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Hood to Coast is known as the “Mother of All Relays”. 2023 marked its 41st year, making it the oldest relay road race in the world. Starting at the Timberline Lodge in Mt. Hood, Oregon, the race starts at 6000 feet of elevation and torpedoes down the mountain. It travels southwest toward downtown Portland, Oregon, and then continues west. It traverses the Oregon countryside, until finally reaching the small coastal town of Seaside, where the finish line is at the Pacific Ocean. A total of 197 miles, the relay is segmented into 36 legs, which range in distance from 4 to 8 miles each. A team of 12 tackles the relay, each participant running three separate legs. After running a leg, the runner jumps in the van and travels with his team to the next exchange zone while the team’s current runner is racing. The race is in continuous motion, and with over 1200 teams and 2400 vans, it feels like a nearly 200-mile rock concert.
The Knoxville Track Club has had tremendous success sending teams to Hood to Coast. We first sent a KTC sponsored team in 2009, which was a men’s team that finished 3rd Overall. The following year, KTC took 2nd place behind Nike’s Bowerman Athletic Club. In 2011, we finally took the top spot winning the event. We returned the following year, placing 3rd behind Toyo University and Bowerman Athletic Club.
KTC sent subsequent teams in 2013 (Women’s team that placed 5th), 2016 (Men’s team that placed 3rd), and 2018 (a KTC/Oofos combined team that finished 5th).
Whispers of going back began in the summer of 2022, as the bulk of the men who ran on the teams a decade or more ago are now in their 40s. With age comes a variety of different variables….family commitments, work commitments, more prone to injury, and let’s be honest….we are getting a little slower as we age. But there was enough momentum to register a KTC team of men 40 years or older to try and tackle the 2023 HTC Men’s Master Championship.
Typically, they have the fastest teams start last with the idea in mind that most of the teams will hit the finish around the same time making for an epic post-race party. The start time for KTC was listed as 1:30 pm on Friday, August 25th, as we were projected as the fastest Masters team in the field. Defending champion Dead on Arrival began at 10:35 am. The gap in start times is a little unfortunate, because you would rather be racing head-to-head with your competition. As it turned out, the fastest Super Masters (we call them Grandmasters here, 50-years-old and up) Men’s team proved to be better competition than Dead on Arrival. They were named Boulder Road Runners, and we would see them throughout most of the race.
Brad Adams took leg 1 down the mountain. 2000 feet of elevation drop in 5.44 miles. He handed off to Stewart Ellington who continued down the mountain for 5.64 miles. The final steep leg off the mountain went to Matt Rouse for a 4.66 mile run. He handed to Nick Morgan who ran a gradual downhill of 7.18 miles. Next up was Ethan Coffey, who had a hilly 6.05 miler. Matt Stegall finished van 1 off with a 7.1 mile run into Sandy High School, where he handed off to Errol Griebel. After the first six legs, KTC was down to Boulder by approximately 8 minutes. Errol ran 5.25 miles and made up a couple of minutes on Boulder. He handed to Seth Crum for a 6 mile leg where Seth closed the gap to less than 2 minutes. Elijah Shekinah ran his 5.38 miles harder than planned as he was chasing down the Boulder runner. Chad Dean was next, running 5.54 miles as we finally passed Boulder. Sam Plemons was next, running 5 miles along a Portland bike path, before handing off to me, Jason Altman, for a 5.85 miler into downtown Portland. After I handed off to Brad Adams for his second leg, we stopped to catch the time difference to Boulder. We were up 6 minutes on them going into our second rotation. Brad fought through a nasty blister (check the pictures on his Facebook page if you have the stomach for it) suffered on his first leg, to hammer out a 5.21 miler. Van 1 was back in rotation with Stewart running 6.04 miles, Matt Rouse 7.25, Nick 3.92, Ethan 5.32, and Matt Stegall 3.76. Boulder briefly passed us during the early parts of this rotation, but Ethan Coffey passed them back and Matt Stegall handed off to Errol with KTC still ahead of them.
Once you get into the second rotation for Van 2, we are deep in the Oregon countryside. There is no cell service for about 12 legs. Logistically, this is the biggest challenge of the event. We’ve caught up to tons of other teams, so there are upwards of 100 vans trying to roll into each exchange zone. Combine that with the fact that it is pitch black in the middle of the night and there is no cell communication available, it is quite the challenge.
Additionally, since we are one of the faster teams, sometimes your van doesn’t get to an exchange zone before your runner does. Once we would hit gridlock, we would have our next runner get out of the van and start warming up toward the exchange zone. Thankfully, we were less than a mile from the zone at most of them, and there was adequate time for the next runner to get lined up. I was nervous about this on my second leg, so I jumped into another team’s van that was ahead of us and hitchhiked a ride to my exchange zone. Huge shoutout to team Running Sux for the assist!
Van 2 started its second rotation with Errol taking on a grueling 5.89 miler. Next up was Seth with quite possibly the hardest leg of the relay. It’s a 5.75 miler which is almost completely uphill on a gravel road where vans are constantly kicking dust and rocks in your face. He handed off to Elijah for his 5.06 miler, followed by Chad with his 6.7 miler. Sam ran a quick 4.23 miler before handing back off to me for a flat 4.87 mile run into the major exchange zone in the small town of Mist. As I handed back off to Brad Adams, I realized that we had not seen Boulder for our entire rotation, so I hoped that we had a large lead on them.
Brad’s final leg was 3.8 miles, followed by Stewart’s 5.65 miler. Matt Rouse ran 6.36 miles, and Nick ran 3.83 miles. Ethan’s final leg was a tough 5.97 miler, followed by Matt Stegall’s 5.32 miler. As Matt handed back off to Errol, Van 1 leapfrogged to Seaside to wait on Van 2 to reach the finish. Errol ran 3.96 miles before handing off to Seth. Seth’s final leg was 4.2 miles, and we were finally able to have cellular service. Elijah ran 7.72 grueling miles, before handing off to Chad for 4.12 more. Sam ran 7.07 miles on a gravel, dusty path, finally handing off to me with 5 miles to go for the team.
As I warmed up (more like going through the motions of a warmup at this point), the final runner for Boulder Road Runners started warming up next to me. We had not seen them for over 18 legs, so I thought that they were a distant memory. Now all I can think is that this is going to come down to the final leg! As Sam approached me, I could see probably 30 seconds behind him. I didn’t see the Boulder runner, but once I took off, I had no idea what the gap was. I ran that last leg like he was on my tail the entire time…no way did I want a 197-mile race to come down to one leg and for me to get passed on that final leg. My first mile was on a trail and uphill, as I ran a 6:09 mile. Mile two was out on the road, and after climbing for a quarter mile, it dropped fast for the next 1.75 miles to get down to sea level. Mile 2 was 5:32, and I carried that momentum downhill to a 5:25 third mile. As it flattened out, I tried to maintain a rhythm and came through mile 4 in 5:57. As I hit mile 4, we approached a red light. The volunteer screamed at me to STOP!!! Once I did, she hit the crosswalk button. I was furious…she could see me, along with three others that I was passing approaching the road and neglected to hit the button before we got there. I told her that I was in a race with another team and that he might catch me because of this (I snuck a peak back as I pointed but didn’t see him anywhere). Once the light changed, we crossed the street, and I tried to regain my pace toward the finish line. It was a half mile to the boardwalk, and then a half mile along the boardwalk to the finish. Last mile 5:56, as I crossed the finish line timing mat. They called out team Knoxville Track and Field Club, as our team ceremoniously ran on the sand through the finish line structure. Final time for the team of 20 hours, 29 minutes, 33 seconds, which is an average of 6:16 per mile for the 197 miles. Boulder Road Runners finish 10 minutes back of us, and we took the Men’s Masters Title, with Dead on Arrival finishing 43 minutes behind. Overall, we placed 13th out of the 1200 teams.
At the awards ceremony, it was great to reminisce with the Hood to Coast staff who remembered several of us from the 2011 championship team. There were also dozens of teams that recognized the Knoxville Track Club team as being a strong competitor over the years. In addition to local Oregon teams, random teams from various places like North Dakota, Minnesota, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Missouri recognized and complimented us.
Mission accomplished. The goal was to go to Hood to Coast and bring back the Men’s Masters Title. Now the question is…..do we want to defend that title?
