CTRR Part 1 (2008) - "cabot trail - really?!"

cabot trail, “really?” (2008)

3 people - 17 run legs - 285k of the cabot trail - brainless?
……depends on who you ask!

things we were told: "you're crazy", "you're stupid", "not possible!". ‘hell, what did they know!’ well…..i guess about as much as us, but they weren't attempting it. most did know the route, which is, to say the least, challenging!

the energy of the cabot trail relay race, regardless of how you attack it, is amazing. teams cheer like mad for most everybody, make up entertaining signs, dance routines and elaborate costumes adorn the supporters and even racers. add that to fantastic scenery, and great people spending a weekend together can only equal a memorable experience.

although not considered an official team, our goal was to finish completely official, making all the leg time cuts. None of us are known as the best runners, and we didn’t specifically train for this, but we are always looking to challenge ourselves in some new adventure. We also wanted to show that is was possible, and that there are little limits to what can be accomplished. in our case, we had no chance to sleep, were eating from a bag of energy bars, drinking gatorade and red bulls, eating pringles, boost drink, bananas and cookies. we were all in a van that would slowly take on a smell more nauseating than a sweaty hockey bag. dwight isenor and his fiancée leta were our crew, and with other teams of 17 runners each, we knew we were the only team to fit in one van and sleep all in the same hotel room friday night. getting a team table at the restaurant in baddeck friday was much easier too.

our team consisted of the idea man jodi isenor, adventure seeker and non road runner. Jodi, the mountain equipment co-op poster child, got us a sponsors entry into the event despite their scepticism. then there was jan trojanowski, emerg medicine resident and basketball star turned multi-sport athlete. he was also the only guy we could think of that might consider this would be a cool thing to do. Lastly there was me, the old guy, willing to, & has tried most everything, but mastered nothing.

As our undertaking began, news spread fast amongst the other racers. our goal was to make all the leg time cuts, which meant the absolute slowest we could average for any leg was 6 minutes/km, even on the mtn stages. as the distance added up we knew that was going to be quite tough. we decided an alternating strategy for each run leg would be best, with hopes that the runs would be short enough to not hurt to much, and enough time between legs to refuel, but not enough to stiffen up. which meant jodi, followed by jan, then me, repeat.

armed with garmin 305 gps’ and calculated times on paper, we started very conservatively, running just a little faster than we needed. jan was having a hard time letting people run off ahead of him when he felt so good, so we had to keep him calm and remember the big picture. new to using the garmin, he lived up to the ‘dumb smart guy’ label when he yelled at us to tell him his pace, while that information was right there on his wrist.

jodi conquered smokey mtn as his second stage, but had some quad pain on the descent, running conservatively to save his legs for 4 more stages. we continued to pace well, and i had a great run up north mtn as my 3rd leg, but had many people go by me on the decent as I slowed to try to save my quads for what was still to come. the all uphill mackenzie mtn leg was jodi’s 4th, and he did a solid run finishing with 4 mins to spare. An instant of panic hit when he joked to us part way up that he was “out”. Our mobile diet obviously hurt him though, and while we all suffered some level of intestinal discontent, jodi took the worst of it. perhaps because, as he says, “he did the toughest leg”. with a re-arrangment in the running order he was able to recover and come back to crank out another solid run in leg 15, which was his 5th of the relay!

the one thing we didn't expect during this adventure, was the unbelievable level of support we received that helped us keep pushing on. race announcer mark stien drummed us up at every opportunity. pessimists turned to enthusiastic supporters. people knew our names, cheered for us harder than family would and congratulated us wherever we went.

Once over the major mtns we started to push harder and into the fatigue stores moving up our finish positions. only when we got in the final stages did we really realize that we had pulled it off. We were concerned the pounding of the downhill sections would hurt us in the latter stages, but the downhill on leg 8 and the decent down french mtn proved not to hurt jan at all. he pulled out his 3rd top 8 finish in the race with a sixth place on leg sixteen, which was fittingly his 6th leg of the relay. his total: over 93kms.

I drew the final leg which was my 6th. 3.5k up hunter mtn followed by a series of staircase like hills before the decent into baddeck. jan, concerned he was missing out, met me with 5k to go, but was still able to maintain 5 minute km’s despite some initial groaning. Jodi smartly decided to join us with 400mtrs to go and we all finished together, down a long funnel of people and some of the loudest cheering ever. i was pumped and slamming high fives as hard as i could.

with the final leg complete, all time cuts met, (we averaged 5:10/km) we sat in 29th place out of 66 teams, but most importantly of all - mission accomplished!

special thanks to our faithful crew, the organizers for humouring us despite their doubts, and all the competitors and locals that gave us incredible cheering and support along the way. can it be done by 2 of us? guess that question will have to wait til next year.