Brew to Brew Recap

The Brew to Brew Race is a 44 mile point to point race from Boulevard Brewery in downtown Kansas City, MO to Free State Brewery in Lawrence, KS.  It consists of 10 different legs and you can do it solo or as a team with up to 10 runners.  It’s a pretty longstanding race in Kansas City dating back to 1995.  The majority of people, of course, do it as a relay race, but there are several solo runners.  The legs vary from highway running to almost adventure type running where you have to climb levees or go across the river in a paddle boat.

A while back, when I expected April weather to be, well, April weather, I signed up for the relay with a group of friends.  We were initially supposed to have a team of about 7 or 8, but we ended up with a team of 6 – 5 girls and 1 guy.  We had no idea it would be so HOT on April 1.

The team - Pre-race

Our start time was 8 am, so we all met bright and early at 6:45 am.  We knew it would pretty much be an all day event, but I swear we all packed for a week.  We had coolers full of water, Gatorade, and beer.  Lunch meat, snacks, sunscreen, extra clothes, you name it we had it.  The car was jammed packed with us and our stuff.

Boulevard Brewery was handing out 2 free beers per participant prior to the race.  A couple of our runners decided to partake, but I just had to say no to beer at 8 am.  We snapped a pre-race group pic and it was time for our first runner – Michelle to take off.  Michelle was doing the first 2 legs of the race, which was about 9 miles.  It was already getting hot.  It was about 70 degrees with about 85% humidity when she started. 

Jamie and Michelle practicing the baton pass.

 

We all jumped in the car and headed to the 3^rd exchange point.  After we had been driving for what seemed like forever, we finally realized we were supposed to be heading toward exchange point #2, not #3…….oops.  So we were already back tracking and we had only just begun.  I just knew it was going to be an interesting day.

We make it to the exchange point and we are all on the side of the road waiting for our first runner.  At this point there is some cloud cover and we actually get a little chilly and huddle under a towel together.  Michelle comes running in just drenched in sweat talking about how hot it was.  It’s easy to forget about the humidity until you are running in it.  Michelle is also parched – apparently there were no water stops during the first 2 legs – huh???  No water for 9 miles!!  But she was done, and Kristi was off next.  Kristi was “officially” going to complete leg # 3, which was 6 miles, but then she planned to run leg # 4 & 5 with me to get a few extra miles in.  Once we get to leg 3, it’s really starting to get hot.  We were all getting very hot, just waiting for Kristi to come in.  Once she got there she said, I’ll try to run leg 4 with you, but no way I can do leg 5.  We started running, and within about a minute Kristi said go ahead without me, I can’t keep up.  Kristi said she ended up walking several times during the 2^nd leg.  The heat was BRUTAL.  I had originally planned on running legs 4,5 & 6, but with the heat, we had already decided that I would only run 4 & 5 – which was just over 7 miles.  I started about 11:30.  The sun was intense.  Not a cloud in the sky.  My leg was 100% on the highway.  Just a straight boring, hot highway for 7.3 miles.  There was not a tree in site or any shade whatsoever.  I started out ok, and ran my first mile at a 10:30, but as each mile passed I got slower and slower.  After my first short 2.6 mile leg, I was hoping someone would say you can stop, we'll take it from here. Instead they gave me a drink of water and wished me luck.  Those last 4.7 miles I swear were pure agony.  There was no water the entire time and the heat was just beating me up.  My time slowed and slowed and I continued to walk more and more.  I finished my leg with a 12:30 pace, and I started out at 10:30 - I even had a 14:30 mile in there toward the end.  But I finished.  That's what matters.  It was hot, but I got it done.  I finally passed the virtual baton on to my next team mate and got some water and tried to cool down.

My other team mates had even hotter legs as heat continued to build during the day.  They all did better than I did.  I'm just a terrible "heat" runner.  We finally made it to the finish.  We had a few snags toward the end and didn't exactly know where some of our runners were going to end up and when, but we finally all made it to Free State Brewery where cold beer and Gumbo or Lentil Soup awaited us.  HUH????  Did anyone tell them it was 90 degrees outside??  Actually after a long, long day of running and sun it was better than I thought it would be, however, I do think I would still have preferred a cold sandwich. 

Post race - gee we don't even look tired.

Overall it was a super fun day.  The weather was hot, but we had a blast and at the end of the day we got it done!  Our total time for the 44 miles was 7 hours and 38 minutes a 10:24 pace overall...so not too bad really!!  It was my first relay.  I learned alot, but would definitely do it again!