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2009 Texas Independence Relay - March 7 and 8 Overview | How Heels and Hills is Breaking New Ground with This Relay! | Bios and Pictures of the Team Heels and Hills is fielding one of only 6 all-women teams out of a total of 158 teams participating in the 2009 Texas Independence Relay March 7-8. If you aren't familiar with this event, now in its second year, it's a 40 leg, 203 mile relay that traces the path to Texas' independence from Gonzales, Texas, east to Houston, Texas. We have a team of 12, plus 2 van drivers, who are all female and have all been involved in Heels and Hills in some way during the last 3 years. Our Team is Breaking New Ground with This Relay! Like the dozen of other long distance relays like this one, there is a rule that make it impossible for slower runners to participate. The relay requires an average pace of 10 minutes because the relay starts early Saturday and ends late Sunday and covers 200 miles, so you have to be at least that pace to complete the distance during that time. After explaining to the race directors that 60% of our participants are slower than 10 minutes per mile, they agreed to work with us to find a way for us to participate and without sacrificing any of the fun of the event, or having to skip some race legs. We went out to the Heels and Hills community, and within a couple days, had formed a team of mostly strangers! We had many responses from ladies who said they had always wanted to do a relay like this but were just too slow because of the pace rule, and other runners are so competitive that no fast team would take a slower runner! We will be starting the race Saturday, March 7, at 7:04 am with those running a 9:40 pace. We will start runners at each leg of the race at a 9:40 pace schedule. Since our runners are slower than that, the person starting Leg 2, for example, will start before the Leg 1 runner has finished. So there will be no "handoffs" at any of the relay exchange points. But this will allow every runner the full experience, the police and volunteer support, the crowd of other runners around them! The Race Directors have been so accommodating and we will be documenting our journey in detail for them. They are intrigued with the possibility that this trial run and this data will allow them to open this up to many more "slow" teams next year, which I believe would make him the only relay open to people that run at "slower" speeds. We're all about inspiring runners and walkers of ALL speeds and want events to make themselves open for this great demographic of folks that are happy to be active even if they never win anything and just want to be involved in the community! Read all about the ladies who make up our team here...
Last updated February 26, 2009 |
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