[SPOILERS] Watch pindicator get distracted by shiny bonuses

[pindicator]

I'm not saying he went into the game with this idea, by the way. Because i was close to the first person to tech Sailing. I think if we had all known the map ahead of time then that would have been identifiable as a strong play. So it is disingenuous for me to suggest i should have been able to figure out the best combination pre-game during the drafting of leadeds/civs. But Seven deserves major props for being the first to identify the right strategy and going after it -- just as much as he deservez props for picking a solid combination of leader/civ.

[pindicator]

Seven just 2-turned Nationalism.

I'm ready to concede

[Nydaeli]

You should name a city Batmanuel before doing so.

[pindicator]

Absolutely

[pindicator]

I'm taking the lack of lurker comments to back up my guess that this game is already over

[Krill]

What is hood to coast?

[pindicator]

It's a 12-person running relay from Mt. Hood to the coast in Oregon -- a distance a little under 200 mi / 320 km. I believe it's the or one of the longest relay in the world; the race coordinators dub it "the mother of all relays". Started back in 1981 by a local running club with 6 teams and now it fills up it's 1050 team roster within 24 hours and teams come in from all over the world.

The race used to end in Pacific City, close to where I grew up. But as it got popular it outgrew that small town and they moved it north to Seaside where it ends now.

Here's the race page and of course a wikipedia link

And a pic of the route:



We start up at Timberline Lodge, a ski resort about halfway up Mt. Hood, and then run down the west slope of the Cascades into the suburbs of Portland. Then through town, and northwest alongside the state highway, over the coast range. Then down the other side of the coast range to the ocean. You have 12 people run 3 different race legs that go anywhere between 3.5 - 7.5 mi / 6 - 12 km each. The whole thing will take somewhere around 30 hours to finish

There's also a shorter Portland to Coast for high schoolers and walkers.

I'm running the 7 spot, so I'll be doing 7th, 19th, and 31st legs. I wanted that spot because the first two legs are a little longer distance (~6 miles / 10 km) with some rolling hills, but the last leg is short and downhill (4 mi / 6.5 km). My team starts at 11:15am, so my first leg is estimated to start around 3:30pm, the second leg at 1:30am, and the third at 9:30am.

I'm most worried about the middle leg. There's a lot of elevation change over the first third of the leg, and it ends on a long uphill. I also will be running this one some time in the middle of the night and alongside the highway -- even though there are lots of volunteers out and signs for traffic (plus we have to wear an absurd amount of lights / reflective gear) I'm not looking forward to running alongside the road that late at night. It's also been really hot here lately (topped 100 F for the last few days) so I really hope we don't have to deal with that next weekend as well...

I've never done this race before and I am very excited about it. I don't know if I'll do it again, but I definitely want to do it once for the experience. It's a very big deal around here, Nike is a big sponsor and usually sponsors a top-10 finishing team. Our team isn't going to have a great time or anything like that -- we just had one of our better runners drop out because he has a torn meniscus -- but we're just out to have fun and not kill ourselves


Oh, there's also a documentary about it made last year. I haven't seen it yet.

[NobleHelium]

So basically you run your leg, then get back into the van while someone else runs?

[pindicator]

Yeah, every team is limited to 2 vans. There are sleeping areas and showers along the way, but most of the time you're sharing a van with 3 to 5 other sweaty stinky people
One of the tips I got from someone who's done it before is to stretch your legs every chance you get.

[pindicator]

Finished my first leg and waiting on take out. I ran okay, a bit conservative, but i still did 6.3 miles in 49min. Now we have two and a half hours to eat and nap before driving to St Helens for leg #2