A quick update before we hit the beer...

We finished 2nd overall, in a very, very close showdown with St. Lawrence -- Tyrona took the final leg with a 45 second lead, and closed things out in style. Now we're signing off for a bit - we'll post more photos and stats when we return tomorrow.

The final legs...before breakfast.

Bismarck is closing out Van 1's competition for Reach the Beach 2006 - we're about 15 minutes away from handing off to Van 2 -- the handoff is very near to Exeter. We'll be immediately heading for breakfast, head for our hotel at the beach, shower, grab beers, wade in the ocean, and then watch some college football (Go Stanford!). The crazy part is that it feels like we've been in this van for a week, but it's only 10AM -- add in the fact that we got less than 2 hours of sleep, but are totally energized, and life is awesome. Nothing like finishing your final leg, and being able to eat anything you want, at long last! Don finished his last Charleston Chews ages ago, so now he might head for donuts.

Runner's Diet

Don's high performance diet:
Pre-race - 12:30pm
Boston Creme Donut with Rainbow Sprinkles
Large cup of coffee

After Leg 1 - 7:45pm
3 slices of pizza
20 oz Mountain Dew
Half a box of Charleston Chews

After Leg 2 - 12:55am
1 slice of pizza
1 bottle of vitamin water
1/4 box of Charleston Chews

To Be Continued....

I can't run without a shirt...

Memorable quotes: 10pm-1am

"I think we should give him the same time we gave him earlier." -Bel

"I can't run without a shirt. My lats chafe like a mother-$&@#(*" -Don

"Nice work with the odometer, genius." -Don
(This post formerly read "odDometer", as we were informed by KatieH)

"If you do a search for running shorts on Google, those will not show up." (Jack, RTB staffer commenting on Nathan's shorts, which look like they were for basketball")

"What's the time?" -Nathan, running towards the van
"What's the time, what's the time?" -Bismarck, yelling at people in the van
"15 minutes, I mean, 16 minutes" -Bel
"What's the distance?" -Nathan"4 miles" -Bismarck
"That's just not right!" -Nathan
"Holy shit!" -Bel

Brotherly banter:
"Their second van is just nasty." -Bel
Pause...
"Kinda like my shorts." -Bismarck

31.1 Miles Down, 166.9 to Go

Here are the times for the first six legs:

Bel (3.1 Miles) 21:05 - 6:49 (please reference picture of hill with ski lifts)
Joel (3.1 Miles) 20:29 - 6:38
Nathan (3.7 Miles) 20:18 - 5:28
Don (5.4 Miles) 32:59 - 6:06
Crosby (8.6 Miles) 44:29 - 5:10
Bis (7.2 Miles) 46:35 - 6:28

We're off duty until 10pm EST. Van #2 (with Sean, Tom, Courtney, Jeff, Jan, and Ty) is now on the clock. Holla.

(Bismarck says...) WWTD

Bismarck says the following with his fingers: "W. W. T. D."
Then he translates: "What Would Tom Do"

Now to see what he says when we make him wear the itchy reflective vest and heavy headlamp...

Update: Bismarck says, "No - do I have to wear this? I want the vest that matches my shoes."

A very special post with insightful commentary from Bismarck...

We're going to try a bit of an experiment in the next 15 minutes. Some might call it "Live Blog Running", but really, it's Bismarck yelling out insightful (or inciteful?) commentary while he's running, and I'm going to post if for him realtime...with no censorship whatsoever. Let's see what happens.

Mountain connectivity

Connectivity in the mountains is pretty spotty. We'll be queueing up posts, and getting updates out as soon as we can. Photos will be almost impossible until we hit some downtime, which for our van, should be in about an hour or so.

Blaizing, rolling, rocking (and hello to all the kitties)

We kicked off the race around 3pm EST, in Bretton Woods (the same Bretton Woods of the famous treaty). Our highly competitive opening group included the former St Lawrence College cross country team (who we jawed with a bit at a local supermarket), a team in yellow called the "free radicals" and our overall favorites, an all men's team in pink, white, and black spandex known as "Hello Kitty". Yes, we'll try to add photos.

Bel had the honor of being the only runner not to help us get towards the beach (ok, maybe 10ft, as he says reading over my shoulder), as the first leg took him up and over the opening mountain. Imagine running 1.5 miles up a ski slope, and then 1.5 miles back down, and that's what he got to do. Joel followed up with a solid run down and out of Bretton Woods.

I grabbed the third leg, not knowing exactly what to expect, only to discover that the rolling hills were not *quite* as gentle as I'd thought. 3.7 miles, a few cliffs, and a thousand feet later, I'd finished my leg in about 5:30 pace (more stats coming from Bel), catching the runner from the Free Radicals. My legs burned on all the downhills and was certainly being outrun on them, but I felt great on all the flats and uphills, and feel pretty confident for the main legs of the race this evening.

I'd add that Don had a great leg after me, and Crosby is hauling *** right now - he's put us in first!

Donuts

Do they serve donuts at the transitions?