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Hood to Coast Relay
by Burke Schmidt

Entering Hood to Coast each year is sort of like celebrating New Year’s. For New Year’s is a flamboyant celebration of the ending of an old year and the beginning of a new one fraught with fanfare and activity. Hood to Coast meets those criteria although the sleep deprivation, effort and physical expectations are significantly greater. Competing in this relay means that the summer running season is informally declared over and the fall marathon season begins.

Having begun running Hood to Coast when the finish was in Pacific City, I can recall a certain amount of drama as the ‘elite’ teams were held on the Mountain till the very last and allowed to run through all the other teams to finish in glory at the beach. The Killer Bees were the team to beat for a number of years. Then came the fine teams made up of entirely professional runners who were capable of paces reserved for beings from another planet. It was quite a thrill to see these runners pass by, and interestingly enough, they responded to us mere mortals with great humility. Everyone knew who the teams were and you would always hear someone tell of being passed by an elite runner making them feel they were standing still,

During the earlier years, teams would sign up and worry that they might not get in if they got their entry in by late April or early May. The relay changed and became larger; more known in the world running community and the sign-up dates became more critical. Now your entry must be in on a specific day and then you’re entered into a lottery. This entry condition has changed the entire nature of Hood to Coast. No longer do we ‘old timers’ see all of our running friends and visit with runners from other communities, for many of those people have lost out in the lottery or decided to run other races than Hood to Coast. It has become an international event. This year we encountered teams from Europe, Asia, South America, Mexico, and most of the United States and Canada. You could hear a thick Southern drawl intermixed with unidentifiable languages.

Mostly, though, the drama is gone. Elite teams were probably there, but no one knew who they were. There was less casual visiting talk. Race speculation talk and more inter-team competition discussions seemed to dominate. Teams plotted and strategized to beat teams in their wave.

So how did we, the Forbidden Fruits, do? Our photo made the headlines of the Roadrunners website.  We finished healthy, and within a few minutes of last year’s time. Again, we had a brand new, young runner, Jessica Milnes, who ran leg 12. She actually drove up and ran her legs before the race, so she was really prepared. It is always quite exciting to see the glee and enthusiasm of a new runner as they complete a leg or the event.

Hood to Coast has grown and matured and will never be quite as friendly as it once was. However, team members all still continue to run their guts out and overwhelmingly support their comrades. The adventure is still there and no matter how many years you run it, it still gets harder each year.