Back-Road Warriors
It was a strange early morning scene on the Las Vegas Strip. Paramedics huddled over a man who was babbling incoherently after collapsing in the street, while the man’s friends stood nearby, exhorting the paramedics not to take him to the hospital.
“We said, ‘Leave him alone, he’s got to finish the race,’ ” said Jim Smith, one of the bystanders. “Then he got up and started running and by the time he hit the finish line, he was high-stepping, he was in a full sprint, he looked like he was in the Olympic trials.”
A heartless way to treat a friend? Perhaps, but consider the stakes: The team was going after a beer-mug trophy in the Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay.
It’s hard to explain the allure of this 120-mile relay run across the forbidding Mojave Desert, but mark the above vignette “Exhibit A.”
Smith is the founder of the Orange County Judges, a team that will be making its 10th consecutive appearance in the race Saturday and Sunday.
The relay, which began in 1985 with 19 teams of police officers, has grown into a massive spring tradition. Last year, 193 teams of 20 runners each finished. So, including support personnel, more than 10,000 people swarmed over the course on desolate two-lane back roads that connect the town of Baker with Las Vegas.
Each runner completes a leg of approximately six miles, then passes the baton to a teammate.
Most of the teams represent law enforcement agencies--the Orange County Judges compete in the Invitational division, the only category that permits teams of runners who are not sworn peace officers.
And the Orange County Judges are not all judges. There are actually only three, including Smith, a 63-year-old retired Orange County Superior Court judge. The rest are prosecutors, public defenders, deputy marshals and lawyers, with a couple of lifeguards thrown in.
“It’s the judges’ team,” Smith said. “Not a team of judges.”
Anyway you spin it, these guys want to win. They especially relish challenging--and often defeating--teams full of fit, young police officers. “We love to do that,” said Tom Goethals, an attorney in private practice in Laguna Hills.
Stress Relief
It’s getting tougher for this team because it is aging. Most members are in their 40s and 50s and three are in their 60s. But they all are vigorous runners, many taking daily lunch-hour runs from Orange County Superior Courthouse in Santa Ana. Running provides a bit of a release valve for high-stress jobs.
“The work we do gets rather intense and requires a high degree of concentration,” Orange County Superior Court Judge John Woolley said, “so you go out and do the running. It relaxes you and let’s you do a brain drain.”
The Judges have finished as high as ninth overall and usually finish in the top 15% of teams. Last year, they came in 29th, crossing the line in 15 hours 11 minutes 34 seconds. But maddeningly for the Judges, that was only good enough for second place in the Invitational division. A team from the Riverside County district attorney’s office beat them for the second year in a row.
“We have let the worthless human beings from Riverside win two years now,” ranted Goethals last week at a team meeting after hours in a cluttered courtroom. “We can’t let that happen again.”
Most team members only smirked during Goethals’ brief pep talk. They exchanged knowing looks when talk turned to the course. They know what to expect.
“You run into the middle of nowhere,” Goethals said, “then farther into the middle of nowhere.”
High winds are common and can make it difficult to make progress. Two years ago, Buddy Belshe, a 66-year-old retired Newport Beach lifeguard, was blown off the road in the middle of the night.
Temperatures can range from more than 100 degrees during the day to the 20s on mountain passes at night. When the temperature plummets, and you are wearing only a T-shirt and running shorts, the course is not a fun place to be.
“There’s a limit to what I want to do and this race is right there at the limit,” said Lewis Clapp, a county public defender. “All you want to do is curl up in a nice warm place and go to sleep. It’s miserable, man.”
Said Smith: “It’s one of those races that you love to hate. When you are doing it, you are saying to yourself, ‘Why am I doing this? This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.’ But five minutes after your leg, you’re excited and ready to come back next year and do better.”
All Tapped Out
Dehydration, which caused attorney Mike Horan’s brief collapse 200 yards before the finish--remember Exhibit A?--is a constant threat (Horan was fine after the finish). If a runner doesn’t force himself to drink fluids, he risks passing out.
That happened to Jim Tanizaki, a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, several years ago. Smith was watching from his “command module,” a home-made box that sat on top of the support vehicle, as Tanizaki started slowing with a half mile to go on a late-night leg.
Tanizaki struggled on and in the last 100 yards he started weaving across the road. Fifty yards out, he started staggering and he barely made it to the exchange area. Paramedics took him to the hospital and released him only after he was put on intravenous fluids for five hours.
You might think that because he wound up in the hospital, Tanizaki would be spared hazing from his teammates. You would be wrong.
In honor of his struggle to the line, he’s known as the Tanizaki Chicken.
“We don’t let him forget it,” Smith said. “This is not a forgiving bunch, or it’s not a forgetting bunch, put it that way.
“And we will get something on someone at this year’s race. We’ll get him. I just hope it’s not me.”
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Baker to Vegas: the Hard Way
The 16th Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay, a 120-mile race between 20-person teams, starts Saturday 19 miles outside of Baker.