It was awesome, exhausting, exciting, fun, hard, amazing, epic…truly an unforgettable experience! With a very diverse team of 12 runners from all over the country, Team Ladera performed magnificently, finishing in 29:24:05 (just under a 9 minute mile pace) – 396th out of 1048 teams.
After more than two years of hoping (2014 failed lottery entry), planning, guessing and many logistical discussions, it all came together starting on Thursday, Aug. 27 as TL runners and support crew arrived in Portland. Most people stayed at the Best Western in Sandy, OR and the remaining few arrived Friday morning ready to go.
Team Ladera in Sandy on Friday morning
Packing up in Sandy
After lots of standing around, and high-level discussions about how to fit everything into the vans, Team Ladera was finally headed to the starting line! Van 1, driven by Jennifer, drove the 30 miles to the starting area in the Timberline Lodge – Mt. Hood parking lot. Kelly, with help from others, did a super job decorating the vans!
Jennifer Roberts – van 1 driver
The starting area scene was less chaotic than we expected and lots of fun to watch groups of 25 runners starting every fifteen minutes. Beginning at 5am, it takes 10+ hours to start all of the teams in this race! Start times are based on estimated total race time with the slowest teams starting early so as to hopefully get all teams finished before 6pm on Saturday. Team Ladera was assigned a start time of 12:45 so we had ample time to get both vans organized and ready to go!
Mt. Hood starting area
Before start – L to R, Samara, Eric, Greg, Mike
Pre-race, L to R: Lars, Greg, Steve
Steve started off strong for TL, running a very tough steep downhill first leg of 5.44 miles to hand-off to Eric in Government Camp.
Steve Hands Off to Eric
Eric had more steep downhill, but rocked it in awesome style and time!
(to be continued…)
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