Portland To Coast Part 1

I work with great people and great clients. One day about a year and a half ago, a few of my co-workers were sitting around day dreaming about attempting the MOTHER OF ALL RELAY events after admiring another employee's great success in running the Hood To Coast. We decided to step up and try it. Since I had some experience, I got to be captain. But they are the ones who worked hard to prepare for something they could hardly imagine. It turned out to be a great experience and now my work team just completed their second Portland to Coast relay walk-race. You can now say we are a seasoned team. Filling the team has not been a problem. We have several husband-and-wife teammates as well as a treasured client on our team. But it has been a logistical challenge on several fronts.

• People have to juggle their commitment with the rest of their lives and often we know exercise is the first that gets sacrificed. My friends are all very busy people with families and responsibilities and some days -- training for PTC does not even make the list. So preparing for the event is a sacrifice.
• Team meetings which help people anticipate the upcoming event, build momentum, and commit emotionally to the event are important but often are difficult to find the time to get everyone together.

Mobilizing resources is also a big challenge.

• The vans are the most important because they become the incubator for 6 people for way more than 24 hours. All sorts of stuff starts smelling after just a few hours of hard labor so having a vehicle large enough everyone AND their stuff is important. To make matters worse, large vehicles have become rare since the market is moving towards small vehicles with small footprints. It seems ludicrous to buy something for a single weekend a year.
• Besides the vans, food has to be addressed. Replenishing after strenuous exercise dictates how quickly the body recovers so it can do it again. What works for one person may make the next person sick. So this is something that a lot of thought has to go into.
• Then there is clothing. What do you wear for walking long distances? Some of us get soaked in sweat just walking. This year we had the added pressure of expecting rain. And, in rain, everyone gets wet. While there is no avoiding it, it is critical to be able to get dry after wards and that requires more towels and dry clothing, etc. Extra socks are always good. Sandals to wear after each leg to rest your feet are also important.
• Lastly, ... there has to be all sorts of safety equipment for the members. Some of it is required like reflective vests in the night. (All team members are to have on a reflective vest if they leave the van at night.) Additionally, flashlights are required for the legs that are walked in the night. Some use head lamps, hat lights, and all sorts of other things. I prefer hand sized flashlights that have wrist straps, one in each hand. Besides all of that each van needs: First Aid kits, blister treatment supplies, moleskin, Baby Wipes, Sunscreen,

As we prepared, we divided out the team between two vans and tried to give each person a different position than the year before AND attempted to match the person to the difficulty level of the legs. Then we calculated how fast each person was able to walk a mile and used that to determine how long each leg would take. When the Portland to Coast people gave us a starting time of 3AM on Friday morning we were able to immediately know about when each of us would begin and end the legs assigned to us.

Whew. All that and we barely walked a step. The last thing we did was a bunch of us did some training walks. I have done the event many times but this was the first time I participated in deliberately preparing to tackle those hills. The hills we trained on were hard. It felt like going to the dentist... (a bad thing that hurts but you do it because it is good for you in the long run). Training hills and walking the Vernonia Linear Trail gave us a lot of camaraderie, encouragement, incentive, and victories long before we met early on a Friday morning to do the actual event.

DKU