Reno-Tahoe Odyssey

The Reno-Tahoe Odyssey is a 178 mile relay, divided between 12 runners, and about 24 hours. The race begins in Reno, goes all the way down to South Lake Tahoe, then back up through Carson and Virginia City, and finally ends again in Reno. Each runner is assigned three different legs throughout the race, with each leg varying in degrees of difficulty. Although I ran about 16 miles total, I had the second to easiest leg, so you can tell I ran with some pretty amazing runners. We called ourselves The Legs of Las Vegas and our vans had stuffed legs with shoes on hanging off of them. We wrote things like “Luscious Leg Syndrome” and “Leaving Las Legas” on our vans. We were an all women’s team and we took first place in the Women’s Open Division! For the overall results, there were 105 teams and we took 19th! So like I said, these women were amazing. I learned a lot from them and they had me running faster than I knew I could, at three in the morning, on two hours of sleep in a bar parking lot.  Sounds like good times right? It really was. My first leg went right around Lake Tahoe at dusk and it was so pretty! I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t running my hardest and adjusting to an elevation change all at the same time. I’ve done a lot of athletic events in my life, but never a team running race and the friendships you build with perfect strangers is amazing. How it worked is we had two vans of six women. While one van ran, the other van drove to the next exchange point to eat and sleep. We finally finished in 24 hours and 26 mins. I was the 12th leg so I got to run in to the finish line and by that time I was EXHAUSTED so I am just really happy I didn’t mess up our first place win. I think we only beat the next team by about two minutes. There was another women’s team, The Tahoe Trail Babes, who were in the Women’s Masters Division, and they did beat us by about two hours. I give them props though because to be in the Master’s category, you all have to be 40 or older. So way to go ladies! Here’s a couple of pictures of the event, and if any of my teammates are reading this, thank you for inviting me to be on your team. I hope I can increase my speed so I can keep up with you all for next year!