Mass Dash Relay

This past weekend Sheila and I took part in our first ever relay race. It was the Mass Dash 200+ mile race from the Berkshire's to Umass Boston. I have been wanting to do Reach the Beach for years, but it never seemed to happen so when the opportunity presented itself to take part part in the Mass Dash, I jumped at it.

Sheila and I were part of Team Gael Force. The whole 12 person team was made up of alumni (6), coaches (3) and people (3) somehow associated with Holyoke Catholic High School. The race had 39 teams that would be starting at the Mt Greylock Visitors center in Lanesboro and would be running a challenging route all the way to Boston via many iconic routes through the state. Each runner would be running 3 legs out of the total of 36. The routes varied in distance and difficulty and team Captain John Goda picked out who would run each leg.

Our race started at 12 noon on Saturday with hopes we would be in Boston by 2-3 pm on Sunday. Of all the teams that raced, the director had a staggered start where some teams started at 6 am, some 8 am, some 10 am, and us and one other team at noon. Based on us giving our best 10K time they claculated we would all be in Boston between noon and 6 pm on sunday.

The race was awesome and we had lots of fun. Sheila and I ran a total of about 19 miles each. My legs were quite hilly. The coolest part was running in the middle of the night. I ran along Route 9 in Ware at 3 am. Hardly any traffic excpet for vans of shouting teammates. Since we had just a late start, we never saw any of our competetion until about 2 am. Starting in Quabbin reservoir Jen Emblidge passed two teams, I passed two and then Sheila passed 8 teams. That really helped get us through the night. I was running up a long uphill section of Route 9, half asleep and all of a sudden I see blinking redlights on a runner ahead of me. That was motivation. After handing off to Sheila, she saw lots of that and that helped her push through her long 9 mile stretch.

It was a super hot weekend and my legs I ran during the day I needed to be drenched with H20.

Sheila and I ran the last two 6-mile legs through Boston and that was a killer.

I would highly recommend this event for anyone next year! It was also Awesome and we made some great friends. The comraderie was amazing!! It was also made fun weekend get-a-way. Ok I would love to write more but I just dont have the time. Time is a luxury I dont have anymore now that I have a Baby Anna.!!

Oh and we were 3rd overall in a finish time of 25 hours and 36 minutes and 55 seconds.