‘Bad moms running for bourbon’ All-female team from Danville aims to complete Bourbon Chase in less than 22 hours

Published 6:03 am Wednesday, October 10, 2018

“Hey, you know what would be fun? Let’s have a team of six moms run a relay race that’s 200 miles long and lasts about 30 hours.”

That’s — more or less — the pitch Dee Minor said she made to get some of her friends to join her in running the Bourbon Chase. The pitch worked and this year is the fourth time Minor is running the race with an all-female “ultra team” of just six total members.

This year’s “Bad Moms Running for Bourbon” team is made up of Minor, Ann Mosley, Laurie Belcher, Judy Jenkins, Lisa Arnold and newcomer Mattie Zimmerman.

Email newsletter signup

“We are all middle-aged,” Minor said, “except for Mattie and she’s replacing an injured mom, Farrah Guerrant. … We had a mom down and it wasn’t easy to find a replacement; I was afraid we would have to pick up another leg with five girls.”

The Bourbon Chase is a well-known relay race that lasts more than 24 hours and travels much of central Kentucky. Teams typically have 12 members and two vans. The 200-mile course is divided into 36 legs. Team members take turns running each leg while the rest of their team rides to designated locations where runners trade places in the relay race.

This is the fourth year that Minor and Mosley have been “ultra team” members, meaning their team has only six members using one van.

Minor said they were part of the first ever all-female ultra team to compete. And there are only two all-female ultra teams running this year.

Mosley said the worst part of the relay race is “mental more than anything. It’s sleep deprivation.” After running one leg, there’s barely time to grab a bite to eat; drink some water and rest a bit before it’s time to run their next leg.

“You have to find a place in the van to go to sleep for 15 minutes. You have to eat in the van, change in the van,” Mosley said.

“You have to be in the van with people that you can stand,” Minor said, laughing.

By the end of the race, “Our van looks like homeless people live in it,” she said.

Mosley said lots of Febreeze is sprayed; baby wipes are used and bras dry out in the windows.

Before the team changed its name this year to “Bad Moms Running for Bourbon,” it went by the name, “Tough Mothers.”

Mosley and Minor said they don’t really do any special training to get ready for the long event; they just depend on their general fitness. Both women are regular runners and work at McDowell Wellness Center. The two friends work out together, run together, hang out and “raise our children together,” Minor said.

The women will be leaving the starting line at Jim Beam Distillery around 8:45 a.m. on Friday. They hope to cross the finish line in downtown Lexington sometime between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.

“We never finish last. We’re good enough, and we get the same medal” as the race winners, Dee said.

Once they get their medals and have photos taken at the finish line, the team moms are ready to come back home to Danville. The day after is usually spent sleeping.

“You get up gingerly and swear you’ll never do it again,” Mosley said.

But “Bourbon Chase amnesia” sets in and the women always end up laughing and talking about their experiences on the road, Minor said. “It’s a girls’ trip.”