful run and I felt strong throughout! 

Handoff to Kim

Luckily, because my leg finished at a community pool, I was able to take a quick shower - that was fantastic!! I felt like a new person after that, especially with how warm and sunny the BRP was. 

Through the evening hours, it started to rain. We got a pizza midway through this set of legs and shared it in the van. Darkness and more rain set in and the day started to feel verrrryyyy long. But one thing kept us going: potatoes at the fire station (more on that later). 

First, we picked up our last runner at an unnamed Christmas Tree farm in Avery County. It was raining, dark, muddy... there were tacos but we were ready to head down the road and get settled in for the first part of the night. We traveled to the Bakersville Fire Department where we enjoyed hot showers (for the rest who didn't get one earlier at the pool, like I did!) and hot baked potatoes with all the fixin's. 

Decorated with Xmas lights, because why not.

Potatoooooooo

With full bellies, we all settled into the van for a couple hours nap. Slept surprisingly well for being in a van, and woke up after a couple of hours again to a text from the other van that their last runner had started his run. I got up, got all my lights and night running gear situated, and got ready to head out into the early morning darkness for my final miles starting at about 1:30 a.m..

Run 3: Leg #25, 4.3 mi, rated Moderate

Did: 4.3 mi @ 8:35/mi avg

While night runs on past relays have always scared/bothered me, this one felt perfectly at ease. Maybe it's because of all the early morning running I've done in the past few years that has taught me to embrace the dark and not being able to see past my headlamp, but I really enjoyed this leg. There were sparse other runners, but enough that I wasn't out of sight of another blinky light or head lamp for very long. The route was quite nice with the rushing of the river to my left (though it was too dark to see). The last hill was noticeable but I ran the whole thing and felt strong knowing it wasn't going to last and the end would be close when I reached the top. 

Final exchange = finished!

I was quite happy to be done and felt good. I stayed awake for the next exchange but quickly found my comfy seat in the van and snoozed through most of the rest of the early morning runs. We reached the Laurel Branch Baptist Church just as the sun was peeking over the ridge in the distance. This was another favorite stop: pancakes!

We said our hellos to Van #2 (at least those that were awake) and enjoyed pancakes while waiting for our last runner to finish. Once he was done, we packed up and made our way into Asheville (again, I napped) to have breakfast (second breakfast) at Tupelo Honey.

Van #1 cheers!

After we finished up another delicious meal, we headed to Highland Brewing to wait at the finish line for the others. I may have napped again. 

We got to Highland about 10:30 a.m. and proceeded to beer celebrations! Around noon/noon-thirty the rest of the team arrived to await our finishing runner. 

Van #1 - Carson M (and van driver extraodinaire), Austin, Carson D, Chad, Kim, me

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out at Highland, cheering on other teams as they finished. Our team finished with a time of just over 31 hours... very close to our estimated ~30:15, which was pretty good considering we were a mostly newbie team with no idea how we would do on this sort of event! 

Tons of fun and laughs, and of course... talks of "next year..."