reach-beach

South Jersey Athletic Club

**SJAC REACHES THE BEACH**

The SJAC team "Truck On Cheese" completed the Reach The Beach Relay in New Hampshire from Sept 15 - 16, 2006. This was a 210 mile relay race that we ran in 28 hours, 43 minutes and 14 seconds. Each team member ran 3 relay legs. The lengths of each of the 36 legs varied from 3.1 to 8.9 miles in length...although there is Garmin supported debate that the 8.9 mileleg was actually between 9.1 and 9.3 miles long! The total distance each person ran varied from 15.2 miles to 21.2 miles. We began at 11:27AM on Friday Sept. 16 at the Bretton Woods ski area in Twin Mountain, NH and finished just after 4:00PM on Saturday Sept. 16 in Hampton Beach State Park. Everyone got to run at least once at night in complete darkness. McMunster, String Cheese, and Cheesecake got to do this twice!

An undertaking such as this required a great deal of team planning. However, since some of us did this in 2005 and some folks had very active schedules, we only held two team meetings, one in July and the other just over a week before we left in September! These meetings helped us get our act together and became fun team social get togethers.

This link shows the three relay legs each team member choose (well, most of us choose) to run:
Course Relay Leg Assignments

We flew from Philadelphia to Manchester, NH on Thursday morning. Unlike last year, we didn't almost have a team member taken away by the Transportation Security Administration folks but Paula did lose the van paint she tried to bring onboard in her carry on bag! The weather gods were against us once again as our flight was delayed for over an hour before departing Philadelphia. Fortunately this year we waited out the delay in the terminal instead of onboard the aircraft.

After arriving in Manchester our van drivers once again visited with Victoria at U-Save Auto Rental to pick up our vans while the rest of the team & luggage waited back at the airport.


Don't worry, we'll be back with the vans soon!	Programming Tom-Tom
Then we headed to Bertucci's in the Manchester Mall for lunch. After lunch, van decorating could wait no longer!



While food shopping in Manchester, a couple of the "locals" thought our vans looked cool and asked if they could join us......	...they were very impressed with our RTB CD mix!
After that we hit the road for the two hour drive to Attitash Mountain where we stayed Thursday night. Did bib number pick up and BBQ dinner at Bretton Woods that evening. Our "Van 2" group, not having to begin running until noon on Friday decided to throw back a couple of brews and were the only patrons in the bar at Attitash Mountain Village bar until closing (11:00PM).

	Friday morning we left Attitash and headed to.. ..............Bretton Woods for breakfast

Something was very wrong with Jim's pancake!	Our leadoff runner is recorded on the van



The "Truck On Cheese team shirts

Photo opps galore!	Liz (aka "Brick" Cheese) had an issue with her shin... but at least her socks were happy!

A couple of photo opportunities while the entire team is together

The "Truck On Cheese" women relax before our start	Some of the guys follow suit.

Some of the other teams have their ears up before the start	...and the Go Go Girls are back for another year

Liz and Trevor await the start of our heat	Pete and Ed anxiously awaiting our start
	Trevor checks out the competition
Brandon stands ready with the stop watch.

Our relay start approaches....	....and the team watches next to the clock

"Mountain Goat Cheese" (Trevor) lines up in the 2nd row for the start of our heat	..and he comes flying down to the finish! ...somehow he lost the wig on this run

Everyone awaits trevor


Brandon stretches before his first leg	Everyone else heads for the vans after Brandon takes off

Brandon brings it home on leg #3....

...and Sue brings it home on leg #4

So that's where our team name came from!

"Van 2" arrives at Echo Lake to await "Grilled Cheese" and has another photo opp.

"Grilled Cheese" heads out for Leg #6 and follows it with a refreshing swim.

"Van 1", done all of their first legs relaxes at Echo Lake

Van 2 enjoying a meal in the Kenneth Brett School cafeteria	"Head Cheese" prepares to run at 1:30am while "Punster Cheese" checks the elapsed time
These flashers were a welcome sight in the dark to let you know a transition area was near












Eventually....we reached the Beach!







Team "Motherhaus" thought our "adjustment" to the Chicken Chasers van was great!

Checking out the results...very glad team #220 wasn't running into a headwind in front of us!


Post relay carbo replacement


After the vans were cleaned.....team "Truck On Cheese" posed for a final group photo