We found a perch on top of the hill a little over halfway through her leg and waited....and forgot to get out of the van and cheer her on. Oops - my bad, dear. I actually saw her coming in the rearview mirror but my body was so exhausted that I failed to follow through with the signal my brain was sending to get out of the car. She slapped the side of the van and continued on - being helped by a runner from another team who had come up behind her. We carried on towards the parkway, stopping to admire some views as we waited for Adrienne to pass us again. Her new friend came by and let us know she was right behind him and we waited and waved again, weaving our way through motorcycle traffic. I have no idea why it's so popular to ride motorcycles on the parkway. This put a sour taste in my mouth as a friend of mine was recently injured - and his bike destroyed - doing exactly that. Last time Adrienne and I were here - on a vacation in May - we came upon a bad accident in which a biker had lost control and gone into the trees. Yet I digress....
Febreezy needed to get to the EZ, which was surprisingly right around the corner. Julie, Lauren, and Adrienne had maintained the lead over Chick Maggots that had been given to them by Mr. Barringer. We continued to get excited texts from Van 1, but I knew what they didn't: there was at least one mixed team ahead of us. We wouldn't win the title but second place was thought to be within reach.
It's worth mentioning at this point that, for at least the last five hours or so, Fillette had been hanging out and walking around with his orange safety vest on. I have no idea why he did this. Taking that stupid thing off was the first thing I did when I finished my night leg - I think that vest came off before I even stopped my watch. Ironically, he eventually took it off and dropped at the feet of some of the Maggots girls in the middle of his leg - you know, the one time he was actually required to wear it. John Fillette, ladies and gents - how can you not love him?
While Fillette was running, overwhelming fatigue had set in as the rest of Van 2 was done with our part of the Blue Ridge Relay. We were tired and in need of fuel. Unfortunately, so was our van. We had to take a detour off the race course to put some gas in the tan Stache Machine. We easily made it to Mellow Mushroom in time to meet our teammates from Van 1, though. I gave Brewer a huge embrace as we discussed once again how happy we were to be running on the same team again. We bemoaned the fact that we were not in the same van as I made a mental note to put more strategy behind that if I can take charge of the leg assignments for next year.
The Chick Maggots ended up catching and beating us after all. While we were not in the same category, I thought it would have been nice to beat some of the teams that started out at the same time we did. Hat's off to them, though, and hat's way off to the Fast and Pretty girls. I was very impressed that two all-female teams were able to beat what turned out to be one of the best mixed teams (us).
I was very proud to have my friend John as my teammate. Although he wasn't where he wanted to be going in to this thing, he still ran incredibly strong, never complaining and never getting discouraged. He also did more than a fair share of the driving. We were all gentlemen in Van 2 - between John, Jay, and I the ladies in our van never had to drive or worry about navigating us to where we needed to be. We also bought them flowers at Ingles.
I had also been concerned about how our van would handle the logistics of the race - half the battle at Blue Ridge, according to Allen - since we were basically all new to the event. Well, we hit that one out of the park. We worked together beautifully to make sure our portion of the event went flawlessly. The only snafu was me missing Emily at the third transition zone, and I had a pretty good excuse for that.
The steady anchor for this team for the second year in a row, Fillette came blasting through downtown Asheville as we all excitedly cheered for him and ran into the finishing chute together - as is Blue Ridge tradition. What an incredible event. I had goosebumps and tons of adrenaline throughout the whole thing. I think we all did. How else can you survive miles of tough running on minimal food and almost no sleep? I wish I could tell you, the reader, more about what Stache and Dash 2.0 accomplished but as of 11:45 on Monday night the results have still not been posted. We only have an educated guess as to where we finished - according to Emily and Rob, second mixed (co-ed) team and possibly top twelve overall. I will update this post whenever the results are in, but for now I will leave you with some more pictures.
[UPDATE: Stache and Dash 2.0 finished 13th out of 146 teams overall and 3rd out of 13 teams in the mixed category.]
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| Allen cruising through the park on Leg 1. |
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| Josh preparing to take the bracelet from Allen at the first exchange zone. |
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| Respect the Stache. The other teams had no choice but to do so. |
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| Jay and I had just gotten chased off some farmer's property during our cooldown on Friday, so were feeling a bit mischievous. |
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| Van 2's Three Amigos. |
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| Stache and Dash 2.0 at the finish line. What a great team. I will never forget this experience. |
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