The Atlanta Track Club women’s team was the overall women’s champion at the 30th running of the Office Max Hood to Coast Relay. The relay is the largest in the world with over 1200 12-person relay teams and is run a distance of 200 miles from the Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood (7,000 ft elevation) to the Pacific Ocean in Seaside, Oregon.
The Atlanta Track Club was seeded second going into the event, but they quickly built a 10-minute lead over the top-seeded NWC-She Devils (OR) after the first van exchange and was never challenged the rest of the race. The lead eventually grew to as much as an hour until the final time of 21:30:45 was recorded by the ATC who finished 45 minutes ahead of teams from Minnesota, Idaho and Oregon.
This is the ATC’s third women’s team title in the last four years at the Hood to Coast and their best team performance out of the last four appearances at this event. The team average of 6:27.5 per mile for the entire distance is the fastest per mile average in their seven Hood to Coast Relay appearances.
Individual highlights include Jill Horst’s first leg of 5.67 miles in 29:51 (5:15.9 per mile average) and the final leg of the race run by Angela Guiliana as she ran 5.25 miles in 31:18 (5:59.1 per mile average).
The championship team was composed of collegian’s, post-collegian’s, Olympic Trials qualifiers, track and road specialists, half and full and ultra-marathoners, students and moms. The championship team included Kate Schweitzer (Decatur, GA), Jill Horst (Rome, GA), Shawanna White (Stone Mountain, GA), Lina Nguyen (Atlanta, GA), Tamarah Karrh (Marietta, GA), Ingrid Louw (John’s Creek, GA), Mary Chind (captain, Atlanta, GA), Chelsea Weiermiller (Milton, GA), Emily Potter (South Pines, NC), Julie Collins (Atlanta, GA), Elena Linn (Marietta, GA) and Angela Guiliana (Atlanta, GA) along with driver’s Terrance McMahon (Woodsboro, MD) and Andy Carr (Milton, GA).