Knoxville team with UT ties runs with the thoroughbreds

Officially, it's called the Hood to Coast Relay, a 197-mile relay with each team consisting of 12 runners, but most competitors just call it "The Mother of All Relays."

You could say the relay team from the Knoxville Track Club tamed that mother.

The KTC's team started from the summit of Mount Hood, Ore., at 6:45 p.m. Friday (Pacific Time) and finished at about 1 p.m. Saturday at Seaside, Ore., on the Pacific coast.

There were 1,000 teams competing in the relay, and only two teams finished ahead of the KTC. The top two teams were corporate teams and worldwide sellers of running shoes and athletic equipment - the Brooks national team was first and the Nike national team was second.

"Here we are, the KTC, and the only two teams that beat us are heavily sponsored by two corporate sponsors," KTC team member Stewart Ellington said. "They brought out their thoroughbreds and we brought our ringers. I'm surprised we were able to compete with them."

The top two teams finished about 35 minutes ahead of the KTC team, whose time was 17 hours, 58 minutes. Many of the Brooks and Nike team members are pro runners.

"The teams that beat us have a lot of people who run professionally and have a lot more resources than us," Ellington said. "I'm still stunned we did so well."

But it's not as if the KTC team didn't have experienced runners. Ellington, a former All-American at Tennessee, has won the past two Knoxville Marathons.

Another KTC runner, Bob Adams, at 2002 UT graduate, holds the record for the Smoky Mountain 72-mile trail race and won the Iron Horse 100K race this year.

The rest of the KTC team members are all accomplished distance runners, most of them with experience running marathons.

Other KTC runners were Andy Baksa, Andrew Press, Bobby Holcombe, Elijah Shekinah, Chad Newton, Stuart Moran, Michael Mentz, Joseph Goetz, Bill Kabasenche, and Daniel Hughes.

So whose idea was it to run the "Mother of All Relays?"

"It just started with a bunch of chatter among guys," Ellington said. "We started to chatter about putting together a super team. All the guys are class acts. It was about a year ago when we started talking about it. I can't believe it happened."

The race consisted of 36 legs with each of the 12 team members running three legs. Each relay team had two vans - one at the start of each leg, the other at the end of each leg.

Each of the KTC runners averaged about 20 miles, and their average time per mile was 5 minutes, 28 seconds.

John Smyth, who is in the insurance business in Knoxville, was one of KTC relay organizers. Smith and Herb Gengler drove the KTC's two rented vans. Team sponsors were the KTC, Eric Bell, John Lawler, the Health Shoppe, Runner's Market, and Don Bosch.

"(Race organizers) staggered the teams so the slower teams started before us," Ellington said. "We were constantly catching people. Logistically it wasn't that bad. It (the race) kind of had a weird vibe, kind of like a neo-hippie concert vibe."

Roads were not blocked off from traffic, although the course was not on heavily traveled roads.

"It was essentially back roads," Ellington said. "Some of it was major thoroughfares, some gravel roads, and some of it was quite hilly. There were shoulders on most of the roads. There wasn't much traffic, but you needed to be attentive, especially at night. We wore reflective gear at night."

Ellington said the KTC runners were exhausted at the end, but they are already talking about running again next year.

"It was a wild experience," Ellington said. "I've been running 20 years and never seen anything like that. It was wild times."