I've done quite a few of them. First of all, it's the race of a lifetime! So congrats on getting a team together and doing it! Do you work for Nike? That's the impression I got, and if so... HQ is such a beautiful place. It's a really great place to run too, btw.
So about the HTC, I've run 2 PTCs as a high schooler (you start in Portland at leg 13), and 3 HTCs as an adult, volunteered for 2009 also. Every year I've run a different leg rotation so I know quite a few of them well.
Leg 1, while it's supposed to be the easiest leg rotation, isn't easy for the stability challenged. You end up running a descending route that goes down 2000 feet in altitude over the 5-6 miles you run. It is however, my favorite leg. In this rotation, you also end up being one of the downtown Portland legs, 13. Basically, this person will have no problems with public viewing of the race. You also get leg 25 with this which is pretty boring and extremely easy.
The leg 5 rotation is a killer. I hope you have a good runner for that one. I just about died when I did it. Leg 5 is hard because the last 3 miles of the 7 miles are all uphill. Leg 17 is not bad, but it's long (8 miles I think) and through St. Helens. It's leg 29 that is the killer. You run a hard first leg, a long second leg and now you spend you last leg going through the forest (yeah, you're really in the forest), it's dark, there may be no one around you when you do it for miles, and it's uphill for the first 4 miles. I think the altitude change is around 600 feet.
Those are the 2 memorable ones I feel as if I should comment on. The others I ran were fun, but nothing challenging.
Just know that you'll be running around 15-20 miles over a 24-hour span in 3 legs. You might run one leg at 5 in the morning and another at 10 at night. You'll be running through the forest, there's no way around that, and it can be a little intimidating, especially if you end up alone on your leg like I did (we got an early start for some reason the year I ran leg 5 and we were WAY ahead).
You'll have 2 "vans" of runners, coordinated to the runners legs. You'll end up sleeping with (not that kind of sleeping with) these people when the other van's runners are running their legs. For example, when the last person to go in your van on say leg 21 is finished, and the next person doesn't have to run until led 27, you and your van-mates end up with 5-10 hours of sleep time, depending on the speed of the other van. USE THIS TIME. Even if the adrenaline is coursing through your veins, try to at least take a shower (there are sometimes places along the way to do so, and St. Helens HS usually has a place for runners to sleep) and rest. You not only want to be ready for your final leg, but you want to have fun at the finish line party. Like all Oregon races, it ends with BEER! It's at the beach (obviously) and it's really a great time.
If you don't already have one, try to rent a house as a team. It's not fun trying to get back to Portland after the HTC as traffic is not great. There you can celebrate as a team and pig out on good carb-ridden recovery food. Plus, Seaside is a really cute beach town.
I hope you have fun! Which I know you will.
Maybe I'll see you around, I'm doing the leg 9 rotation.
