Preparing as a Beginner for the Hood to Coast Relay

Preparing as a Beginner for the Hood to Coast Relay Race

The Hood to Coast relay race has to be the big daddy of them all. Each years sees about 10,000 runners participating and maybe a third as many coming in to volunteer for help. It starts at the top of Mount Hood, and the course runs nearly 200 miles in Seaside, Oregon. The terrain is startlingly beautiful, the distance is split up into 36 legs of between 3.5 and 7 miles a leg and even when you share it with 12 other team members, your three legs can be quite punishing. Here are a few tips for preparing for this exhilarating run.

In a race against other running fanatics, you need to prepare for that extra edge by going down ahead of the race, and casing the legs that you will be expected to run. There is a very detailed map you'll find with the organizers of the relay race, and if you are a beginner at this, you would do well to make sure that you are given some of the easier parts. Some stretches of the race includepaths that climb, some run flat, and others incline downwards. You need to make sure that you know what strengths and weaknesses each team member has. Anyone who is good with running in the sun (someone from the south of the country for instance) should be assigned running the parts that occur during the day (as in legs 5 and 6 for instance). Hill runners should be assigned the legs that have the most steepness ,and so on. You'll need to do all your research on the Hood to Coast relay race website - and to make use of all the tools and information they have.

Winning in the race is all about training for specific terrains and conditions. There is no such thing as general running ability in a race. When you prepare, you need to take in every kind of terrain, time of day, temperature and weather that you expect during the course of the real race. Try to work a balance of hills, slopes, heat of day and loneliness of night situations into your training program. As you get close to the month of the race, notch up your training with at least one hill session a week (be sure not to run flat out), a couple of speed sessions where you run half-mile stretches at high speed, and a couple of 7 mile stretches with little rest in between. Try to work out the time you get to rest on the real race between legs, and see if you can manage this in your training.

In a race this long, keeping your strength up with enough food and drink can be a big problem. Eating even an energy bar is likely to result in some throwing up. You need to bring in your race level nutrition plan into your practice sessions as well. While you are actually running, sports drinks and energy bars are things you will have to learn to keep down. And in between legs, you'll need to stock up on lots of energy with carbohydrates and protein. Get your digestive system in order leaving out all the junk food completely, and allow your body to learn the nutrition system you'll be feeding it during the race. Make sure that you buy recovery drinks to take right after you finish each leg.

On the day of the race, learn to pace yourself; if you run flat out on one leg, you'll have barely anything left to give on the other legs. Make sure that you bring eye masks, to nap between legs. In the end, a relay race is about the team; take as good care of your teammates is yourself, and it should be a relay race to remember.