Simcoe Shores, an Old Guys Perspective

Well what a weekend. While it is a little early to know all the results and lack of sleep makes, at least myself a little sleepy. It seems that the Barrie RoadRunners were very successful at the first annual Simcoe Shores 240k relay. With I believe 8 teams out of the total of 41 teams that showed up we were well represented. BKB, Barrie Dashers, Faster than a 93 Civic, RoadRunners 2, The Heat waves, Barrie Packers, the Sole Sisters and us the RoadRunners Oldguys.
The festivities or race start began at 7:30 am on Saturday morning with the first wave heading out from the waterfront in downtown Barrie, the second wave including the Oldguys started at 9 am. The fast third wave started at 10:30. Our team included Darren Collins, Bill Lovett, Oliver Owens, Brendan Kavanagh, Theo Bosch, Roger Ison and Keith Lascelles. Our first runner was the speedy Darren Collins who started tucked in behind the leader for the first 6 or 7k before passing him on the rail trail at the 5th/6th side road. Darren came in comfortably in first place for wave 2, in our first leg, handing off to Theo. Theo had been battling a few injuries and other than a short run on the previous wednesday hadn't run for a couple of weeks, so this would be interesting. Theo ran strong and steady on his leg to the fifth line of Oro and up towards Bass lake Road at the Hand off Theo was in second place and let Brendan take over. Despite telling him to take it nice and easy, Brendan tore up what was a very difficult hilly leg and left a large gap between himself and second. Bill took over next and kept a strong a steady pace on rollign hills passing first wave runners who had started 90 minutes ahead of us. Bill passed on to Keith who immediatley had a couple of huge climbs to tackle, which would be a test for his injuries that had turned the year of running into a challenge. Keith tackled the hills and forced himself to do 10 and 1's to lessen the impact on the sore achilles and hamstrings issues. As Keith finished his left achilles twinged a bit and after finishing thought that, that might be it for the weekend, with only one leg done. Oliver took over from here to the end of the first stage and brought us in tied for first in our wave. 4 hours and 41 minutes. It turns out that only 3 teams from the final wave beat our time too, so we were fourth overall at this point. A 2 hour break took place in Orillia at this point.
The second stage from Orillia to Midland would round out the daylight hours and Started with Roger, who found the humidity tough on a very hilly leg. Darren took over next and chased a very fast runner from the Velocity team from Orillia, keeping us with in 5 minutes. One of the performances of the weekend for our team was next to come with Brendan taking over 5 minutes behind the front runners in our wave, on a very scenic and flat trail leg he caught the lead team with in 5k and built a sizable lead as he came into Coldwater and passed off to Bill again. Bill contiued at a steady pace as he passed many first wave teams, but try as he might he couldn't catch James Rooney at the leg end. James showed some true grit to fend him off at the finish, good job James! Theo had, like Keith decided to miss a leg to see how the injuries were fairing and Oliver had stepped up to run to Victoria Harbour. The humidity at this point was very thick and dusk was approaching. Another good run from Oliver borught into the exchange and Roger ran to finish our 2nd stage in Midland in the twilight hours. We were the third team in overall. but still had changed positions overall or in our age category. At this time both Theo and Keith withdrew due to injury. Another break ensued for about an hour and a half, before the next waves got started at 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30pm. We started at 10 and Brendan ran hard against another tough runner in the dark. This would be a test for a lot of runners as most had never run trails in the dark, lights were a must and some found out cheaper lights just don't cut it. The trails were pitch black and very hard to see the footing, regardless Brendan ran well and passed over to Darren who quickly took over first place again running into Wyevale. Another leg by Oliver followed which would take us into Wasaga Beach into the early hours of Sunday morning. While supporting Oliver along the route on Floss Rd 11 just coming into the Beach we noticed a electric moped being driven eratically in Olivers direction so we tunred round to warn Oliver and another support vehicle down the road. The moped then tried to run oliver off the road turned around and came back, we then confronted and stopped the moped. Some very "stoned" individual with no helmet either. A text from Theo revealed that they ahd talked to the OPP at another turn who had actually stopped the moped earlier and let him go on home???? Olivers run continued rather uneventfully, althought the humidity seemed to be talking its toll. Roger followed on to due battle with drunks downtown in Wasaga as the bars were letting out. No problems but somewhat entertaining. Meanwhile the rest of the team headed to the next stage end to set up up a tent and try and get some sleep (not very successfully). More to come...

Part Two
While some of the team were making an attempt to sleep, Roger, finished his leg into the Sportspark with support from Theo and Brendan. A couple of hours laying around or walking around chatting to some of the other teams. A four o'clock wake up call and we were shuffling around getting ready and packing back up for Stage 4. Darren started the first leg off and to the west end of Wasaga Beach, up against a couple of formidable runners. Darren ran comfortably hard and finished the leg in 2nd place right behind the first place runner still in the dark. Oliver would take over for the 2nd leg and he blew out of the exchange zone with a sense of purpose. "Oliver, slow down, you've got a long way to go", Oliver was chasing a much faster runner and soon could only see a red flashing light in the distance. But Oliver is a strong and steady runner and maintained his steady pace. About halfway throught the leg, he was starting to get a little disillusioned and even offered to drop for the good of the team, but we would here nothing of it. We are a team and unless he was injured he was going to finish as a team. At one point Oliver asked if there was anyone behind him that we ccould see, we lied and said there was no one in sight. Actually we could see a light in the distance. We told him afterwards! Daylight was starting to show throught the clouds at this point and after a much longer leg than he thought, rounding a corner he saw the exchange zone and almost wet himself with delight. He was almost done for the race.
Bill would take over for what would be advertised as the toughest leg of the whole race up the mountain, or the escarpment. After he took off we followed, but had to make a pit stop for Brendan when we came upon an portable toilet about 1k from the exchange zone, WTF. After a long time waiting we took off after Bill, but couldn't follow to support as the road was closed to vehicles. At least it was supposed to be as some went through anyway. We found the alternate route and met up with Theo and Roger at the next exchange zone. At the top of a large hill we waited and thought we would be a long while. Some of the fast wave runners came through as we waited, but then we saw Dawn Hamel from the Velocity Team powering up the hill in first place for our wave. 55 years old and she was running up the hill like it was flat, amazing run. But shortly after Dawn came in, we saw Bill. He finished making up 5 minutes on the leaders in only 9k. Another amazing performance. Before Bill arrived we had a team discussion about Roger doing the next leg as apparently it was tougher than the level 5 leg that Bill was doing. But the following legs would be all downhill and Roger doesn't like downhill running, so off he went. And wow, Roger stormed up the hills, one after the next and passed the lead runner. The hills kept coming and Roger kept attakcing them, with a few walks thrown in. The rain had settled in and Roger was in heaven, loving the wet conditions. It also got very foggy as we finally pulled in to the second last exchange. Brendan was itching to go and off he went and the leg was definitly downhill and Brendan was loving it (he would pay for it on Monday). The Irish Flash was flying down the hills, but with about 2k to go he started to feel it and you could see his form break down a bit. He ran on galantly and came into the exchnage zone he looked relieved to pass on to Darren to run the last 5.2k. We soon realized that with only 5.2k, to run and Darren running it, we better get moving to the finish or Darren would be there before us. Darren finished the 5.2k in only 19 minutes. At about 9:30 Sunday morning we finshed, third place overall and second in our age group. We knew we were doing well, but we didn't think we could oull that off. After brekkie, we met up with some of the other Barrie teams finishing. A good day/night was had by all and Barrie teams did extremely well most placing in the various awards. Congrats to all. Thanks to all the volunteers, and support crews out there. hopefully we'll get some pictures up soon. And I'm sure we'll all be back next year, some of us may even be healthy enough to actually run.