07.11.05
Haney to Harrison
A few weeks ago a customer at the store and one of the stores clinic members asked me to participate in her Haney to Harrison team. I had no idea what the Haney to Harrison was so i’d said that i’d have to think about it. With some time bought i was able to ascertain that the Haney to Harrison was a 100km road relay made up of 8 legs ranging from 7.97km to 15.5km in length. It’s the last big event on the BC athletics calendar and is traditionally followed by a big party. I was hesitant at first but after some more persuading from Jackie I was roped in. I was not to excited about this as I had been told that Jackie liked to put together fairly competitive teams.
Anyway the day had rolled around. I had been given a 13.3k leg which i wasn’t looking to forward to. I had warmed up the previous weekend with a 42:26 over 9.5km at the Seawall race around Stanley Park. However, when the alarm went off at 5am i was still unsure of what i had gotten myself into. Renee picked me up at 5:40 and we were meeting jackie at 6am. The rest of the team was meeting us in Haney. Arriving in Haney, jackie started to get a bit flusdtered as the other two cars with team members hadn’t arrived yet and were calling to ask how to get to Haney. This was at 6:50 with our team due to start at 7:10. By 7am Jackie was beginning to worry, and decided to drive out of the car park to the start line as she had all the race numbers and stuff. Jackie’s car however did not want to start and she would require a jump start. Renee went on foot to the start with the race number and timing chip for the first runner.
7:10am and our start time had passed. The first runner had only just arrived and in a flurry of activity headed off after the other teams to also start at 7:10 only 5 minutes after the rest of the field. We all headed to the first transition. Jackie was next to run, only when Lee arrived at the end of the first leg she was inside the port-a-loo so the team was looking pretty disorganised. The day was slowly to improve with Travis being ready to go for leg 3 and myself ready to go at leg 4. The biggest decisions so far had been what to run in with the ambient temp topping out at 6 degrees Celcuis, overcast and looking like ti would rain at any moment. A lot of the surrounding hills were topped with a fresh dump of snow. I finally decided on leggings and a long sleeve t-shirt and gloves.
My leg was described as steep down hill then flat. After climbing a long gradual uphill for 2ks i was wondering how accurate that description was. That changed just after that when it became like running down Red Hill (for those of you in Canberra) even steeper in part. It went down hill to a valley floor and after about 5ks with the quads burning it was then 8.3km of painful flat to the finish of my leg. The gloves came off not long after the down hill but i was glad i was wearing the leggings as the slight breeze off the hills was not to pleasant. I was able to complete my leg in 62:24 which i was pretty happy with. I feel like i am running ok at the moment considering i am not really doing all that much and not really a strong runner.
Anyway the rest of the day pretty much unfolded without much drama. Renee finished leg 8 into Harrison Hot Springs in a team time of 7 hours 58 minutes. We did lose Renee just after the finish amongst the 50 people that muct have been at the finish line in Harrison at the time. After finding Renee we decided that Harrison was to cold with the now stronger wind whipping of the lake and it was time to return to Vancouver and Jackie’s for beer, pizza and the hockey. By 11pm it was only Jackie and I left at a club in town still partying. I could only last another hour and left Jackie to party on as the last surviving member of the team.