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100 Miles, 85 Degrees and 6 Hellmann Runners
Top row from left to right: Jennifer Woelper, Thomas Krusin, Jonathan Bales and Florian Bidaud Bottom from left to right: Alex Krome and Ricardo Lacau
J
ust like in the past two years, a handful of Hellmann sports enthusiasts from Miami once again embarked on the long, exhausting but incredibly worthwhile journey to participate in the Keys 100 Ultramarathon Team Relay.
On Saturday at 6 AM all team members gathered at Mile Marker 101 in Key Largo, the starting point of the race, to send off their first runner. They were surrounded by individual racers (running the entire distance on their own) decked out in thermal gear and with their waistbands full
hellmann partner 02/2011
of energy bars, other relay teams with crazy costumes and creative mottos (“I thought they said rum”) and a trail of supporters. Before they knew it, the race stretching a total of 100 miles along the keys with checkpoints every 25 miles and a race course leading along the unique tropical scenery of the Florida Keys had started.
The remainder of the team hurried back to the van that leapfrogged the runners for the entire duration of the race, with the next runner in line ready to go at one of the mile marker exchange points. Fast forward – 13 hours, 33 minutes and 5 seconds later: all six runners crossed the finish line together at Mile Marker 1 in Key West, the southernmost city of the continental U.S. – exhausted, but very happy to have completed yet another Keys 100 relay. It was an outstanding team effort which was rewarded by placing 20th out of 91 participating teams (and before the rum runners). Jennifer Woelper and Philip Schoen Hellmann Miami