This weekend, a large contingent of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station will be in Las Vegas. But they won’t be there to gamble or party. They’ll be there to run through the desert, participating in the annual Baker to Vegas Relay for law enforcement agencies.
The 120-mile run starts on Saturday outside of Baker, Calif., and ends on Sunday at the Las Vegas Convention Center. More than 250 police and sheriff’s teams from around the globe will be participating.
The prize for the winning teams? Bragging rights.
“Prestige is the payoff,” explained West Hollywood Station Captain Holly Perez, who has run the race about a dozen times in her 29 years with the sheriff’s department. “A beer mug is what the prize was for many years. You still get a beer mug, but now the top teams get belt buckles too.”
However, the real payoff for those participating, regardless of whether they win, is the comradery.
“Baker to Vegas is like the World Cup or Super Bowl of law enforcement,” said Deputy Danny Martinez, who has run the race every year since 2008 and organized this year’s West Hollywood team. “It’s just athletes within our community competing against each other. We take a lot of pride because we compete among each other, but we support each other too. There’s nothing like getting the station together to be on common ground, to have some success out there.”
Lt. Dave Smith agreed the comradery is the real reason for doing the run.
“It takes a lot of work, a lot of dedication and a lot of emails to make it all come to fruition. Once everybody’s set, the comradery is bar none. Everybody loves it,” said Smith, who ran his first Baker to Vegas Relay in 1991. Smith fell in love with running as a result of training for that race and now is routinely seen running through the streets of West Hollywood in the early morning hours before his shift starts.
West Hollywood Station Fully Staffed During Race
Teams consist of 20 runners, each running a leg of the race ranging from 4 miles to 10.7 miles through desert and mountain terrain. They also have five alternate runners on standby, ready to take over should one of the runners get injured, plus a 15-member support team riding in vans alongside the runners.
Despite 40 members of the West Hollywood station being away in the desert this weekend, residents need not worry. The city will be protected.
“[The West Hollywood station] will be fully staffed this weekend with the people who aren’t going to the race, both with West Hollywood deputies and a few of our regulars who come over to work overtime,” Perez said. “Everything is going to be staffed like it normally is.”
Started between LAPD and LASD
The run dates back to the early 1980s when it was known as the Death Valley Run, a friendly competition between teams from the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. By the mid 1980s, it evolved into the Baker to Vegas Relay and extended participation to law enforcement teams throughout California. Now, it includes teams from as far away as Australia and Great Britain.
The West Hollywood station has participated many times over the years, winning in the Invitational Station category (a category that allows civilian personnel to be part of the team) four times in a row, 2009-2012. Last year, West Hollywood did not have a team due to personnel changes happening at the station, but they’re back this year and hope to claim another victory.
The race also will be a sendoff for Captain Perez, who is being promoted to commander in the Sheriff’s Department and leaving the station a week later.
“I wasn’t going to run this year. I had planned on just being out there to support the team, but I kind of got begged by the team to run,” said Perez, who is scheduled to run the prestigious final leg, the 4.6 miles known as the “Hollywood Leg,” into the convention center.
Qualifying tryouts for interested participants were held at the Rose Bowl earlier this year. For the West Hollywood team, the 20 people with the top times were selected to run in the race, while the next five were named as the alternates. The rest who tried out agreed to serve as part of the support team.
Group Dinner and Rest Beforehand
The West Hollywood team plans a group dinner on Friday night at an Italian restaurant in Las Vegas, then rest up before the race.
“I never can sleep the night before the race,” Perez said. “I sequester myself in my hotel room, hydrating and resting my legs.”
After the race, some may go out to do the town, but most end up sleeping. “Most of us are so exhausted, we just go back to our rooms and sleep,” Perez said.
The 250 teams have staggered start times, determined by their qualifying times. The first team begins on Saturday at 10 a.m. and teams continue departing from Baker over the next six hours. The West Hollywood team is scheduled to start at 11 a.m.
Those staggered starts allow teams to finish at the convention center at about the same time on Sunday. They’ll be running through the desert where it can be near 100 degrees during the day and near freezing at night, though all types of terrain and weather. Perez said she’s run in the sleet before, while Lt. Dave Smith said he ran through the snow one year.
Aloma Running on Elite Team
The fastest runner at the West Hollywood station is Lt. Sergio Aloma, who takes over as station captain on April 1 when Perez is promoted to commander. Although Aloma has run on the West Hollywood team in the past, he won’t be running
with it this year. Aloma is so fast, he’ll be running Baker to Vegas as part of a separate team, the Sheriff’s Department’s “elite” squad, made up of the fastest runners in the entire department.
The elite team is scheduled to start its race last, five hours after the West Hollywood team departs. However, that team likely will finish before West Hollywood does. “I fully expect the elite team to pass us somewhere along the way,” Perez said. “They’ve very dedicated runners.”
Aloma says the elite team passes most other teams as they run, but he always does a shout out to any of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department teams he passes during his part of the relay.
“I always give some kind of acknowledgement as I pass [other L.A. County Sheriff’s teams] by,” said Aloma, who has run Baker to Vegas every year since joining the Sheriff’s Department in 1989. “The elite category has only been around since 2011. Prior to that, you had to run for your unit of assignment. I’m kind of a traditionalist. I believe there is a lot to be said for running on your station team with your coworkers; the comradery that that provides is important. But the rules were changed, and the department wants to put forward our best team. There are a lot of people, like me, who would rather run on their units, but we’re running for the greater good and representing the department.”
Support Team Vital
The Baker to Vegas Relay could never happen without the behind-the-scenes work of the support team. Deputy Jason Duron, who is serving as the support team captain for the West Hollywood team after being part of the support team for the past 13 years, said he began work for this year’s race ten months ago, arranging sponsors, getting donations, purchasing uniforms, renting the support vans and doing countless other tasks. On race day, he’ll be along the course handling anything that comes up throughout the day and night.
“The support team does everything to support the runner,” Duron said. “We provide them with on-the-field support, with water and keeping times. We follow the team in a van throughout the race. When the runner comes into their stage [to pass off the baton to the next runner], a support team member physically catches them and supports them off the race course and into a first aid area to be sure they are OK. Depending on the weather, we may be there to catch them with a blanket or have an ice pack for them. Whatever they need, we’ll be there for them.”
Deputy Julie Pinedo, who is assisting Duron with the support team logistics, has never been involved with Baker to Vegas before.
“Station pride made me get involved,” Pinedo said. “Jason asked me to help him, and I said yes. It’s just a great thing for morale and comradery, and I’m excited to be a part of this.”
This year’s West Hollywood team is dedicating its run to Sergeant Steve Owen, who was killed in the line of duty on Oct. 5, 2016, while investigating a burglary in progress. Although Owen was assigned to the Lancaster station and never worked in West Hollywood, he was highly respected and a friend of Capt. Perez.
List of West Hollywood Station Participants
Below is a list of the 20 people running on the West Hollywood team and the legs of the race they will run, along with the difficulty level of each leg (1 being the most difficult, 20 being the least difficult).
Leg 1, 5.4 miles, difficulty 15 – Retired Deputy Steve Barrett
Leg 2, 4.0 miles, difficulty 16 – Deputy John Lee
Leg 3, 4.2 miles, difficulty 8 – Lt. Daren Diviak
Leg 4, 5.1 miles, difficulty 6 – Deputy Nick Lizarraga
Leg 5, 6.1 miles, difficulty 19 – Deputy Courtney Ferrell
Leg 6, 6.1 miles, difficulty 9 – Lt. Dave Smith
Leg 7, 6.2 miles, difficulty 4 – Deputy Chris Loman
Leg 8, 6.6 miles, difficulty 5 – Sgt. Jeff Bishop
Leg 9, 7.5 miles, difficulty 7 – Deputy Yesenia Olvera
Leg 10, 5.8 miles, difficulty 12 – Deputy Gerardo Servin
Leg 11, 5.3 miles, difficulty 11 – Sgt. Keith Ho
Leg 12, 4.6 miles, difficulty 14 – Reserve Deputy Shervin Lalezary
Leg 13, 7.0 miles, difficulty 3 – Detective Kevin Hom
Leg 14, 10.7 miles, difficulty 1 – Deputy Danny Martinez
Leg 15, 6.4 miles, difficulty 2 – Deputy Chris Connell
Leg 16, 5.3 miles, difficulty 13 – Deputy Angela Lopez
Leg 17, 7.8 miles, difficulty 10 – Crime Analyst Brian Hoepner
Leg 18, 5.7 miles, difficulty 17 – Deputy Mike Reynolds
Leg 19, 5.6 miles, difficulty 20 – Sgt. Connie Delgado
Leg 20, 4.6 miles, difficulty 18 – Captain Holly Perez
Have a great run! Sergio is awesome and an inspiration to all.
Awesome!!!!! Best of luck to you all!!