New York Flyers Black - Need for Speed Relay

After talking with many runners over the past couple of years, everyone has said how much fun they had participating in a relay event - Hood to Coast, Reach the Beach, etc. Therefore, once I saw on the Flyer Forum that there were spots available on the Need for Speed Relay this year, I jumped at the chance to join. The experience did not disappoint. There was comraderie among all three Flyer teams and all of us were cheerly loudly for all of our teamates no matter what team they were on. Our "Flyer Black" team was awesome and we all had a great time. Everyone on our team was pretty laid back but yet everyone gave it their all and ran a good race. We knew that we had a repectable team but we were all pleasantly suprised to see that we came in 12th place overall (out of over 130 teams) and 6th overall in the co-ed divison - wow! I ran leg 3 which was about 6.5 miles and run primarily on grass and trails. I was a little nervous at first but it was a welcome change from doing all of the paved road loops in Central Park year after year. There were a bunch of rolling hills and some dangerous downhills in which you had to watch your footing and make sure not to fall over. There was even a part of the leg called the "wall". I was trying to picture what it would be like but it was useless to worry about it. I realized it was coming up when I saw a few people in front of me walking up a very steep dirt incline. The "wall" earned its nickname - it was a dirt hill that went almost straight up. I found myself laboring a bit at certain points but knowing that I had a team depending on me motivated me to keep on moving forward. I guess the hardest part of the run was not knowing the course ahead of you and having no idea about how many miles you have left to go in the leg. It's hard to pace when you are bascially by yourself and you have to try and estimate how much further you have to go and what pace you can susatain. Overall, I had a great experience and I would definitely do it again next year. Go Flyer Black!!!