Texas Independence Relay 2012- Part 1

I got home around midnight last night from a fun, but exhausting, 3 day weekend with my 10 Queens of the Road teammates. Our team captain, Libby, was unable to make the trip due to illness that struck the day before we left but she was with us in spirit every step of the way. Without her extensive effort in planning this weekend, we would not have had this experience. Though Libby was part of the team, only 10 of us ran the 203 glorious miles that comprised The Texas Independence Relay.

Background: The Texas Independence Relay is an overnight relay of 203 miles (divided into 40 legs of varying distances) from Paige, Texas (outside of Bastrop) to the San Jacinto Monument (outside of Houston).

Map of the relay route

We met at the airport at 10am on Friday to pick up our chariots for the weekend, 2 12 passenger vans. Van 1 consisted of Amanda, Sharon, Alicia, Elaine, and Elizabeth with Luis as their driver. Van 2 consisted of Dana, Corina, Lesley, Fiona, and me with Jon as our driver. We stopped in Waco for lunch at Rudy's before continuing on to our hotel. After checking in, we walked across the parking lot to WalMart for last minute supplies, including food and decorations for the vans. Our carts were loaded with necessities like mint m&ms, oreos, chips, Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper, pink argyle duct tape, and oh, water. After a few minutes of downtime in the rooms (I roomed with Fiona and Sharon that night), we headed out for dinner. When our first choice was packed with a one hour wait to seat our large group, we wound up eating at the restaurant nextdoor which had simple foods like grilled chicken sandwiches. We met back at the hotel to quickly decorate the vans before heading to packet pickup/the party.

Van 1 girls: Lesley, Fiona, me, Corina, and Dana (pic courtesy of Corina)

Quite a few teams wore matching team shirts to the party and several were in full out costumes. A few of us enjoyed a Lone Star beer at the party before heading back to the hotel to get ready for an early wakeup and our 6:10am start time the next day.

Race tee & socks, along with my bib (we each had our own bib but #262 belonged to the entire team)

Some pics are my own, the rest are borrowd from my awesome teammate Corina who has true talent with the camera and loves to take pics during her runs. Check out her blog HERE


Parts 2 and 3 to follow this week!