WWR: Leg 4 - Burning, Man.

It's is unbelievably hot waiting for Matt. It's almost noon and the temperature reads 100 degrees F. I find a place for a quick pitstop before my leg starts and I get the handoff. My leg is 4.3 miles and is rated easy, it's flat, dirt road and is completely runnable. And it is, for the first 300 feet, then the heat hits me and the fact that I'm wearing a heavy kilt doesn't help. I'm still givin'er and it's not too bad, there is some initial cloud cover, but that gets burned off really quick. I soon find myself chasing a patch of shade, but by the time I close in, it moves west and I have to go east. There's 179 feet of elevation on this particular leg, but it's deceptively over 3 miles of uphill. I see people in the distance, but they're too far ahead of me to make any sort of ground on them. (thanks a bunch, Matt!) Get a brief breeze from a little lake and that eases the heat. Clock into mile 3 and Van#1 is helping Matt recover and ask if I need anything before I cross Owl Canyon Rd. "Ice!" Snatch grabs a handful and jams it into my bottle. I break into a hard run now and see the 1 mile to go mark. My handheld is freezing cold, then it becomes cool, then rapidly lukewarm in the space of 5 minutes! Damn! I grab sips when I can and sprint the last half mile. Take my wristband and hand off to Snatch at 37 minutes! I strip off my tshirt and blind half of the spectators with my pasty white torso. Call shotgun, get in the car and turn up the AC, baby! One down, three to go!