Hood to Coast is this Week-end!

The Hood to Coast Relay, also known as the mother of all relays, is this week-end. For team Texas Roadkill, this is where it all began, back in 1996...We were eating breakfast at Cafe Brazil, post-run: Trey, Jim, Doug, and I, as we listened to Trey's co-worker from Portland Oregon talk about her participation in this relay. She had us captivated...running with a team of twelve runners for approximately 24 hours as they traveled from Mt. Hood to Seaside Oregon. Each runner ran 3 different times throughout the event, roughly 8 hours apart. And this beach party at the finish, wow, I mean she had us right then and there. We said, "Let's go do this thing"! Jim signed us up (the team name came later), Doug rented the 2 vans, and I recruited the remaining team members. I pulled in people from all over Dallas. The team members knew a few fellow team-mates, but nobody knew everybody. Even I didn't know Tina, as she came in as a friend of Deanna's. I think this is what really made the first year so magical--getting to know people during an intense 24 hour ordeal! Not only that, but back then there wasn't the full blown 1000 teams like they have today. If my memory serves me correctly, they had only around 500 teams then. None of us had done a relay before, so we had no idea what to expect. When we came back to Dallas we talked about our adventures non-stop for weeks. It was such an incredible adventure!

Texas Roadkill returned to Hood to Coast every year for the next 4 years, along with several other Texas teams as Hood to Coast gained momentum, until other relays began forming across the country, mimicking Hood to Coast's format. Texas Roadkill traveled to races in New Hampshire, Napa Valley, Santa Cruz, Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Lake Tahoe, and Utah, returning two more times to Hood to Coast as well.

Over the seventeen years of team existence the team line up has continuously changed with only three of the original members remaining: Jim, Doug, and myself. Of us three only Doug has ran every single relay race since the very beginning! Go Daddy-o Doug!

I'd like to think Texas Roadkill will continue on, but for me, I think I am "getting too old for this stuff"...It literally ran its course, ha ha. Still, Hood to Coast memories will be with me forever, especially that first year when it all began.

In the photo standing from left to right: Kris Flabiano, Doug Dodge, David Lodeeson, Amy Keene, myself, Wayne Johnson, Nancy Scholberg, Gary Goodnight, and Tina Santizo.
Kneeling, left to right: Jim Proctor, Deanna Becker, and Trey Howse.

The Texas Flag shorts came along the 2nd year, but notice that Nancy actually had a pair on that first year--she was the trend setter!

Texas Roadkill 1996