Here's a little (LONG) thing I wrote about friendship, laughter, and the bonds that form when you embark with other middle-aged folks on a long footrace through the Blue Ridge Relay. This is my account of our travails for 2025:
Students of American History will recall the New Thought movement, a spiritual and philosophical enterprise that taught that folks could manifest reality with their thoughts. Now, you may have assumed, as most scholars do, that the New Thought movement ran its course in the nineteenth century, partly in response to optimized scientific methods and a pesky proclivity to demand real, concrete evidence upon which to build reason. Well, I’m here to tell you that New Thought is NOT a relic of the past but alive and well at the Chapel Hill Enterprise rental facility! This unpleasant discovery was unearthed in full around 5:16 pm on Wednesday September 3rd, when we were told, without a shred of emotion that they had ONE (not TWO!) sprinter vans for us, and even though there were none elsewhere, they would manifest another before our scheduled 8 am pick up the next day. After repeatedly expressing unequivocable disapproval (and truly - thank you, this is REALLY screwing us over at the last minute!), the woman on the phone calmly reassured us, in the telltale cheerful monotone of cult members, that “it will be fine.” In the age of big data and advanced science, it’s hard to imagine that 1880s New Thought founder Phinneas Parker Quimby would gain ground anywhere, but now you know – you thought Carrboro was woo woo, but the Chapel Hill Enterprise car rental place has grade-A adherents - real freaks- if you ask me.
When your Beloved Sour Power Team gets punched in the face by cold, hard, reality, here’s what they do: complain and freak out a little bit (ok, that’s just me), but then they immediately spring into action. Problem-solving, logistics, and making it work are what we do. (Besides running.) In the end, we secured a Suburban and this was our Van 2, our small, but still mighty, second steed.
The folks most bummed out by this smaller steed were the old-timers, those long-standing members of the team who over the years have clearly been coddled by the high degree of comfort that we have become accustomed to. To folks like myself (Shen), Jason, Pete and Renee Bosman, Liz Barber, Becca Wright, Jenny Mendoza this smaller steed was something of a moral failure - or at the very least, a fly in the ointment of the great masterpiece we were about to paint.
But here’s the thing: we brought on five different runners this year, so they weren’t as phased. One was a repeat with us - Tim Field, who ran with us the first year. He made the gracious yet dubious comment that he couldn’t actually remember the sprinter vans, so the loss of BOOG (short for “boogie”) didn’t really matter to him. Leah Boucher had run the Blue Ridge Relay many times before (and actually has run the hardest legs of it!!), but she’d always traveled in minivans before, never in such style like us, so the small steed was no loss for her. Miles Fitch had run it once before with a van full of guys who never even bothered to shower or once change their clothes, so he wasn’t bothered at all and was really looking forward to the sights and smells rendered by new heights of communal hygiene. Neither Joe Bracken nor Chela Tu had ever run the race before, so had nothing to be disappointed about and they were probably left to wonder what sort of weirdos they had gotten themselves tied up with, given that we were all foolish enough to sign up for such a race but fragile enough that we demanded a few extra feet in the vehicle.
With a renewed disdain for magical thinking by the old guard, we trotted off to the mountains of West Jefferson.
One of the things that catches some new teams off guard is the tactical precision that this race demands. We’re veterans now. We have this down to such a science that we could - and should - get high-paying consulting gigs out of it. NASA should hire us, if they had any sense.
I’ll start with the Yin to my Yang: Jenny Mendoza Stanelle. I like to live on the edge a little, forget my toothpaste or make life really exciting and forget contacts or something truly critical. It’s fun…just a little thing I do. Not Jenny - she is always prepared. For anything. She’d never be caught dead outside in the rain without an umbrella. She has a Mary Poppins magic about her where she can produce a medicine cabinet fit for, well, a trip to the MOON, from a bag made for Barbie. Not only will she be able to fetch you that particular brand of anti-acid you like, but she’s perennially sunny. Always laughing, always positive, just a great, very organized and highly-supplied person to have around. Hey, we can’t all be like me.
Jason crunches numbers based on complex formulas that only he knows so that he predicts transition times (there are 35 transitions!!) so accurately, a lot of times it’s down to the minute. This of course is of critical importance, because you have to know where to be and when. The WORST thing ever would be a failed transition - when a runner shows up and can’t find their handoff. Of course, that’s the BEST thing to happen for everyone watching, because then we get to heckle and yell out in self-righteous, serotonin-pumping bursts at the offender, “you had ONE job to do!!!!”, ensuring that they feel sufficiently bad about themselves.
What is uncanny and weird about Jason’s prognostication skills is that even though he always asks you what your predicted pace is when he’s crunching these numbers, he lights sage and draws from deep ancestral wisdoms to intuit whether or not you’re BSing about your pace, and then he uses whatever pacing he comes up with for you. And he’s almost always right. As it turns out, he knows us better than we know ourselves. I would say, given his omniscience, that HE should start a cult, but he’s just too Midwestern Nice to do it, and I’ll always be kind of bummed about that.
None of us would survive this race without Becca Wright, however. She’s our Nordic Queen, Lady of the Ice Baths, the Energizer Bunny, but she’s also the High Priestess of Food. Every year, she makes glorious lists of all the food for the trip, then she goes out and shops for it, then she MAKES it, packs it in coolers in labeled containers, AND labels the coolers meticulously. This year (and I don’t know how), she ALSO managed to decorate eye masks (that Jenny supplied) with “Sour Power” on them, put together sour candies to give out as treats to other vans, and…what else? Oh yeah, she ran what I would say is the worst slot to run in the race (although truly, there are a few that could deserve the moniker) - the dreaded 4 spot - also known as the Black Hole o’ Death (at least according to me). It’s 1) 6.9 miles of 753 up and 377 down; 2) 10.5 miles of 1207 up Grandfather Mountain and down 495; and as if that wasn’t enough, you’re finishing with 3) 8.4 miles of 659 up and 249 down…in the middle of the night.
You better believe that I did my best to present the Queen with a lavender towel after every run (“your towel, My Queen,” followed by a deep bow).
And THAT most genius invention - the lavender towels - came from the Bosmans, for which our olfactories are forever grateful. Sliced bread has nothing on the lavender towels, and I mean that most sincerely. You can’t wipe yourself with sliced bread. I digress. We do suspect that we are the boogiest team at the race, but given that we’re also middle-aged, we honestly don’t care. We know everyone else is jealous. And that’s what life is really all about – making other people jealous of you.
((Side note: Miles ran into a former teammate of his, who asked him what it was like to run with women. He told him, “well, we have lavender towels, and the food is better, everything is cleaner, and it smells better.” “Oh,” the guy said, clearly seeing for the first time that he had made many poor decisions in life.))
The Bosmans are the chillest people in a van ever who are also serious about partying and ferocious on the course. You’ve got to have Bosmans around - if you don’t, you’re missing out. They will roll with all the punches, run some of the hardest legs on the course, but have such buoyant, good-natured attitudes that you don’t want the race to end.
This year, Pete ran the famed Mountain Goat again, a 6 mile steady trek 1200 plus feet up, and beat his old times. Some of us get better with age!
For some reason, every year the universe decides to throw Renee a curve ball. She always runs some of the hardest runs, but there’s always something a little extra thrown in, as if her high and difficult mileage wasn’t enough. Last year she encountered a bear. This year, her last leg had about 20 turns to it. You know what? She did just fine and finished off the race for us, coming down the home stretch, where we greeted her with high fives and beers.
Although James wasn’t around this year to yell out his need for “lube” (body glide to NORMAL people) while Pete was on a work call, Tim brought plenty of humor, zesty quips and zesty outfits to Van 2 that the hearty laugher and good times more than made up for the size of the small steed. Whenever you need more jazz hands in your life, I recommend dropping by the Field residence. It also didn’t hurt that he’s in fantastic running shape since he’s a soccer player.
This whole thing likely wouldn’t be possible without Liz Barber, who keeps a level head and helps to problem solve anything that comes up, but also comes with the extra bonus of supplying the team with the boogiest perk of all - being able to sleep in actual beds in an amazing mountain residence one hour from the start. Yes, while other chumps are rolling around on the ground with rocks in their backs at the Greyson Highlands campground, we are eating ravioli, gazing romantically at the night sky from a gorgeous balcony, sleeping in fresh beds, and taking hot showers. We have Liz to thank for the particular brand of Sour Power that is us - grit plus unapologetically doing things OUR way (which is WAY better than anyone else’s). Liz will ask for us to meet her with a hot latte after her run, and we will do it of course not only because it’s en route anyway (she knows the geography of the route VERY well), but because she gets every job done, reliably, rain or shine. By the way - she is the one person on the team most likely to get rained on, since every year it rains, she is running. Furthermore, her brain continues to work at 3 am, which is a big plus, and not something to take for granted - let me tell you. This year, we needed working brains at 3 am in Van 1.
You may or may not know that one of the unadvertised tribulations of this race is that they make it extra hard to not kill people. Yes, you read that right. By the time Friday night rolls around, you’ve got runners trying to sleep in the most precarious spots on the ground IN THE PARKING LOTS that you’re rolling up in or trying to exit. They’re usually in a dead sleep and so can’t hear the noises of a vehicle backing up, and the people driving the vans are also sleep-deprived, experiencing lapses in judgement. Van 1 found ourselves in a dicey spot at 3 am after Leah had taken off on a grueling third leg - in trying to avoid crushing a sleeper to death, we had managed to get ourselves stuck on a curb, lodged on a strat, the back two wheels not even touching the ground. After burning some rubber and trying to push ourselves out of the situation with brute force, some top notch problem-solving started to hatch.
No thanks to the surrounding bros, I might add. Side-note: another unadvertised tribulation is that if you’re going to do this race, you will be swimming in testosterone. I mean, it really does feel like upon arrival, your spaceship crashed on Planet of the Apes. Some of these guys are ok, of course - just regular guys - and then some of them…some of them seem like they saved up all of their aggression from the past year just for this race, where they channel it in two very specific ways: in blasting out to the world with the persistence of toddlers the number of “kills” they get in the race, AND taking every opportunity possible to discuss, advertise, and display the ever-alluring topic of pooping. Now, I don’t see any reason to AVOID chatting about pooping altogether (except that it’s gross), it’s a thing - and even more of a thing at a race like this, but…you have to ask yourself - do you NEED to mark on your van how many times you’ve pooped? Do you NEED to name your team in honor of this basic biological need? Do you NEED to print an image of a guy squatting on t-shirts and magnets and draw it on your van? I mean, for some people - these bros - the answer is yes, yes, absolutely. It’s not a want, it’s a need. They can’t NOT do it. All hail, poop!
Now, one would hope that this great wealth of bro energy might materialize in some chivalry at 3 am as we were trying to problem-solve our Van situation, but sir, it did not. “Sorry, my legs are too dead,” we heard, as myself, Leah, Liz, Becca (who had already run 10.5 miles up Grandfather Mountain), and Joe (who had just run a pretty terrible leg), leaned in and pushed while Miles tried to steer off the curb.
Well, pretty instantly when that wasn’t working, Liz and Becca started to scavenge a random scrap pile nearby, and located two metal plates that they stacked together ingeniously under one wheel.
Before the race had begun it had been discovered that Miles packed a hammer (because apparently he “always” does!!! Well, just check out the Fitch Lumber logo - hammer prominently displayed). Like Noah building the ark, we thought he was crazy then, but we were glad when he brought it out at 3 am and hammered those plates into place. Then our team lunged at the van with all our might (no bros necessary) and got it unstuck. Whew! What a victory.
It was also a real treat to have Miles drive for the majority of Van 1 time, since he had a lot of experience driving even larger vehicles and could maneuver deftly in and out of the crowded parking lots. When it came to the race, Miles was already anxious about running his first leg, over 6 miles of nasty ascent on gravel, some at a 12% grade. Right before the race started, the officials changed the course and gave Miles even more to run on that leg because a SINKHOLE had opened up, forcing the alteration!!! Yes, a last-minute sinkhole came into play - can’t make this stuff up. But he did just fine and came through for us. Miles for Miles!!
Now, regarding the “kills:” we like to say every year that we prefer “friendly passing,” and most of us don’t keep track of this. We were explaining this to Joe, who then took the opportunity to do some violent and utterly hilarious trash-talking in a pretty fantastic satirical performance. We were treated to his sense of humor the entire trip, which really does make everything better (if you read his profile, you can get a sense of it). The other thing we learned about Joe - or Jobu - on this trip is that while he has a lot of (funny) things to say, he won’t talk about the fact that he’s really fast. We were wondering how Joe and Chela in particular would do in this race, given that they were the only ones who had never done it. We very purposefully didn’t talk about how difficult Joe’s legs were so as not to spook him, and we definitely didn’t mention that, unlike the rest of Van 1, his worst leg was the very last one - over 9 miles of grueling elevation. As it turns out, none of that mattered. He was perhaps the only one on the team who eschewed ibuprofen the entire trip, and he’d just trot out into the inky night, unblinking, with no music or water, like a fresh gazelle, not knowing any different.
Leah Boucher was another newbie (to our group) in Van 1, although not new at all to the Blue Ridge Relay. Folks like Leah make you quietly sick to your stomach when you discover that they’re legitimately humble and morally upright AND so talented and intelligent that it’s personally insulting. We had to do some real sleuthing to discover that she had run at Yale, had a JD from the University of Chicago, and now works trying to eradicate single-use plastics. I think we MAY have been drinking Gatorade from plastic bottles when we learned that last bit…caught mid chug in a fresh moral dilemma. But true to form, she was generous in every way, even when we were chugging Gatorade and running a lot slower than her. What’s even more disgusting is that in addition to being really kind, she was utterly intrepid. Second to Miles, she drove the van the most, and was not intimidated by the tetris parking lots or even having to make an 18 point turn when needed. She departed the race early to get home to celebrate a kid’s birthday (of course). When we saw her back in the hood, she was leaving to go locate and dispatch a rogue snake in her mother’s house. Intrepid, kind, smart, fast. Some people win the universe’s lottery, and that’s Leah.
What sort of a cultural historian would I be if I failed to mention the guy in the Jesus van who was trying to spread a little bit of “the good news” by giving me a tiny plastic Jesus? (Some vans give out tchotchkes to other vans to remember them by…) He was a nice enough guy and seemed earnest as he mumbled something about praying to Jesus. The figurine was funny, but I’ll admit that I also suspiciously eyed his van with “kill” tick marks on it. I thought about telling him that I actually love Jesus too but am not thrilled about how most of us represent the faith…so instead I tucked little Jesus into my running pants and gleefully ejected him into a field as I ran past. I thought this was a pretty cool symbolic gesture until I remembered the toxic waste of single-use plastics, and I immediately sent up a prayer of repentance to Leah Boucher.
The other newbie in our crew - and perhaps the newest neighbor too - was the one and only Chela Tu. You know that someone has to be pretty interesting to be up for spending 72 stinky, sweaty, sleep-deprived hours with people you don’t even know who also now happen to be your neighbors. Well, she fit like a glove - zany and punchy, up for anything, including weathering Tim’s jazz hand antics. A little birdie told me that she used to be a minor figure in the world of female wrestling, and it tracks, especially if you see how flashy her leggings can be. If you saw any videos on social media that were any good, you can credit those to Chela. She’s only 4.5 years younger than me, but that’s about 50 years younger in technology years. While I’m still trying to figure out how to scroll to the next page, it’s like she’s coding a new app to hand deliver robot-made dinner to her family. Needless to say, she’s a keeper!
You’re probably not familiar with the Great Van Debate, and since you’re clearly a glutton for punishment for reading this far, here’s your reward: every year, we debate which is the better van, strategically speaking. It has become more clear over time that the Type A folks who have anxiety issues, can’t sleep well, and generally are just worse at life tend to self-select for Van 1. We’re too anxious to get the race started, we can’t sleep anyway, and we can’t wait around. Meanwhile, Van 2 is full of the Type Bs, the party animals, the eaters, and the sleepers. Van 2 folk enjoy life more, so they sleep more, so they enjoy life more, and the cycle continues. They’re always up partying and drinking alcohol at Mellow Mushroom on their breaks while Van 1 slinks away to the darkness to quietly nurse wounds and unsuccessfully attempt to get about 3 minutes of sleep where they “dream” about past life failures and wake in a cold sweat, leap up in a panic, and get ready to run again. Every year, Van 2 tries to tell Van 1 how hard they have it, but look - Van 1 may be full of self-flagellating masochists who could probably use a Xanax from time to time, but we’re not idiots. We see what you’re doing.
Now what you REALLY came for…the stats!
We WON BIGLY this year. We WON MORE BIGLY than LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE. It was the GREATEST WIN YOU’VE EVER SEEN. YOU’LL NEVER SEE ANOTHER WIN SO GREAT. IT WAS JUST BEAUTIFUL.
If anyone asks: Yes, yes, we ARE the MIXED MASTERS CHAMPIONS once again!! And we will always be!!!
(From North Carolina. Given that all facts are now squishy and completely subjective, I don’t need to say more, but let’s just say hypothetically that there was another Mixed-Masters team –from another state!!-- who smoked our hides. Yeah, we couldn’t hold a candle to them. Hypothetically.)
We had a great average time this year – 9:33 minute miles, which is really pretty decent when you consider that we covered enough elevation to span 16,712 ft UP and 19,443 ft DOWN.
Van 2:
hours slept: 9.55 over Friday and Saturday nights
Medications: 2 Tylenol 15 advil 8 aleve
Beers: 6
Mid-running pickup lines: 2
Wrong turns: 1
Dining out: brewery and coffee/doughnut shop
4 showers
River showers 10
Portapotty trips 75 total
Real bathroom trips 16
Van 1
hours slept: 5.6 hours/per person over Friday and Saturday nights
Ibuprofens per person: 7.2
showers per person: 1
Becca’s balls per person: 6
Swag we got: magnets, small plastic Jesus, Tortugas
Other notables:
- trading homemade food
- surprise visits from the Wrights
- seeing Jeanne and Katherine at the finish
- Jason running a 4th leg with Renee, and peeling off at the end start of the chute
- Pete interested in running a 4th leg immediately after hardest mountain goat leg.
- Jenny’s resilience after shin splint pain.
Indecent exposure: Jenny saw one and almost was one. Miles saw male full frontal…not good.
Superlatives:
Most well-rested - The Bosmans
Quickest response time to pose for photo requests: Tim (most likely with duck lips and exaggerated booty pose)
Wettest (not from sweat) runner: Liz 🌧️
Quickest to bounce back after a crappy leg: Miles
Best Sourpower brand representative (and designer!) Renee
Team Names that Deserve Mention:
Chafing the Dream
Human Victory Cigars
Agony of Dafeet
Meat Train
O Van Where Art Thou
This is a Problem for Future Us
Lactic Asses
Bear Snacks
Grit Happens
PTSD - Pirates Till Someone Dies
Worst Pace Scenario
All numbers aside, the fact of the matter, quite simply, is this: we have an awesome neighborhood. We are lucky. It’s the people that make the place, and people are more important than pace. We missed everyone in the past who’s run this thing with us before: Estela, Mike, Emily, Huma, James, Joel, Beth, Tobias. Every single person has so much to contribute. I don’t know of any other neighborhoods that do this sort of thing together or hang out quite so much.
And also, people younger than 40 reading this (lS there a single person who reads listserv emails younger than 40?!!):
Don’t believe the hype about “youth” - you’ve been lied to. The beauty of getting older is that you really just stop caring so much about what other people think. It’s freeing. One neighbor told me recently that when she moved here from Cary she finally felt free to grow silver hair because the rest of us were doing it. I only do it because I’m too cheap and too lazy to go get my hair dyed, but I’ll claim the implied virtue anyway. This is a good place in which to grow old together. Let your hair turn silver. And then go for a run.
