12 Pax gathered in the gloom of Graveyard on a Friday morning to embark on a journey that would forever change their lives in ways none could have imagined. The Palmetto 200, for those who do not know, is a relay race from Columbia to Charleston covering 206 miles traversing some of the most rural areas on the eastern side of the state. The Minivan Centurions were comprised of 12 Pax who post mainly to the Graveyard/Crypt AO’s. The team is split into two vans of 6 people with Van 1 being the runners of the first 6 legs and Van 2 being legs 7-12. Each runner runs 3 legs in rotation. So basically you end up with an “active” van with runners running their segments and an “idle” van that focused on important things like van decoration, refueling and sleeping. The vans would swap about every 5 hours on average until all legs were complete and everyone is at the finish line to run across with the runner of the final leg.
There are many ways I could go about recapping the weekends events and none of them would capture the true experience because there are not words that describe it. So I have decided to break it down by the F’s.
First F – Fitness- Having already swallowed a lot of red pills by posting to run groups as well as boot camp workouts the Pax were more than well prepared for the running. I witnessed man after man break a PR on just about every run. I was truly humbled at the improvements I saw even as the legs progressed. I swear to you that the paces were getting faster as the miles add up and that doesn’t make any sense. Trying to wrap my head around it after getting back home I can only attribute it to the fact that we are only being held back by our brain. We have improved more than we are aware of from posting to workouts. Once you start running and pushing your limits and finish with a new PR you have to ask yourself since you did better than you thought you could can you push harder next leg? and the answer is yes! The work was done months in advance and the downpainments were made. It wasn’t until we had to start making withdrawals from the pain bank did we realize how big of a balance we had. With that being said do you know what your balance is in your pain bank? Have you made the downpainments? If your balance is low, post somewhere. The hardest part is getting up and going. Don’t be a sad clown cause Jody will be taking care of business if your not around.
Second F – Fellowship – This is the biggest part of the entire event. Not only did the van mates bond but so did the whole team as well as all of teams whether they were associated with F3 or not. This is an experience that is shared with everyone that is participating and the camaraderie among the participants was truly magical.