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The 2009 Texas Independence Relay was run on March 7 – 8, 2009. The start time for the Houston Masters team was 9:33 a.m. in Gonzalez, Texas. However, the preparation for the race actually started for us almost a year ahead of time. The first thing we did was to confirm whether the runners from the 2008 were on board for 2009. All said that they were. But of course in the course of a year’s time things happen. We did have a change of two runners, German Collazos and Jacques Smuts, could not run this year, and we were glad to have Joe DeBruyn and Ed Thompson run with us for the first time. Our team divided into two vans, designated “A” and “B”. Van “A” would go first, its occupants were Paul Cooley, Clark Courtright, Fred Ward, Don Brenner, Libby Myers and Randy Williams. Van “B” was Michael Luna, Sam Musachia, Jo Ann Luco, Ed Thompson, B.J. Almond and Joe DeBruyn.

Running a relay race of over 200 miles, takes not only preparation and endurance but also the ability to handle depravation: sleep, food, television, etc. Although we were never more than a few hours drive from home, we were removed into another world, focused entirely on running, keeping track of runners, keeping track of the runners’ time, keeping track of the time of day, keeping track of your location, determining where you have to be at a given time – and being there – and also taking care of the essentials: bathroom breaks, rest/sleep breaks, food and drink. Last year we struggled with keeping track of the runners’ times. This year we used a 100 hour/100 split stopwatch, which has recall of the split times even while the chronograph is still running. This made it easy to record the times, as long as the split button was hit after each runner finished, which we accomplished in doing for the complete 40 splits.

I had commented to Tom and Mary Anne McBrayer in the week prior to the race that one of the things I enjoyed about the relay was doing the advanced planning in order to avoid problems on race day(s). Those words came back to haunt me on the evening prior to the race start when Michael Luna and I went to the rental car location at 4:30 p.m. on the Southwest Freeway to pick up our vans and discovered it had been closed! 5 p.m. on a Friday is not a good time to be navigating the traffic interchanges of Houston, but here we were doing just that to go to one of the remaining rental car company’s locations off of I-45 and Little York. When we got there, they had a record of my reservation (I made it a couple of months in advance) but they had us renting only 1 van not 2 as I had requested! Not to worry they said they had another van! Whew! So I guess in these economically troubled times you need to anticipate that businesses may close, but couldn’t they have just put a recording on their phone line telling of the change or our of courtesy given me a call informing me of the change?

All 12 of us met timely at my office building and were off for Gonzalez by 6:15 a.m. The weather was clear, in the low 60’s, but it was windy! We picked up our packets and went to the start line, finished the prologue and Libby was off as our first runner. I had the second leg, which was 4.85 miles down highway 90 into a strong wind! By the time I was finished my face was sun and wind burnt. Next up was Clark Courtright who had a 8.78 leg that wound through a number of small, very small, back roads. He said he had to guess at some locations where to turn, as there were no runners and no volunteers within sight. I won’t go through all 40 legs, but by the time the sun was setting on Saturday we had covered over 60 miles, and by sunset on Sunday we had finished the entire 203 miles.

Libby was assigned a leg starting about 4 miles outside of Columbus and finishing at the Courthouse downtown, for a total of 5.88 miles. She started out on it at about 8:45 p.m. I volunteered to run half of it with her, to help her navigate her way into Columbus and to the finish of the leg if she needed it. Near Columbus we left the side of the highway to detour around a bridge, when we came to the other side of the bridge, the course was not marked clearly and after we crossed a couple of intersection we began having doubts whether we were on the course. Eventually we saw some other runners in a van and they directed us to the finish of the leg. I thought Libby was going to go at a pace that I would find to be comfortable. She didn’t. She ran the leg hard and with determination, averaging 8.29 per mile.

Our van, which included Libby, Clark, myself, Don Brenner, Randy Williams and Fred Ward, became the “rest van” for the second time around 10:00 p.m. on Saturday. We had decided to drive ahead on the course to Wallis, where we thought the exchange point was going to be when we became “active” again about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. We passed through Eagle Lake on the way, in hopes of finding some place open for dinner. We found a service station with snacks and drinks, but nothing substantial. It was then on to our destination: the middle school in Wallis. We had cleaned up and rested there last year. We must have timed it pretty well, because when I got in line for the shower (there were only two of them) behind Clark and one other person there was only one person behind me. When it was my turn, there were at least 15 men standing in line behind me waiting their turn! We again used the stage, not the gym; at the middle school to unfold our sleeping bags in order to catch some rest and some light sleep. We were back on the road again and were about to park in downtown Wallis when Randy alerted us to the fact that the next leg, his leg, ended in Wallis, but started about 4 miles outside town. So we drove him out there and made it with time to spare. I was next up, starting in Wallis, with a leg that went 5.43 miles straight down the highway. The wind was down, but the air was warmer, in the low 70’s. I think I started somewhere around 3 a.m. It was dark and lonely, but the air was clear. At points in the run I could hear Coyotes howling off in the distance. When I was about ½ way through my run I could see the unmistakable bright lights from the exchange point ahead. They were like the Citgo Sign in Boston, it seemed like forever before I finally reached them. During the 44 minutes it took me to run this leg, I saw 3 other runners, one I passed, and two that passed me. Earlier in the evening I had overheard two young female runners tallying up their “road kill”. It dawned on me, that “road kill” for relay running was someone you passed on your leg! So I had been “road kill” for two people in that early morning. When I finished my leg it was sometime around 4 a.m., but day light savings kicked in so now it was around 5 a.m.!

Libby ran her leg into Simonton and handed off to Clark. When Clark was out of the van, I began complaining about how messy he had become, leaving food, equipment, empty drink bottles, damp clothes – and out of the corner of my eye I spied one of his shoes – and mentioned that he even left his shoes lying around too. I reached down to grab the shoe to show the others in the van when I realized it had Fred’s foot in it! I guess we were all starting to feel the effects of being tired by that point! We made it all the way up to west Houston before we became the “rest” van again. The next time we were to become “active” was the Captain’s leg which starts in Memorial Park. So, off we went, to the I-HOP across from the entrance to Memorial Park, arriving about 8:30 a.m. Even though we had been gone only a little over 24 hours, it felt like we had returned to civilization from Mars. We ordered a good breakfast and even ran into Rosa Herst and Willie Kuehn at the I-HOP. They wanted to know how far we had run this morning. I reminded them we were doing the 200 mile relay and they laughed.
We had to wait for a long period of time in Memorial Park. We passed the time sitting in the shade watching people play volleyball. I saw Governor Perry there with his running team. Randy left to get some more water and then Clark went out on the course to find Ed Thompson on his way in and give him some cold water.

I didn’t start the Captain’s leg until around 1 p.m. It was now over 80 degrees out! I ran well on familiar territory and handed off to Jo Ann Luco at the corner of Smith and Clay. She ran all the way from that exchange to Mason Park! Both of the HMSA vans took turns providing her with cold water on her way. It was quite an accomplishment for her, and we were all very proud to see her arrive. All the spectators and volunteers gave her a hearty applause as she finished.

We then moved on through east Houston into Pasadena and Deer Park. I did the second to the last leg before handing off to B.J. Almond who finished the race for us somewhere around 5 p.m. at the San Jacinto Monument. We proceeded to devour most of 4 cheese pizzas after receiving our finishers’ medals. I cannot relate the exploits of all, but on behalf of all of the HMSA 2009 Texas Independence Relay team, I can say we had a full and fun weekend celebrating Texas Independence and I returned having a greater appreciation for the efforts and dedication shown by all my teammates’ on this 203 mile race!