Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The Tahoe Report

A report from President Nelda:

It was like a Hollywood movie! Seven strangers came to town, and walked shoulder-to-shoulder down Main street, lookin' to wet their whistle at the local Starbucks!

...Well, it was almost like that. What they did do was re-position the Impala Racing Team as a tour de force at the 72 mile Tahoe Relays, in our first team appearance there in 6 years. Unbelievably, our team's finish time was less than one minute better than the Impalas winning time posted in 2000.
The racing members included Martha Chase, Angie Longworth, Katie Wasilenko, Megan Daly, Terri O'Brien, Flora Lee and Ashley Carroll, running at 7,000 feet of altitude and in temperatures that ranged from 38 at the start to around 80 in the afternoon. In spite of a heroic effort on everyone's part, we came in at second place behind the Chico XC Team, but we were only around 2 minutes behind them after 72 miles of racing! And along the way, we acquired some great stories to tell. The support crew included myself as Race Director, Nga Do, Janet Cain and Marisa Beck, who drove the racers to their hand-off sites, and kept them topped off with water and PowerBar products. We've got lots of great photos of the day so look for a few of those in the newsletter or on the blog soon, but I attached 2 great ones to this email. I'll also bring the full set to the workout tonight.
Of course, Tahoe was not just a race destination, but also our Annual Running Camp, so we relaxed with massages (which Janet Cain arranged on-site and at a discount for us) and daily hot tub/Jacuzzi time. We also had a group take off on a bike ride the day after the race, and another group doing a wonderful swim in a very choppy lake. It was beautiful! Our cabin was only 1/2 block from the lake, and only 2 miles from the start/finish, so Marisa did a great job of securing one of our best sites ever. And of course, we also did an enthusiastic job of sampling a large variety of California wines and micro-brews, while cooking in, playing cards and watching soccer and track meets. If you missed out this year, you'll want to think about joining us next year. It's a quintessential Impala experience, where we motivate and inspire each other to race hard, not for a big prize purse or Grand Prix points, but just because we love the competition, and want to do our best for our teammates.
Thanks to the Board for helping to fund this race, and also to everyone who raced and supported. It was a magnificent weekend!

- Nelda

posted by srf @ 12:59 PM   0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home