Like every memorable trip, something has to go wrong first. What makes it memorable is that at the end everything turns out better than anyone could have planned. Our trip to the Lower Mainland for the Haney to Harrison 100k relay was one of those trips.

Friday afternoon we showed up at the airport to find a huge line-up because of an earlier security breach at the Westjet terminal and they had to re-screen and re-board everyone. Had to stand in line for a long time. We eventually boarded, with a very fun crew on our flight. They re-wrote the entire normally very boring emergency safety procedure in Dr. Seuss style. It was so interesting that everyone was actually listening!

Our team consists of 5 current Calgarians, 2 former Calgarians who now live in Victoria and Seattle, and one future Calgarian from Vancouver. (Kevin got a job offer the night before the race to relocate to Calgary) The purpose of the trip other than to have truckloads of fun was to promote and drum up more interest from the Lower Mainland area for the Banff Jasper Relay. The sky was the usual west coast winter grey sky when we touched down in Abbotsford on Friday afternoon. But no rain. We were very excited about that.

However that excitement was short lived, we woke up on Saturday morning to see a constant shower. We left the hotel headed to the start line in Haney. 15min into the drive, we realized we were going the wrong way. We exited off the highway to ask for directions. The Fraser river was in between us and the start line with the nearest bridge to cross it some 50k away. We were gotta be late to the start. But then the local told us about this ferry near by that wasn't on our little tourist map. They said, just follow the signs. We followed the ferry signs but it seemed that we were once again heading to the opposite direction than where we needed to go. But Blair was sure it would be fine. After a wild goose chase, the rest of us finally convinced Blair that we were going the wrong way and needed to turn around. We did and eventually found the ferry terminal. Just in the nick of time, we were the last car allowed on that sailing! Otherwise we would have to wait another 15-20min for the next one. We got to the start line with moments to spare before the gun went. We were in the 6:30am wave. Many teams and the solo runners had already started in two earlier waves.

The H2H relay normally would be held the week after the time change, but not this year, thanks to our southern neighbour. As a result, our first two runners had to run in the dark. At the first exchange station we found that we were supposed to check in at the start and would have received our timing chip. Oops. But they made no fuss about that. We still received all our splits. We were all thinking can anything else go wrong today?

The sun was finally up when I took over the baton in Leg 3. Rain was still coming down, it was about 5C. I should have put on a pair of tights. Right after crossing the Stave Lake dam, my leg of the race climbs for the next 7k. My original plan was to start easy to warm up on the hill. But two runners passed me within the first half mile. That right away put me in battle mode. I picked up the pace to keep up, running my first mile up a steep climb in 7min15. The first few miles, the three of us would be racing shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. None of us was gonna give an inch. I tried surging ahead a little but was soon caught by the two. They eventually passed me. But I believed that I would catch them before the end of my 15k leg. I spent the whole day chasing those two. I eventually caught one of them. I was 20m behind him for the last many miles. When I saw the exchange station all of a sudden, I kicked it in to pass him in the final 200m. I finished my 15k in 67min. Not the fastest I could run but the best I did on this wet/cold day.

The relay route goes through some farming communities on country roads. If it wasn't the rain, that would be very pretty. The rest of the relay went without any more incident for us. We finished faster than predicted in 7hr41. Good for 26th overall out of 245 teams. We entered in the Open category because I was too young to be a master. Everyone else on the team was at least in their mid-40s, with couple in the 50s and one in the 60s. If we entered as a Master Men team, we would have finished third in that category. So everyone was blaming me for them not coming home with some hardware. Sorry guys! All in all it was a great event.

P.S.:
Oh, one more little fun story... On Sunday morning we had to leave and catch our flight at 7:15am. Ron asked me to set the alarm on my watch for 6:30. Well, I forgot the time change and that we were in a different time zone. I woke him up at 4:30am instead (one hour for the time change plus one hour for the time zone difference)...Oops. Sorry Ron, go back to bed.