The Relay (199 Mile) - Run for Literacy..

The relay is starting this week-end from Calistoga to Santacruz. I am part of the TeamILP-Literally Running team. Excitement is building up for the event. Little bit about relay..

COURSE TRIVIA
The course is divided into 36 segments called "Legs" with 76 turns (39 left, 37 right). Legs vary in length (3-8.9 miles) and difficulty ("Easy" to "Very Hard"). Runners travel 191 miles on shoulders of roads, 4 miles on five bicycle paths (Legs 6, 17, 21, 26), 3 miles through two vineyards (Leg 8), 1 mile across a ranch (Leg 10) and 1 mile through a quarry (Leg 35). Eight legs have ocean views (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 31, 36) and five legs border reservoirs (13, 22, 23, 24, 28). The date of The Relay varies each year to provide moonlight for course lighting and this year it is on May1st & May2nd 2010.

RELAY LOGISTICS
It is a 199 mile relay. Each relay team consists of 12 runners and about 200 teams participating in the event. This 199 miles are divided into 36 legs divided into 6 segments of 6 legs. Each team is divided into two subteams who will be in two seperate vans: Van1 & Van2. I am part of the Van2 and rach runner will have to run 3 legs in three segments.

Course Maps: http://www.therelay.com/co_maps.htm


TeamILP

TeamILP is representing 8 teams i.e., 96 runners total. My team name is "Literally Running" consists of 9 first time relay runners, 3 veterans. I joined the team pretty late in the training as one of the members dropped out of the team. I had hardly 4 weeks of training under my belt for this relay. Hoping that I can make it without any issues.

My Runner page is: http://ilprelay.ning.com/profile/RajuVusirikala

Generously contribute to this great cause..

I will update you with my race report next week..

2010 season started with spring run followed by half marathon, 199 mile team relay

Unlike last year, this year I wanted to spread my yearly minimum target of running 2 half marathons. With that in mind, started this season with 10K kickoff spring run organized by my Alumni Team Asha. Weather co-operated nicely and end up finishing the run strong.

Signed up for Santacruz half marathon going to be held at Santacruz on April 11th. Started training slowly for the same. Longest run so far was 8 miles and I am hoping that I can do the half marathon with a decent pace.

Today, I had signed up myself to run in 199 mile relay as part of Team ILP as a replacement for one dropped runner. Will publish a seperate post on this run later. This relay seems to quite involved and it is going to be a different experience to my running career as well.