When a couple of old friends recruited me to replace an injured runner on their team for the June 13 Tahoe Relay, I said yes right away. What better way to kick off  summer, party with friends and family, and get in a high-quality run? Plus, it marked the one-year anniversary of falling down the front porch and breaking my foot. I wanted to celebrate a comeback year and experience the camaraderie that comes with team effort.

The seven of us formed a coed masters (40 and over) team, dividing the 72-mile lake loop into legs ranging from 8 to 12 miles each. My leg was a hilly 12.3 miles, which I covered in 1:33:14, or 7:35 average pace — but that includes a minute-and-half-long potty break. Given the altitude and some tummy troubles, I’m pretty satisfied with my time.

I brought along a brand-new Flip camera, shot a lot of goofy and shaky video, messed around with iMovie for the first time and made the following 6-minute movie — which has left me rather brain dead and short on words. Thanks to my “Tahoe Redondo” teammates — Mark Tipton, Christine Chapon, Dave Sloane, Jennifer Ray, Brett Wilson and Keith Evans-Orville — for letting me join them this year!

What makes “a great run”? I’d say it boils down to four key ingredients, a recipe I cooked up during the May 31 Ohlone Wilderness 50K. I’m not going to write a regular race report because I did a full-blown narrative of last year’s Ohlone 50K (available here in PDF), which was and remains the hardest run I’ve ever done, and others have detailed reports on this year’s competition (see below for links). Suffice to say I had A Great Run, and here’s why: (more…)