North Face Endurance Marathon Relay

Saturday was the North Face Endurance Marathon Relay for myself and a handful of other bloggers and readers!

Our team – Run to Eat – consisted of me, Amanda, Gretchen & Cara!

Cara designed our shirts on spreadshirt.com – I am in love with them. We each also got to personalize the backs.

 

Cara and I put our blogs on the back. Gretchen and Amanda got their names on theirs!

Also running the relay was team Run Bloggers Run – Meghann, Ashley, Heather and Jess

 

And Team Awesome – Brittany, Julia, and Amy, minus Lindsey, who was sick.

 

Group Shots with a sorority pose (i love it!)

 

After all our photo ops, it was time to get our race faces on!

We all circled around for a demo on our chip timing device

And then it was time to line up to start the race! Gretchen was running first for our team  

All the first leg runners getting ready!

   

And they were off!

 

The only downside about running a marathon relay was all the downtime you have! Each leg was around 6 miles or so and for most runners that is about 50-60 minutes so we had lots of time to wait in between each runners coming in and going out.

Luckily we had pretty scenery to look at while we waited!

While we waited we also got to see the big runners finishing their 50 mile, 50k and marathon races. This guy finished the 50 miler first!

 

This guy came in second and had his son run with him to the finish! I love this picture!

After about 45 minutes it was time for our group to head on over to the relay exchange to wait for our runners to come in.

   Amy and Jess came in first

With Gretchen close behind.    

Then it was time for Amanda to head out

The exchange was made, and she was off! 

Then it was my turn to get my run on! 

Obviously I took my camera with me to snap some pictures of the course. 

We were to follow the red ribbons for the marathon relay. Any color other than that would lead us on a much longer journey! The ribbons were tied to the trees and pretty recognizable, but a few miles in, I forgot to keep looking for them and had to remind myself to keep a look out for them!

   

Our route took us on paths, through fields and all over the Algonkian Park in Great Falls, VA.

 

At one point we even trekked through a golf course, which took away some of the ‘trail run’ aspect for me.

But then we were back on track and trekking along!

We went over bridges…

And had to hop over ( or run through) muddy water

(sorry for the blurry/running pictures!)

  

Only a few moments throughout the miles did I ever feel really ‘alone’ and on a trail by myself.

Before I knew it, I finished my leg of the race and I was coming into the finish! It was a fun few miles out in the woods, but it was SUPER hot and humid out! Everyone was really feeling the heat!

So what else is there to do after finishing your leg of the relay, it’s hot out and you’re sweaty?

Obviously we headed over to the beer garden for our free race beer!

 

The cold beer was flowing right out of a truck. It was a beautiful thing.

Just what the doctor ordered after a sweaty 6 miles!

Go Team Run to Eat!

Or is it Run to Drink??

Clearly I was carbo-re-loading!

  

I also grabbed a bag full of snacks to munch on – chocolate chip cookies, pretzels and some skittles! Yum!

Before I knew it, it was time to go and cheer on our final runners coming in! Cara rocked it for our team!

And Meghann dominated for hers!

  

Our team did fabulous! We had a lot of fun hanging out and running the race together! I am so glad I got to meet these ladies!

Have you ever done a Marathon Relay?

  

After the race a few of us headed over to Reston Town Center (my old stomping ground) for some eats! Everyone was craving Mexican food so we hit up Uncle Julio’s! We had a great time eating and chatting. It was a nice ending to a fun weekend in Virginia!

After the race I had to head back up to Philadelphia for a event on Sunday! Stay tuned for another recap from the rest of my fabulous weekend! It was jam packed with fun!