Now think of every sports movie you watched in 80’s, low-res, scratchy VHS glory. You couldn’t help but cheer as the scrappy underdogs overcame long odds and dire circumstances to become the best….around! Nothing’s ever gonna keep you down!
Yeah, that was GGRC at the Bend Beer Chase. Not to brag (ok, maybe a little bit), we focused on FUN and AWESOME LEOTARDS and NOT DYING IN 90+ DEGREE HEAT and still somehow managed to place 6/99 out of mixed open teams, and 13/167 overall.
All while looking like this:
I call that a win!
Thank you, thank you, thank you Xavier, Kathy, Pat, Sarah, and Levi for making this entire weekend memorable and fantastically enjoyable. You are the best!
Thank you, thank you, thank you Xavier, Kathy, Pat, Sarah, and Levi for making this entire weekend memorable and fantastically enjoyable. You are the best!
A little background:
The Bend Beer Chase is an event up in Bend, OR where teams of up to 6 run a course of 52 miles. For those new to the relay scene, the current runner takes off along the course and the rest of the runners drive the van past to leapfrog the runner. The van then stops and provides support while cheering on all the runners. At pre determined exchange points, the van swaps out runners and continues moving. It’s a party on wheels; highly recommended! Key difference this time: there’s beer at the packet pickup, there’s beer at the exchange points, and everyone runs the final 3 mile keg leg which basically is a pub crawl.
Um….yes please?
After much deliberation, we settled on our theme: The 1987 Crystal Light National Aerobics Championship Team (google it) and spent our times honing our costumes and our dance moves. As you can see, they paid off. Many thanks to my awesome teammates...their pictures and videos are below.
We started our trip at the rental car counter at SFO making Starcraft jokes to the 60+ year old woman at the counter. (She loved it.)
We then drove up to Bend in two hops, stopping at Red Bluff to sleep and at the Dunsmuir Brewing Company for excellent, excellent beer and food. Shoutout to our rental Toyota Sienna™ for being a consistently awesome road trip machine, complete with rocking sound system and reclining seats. Thanks, Sienna!
The constant theme of the trip was "How much does it cost to buy property?" and "I could totally live here."
The constant theme of the trip was "How much does it cost to buy property?" and "I could totally live here."
Before long we were installed in our very own hot-tub equipped vacation home (HOT TUB!) and settled in for an evening of grilling, drinking, and chilling out. Oh, did I mention that our start time was 9:40? Our start time was 9:40. This left us plenty of time for Artistic Director Slagle to create an awesome van theme and for us to get our beer on. What can I say...we’re serious about our running and we’re serious about our booze!
Saturday rolled around, and we got our game faces on.
We erupted out of the van at the start and commenced dancing our hearts out. The competition never knew what hit ‘em.
Nothin’ like some morning beers to get the hydration started *right* (Note: Thank you to Xav and myself for being DDs)
Direct quote from the RD: “Good thing you guys are fast runners, because you can’t play cornhole for shit”
I asked nicely and they played our theme music at the start. Probably why Kathy is grinning so hard.
On the first leg, we had the brilliant idea to substitute a FLEX TUNNEL instead of a cheer tunnel. So we did.
And the day settled into the routine. Roll up, intimidate teams with our flexing, high five our teammates, and KEEP RUNNING!!!
All the other teams wanted a piece of this!
It got hot. But we kept rolling! And passing more and more runners along the way.
No, Pat, that’s not a great way to escape the heat.
Just get someone to spray you with a hose. Right, Sarah?
Handoffs were suitably epic!
And much flexing was done!
You know the phrase "I could see him coming a mile away?" Yes, that was literally true in our case.
I don't feel right if I'm not in full ultra gear. But it totally kept me cool.
We danced. We sang. We shouted out of the megaphone. Needless to say...we had a blast!
Damn, Levi...put your shirt back on. You’re making all of us dudes look bad!
We flexed at each other. We flexed at other teams. We flexed at the volunteers. They loved it and we rocked that positive energy.
And then we went on a race sanctioned 3 mile pub crawl. Yes, it was amazing.
Also amazing were the two guys on low riders who rode by and shouted "Hey, we like your leotards!"
Then "Oh whoops, we thought you were all girls!"
I don't know why you'd think that.
Conclusion:
My teammates and dear friends rock! The BBC relay rocks! Road trips and hot tubs rock! Kudos all around!
Note to newbies: There is no better way to bond with your club members than to road trip, race, and party it up. Highly recommended!
Note to veterans: If you use this product, you can reduce your van cleaning time to approximately 30 seconds total. Not exaggerating.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PSL68C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Also, if you have the most ridiculous costume, you will be the most popular team along the course.
Y’all gotta try this next year. It was so. Much. Fun.
The End.
David
PS Bend was absolutely gorgeous
PPS We had an awesome road trip both ways.
Red Bluff had some great views
Grass Lake, CA
Gymnastics break!
