Leg 22: Manergy

Josh’s R4R SAT prep analogies:

Manergy: raccoons.

Rawberry: Rain Berry.

Gratuitous amounts of energy: Gratuitous amounts of lactic acid.

Mother Nature said slooow down: Mother Nature called.

Kenyans: White people.

Kenyans: White people.

Kenyans: White people.

It was a pleasant slight decline for about two miles, which was abruptly interrupted by a steady hill that progressed for the rest of the run. I don’t really remember what mile it started cause I couldn’t see it past an enormous cramp in my side. As we progressed, I realized that a small flood parasite from Halo 2 had latched onto my right side. I thought nothing of the dark brown, green gooey, nasty little thing and kept going up the hill (nothing compared to Alessa’s hill, she is a beast!). By about mile 4, the parasite had spread its tentacles to the rest of my body and I was no longer human. I ate Wesley and used his fresh flesh for energy, and ran the final mile at a 3 minute pace. I then got a big DQ from breaking the WR for using banned substances and a parasite for an unfair advantage…

Wes: I would like to first start off by saying that after that run, I feel like my legs are made of lead. That was the hardest run so far. I was tricked in saying by Jay telling me, “oh, you got the easy run, it’s all down hill.” Little did I know that he was lying like a fat lying about not eating all of the cookies. The first two miles was all down hill, but the rest of the three was ALL UP HILL!!!!! I felt like that hill swallowed me whole and spit me out at the finish line. All I got to say is dang, I’m so glad that run is over with.    

Leg 23: The Mexican Carlos

Run numero quarto for me and my ese Carlitos.  Mi amigo mikko estaba gritando pero por un tiempo poco porque el tunnel estaba muy corto. La corrida era muy facil pero estamos muy cansado.   Translation: the run was ok. 

-Mikko

I still luve Enrique Iglesias <3<3 

leg 29: Hallelujah it's over!

Josh: As the machine moved towards us, we knew it was time. The moment of truth, the oil our training was seeping through our pores (what?). It was time to use our bodies like they have never been used before. We were sleep deprived, our glycogen stores were low, lactic acid was pumpin, we were sleep deprived, cramps were rampant, we were dodging big ass cars, we were sleep deprived, and we were not supple secondary to being immobilized in the van. That didn’t stop us, and we conquered our final run.

A couple of minutes before our run, Meko was bitten by a nasty spider that he was playing with (who plays with spiders??) and I laughed at him. As we were running, we realized that people really don’t know how to handle runners on the side of the run, following the rules and going against traffic. Not only did I feel that my final run was 50% a trail run, I got a good lateral jump workout in when I was leaping out of the way for dear life.

Halfway though the run, I thought I saw Meko hanging upside down from a tree. I quickly realized I probably was hallucinating, since I was going at like 150% of my VO2 Max. I heard a screech and a sudden thud, Wesley was mauled by a bear. When I looked closer I saw that it was no bear, but Meko! This was no ordinary Meko, he had hairy arms and legs, and two giant spider fangs on his face. The fangs had punctured Wesley’s neck, and the area was turning a dark bile color. I thought this whole situation was kinda weird, so I just kept running. With one mile left in the final leg, I was caught in a thick translucent substance and demolished by mutated Wesley and Meko, they were finally at peace and finished the run.

Overall, a very productive run!

Leg #28: Elevation

My fourth run was taking off at noonish on Saturday. I called ahead to the lead van to get a scouting report of my run. The report back was not very promising. DL called the run "mountain goat hard" and informed me that it was uphill the entire five miles. That news mentally defeated me before I even started the run. After taking the "hand-off" from Sarah, I covered the first mile in 8 minutes and the second mile in 9 minutes. As reported, the run was mountain goat hard. By the time I hit the two mike mark, my quads were spent and my calves were cramping. Miles three and four became a walk / jog (it might be a soft "j"...."yog"...I am not sure). At any rate, miles 3 and 4 were miserable. Finally, when I reached the four mile mark, I realized that the last mile was actually downhill. I managed to cover the last mile in about 8 minutes. This is my 4th R4R and my 19th leg completed. None of my previous runs can even come close to the difficulty of this leg. My final time was 52:04! A far cry from my previous sub-40 runs. One more run to go... the final leg to ASU. At least I know that one is flat.

Jay

The Magic Elixir

When Rob pulled out a bottle of Head and Shoulders wrapped in duct tape, I had to read the Sharpie inscription. It read "Ha-Haay Robbie the Juice, The Social Elixir". Whatever is in that stuff makes Rob blaze trails, scale mountains, and wrestle bears with his bare hands. Now everybody wants some, but the girls are afraid it will give us beards and laughs like Santa Clause. Sunrise...new energy!

Leg #21: Mount Mitchell Magic

Run number three is always a tough one because the legs are sore and stiff and because mentally you know you are not even halfway finished. This year proved no exception. The first mile of what I anticipated would be a five mile climb met my expectations. My legs were stiff and dead as I trudged up Mount Mitchell. The first mile seemed like an eternity and the idea of four more just like it was not very appealing. Then something miraculous happened, the road flattened and slowly started to descend. My pace quickened from ten minutes per mile to closer to seven. I was able to open my stride and the long, steady downhill did much of the work for me. Much to my surprise the remaining four miles featured more flat and downhill running than uphill running. What an amazing and welcome surprise.... maybe even a Festivus Miracle! I cruised past the top of Mount Mitchell right before my leg ended. This is likely my last sub-40 minute run of the 2011 R4R. My finishing time was 39:24. Two more runs to go....the sunlight will be a welcome companion.

Jay

!@#$%

Run number 3 for me and my amigo Carlos.  I was finally able to convince Carlos to run with out his music.  I had some one to talk to!  However, after the second mile, we were greeted mr HILL and he was not very friendly to us.  I then found myself saying words that were not very pleasant, hence the title !@##$%.  

-MIKKO  

I still luv Enrique Iglesias 

-Carlos  

Leg 15: Oh S#%T

Josh: The darkness coated the surrounding area like a blanket. The moon was peering through the branches at the upcoming road. Bush that was five feet away from me to my left started to rustle. Two things raced through my mind; bears or zombies. My sympathetic nervous system kicked in and I knew I was gonna outrun whatever beast was about to attack me. Bears run at a speed of about 25 miles per hour, I was gonna be bear food. We never actually saw the bear, but we were sure it was watching us and licking it's lips. We continued on our trek at a fairly good 8 minute pace. All of a sudden a zombie came out of the woods and bit Wesley, and ran off to chase an old cougar. He was unconscious for about 5 minutes, then reanimation occurred. He chased me with a ferocious grimace and we finished the run in record time.

Wesley is being a sleeping beauty currently, but will add to it fairly soon!

Leg 13: "I'm Running Late and I Don't Need an Excuse, I'm Wearing My Brand New Shoes"

Sarah: Well, this isn't exactly surprising, but we started out in not the best of moods. Haha. We slept for all of two seconds (okay like twenty minutes) and it wasn't enough. Soo we weren't thrilled to be starting this second leg of ours. BUT it was fantastic cause that shiz was 4.5 miles downhill. Holla. First of all, shout out to KELLY because she's awesome. Our lovely support van drove up beside us blaring "New Shoes" and Kelly was singing to us. Definitely put us in a good mood.
We saw a skunk! My first real life spotting! We thought it was a cub at first and were like.. Uhmm excuse me? then we thought it was a turkey, which would've been okay. But then we saw it was definitely a skunk, which wasn't something I was ready to get involved with.. so I crossed the street. We went through two tunnels. The first was super loud because the wind was blowing. The second was super creepy because it was dead silent. Oh gez when the wind blows leaves across the road it totally sounds like someone is running right at you. Not okay. Running at night is definitely a mind game. Over all good run. We're breaking out the costumes in a bit. We're just ready to sleep right now.
And to whoever is actually up reading these as we post them, you're the bomb.

Kayla: Everything that Sarah said. this leg was 10 minutes faster than the first. That's pretty obvious since our first leg was basically uphill and the second was  all downhill. Downhill runs are my jam. Also, I really enjoy running at night. You could see the stars really well and the moon was UBER bright and it was really cool. Seeing the skunk was pretty scary because it turned to spray us with with nastiness. I would've died. Overall, the run was great. And I just want to go take a nap!

Leg #14: Bridges & Brake Lights

My second run started with a wonderful downhill. The weather was perfect....55 degrees and calm. Could not ask for better conditions to run. I managed to stay under control this run and paced myself much better. After a glorious 1.5 miles downhill, the Parkway again rose up and presented a long, gradual, 3.5 mile climb. The positive was that the darkness of midnight masked the length and incline of the hill, so I just kept chugging along toward the top oblivious to exactly what lay ahead. As I ran past AVL, crossing two bridges, one over the French Broad and another over a highway, I tried to enjoy the view of brake lights hundreds of feet below but my fear of heights quickly focused me back on the task at hand.... Finishing the run. I moved past AVL and finished one last climb to the finish. Although I felt like I was running much slower on run #2, my time was almost as fast at 36:30.

Jay

From the driver's perspective

Being the first third of the "Motor Support Vehicle drivers" I would have to say that from my view of things that the runners are outdoing themselves this year. All of them have finished at least two of their legs and are now enjoying a delicious meal of mcnuggets. John, Christa, and I are supporting as best we know how. Doing whatever it takes to keep everyone on a positive note, while also embarking on our own adventures along the way, we found some interesting sights.

Man on the side of the road with swimming trunks on, a flannel shirt, fishing rod, and two dogs. Didn't understand that combination.

"John's rock", HUGE.

"Graveyard field's"...of bears. Know before you go!

Some moments you'll want to tell your grandkids about.

Breezy

Greetings! This is Ashley, Rob and Brittany logging on after 2 runs. We have enjoyed the contrast of our downhill run, cool breeze and ibuprofen let us shave 14 minutes off of our time! The support brought us chicken mcnuggets. We love chicken mcnuggets. We are now parked looking over Asheville. Beautiful!

items that I found in Jay's car

1-Green sparkly headband
2-Ninja turtle mask (courtesy of Sarah)
3-Viking helmet

..All of which will be utilized during the run.
-Kelly

Leg Seven: The Great Wide Open

This was my first run of the 2011 R4R and after watching everyone else run, I was ready to go. The first mile was a beautiful downhill path that probably got the best of my enthusiasm. I clicked off the first mike in 5:30 pace and felt pretty good. Then the parkway reared it's ugly head. A long climb of about a mile and the realization that I was running at 6000 feet altitude slowed my pace significantly. Miles 3-5 were a combination of short climbs and nice decents. Definitely not a tough run on the Blue Ridge Parkway... Pretty much your standard 5 miles of ups and downs. By mile 5, I was sucking wind and was ready to grab some water and jump in the van. I hoped to keep my early pace going and run inder 35:00. Alas, the hills and altitude took their toll and my time was 35:40. Overall, a very good start to the 2011 R4R!

Jay

Leg 8: Death Tunnel

LEG 8: Death Tunnel

Josh: As Jay sped towards us, I coulda sworn I heard gears in his legs changing. Jay, it’s an unfair advantage to be a machine. He also never eats while he runs. This reinforces my hypothesis that when we were filling up gas, he put the nozzle in his mouth and not in the van. We began our descent downhill for a good 2ish miles, which was very painful from the eccentric loading (not really, it was smooth like butter).  After the descent, we started uphill for a good mile and went through this tunnel. Then it was black. I look to my left, nothing. I looked to my right, nothing. I looked behind me; Wesley was being eaten by one of those creatures from the movie “The Descent”. Blood squirted on my eyes and I was blinded. Suddenly, my massive 15” biceps were bitten off by one of these bastards. I judo threw “The Descent” monster off of my back, grabbed Wesley, threw him over my back, and bounced out if that ish. With a ruptured distal biceps tendon and a nonexistent biceps brachii, my stride faltered. I pushed through it with my sweet VMO’s and Wesley ran it out even though he had dismembered organs and a nonexistent iliopsoas (They always go for that area, a peer reviewed journal hasn’t proved why yet). We finally made it to the van and drank some gatorjuice and chocolate milk and called it a fairly productive run.

Wes: The last mile felt like three as hoping turn after turn there would be the van, but tragically I was always disappointed. The scariest part of the run was going through the Devils Courthouse, the name itself still haunts my soul today……

Leg 6: Shady Scenery

Kayla: Our first leg was a lovely little climb to the highest point in the Blue Ridge Parkway. And by little, we mean ridiculous.  Luckily nature decided to give us a couple of breaks from the constant uphill battle.  One section was about a mile and a half uphill and it was pretty brutal. We definitely weren’t very happy while we ran up it.  We just decided to only look a few feet in front of us so it wouldn’t be as bad. Surprisingly, it helped.  A huge RV also almost flattened us, and that was pretty scary. 

The views on this run were absolutely PHENOMENAL! Being able to look down into the valleys from the overlooks was amazing. All the leaves are changing and it is absolutely breathtaking.

As we reached the highest point, everyone was taking a group photo.  We still had about a mile and a half left to run, but we decided to hop into the photo anyways. We really wanted a photo of our own, but that didn’t happen.  Instead, we finished our run and ate about 5 pounds of food.  This first run was supposed to be our most difficult run, so hopefully that’s true and we can just jam out for the other 20 miles.

Sarah: Why do big vehicles always want to run me over? This stupid RV almost killed us but we jumped off the road to not die. But anyways. We had some really pretty views! The sides of the road sloped down and we could see all the ranges and such. We had this one uphill mile and a half that was awesome. Wait, no it wasn’t. But it was to the highest point on the parkway. Which is kind of cool to claim. So we got to the highest point and everyone was out of the cars by the big sign taking a group picture (minus us) so we stopped and jumped in one as we went past. BUT I really wanted one of my own.. Hopefully [that person] will post that picture?? So we ate a whole bunch when we finished. Kayla did some driving. I’m still waiting for the opportune moment to get outside (even though it’s cold now..) to eat my tuna. I’m being nice. You’re welcome Jay’s van. Duces.

Leg #3- Where is that dang hill?

Emily, Alessa, and Taylor started off with a nice downhill, but sadly that only lasted for about .25 miles.  The next 4.75 was hellacious and all uphill.  Hopefully Jay was right that this is our hardest leg of the run! There was a lot of wind and a several large trucks passing by us.  We will be glad to drive up Balsam Mountain next time!  21 Miles to go!

By the way, Emily now knows how to turn the lights on in the van.   It happens to be a different button than the windshield wipers, who knew?

-Alessa, Emily & Taylor

LEG 2 you leave me again, ill kill you

The second run started at Subway.  I ran it with Carlos and the first thing I told him was to not make his music too loud.  He did not listen to me of course.. He made a wrong turn and me and Jay tried to yell at him.  However, our yelling was no match for Carlos' Enrique Iglesias mix.  I had to sprint to him because he was too focused on his run.  The run was really difficult due to the hot weather. It was about 75 degrees.      
-MEKO

I, Carlos thought the run was quite difficult as well. The heat killed me and there were times where I wanted to give up but I kept going. My music kept me going so I loved pumping my music up on high volume.  <----I LOVE ENRIQUE

The Maiden Run

We started the Mountain Jug Run off with a truculent attitude. I would like to credit this to the awesome crowd (and my performance shorts) we had to officially "see us off" to our journey to ASU. Wes and I had a nice little epinephrine rush at the beginning until we got to highway 107. The professional photographer was great at his job and continued to stalk us down Catamount Gap. 

As our run continued, we realized that we were neither acclimated or acclimatized for the steamy weather. Oddly enough, we were honked, whistled, and yelled at fairly often during the run. This may have been secondary to the performance shorts. I think half of these people were elderly ladies....

This gave us our idea to name the first leg "HOT!!!!! Ass Cougar Tail."

Wes and Josh OUT

Here we go again...

Set your watch for Friday at 1:00 pm.  We are heading out of the stadium on the campus of WCU and towards the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we will continue running until we see Yoseff and the Mountaineers of Appalachian State University.
Follow us again this year!