Hood to Coast 2008 was another exciting time for the Tektronix Team MegaHurts. The team finished almost as fast as 2007 with a bunch of new people… but unfortunately the rest of the field was a lot faster and we placed only 31st out of 147 teams in 25:49:30. The first team “Bowerman AC” finished in 16:58:30, which averaging 5:10 per mile is…smoking fast. I could not even roll down the hill that fast! Van 2 did a little over 99 miles in about 12 hours
The Van 2 experience was fun as usual, sticking 4 engineers, 1 IT guy and one VP of marketing in a van for over 24 hours and you get to learn all sorts of weird stuff. As Stacey always tells me…Engineer’s are Born, Not Made…we may all have the Knack. This explains Chris Ulrich’s love of sticky hands… but so many quirks… so little time.
The race was a blast as we all helped push each other a little harder on each run, yes there were a few times that a walk break was in order, but you could not let down the team. Gary Shultz really turned it on, we think it was because his VP (Martyn) was telling him it was his level 1 PD and his performance would be noted in his sub year RMS…hmmm. Good thing Lyn Cantor is not a runner.
The views on the course were filled with beautiful vistas of the mountains and extremely strange team themes. This was a personal best for me, in 2005 I averaged a 7:23 pace, 2007 7:37 pace and 2008 was 7:22. Looks like I need to do a lot more speed workouts if I want to get a 5:10 pace. Now that the race is over, time to start planning for 2009.
Remember if you are not sure if you are running or jogging… just go faster!
Chris