The 200 mile Relay begins in Gettysburg, PA and snakes down to Washington, D.C. Typical teams consist of 12 people with 2 vans and each person running 3 legs each for a total of 36 legs. Yes you will be running in the middle of the night and will not get much sleep but if you are like me you won’t notice how tired you really are until after you get home from the Relay and have downtime to relax. The Relay has a staggered start depending on your teams expected time so my team started the Relay at 10:30AM on Friday and was one of the last teams to start. The legs range from dead flat to a 1200 ft climb in about 4 miles(leg 6 where you actually get a free glass for finishing it). Course difficulty just depends upon what legs you run. I ran 17.5 miles total but some ran up to 19 and some ran as little as 13. Some runners had a longest run about 5 miles while some had a longest of 9 miles(like me).
I was runner 9 so I ran leg 9, leg 21, and leg 33. I started Leg 9 around 5:30PM and was 5.5 miles with the first 3 miles climbing 700ft and the last 2.5 descending almost the same amount. Leg 21 I started around 12:15 AM on Saturday and was 3 miles and nearly dead flat. I started Leg 33 around 10:30 AM on Saturday and it was 9 miles and all on the C&O Canal so it was dead flat. I had a lot of fun running this race that I have wanted to run for a while now.
Although it was fun running it and experiencing it there were a few logistical things that should be corrected. First, some of the van directions were wrong and at times needed to rely on GPS and since I live along part of the Relay course my personal knowledge of the area.
Second, some transitions were small and not very good points to have a transition. I can understand a few of these as you get closer to D.C. but it was pointless I feel to have them around rural areas of the course when there are much better areas to have them.
Third, which was new for this year they removed a part of the course called the Boonsboro Oasis (key side note: I know about this part from previous years volunteering here) which served as a central point of it. The Boonsboro Oasis would have locker rooms to shower in and change clothes, massages, food, and a dark gym to sleep in. This was perfect as it served as the midpoint of the Relay and provided all the amenities runners cared about especially since vans came through in the evening through very early in the morning. It also served as a transition zone for 3 legs all in the same small area so the vans could stay put for longer. The Relay tried to make up for it by doing this type of thing with Shepardstown, WV but they only had food and portapots. They also had it so the van would have to drive there then leave to a part of the canal( with very limited parking) and come right back for another transition which made for a nightmare. Also two runners because of this had to run two legs all on the C&O Canal which although may be scenic at some points(it’s not where they ran) is boring! Those two runners were not too happy with that. The race directors(new for this year) claimed it was because runners got tired of Boonsboro year after year, but every runner I talked to missed the Boonsboro Oasis including all my team members most of whom have run the race 4 or more times and a few who have run it every single year.
Fourth,the only place open to shower was a school in Poolesville which opened at 7:00AM. This transition point was the end of leg 30 and thus close to the end of the Relay and a point where van 1 handed off to van 2. As such and since it would be very early in the morning after van 2 would finish our second legs many vans chose to drive down the school and wait for van 1 to arrive sometime after 8AM. So vans probably started to arrive at the school around 3:30AM or so. This made it so that van 1 could relax and shower(great for them) but van 2 still had another leg so it was pointless for us to shower. The main issue was there was no portapots and the school was closed. This led to a near riot by many female runners who needed to use the bathroom. The janitor finally let them in around 6:30AM but only after a Relay official urged him to. I realize volunteers may be limited but the could have opened the school up for very limited use (such as sleeping in the gym so we did not have to in the vans, and for bathrooms) earlier than 7AM.
Fifth, and this would be harder to fix would be parking in D.C. they offered discounted parking at a parking garage but as is common with parking garages they are limited in space and so fifteen passenger vans are a nightmare to navigate them.
Sixth, and this is not a huge deal but I know at least two canal legs included detours(mine included) that was never mentioned. Although very short, barely adding any mileage it was more of an annoyance when we got there especially while running on little sleep and tired legs. The Relay should have been aware of them and let the teams know of these detours somehow, and I know that this could not have been an unexpected thing that happened literally last minute because of the extent of the repairs that caused the detours.
Overall the Relay was a lot of fun and you get a nice shirt and medal for finishing. The scenery can change from a nice wooded area to a small town to civil war battlefields(Antietam National Battlefield- which you run in the middle of the night) to the C&O Canal so it really just depends on the legs you run but all runners get to run at least 1 leg with great scenery. Although some parts I feel were not very thought out it was one of the most fun races that I have ever run and I highly recommend running it.