The 2018 Reno Tahoe Odyssey: Relay Recap
The Day Before the Best Sleep of My Life
Our RTO History
This is our collective 6th year doing the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey relay and our 4th as an Ultra team(s).
The course starts in Reno and does a giant, 178 mile loop through Truckee, around Lake Tahoe, through a half dozen Walmart parking lots in Carson City before climbing up and over Geiger Grade in Virginia City and mercifully ending back in Reno.
The course is tough but fair. Our teams generally finish between 23–25 hours.
Typical challenges include extreme Reno heat (although it wasn’t bad this year), altitude, sleep deprivation, steep climbs and descents, navigational issues (for Gina and Angie), dodging traffic and drunk gamblers at state-line.
Our first two years (2012–2013) as twelve-person teams were amazing. Filled with intoxicating novelty and excitement.
The love for RTO was truly cemented in 2014 when, out of necessity, we switched to a six-person Ultra team [and paid double because the “Ultra division” wasn’t quite a thing, yet].
We were hooked and never looking back.
In 2016 and 2017 we grew to two six-person ultra teams and this year we added a third. This event is always so difficult to explain to friends and yet, we are able to convince 18 people to run 30ish miles. We even turned a few people away.
We always joke about having try-outs but that might come soon.
RTO is the culmination of thousands of emails, spreadsheets, and group texts. It represents peak friendship and easily one of the most fun weekends every year.
The 2018 Edition
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, this 14-minute race recap video is probably War & Peace length commentary on the 2018 edition.
Enjoy.
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