In September, fresh off a broken ankle and a glorious Iceland trek, my friend Amy sent an email: "Wanna do an 80k relay?"
"In!" I replied.
Pressed send.
Then I thought about it: What have I done?!
The Whistler 50 miler is 80 glorious kilometres through a well-groomed trail system in beautiful Whistler, BC. A handful of massively athletic (and perhaps clinically insane) runners do the whole thing themselves. Yes. They run 80k. They are amazing. They embody perseverance.
Lucky for me, Amy wasn't proposing this death sentence. (whew)
We rounded up 8 girls and on October 19th headed up to Whistler for the big race.
The race started promptly at 8am. Each of us would run a specific leg of the race – either a 13k or a 7k distance.
We woke up with fires in our bellies and the taste of trepidation in our throats. Still, we were confident.
"Let's do this thing!" we said with fury as we opened the condo door to get rolling.
To our surprise: the grounds was covered in snow and mother nature was brooding.
Wind. Snow. Cold.
Somehow, over night, it became winter in Whistler.
We shut the door.
Looked at each other.
Put on one more layer and headed out.
We anticipated that the race would take us 8 hours all-in – 7 hours and 32 minutes later, our last runner crossed the finish line with rosy cheeks and a big smile.
We killed it.
As a girl who loves to compete but has always been a back-of-the-pack kind of athlete, I found the relay to be immensely motivating and inspiring. When Dayna, our first runner, showed up at the crossover point in just over an hour after running 13k through a hilly trail, I thought Wow, so the bar has been set.
And for the next 5 hours, while I waited for my turn to go, I strategized, I pumped myself up, I gave myself inner pep talks. There was no way I was going to be the slowest on this team!
Turns out: I was totally the slowest on the team.
But, I ran fast (for me) and hard (for me). I felt strong. I felt grounded.
I ran through a snowstorm with a blue lake to my right and snow-covered trees all around.
I ran up hills and down. Over rocks. Across tree roots. Through forest.
And when I saw Kim (another one on our team) at the crossover station waiting for the pass-off, I was delighted. And I pushed on.
In the hot tub afterwards, with snowflakes drifting downward, steam rising upwards, and Starbucks cups filled with champagne, we cheersed.
And then immediately started planning next year's run. We could TOTALLY do it in 7 ... right? Or is that just the champagne talking?
