Nevertheless We Persist

Back in January Ruth, Audrey & I volunteered for the Urban Mountain Challenge which earned us a free entry to a future RaceRise event.  We picked a new spring race, The Quarter Horse Marathon Relay and recruited our running buddy Mary to be our 4th runner.

About our team name - Nevertheless We Persist.  Around the same time we were trying to come up with a team name, Mitch McConnell said the now infamous quote "Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted"  I never felt connected to the Nasty Women campaign but the Nevertheless She Persisted soooo resonated with me for so many reasons.  We decided to name our team with this slogan in mind - Nevertheless We Persist. 

Mary, Me, Audrey, Ruth

The event was held at Spindletop Hall on March 25th.  Packet pick up was the evening prior & we were able to pick our tent location.  Thankfully, the weather was going to be beautiful.  We arrived around 8AM on Saturday to get everything set up.  The race started at 9AM.  The first runner runs 3.5 miles then each team member will run 1 lap (approximately 1.5 miles) before handing off the baton to their next teammate.  There is a total of 16 legs.  I had no idea how long it would take us to finish.  None of us knew how we would feel running a 1.5 every 45-60 minutes.  It was a unique race to say the least. 

Audrey was our runner #1 & got to run the extra couple of miles.  Mary was runner #2, followed by Ruth & myself bringing up the rear.  

And Audrey is off...

Everyone was running faster than we each thought we would.  The 1.5 mile lap kind of messed with everyone.  It's only 1.5 miles so everyone went out hard.  I originally was going to do a 1 min run/4 min walk but immediately threw that out.  I switched back to 4 min run / 1 min walk.  We all pushed ourselves on this race.

Ruth handing off to me

Finishing Lap #1

The first & second laps were good, the third lap I started to feel it & by the last lap my legs were dead.  The temperature warmed up into 70's by mid day which we all felt.  I averaged just under a 11 minute mile for the 6 miles.  Overall the team finished in 4 hours 42 minutes.  

I wasn't sure how to eat for this race and to complicate things I was still doing the food sensitivity test.  Before the race I ate an omelet.  After my first lap I ate one of my banana muffins, after my second lap I drank a green smoothie and after my third lap I ate some dry roasted almonds.  Overall my belly was fine but the third & fourth laps my legs were feeling it thanks to this test.  My heart rate was really high and the run was a 5.0 effort.  

At the end of the day, the race was so much fun.  It certainly helped that the weather was perfect.  I really liked the laid back atmosphere & hanging out between runs.  

Audrey, Mary, Me & Ruth

Nevertheless, We Persist!