There’s no doubt about it… The greatest reward of doing The Texas Independence Relay will be all the fun you’ll have creating a cherished memory! After competing and finishing this remarkable athletic event with your team, your only regret will be that it’s over!
Nevertheless, we look forward to honoring everyone’s achievement upon completion of the event with a finisher’s memento. Further, we have a plethora of awards for your team to strive for. These include awards for everyone in the top three teams in each of the following categories:
In BOTH the Open and Corporate Divisions:
Men’s Open
Women’s Open
Mixed Open
Men’s Masters
Women’s Masters
Mixed Masters
Men’s Veteran
Women’s Veteran
Mixed Veteran
Only Corporate teams are eligible to compete for the coveted Corporate Cannon!
In addition to all the awards above, you can also garner awards for the following:
Texas Spirit (Top 3)
Honorary Texans – Essentially the Texas Spirit Award for Out-Of-Staters.
Best Team Name (Top 3)
Best Decorated Vehicle (Top 2)
Finally, we look forward to rolling out new awards in 2012, such as the Best Bundlers and Most Popular! We look forward to letting you know about these later in the Fall!
Below is a recap of award winners in 2011!
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We suspected that the TIR course record was in jeopardy of going down… did it ever. The Fleet Feet Terlingua (of Terlingua Track Club, and captained by Jose Lara) put on a distance running clinic, clicking off 5:45miles all the way through, winning in 19:26:10.
No, this is not a typo, they bettered the previous course record by almost 2 hours. It was business-like the way in which they hammered out impressive leg after impressive leg… lining them up, and knocking them out. Congrats to The Fleet Feet Terlingua for a ridiculous relay win and nice re-write of the TIR course record! Of course, it was a complete team victory, but if there was a runner of the event, it would be Sesar Figueroa. Sesar is a 4 minute miler, and currently the top runner in Houston. He ran ~5:15s for over 18 miles at the 2011 TIR.
Three other teams joined Fleet Feet Terlingua in finishing well below the old record. The mixed team from Dallas, Dolls n Towel Boyz (led by Steve Henderson), took second overall, running just a smidge over 6min/mile pace for the entire distance.
For much of the race, they ran neck-and-neck with the returning champions, The Tornados (headed up by Leno Rios), before putting a little more of a gap on the Tornados as they navigated through Houston. These two teams have battled it out against each other for two years now, trading wins over the other, and BOTH had nothing but praise to say about the other team! They even finished up the TIR's epilogue together.
The team, More Pain Please!! (with captain Jace Huering), also provided a remarkable effort (20:55:56 / 6:11 pace) to finish under the previous course record. We observed all of these teams over the first several legs of the race, and they were all awesome indeed!
Speaking of rockin’ the course, the all women squad, Red Hot Chili Chicas (Kim McClintic at the helm) were true to their name as they obliterated the 3-year women’s team record. The Red Hot Chili Chicas ran right at 7-flat pace (23:41:22), and they made it look super fun and easy every step of the way!
Finally, we tip our hats to the Corporate Cannon winner (once again, in record breaking time!) to the corporate team, Fire In The Belly, from Apache Corporation (captained by Jarrett Hubert)! Fire In The Belly ran the excellent time of 24:40:56, putting in just over a full day’s work, literally running ‘round the clock at a 7:18 clip.
Below are the results for the top teams:
