Baba Yaga! Minnesotans Win Hood-to-Coast

The 26th annual Hood-to-Coast Relay took place August 24-25 and half of the members of the victorious women’s team -- Team Baba Yaga -- consisted of Minnesotans.

Baba Yaga (pictured) is no stranger to the podium at H2C, having won the team title eight times in their 13 attempts. However, winning this year’s 197-mile relay from Oregon’s Mt. Hood to the shores of the Pacific Ocean by a mere 11 seconds ranks at the top in terms of excitement.

DtB contributor Chad Austin caught up with Baba Yaga team captain Robin Balder-Lanoue to find out more about this event and her team’s victory.

DtB: First off, congratulations on your victory. For those of us that aren’t familiar with this relay rules, can you briefly explain how things work?

Balder-Lanoue: Thanks. Sure, there are 36 legs set up in distance where the exchanges can logistically take place. Each team has 12 runners on it and you rotate through your line 3 times. The big picture is that you put runners 1-6 in van 1 and runners 7-12 in van 2. Those two vans play leap-frog. The same goes with the runners. Runner 1 takes off and you drive down the road and scream “go Baba Yaga” and get to the exchange for number 2 to be ready for the hand off. You continue this madness through all 36 legs.

They have 1000 teams competing. The teams go off at 15-minute waves. I think there are about 20 teams in each wave. I believe they begin the waves on Friday around 9:00am and the last wave goes around 8:45pm. They typically try to start the top women’s, open and men’s teams at the same time to make for a very exciting competition.

DtB: It sounds like you’ve been doing H2C for a number of years. Do you run with the same runners, or core group of runners, each year?

Balder-Lanoue: This was our 13th year at H2C! We have a roster of about 25 women that have run it with us over the past 13 years. In addition to myself, this year’s team consisted of Minnesotan’s Cindy Brochman, Havila Peterson, Erin Ward, Laurie Hanscom and Katie Zuehlke, along with Kim Bendel and Jackie Herrington from Wisconsin, Lori Stich-Zimmerman (TX), Sharon Tillotson (MA), Sarah Hansen (CO) and Christine Olen (ID).

DtB: It doesn’t sound like this was your first victory. Was it?

Balder-Lanoue: This was our 8th team championship, 1999, 2001-2007. In 2005 we ran as a sub-masters team to get the record but we still beat all the open women teams.

DtB: Winning by 11 seconds in a 197-mile race, I’m guessing it was the most exciting. How did that last leg play out?

Balder-Lanoue: At the beginning of the race we were seeded 2nd, 25 minutes behind Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. We went back and forth the first rotation. The second rotation we were up by 4-6 minutes and had to try to hang on to that lead. Our last runner was being chased by their runner who was cruising. She made up some serious time but our runner held her off. We were so excited for that win…we were truly shedding tears of joy. Not having slept much in the past 48 hours really lead to heightened emotions!

DtB: Is there anything else you’d like people to know?

Balder-Lanoue: This race is truly an amazing experience! When you are on a relay, you can just push yourself a little harder than you would in an open race. We put 12 women runners together that truly push one another. It is always a recharging and inspiring weekend for us, as crazy as that may sound.

Photo courtesy of Robin Balder-Lanoue.