Texas Independence Relay 2015

On March 28th and 29th, Vic and 11 other guys, plus a driver, ran the 2015 Texas Independence Relay. This is a 200 mile race divided into 40 legs run equally by the team members. They can have 8-12 members per team and with their team, everyone ran 3 legs except for 4 guys who had to run 4 legs. So, they ran between around 13 - 22 miles apiece. Amazing! There team name was "Don't Stop...Give 'Em Hell!" They started Saturday morning about 11:15 in Gonzales, where the beginning of the Texas Revolution began. From there, they went through dirt roads, cities, farmland, and highways to get to the San Jacinto Monument in Houston to end the race. It was a crazy system of making sure the right guys were in the right vehicle at the right time to meet up with one another while letting others who wouldn't run for a few hours rest in the other vehicle (they had two vehicles they could use to drive everyone around). They ran non-stop, including all through the night. There were 159 other teams who also ran the race. They semi-slept in a gym along the way. They ate lots of carbs and snacks and got to visit a lot along the way. Vic said that everyone was really pumped up until the end, where everyone was winding down from exhaustion. But, Vic said it couldn't have been a better group of guys to run together. They were all SO much faster than they thought they would be too. There were over 20 teams just in their category of Open Men and they placed 2nd in their category and 13th overall (of 159 teams!). They ran a pace of 7:51 and ran the 200 miles in 26:06:18. They got awesome medals for finishing! It was one of those races where they all started out just wanting to do it for fun and to say they did it, but along the way, when they realized they were competitive with their pace, they got motivated to keep it up. They only had one little snafu of not getting to an exchange on time, but otherwise, everything went really well. It started out as Vic and Charley interested and then they added Kevin & Lucas (our friends from TWRI). Lucas added his brother in law, Dave and two of Dave's air force buddies. Then, we had Russell from church and a new friend, Mike, from another church who added his friend, Ryan in. Then, Charley added in his friend Matt and got their friend Evan to be the drive. Last, we asked our neighbor, Wei to join us. Isn't it funny how the group didn't really know each other but ended up as a great team? I think most of them already want to sign up to do it again next year! Vic had a wonderful time and said he would sign up again in a heartbeat! My dear friend, Meghan, was the only wife to get to see them off in Gonzales, so she took a bunch of pictures and shared them with us. Here are a few before the race...

 

Always smiling. 

 

They decorated their van. 

 

Vic was SUPER organized, thanks to Matt and Charley, and the fact that he is just organized. 

 

Charley

 Since Vic was the captain, he got to fire off the cannon. 

 

Lucas and Kevin - their precious wives are two of my favorite people!!

Team Photos!

And they are off! The entire team runs the first mile together. Vic continued on for the first leg.

 Apparently, a "kill" is when they pass another runner. I have no idea how many kills they ended up with, but it was a lot!

 This is part of the team at the end of the race. The other 4 must have still been in the active vehicle. 

I will have to add a picture of the awesome medal later - I don't have one on hand. But, I'm so proud of Vic and the entire team. I totally encouraged him from over a year ago to do it because I thought it sounded like so much fun. And, if I was a runner, I would definitely be convinced to do it one day after hearing how great it was!