HONK It's My Birthday

This past weekend Hottie Hubs and I ran the mother of all relays: Hood to Coast. In a nutshell, a team of 12 runners run 197 miles. We start at Timberline Lodge near the top of Mt. Hood and run to the west coast, ending on the beach in Seaside, Oregon. Each runner runs three legs, ranging in distance from 3.7 to 7.4 miles, with difficulty varying based on the terrain.

Our team started running at 6:30 a.m. Friday morning, continued all day and all night, and ended early Saturday afternoon. If you thought running was exhausting, try running three times without sleep!

Friday was also Hottie Hubs's birthday. With 12,000 runners, this was the biggest birthday party Ben's ever had. Of course I had to make a deal of it. :) The photo above shows the shirt I made for Ben using the freezer paper stenciling technique. CLICK HERE for a YouTube tutorial of how to make a t-shirt stencil using freezer paper.

Why paint the back of the shirt instead of the front, you ask?


Most of the 197 miles we run are on roads or sidewalks. Each van drops off their runner at the start of a leg, then drives to the next exchange to drop off the second runner and pick up the first runner. Rinse, repeat. As vans drive by, they look for their runners - but have to identify them by their back sides. We spend a lot of time in vans...and a lot of time looking at people's back sides. Plus we wear our team numbers pinned to the front of our shirts, so anything on the front would get covered up.

Ben said there were a LOT of horns honking for him as he ran. Mission accomplished. Plus most of the runners on his legs wished him a happy birthday as well.


I made a coordinating shirt for me to wear. You'll see I also gave Ben a birthday crown. It had an elastic strap to keep it in place while he ran.


Here I am at the start of the race. If you're wondering why I'm so bundled up for a race in August, it's because I ran the very first leg starting on Mt. Hood. With an elevation above 6,000 feet, the temperature was a frosty 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius). The sun wasn't fully up yet, so we had to wear reflective vests and blinking lights so vans could see us on the side of the road. BTW - my first leg was 5.6 miles with a 2,000 ft. elevation drop. Ouch! My poor sore legs!


Here's our team at the end of the race. Bundled up again because the Oregon coast is cool. (I promise I was sweating bullets during the run through downtown Portland.) I'm the girl in the front row wearing a red jacket. Hottie Hubs is standing behind me wearing a baseball cap. What a way to spend the weekend, eh? ;-)