Why is the BRR a CSAUP event? What happens at the BRR stays at the BRR, period. Search the internet and you will discover this is a 208 mile race where you and a bunch of your fellow PAX jump in a van and don’t sleep for 30 hours while making sure you get from point A to point B with no cell phone reception. Van time is 2nd F time, which is awesome but 24 hours later it can get really odd. Every mile you run is fantastic, the views are great, passing other runners is exhilarating. Running solo is just fine, until it gets dark then it turns CSAUP.
Four months ago we all thought it would be a great idea to run the BRR. We signed up and started running. A few others got off the fence and our team filled up with 12 runners of all different running levels. Week after week we racked up the miles, all we had was FEBA to keep us motivated during training and looking forward to September 6th. When it came time for the event, we all got pumped up on adrenaline and ran faster than we had ever ran before. In fact it appeared we were the only amateur team out there, again FEBA kept us going. In fact we finished in 29:22 (that is more than 29 hours) or a pace of 8:29/mile. Placing 60th out of 150 was just a number, one we are all proud of.
So what really happened, why would 11 guys get excited about this and want to do it again? It started when AWOL got injured and we went from 12 to 11 runners. Only in F3 do people jockey for the harder legs and more miles, Aye! Being an odd team, we got the luxury of switching vans quite frequently and missing out on longer sleeps like the luxury 12 man teams had. Sleep is overrated, we had 20,000 feet of mountains to run up and 20,000 more feet to run down. All PAX who have done Jacob’s Ladder would appreciate the effort put forth by the team. In fact the drivers and runners were going from leg to leg without much help from maps, with the help of tow trucks, without sleep, without time to eat food and without much light to see where to go. Thank God there is a 3rd F in F3.
For those looking for more details, here are some highlights of each runner:
- Yo-Yo is a horse. Close to a 5:00/mile pace on his first of 4 legs, holding the race lead for a (brief) while. Incredibly, didn’t let up on his other legs either. #thoroughbred
- Bob Villa is a centaur. Crushed the most miles on our team, including the longest leg on the course (10 miles uphill with 9:00/mile pace)
- Moonshine (from CLT) is a tank and flattened leg 35 (his 4th), what many are arguing should be the 3rd Mountain Goat leg.
- Speaking of mountain goats…there’s Utah. Mister “I really don’t like running” crushed the steepest elevation change on the course (the nipple), as his last leg.
- Flatline went serial killer. If passing another runner is called a “roadkill”, Flatline took out 20 over 3 legs and was never caught, including the 6.5 mile Mountain Goat leg. His performance allegedly won the attention of several female participant groups (yes there are women at this #CSAUP), but he will not confirm or deny what (if any) interaction took place during leg 31.
- Minnie and Hatfield were exceptionally strong late-round draft picks for this team. We would have been a 9-man group without them and the 1st and 2nd F’s would have suffered greatly. #twerkit
- CK attempted to mimic Yo-Yo with a 5:40 pace on his second leg, was it the downhill or the banjos that motivated him to keep running fast.
- Tecumseh lives up to his name as he took this challenge head on and upped his miles when we dropped to 11 men. He conquered a 9 mile stretch as a personal best.
- Key West is the Energizer Bunny. Everybody wants a guy like him on the team. nothing slows him down, hills, lack of sleep, lack of food. Watch out for this guy.
- T-Square silent but deadly- racking up kills and calling it a walk in the park. #pureawesome
Pulling off the BRR with no problems and a great finish time takes a lot of work as a team. Oddly enough the entire F3 Loose Ends team had never all been together in the same spot prior to the race. In fact in the 4 months leading up to the race, only 8 of us had ever been in the same place at the same time. As a team captain it is humbling to hear from the team about what a memorable experience this was and the thanks from all the team members for my hard work. The final product is a team effort, not solely a product of a captain otherwise this would be the blind leading the blind.
Next September is your chance to experience F3’s most memorable #CSAUP event. I will be running, will you?
