Yesterday saw the return of the 'Towpath Weekend Athletic Team' (yes the name is apt) as we decended on Frederick, Maryland (which we more aptly call 'Fredneck' due to it's redneck population) on a rainy Sunday for the marathon relay. If any of you recall our previous marathon relay escapades, you'll know that they are usually somewhat a comedy of errors, and that we as a team are cursed to never break 3 hours, even though ability wise we should. The closest we have come is 3.00.20 (last Feb) where even though I ran the fastest leg, my shoe lace coming untied and taking 20 seconds to tie cost us the goal time ;(. So here we all were in fredneck at 6am ( ish) for a 6.30am start time. ( Yeah crazy early for a marathon start!) We could have got there earlier for the 'sunrise service' but you know. We need more then prayers it seems. Team Captain' Bill' was first to start, with me to follow on the second leg. He told he'd be 45 mins. Having not worked out any of the stats I took him at his word and figured I needed to be at transition shortly before 7.15. It's amazing how time can fly....The gun went off, the three remaining teamsters hit the porta poties and headed to my car for sorting of stuff, bibs, etc. I then left the other two and ran to transition (as the crow flies) about 2.5 miles. Nice warm up. I arrived 7.13. Ok so cutting it a little close. As I said time flies! What happened was there was Bill waiting and had been for a good couple of minutes!!! Apparently ( as we later realised) the course had been modified from last year and his leg shortened and mine a little lengthed. Pants! I heaed off as fast as I could running a 6.40's pace all the way. It started to rain lightly, weather was perfect for running, unlike the heat of last year. Achilles wasn't too painful until the last mile. The rain got harder and harder. Dan took the 3rd leg, and attacked the hills in great form, we were in second coed team position going into the last leg. It was all down to 'Teeny' and she set off on a chase with a good couple minutes between us and first and only 5 miles to do it in. At this point the other three of us who had already run were in the 'team car' but unfortunately traffic prevented us from beating Teeny back to the finish line, although we were able to cheer from the car in a couple of spots along the way. We weren't there to witness the triumph as just like last year Teeny was able to pick off the competition on the home stretch Woohoo! We finished 3.02.37 1st place coed team. We worked out that even without the 'delay' we would not have broken 3 hours by just 12 seconds so the guys seemed to forgive me. I think the trophies helped. We all got very fabulous heavy clear glass awards with etched writing and running shoe with achilles style wings. A good paper weight no less. We are the champions. Now if we could just break 3 !