Serious Reach the Beach Withdrawal

I’m stuck in a glass case of emotion right now.

I had an amazing weekend…and then it ended. I’m in some serious Reach the Beach withdrawal

When Tina asked if I wanted to be on a blogger relay team with her, I said yes immediately. I’d read lots of relay recaps and knew people had a ton of fun, but I didn’t quite get why.

I mean, being in a van for a million hours? (In our case, something like 32 hours.) Not showering after running and not eating regular meals? Running on no sleep after I’d already run 6 miles earlier in the day?

I didn’t get it. But I knew Tina would put together a fun team and so I hoped the race would be as fun as everyone else said it would be.

As the emails about the race became fast and furious, just what I was getting myself into started to take shape.

Reflective vests and headlamps? Crap, I really would be running in the dark.

Gallon-sized Ziploc bags for my clothes? Oh. If I don’t do that, every single thing in my bag will stink.

I knew there would be a lot of logistical challenges and a lot of fun, but I had no idea it was possible to be that happy for three straight days on that little sleep.

But it turns out when you put six high-energy ladies in a van, add in the the most awesome driver in the world, play Call Me, Maybe on repeat and have a huge challenge in front of you, it’s sort of amazing.

I also need to thank New Balance for helping us have the time of our lives. Tina has worked with New Balance in the past, and they were an official sponsor of the race, so we talked about seeing if there was any way they could work with our team.

They’re also one of my clients at work, so I put together a proposal of how we could work together and why I thought it would be a good investment. I put together a proposal that I thought could create a great event and experience without blowing my client’s budget, but the wonderful Kristen at New Balance absolutely went above and beyond with this experience, and I can’t thank her enough.

I haven’t been on an athletic team since high school, and I didn’t realize until this weekend how much I missed that camaraderie. From watching Monica freak out about her overnight leg to watching most of my van struggle yesterday through stomach issues, I wanted nothing more but for everyone to succeed and feel great. Running is an awesome solo sport, but I encourage anyone who has the chance to try running a relay.

There is no possible way to wrap up this weekend in one, or even two posts, so I’m going to have a few more posts going up this weekend recapping all the fun–so let me know if there’s anything specific you want to know about!