A little Brew to Brew recap...

Yesterday, I ran the Brew to Brew race with a few fellow Saturday Morning Runners from the St. Joe area. There were three teams from our SMR group and ours by far was the most eclectic I think. We had young and older, guys and gals, all different abilities.

The race starts at Boulevard Brewing Company in Kansas City and ends at Free State Brewery in Lawrence. It is a 44.4-mile relay race. Our team consisted of Mike, Matt, Christi, Rebecca, Jennifer and me. Here is a little recap of our race day:

Our "Hamm it Up til You Schlitz" B2B relay team.

6:00 am--Pickup in St. Joe
6:15 am--Pick me up in Dearborn
7 am--Arrive at Boulevard, bathroom break, shot gun a few beers (the guys did this!), divide leg assignments
7:35 am--Decide we probably should head over to the starting line for Mike to kick our team off
7:40 am--Mike starts our team off and runs legs 1 and 2
8:00 am--Drive to what we thought was the first stop
8:20 am--Realize we completely missed the end of leg one/start of leg 2 and realize we're at the end of leg 2! Mike had to run 9 miles with no water!! So sorry!
9:00 am--I start leg 3. Ran 8 miles at an 11-minute mile pace. Burned 900 calories! *Wasn't my best race day, but I was there to have fun, and not mess up my stomach any more than it already is by trying too push myself
10 am--Arrive at the start of leg 4 where Jennifer ran with me the short 2.3 miles
10:20 am--Jennifer kicks off leg 5, pushes through to leg 7
11:30 am--Mike and Matt kick off leg 6. It is the most hilly of all the legs. Poor guys. We drove the Durango and kept cussing it ourselves, and we didn't even have to run it. We pick up Mike after leg 6. Matt continues on to leg 7 where he has to ride a boat over the river to then run to Linwood
12:15 pm--Travel to Linwood. Fun little town with the "Linwood Cafe" where they offer air conditioning. Ha!! It was a window unit
12:30 pm--Christi and her mom kick off the dusty legs 8 and 9. They have to run 8 miles on nothing but a country, gravel road. I don't mind it so much as that is what I have to do at home, but some runners are totally not prepared for that kind of hilly terrain
1:45 pm--Drop Jennifer off at the end of leg 9/start of leg 10 and pick up a runner. We weren't allowed to pick up our two runners. Bummer!
2 pm--Drive into Lawrence and find parking, head over to the Liberty Hall for lunch
2:30 pm--Wait for the girls at the finish line. Finally eat lunch and drink one beer

The girls of the team at the Linwood pit stop.

I am being a little anticlimactic about the whole event in my description, but I liken this race to a Missouri float trip! If you've ever been on one you know how different every "party" can be from young people totally drunk off their ass to old timers just pushing through for the best time. It was a lot of fun. We spent more time trying to figure out where we needed to be and taking pit stops for bathroom breaks. All in all, the best part was finishing as a team of people who have never ran together before and the people watching. Oh my!

Actually come to think of it, the best part, honestly, was seeing my second cousin, Megan, after not seeing each other for five years! She sends me a text asking if I was at the same table as her. Who would have thought?!?!? Of all places! So glad I go to to see her and catch up, no matter how brief it was.

My long lost cousin, Megan, and I at the finishers meal! 

*~* What has been one of your favorite races? What made it fun?*~*