September 29 Hello Runners,
Why are relay races gaining in popularity? You don’t get much sleep, you spend hours in a cramped van with other sweaty, smelly people who you may or may not have known before the start of the race, and you
are running at least one leg in the middle of the night.
All those “negatives” are why I fell in love with relays. I’ve made some great new friends doing relays with people I didn’t know before, developing some great camaraderie in that small van. And that middle of the night run, either under the moon or a sky full of stars when you are dead tired, can be so surrealistic, and is my favorite part.
Throw in a beautiful route, and what you have is an event that is a celebration of all that is good about running, where PR’s are not the goal, but supporting your teammates, and doing your best to hold up your end with the team are.
But, there are differences in the various relay races being offered out there.
HOW TIMBERLINE EVENTS RELAYS ARE DIFFERENT
Scenic Rural Routes
The most important criteria for our races is a scenic, rural route, not a course that can fit hundreds of teams. We admit it, we are elitist snobs when it comes to having a beautiful course. In designing our races, we searched for the back roads that highlighted the scenery, routes that we would want to run. You won’t find our relays on the shoulders of four-lane highways – what fun is that? If you were to run all four hundred miles of our two races, you would come to only one stop light!
Innovation
Many other relay races are now copying features we initiated: the “1 Mile to Go” signs on each leg, the 6×6 Ultra team category, a non-competitive category (Helter Skelter), and the map-maker we discovered who designed our high-quality leg maps to name a few.
Giving Back to the Community
Our events over the years have raised and distributed over $157,000 to participating local non-profit organizations through our Volunteers With a Purpose, Inc. ( http://www.volunteerswithapurpose.org ) 501(c)(3) program. We were the first relay race management company to give teams the option of making a tax-deductible donation in lieu of supplying volunteers. Local non-profit groups return year after year to be part of our races.
Quality and Customer Service
Ours will never be the biggest relay races, that is not our goal. You can’t have as high a quality event with a thousand teams as you can with a hundred. We want you to have a unique relay experience on a beautiful course so it will be one of the highlights of your running career.
EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION OPENS OCTOBER 1ST
Early Bird registration opens October 1st for the 2011 Wild West Relay ( http://www.wildwestrelay.com ) in Colorado and the Green Mountain Relay ( http://www.greenmountainrelay.com ) in Vermont.
Green Mountain Relay ( http://www.greenmountainrelay.com ) – Saturday – Sunday, June 18th – 19th The intimate GMR route travels north-south through the heart of Vermont and the Green Mountains, with a majority of the route following or paralleling historic Route 100.
Route 100, which appears on many “Top 10” lists of American’s most scenic roads, is a bucolic, two-lane road lined with maple trees, passing through narrow valleys, picking its way around cornfields, and traveling through small villages rather than ignoring them.
Runners will experience all that is special about Vermont: the small towns and villages, farms with rustic barns and pastures of cows, and the roaring waterfalls in Granville Gulf. Runners cross over seven historic covered bridges, go up and over challenging hills such as Terrible Mountain, and finish with the historic Bennington Memorial on the horizon.
The Green Mountain Relay is limited to 100 teams.
I just wanted to say thank you for putting on the GMR. We’ve done the biggest/most prestigious relays in the US, your event meets if not exceeds the professionalism and organization of those races. Truly amazing! RZ South Boston, MA
6th Annual
Green Mountain Relay (http://www.greenmountainrelay.com/entry/index.html )
Saturday – Sunday
June 18 – 19, 2011
Summer Solstice Weekend
Category
Early Bird
12-person
$1115
6-person
$650
High School
$310
Super-Ultra
$140/runner
Early Bird registration closes December 31st
Wild West Relay ( http://www.wildwestrelay.com )- Friday – Saturday, August 12th – 13th This Colorado relay race begins by the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in the university town of Fort Collins, and finishes in the
beautiful ski and summer resort town of Steamboat Springs. Much of this very scenic and remote course runs through National Forests or on dirt roads.
The route winds through Roosevelt, Medicine Bow, and Routt National Forests, through small mountain and ranching communities, and crosses over Sand Creek Pass and Rabbit Ears Pass (the Continental Divide).
The Wild West Relay is limited to 150 teams.
This was one of the top 5 experiences of my 41 years on this planet. I will absolutely NEVER forget the surreal experience of climbing 8.8 miles up the steepest grade in the middle if the night with a sky above that resembled a planetarium! AJ Arvada, CO
8th Annual
Wild West Relay ( http://www.wildwestrelay.com/entry/index.html )
Friday – Saturday
August 12 – 13, 2011
Under the Full Moon!
Category
Early Bird
12-person
$1175
6-person
$680
High School
$310
Super-Ultra
$145/runner
Early Bird registration closes December 31st
Register between October1st and 31st and each member of your team will
receive a pair of socks!
Relay Registration includes:
* High quality tech shirt (High School Teams receive cotton
T-shirts)
* Portable Toilets at every exchange
* Excellent leg maps supplemented with directional signage
* Race handbooks with relay information and
* Finish Line Meal (hamburgers, brats, veggie burgers, salad, drink,
etc.)
* Finishers Medal
* Awards to the top three teams in each of the competitive
categories
* Rural Colorado or Vermont hospitality and scenery
When you register, you can choose to take part in our Volunteers With a Purpose ( http://www.volunteerswithapurpose.org ) program, an essential part of each of our relays. Last year was an incredible success as the program raised and we distributed $21,600 to Colorado non-profit groups, and $11,700 to Vermont non-profit organizations. In the seven year history of VWAP, over $157,000 has been raised and distributed to Colorado and Vermont non-profit organizations.
Please seriously consider this option. Not only are you giving something back to the communities that you are passing through during the relay, but it can be a less stressful way to satisfy the volunteer requirement.
Remember, you don’t need to have a full team to register. And if you do select the non-profit volunteer option, you can pay that donation later (by the end of March for the GMR and the end of May for the WWR.
You’ll be sent a reminder.
Online Store ( /registration/zencart/ )
Check out our online store where you can find our annual relay posters, route map posters, and hats, socks, and left over t-shirts (cotton and tech) from our relays.
If you have any questions, be sure to contact us.
We hope you’ll join us and celebrate running at one of our relays.
Photos by Steve Glass, Nathan Keen, and Paul Vanderheiden
Paul Vanderheiden – Race Director
Timberline Events LLC
PO Box 2213
Englewood, CO 80150-2213
TimberlineEvents.com ( http://www.TimberlineEvents.com )
GreenMountainRelay.com ( http://www.GreenMountainRelay.com )
WildWestRelay.com ( http://www.WildWestRelay.com )
CivilWarRelay.com ( http://www.civilwarrelay.com )
VolunteersWithAPurpose.org ( http://www.VolunteersWithAPurpose.org )
Follow us on Twitter ( http://www.twitter.com/timberlineevent )
Civil War Relay (
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=154830627742
)
Green Mountain Relay (
http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?customize&gid=2367845985#/group.php?gid=2367845985
)
Wild West Relay (
http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=93398814836#/group.php?gid=93398814836
)
Visit our online store (
http://www.timberlineevents.com/registration/zencart/ ) for any Green
Mountain Relay or Wild West Relay mementoes
Timberline Events is committed to involving the local communities our relays pass through by giving back to local non-profit organizations via our Volunteers With A Purpose (http://www.volunteerswithapurpose.org/ ) program .
One percent of our gross revenues are donated to environmental organizations.
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