Proud Moment

His name is Chad.
I held hands with this boy as we walked into our first day of Kindergarten together. He is Ryan's best friend. And now he is our hero. We will never understand how he is able to do it but we're proud to call him ours....

His Words:

In a search for the worlds only UFO landing pad our search took us to St Paul Alberta where there happpened to be a little running race going on last weekend. Being slackers Brenda Dryer and I decided to just do a 100 km relay between two of us. There is solo 100 km and 100 mile races but those people need serious therapy.

The race started at 6 am Saturday morning. I was to run the first two legs of the race which would be 37 km long. The trails went over pavement, mud, shale and then finally through farmers fields where we had to bush wack, jump logs and go up and down the NASTIEST hills ever invented. There wasn't tears but by just after 7 am I wasn't sure if this day was going to end well. 3 of us came in together in the lead at checkpoint 1 at 18 km. I was a new colour of red. We headed off on leg 2 which was a little more reasonable but muddy and wet in lots of places. I did the marathon shuffle covered in mud and wet feet and managed to survive the 19 km.

I handed off to Brenda for leg 3 with a whopping 10 second lead, leg 3 is the hardest leg of the course 23 km long and called Moose Mountain. She ran through some very uneven terrain, and some narrow pathways and up and over a moutain. Now we are close to Saskatchewan in St Paul, so I am not sure where these hills came from. Brenda destoyed everyone on the leg and blew the race wide open. She finished leg 3 in 2 hrs and 13 min and nobody was in sight for a few kms behind her.

I had the next leg which was the "easiest" leg and was 17 km long. It had rolling hills for first 15 km, in which time I saw only one vehicle. I kept looking behind to see if someone was catching me and was getting jumpy not knowing how far ahead we were. The last 2 km were the hardest of my life with 4 hills that managed to go on for days. I passed off to Brenda who had another 23 km to the finish line. My day was done for running.

Brenda was flying for the first few km of her leg over some roads. Then just so nobody felt they didn't have enough of a challenge on the course she got to do hill after hill for the final 15 km of the leg. After 2 and a half hours of having her legs cramp up she had a kick to the finish for a total time of 9 hrs and 45 min. Brenda did have enough energy to give one of the race directors hell for making such a hard last leg. We won the relay event and were the first ones to cross finish line for any event. 100km soloists finished anywhere from 11 hrs to 20 hrs. 100 mile soloists finished from just under 21 hrs to 28 hrs.

My original plan of having the worst Running Hangover of my life and quitting running was thrown out the window when Brenda's running director friend challenged us to next years race. So team HoofHearted will be back in 2011 to feel pain for another 9 or 10 hrs. Just like the world series of poker the prize for finishing the race is a braclet. Who is in for St Paul 2011? You can do 100 km as up to 5 person team as well as a 50 km event will be there for solo or relay.