Ralph was awake early on Saturday morning. 3:00 a.m. and he was peering out the window groaning to himself about the rain that was coming down. He couldn't sleep. His mind was racing as he thought about the upcoming run. He had never participated in something like this before and didn't know what to expect. He woke me up early and after a light breakfast we headed out the door. We were an hour early at the checkpoint where he was to start his portion of the Relay. As a matter of fact, we were the first ones there so I suggested to Ralph that we drive along his route and see what he would be required to run on the first leg. His route started in Palgrave and was about 5.7 km. Wow we thought...there sure are a lot of hills on this route. More up hills than down hills. After driving around a bit we went back to the starting point and waited as more runners started arriving. There was sense of excitement in the air. Everyone was laughing, cheering and ringing bells. The runners were all ages from children to seniors. Everyone wanted to participate. Slowly the first runners started appearing. One by one they came in and passed along their GPS (which they wore around their waists) to the next runner. Finally Ralph saw his team mate, it was his turn. He was happy to get started as it was cold standing around waiting. Thankfully the rain had stopped and he was able to stay dry.
Once he started running, I followed along in the truck stopping every once in a while to take photograph's along the way. What fun! I could do something that I have wanted to do for years (photograph in the country) and periodically see Ralph run by where I could shout out words of encouragement.
The hills were very challenging but Ralph did great. It was much much more than he expected, but he kept going. I was very proud of him. I drove up to the next check point and watched as he passed along the GPS to his next team member. There were 8 members on his team but 1 member dropped out after his first run. The team inspired each other to keep running. They changed their strategy halfway through and had a runner jump in and relieve each other after about 3K into the run so that they could keep a fast pace. That seemed to work much better for them.
I followed along with them up until check point 10. At that point they started running on trails making it difficult to follow along by truck. I went to Wasaga Beach and spent some time at the water. The wind was really blowing but it was nice to sit by the water and enjoy the scenery. I spent about an hour there relaxing. I then spent some time in Collingwood before meeting Ralph and his team at Blue Mountain.
They surprised me by finishing well beyond what they expected. Ralph had said to plan for 7:30 p.m. but they got in at around 5:30. I was amazed! They placed 9th overall from 45 teams. There were just over 400 runners at this event.
