Hood 2 Coast

This doesnt really go along well with the whole theme of this blog, but as it is my blog and my life, I shall do as I please.
I went back to oregon for 5 days to run hood to coast with a few fellow alumni from BU (that is a scary phrase to say). I was feeling sickish before I went to the airport so I was really quite afraid the whole race might be a disaster, but it managed to clear up over the next few days.
So first, the plane ride.
I had a great seat next to the window, and this nice lady sat next to me. I started talking with her about life and germany and all sorts of other things. She was quite interesting an oregonian who studied abroad in germany then went back to chase a guy and started all over. The best part was, after talking for awhile I looked down to check how much time we had, and we had been talking for 6 hours. I had just had the longest conversation of my life with a complete stranger. I do not know about you, but I find that to be incredible. I almost made it the whole flight without knowing her name, but she let it slip near the end. I think I should write a book called the sociology of long distance airplane flights.
After getting back I kind of laid low for awhile, watched some much needed tv, and relaxed. That night we had our team dinner where we got to meet our last minute add from eastern oregon. My sisters found the whole ordeal quite awkward, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, and the food was excellent. I had nothing to do with any of it beyond sending an email to my parents.
The race itself was awesome. At the start we saw teams from all over the place (germany, france, texas, italy, florida) most of whom had planned themes and outfits (except the french who just wore berets and french flags like they normally do) We had some really really fast people on our team and made a huge number of roadkills (when you pass someone).
We were able to sleep at the mac for a little bit which was really nice, but far too short as always. The night running was nice because it was cool and the roads were much less busy or completely closed off in my case. By the third leg, I was pretty exhausted and had difficulty walking normally, but I was able to run as fast as I have run in my life. So go figure on that one.
The final celebration at the beach was nice, although everyone was pretty tired and some people were starting to become frazzled and a little loose with their comments (guilty).
Somehow I was able to convince my mom and sister to come pick me up and bring me back to portland so I could relax and sleep in my own bed. Which was a wonderful experience. Those races are so much fun, exhausting, but definitely worth it.
I was also able to see my relatives in oregon before I went, making the trip not entirely for some silly race.

Finally my flight back to frankfurt (I almost said home, weird) was similarly exciting with a much younger women this time, about 25 or 27, I think. She was really interesting to talk to, and had a completely different life experience than I did. We talked for the whole flight save about 90 minutes when 21 was playing. She might have said her name once, but I do not remember. So another person on the list of people I know tons about except for their name.