This time of year is really cool because there are a couple of relays that are very popular in town. Most road races are individual, so it's pretty awesome to get a team of 4 or 5 people together and go after it. 
The first event was the Zilker Relays. This is a 10 mile relay of 4 people. So each person gets a 2.5 mile leg. This is a great distance because it's short enough to make it accessible to a lot of people and you can pretty much go all out on it and not worry too much about bonking. I had a great team for this event. We had 2 men and 2 women. Our secret weapon is always the women. Chris Kimbrough and Shannon Presley are super fast. Chris is arguably the fastest female distance runner in Austin right now. So we've got the ringers. Myself and Eric Hamill rounded out the guys. I knew there would be some fast teams, but I hoped we could win the mixed division if we ran well. I ran the first leg and we really scorched it. I came into the exchange in 4th, but was right behind the 2nd and 3rd place guys. My time was 13:33, or about 5:30 per mile, which is pretty good for me. That's the pace I was hoping for. Dawit Seyfu finished first on that leg, and he torched all of us. I ran fast to the finish and almost caught David Wu, but he beat me to the line by 3 or 4 seconds. I exchanged with Chris and she quickly got us up to second place. Shannon lost one spot, but ran strong and was right behind the second place team. Eric anchored us and finished strong to retake 2nd place. I was pretty psyched. We got second overall out of 160 teams and won the mixed division. Pretty good I think. The first place team were all the elite Gazelles, including Bernard Manirakiza, who smoked everybody's times, so I didn't feel too bad about that.
Silicon Labs is a much more difficult relay. It's a full marathon relay, 26.2 miles on a very hilly course. The first leg is a 10K, then two consecutive 11.1K segments, then finishing fast with two 5K segments. Chris and Shannon and I teamed up again and this time we ran with Ken Young and Kevin Irwin, who are both great runners and great guys. I was pretty psyched because Rogue Running offered to sponsor us for the race. Thanks again to those guys for paying our fees and giving us some free shirts! We all ran a little slower than we wanted, but I felt strong throughout the entire 11.1K leg (about 6.9 miles). Kevin finished us off with a very fast 16:30 5K after running a 20+ mile training day the morning before. Hats off to him. In the end, we had finished 3rd overall out of more than 350 teams and won the mixed division again! I was pretty psyched about that. So the secret to placing well is to make fast friends and to run with them! Looking forward to next year.