Baker to Vegas

Hey all, Shad here.  

Many of you have been asking Windy about my trip to Vegas to compete in the Baker to Vegas Relay.  Now that I have some more information, I thought I would give you all my report first hand.  

If you don't know what I am talking about, the B2V is a 120 mile relay race where law enforcement agencies from around the world send teams of 20 runners to compete.  I was one of the runners selected to represent the Albuquerque Police Department.  I ran a 6 mile leg that started around 9:30 pm just outside of Pahrump, NV.  A typical time to complete the race is about 16-18 hours.  So you can imagine, that you have runners starting legs in the afternoon and going all night long until the next day.  

Here is a picture of me back in Vegas a few hours after my run.  

One question that has come up is, "How did you do?"  That has not been the most easy question to answer because they have staggered start times and so you never know if the people you are passing are in your division or not.  As well, there are penalties that are assessed and those will change your finish time so until those are calculated in, you never really have the whole picture.  Besides, the race course is 120 miles and takes 16 hours to run, so most runners are either sleeping when the race starts or ends, so it is not like you are standing by the finish line to cheer on your team. 

I'll have to admit that I have never been involved in anything quite like it.  Without a doubt, it was one if the most fun times I've had with APD.  

It was so unusual to get my assignment where they tell you to be dressed and go out to some location out in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night and just wait there for another runner wearing your same number to come by and hand you a baton.  

So here are the results.  Out of 242 teams from around the world, APD placed 16th overall. The division that we raced in this year had 51 teams competing and we placed 3rd in that division. I still do not have the individual results to see how long it took me to run my particular leg. Our time to run 120 miles? It was 15 hours and 06 minutes.  That breaks down to an average of 7 1/2 minutes per mile.  Considering that the course has individual legs that ascend over 1000 feet, we had 50 mph gusts of wind all night and temperatures also ranged from 93 to about 45 degrees I would have to say that I was pretty happy with the results. I'm already looking forward to next year!!!