Monday, May 11, 2015

My First Relay Marathon!

I have never been involved in team sports. Not in my childhood or highschool years. My participation in a university intramural dodgeball team could be described as "persistent" at best, since I was usually the first one hit. But last December, when I saw that the Toronto Goodlife Marathon had a relay team option and I knew I wanted to do it.

But I am only one person. And I actually don't know have any friends (in Canada) who like to run. So I asked friends if they knew of any runners. And reached out to these runners. Some ways of reaching out were a bit 'creepier' than others. But in about a month, we had enough people for a team! I was so excited! XD

After some people bailing out, finding new recruits, finally meeting the whole team, naming ourselves the Hot Potatoes, meeting up for group runs, motivating each other throughout training, lots of spamming to coordinate race day details and some unexpected delays during race day... 

Team Hot Potatoes finished 13 out of 69 relay teams!!! We ran a full marathon in 3:38:11!!

Not bad for a first time as a relay team, and it being two of our teammates' first running races!!



I'm not great at writing stories, so I'll summarize my experience with the Hot Potatoes in the form of...

Memorable Moments from the Relay Marathon Journey 


How I Met These Runners:
  • Messaging the @runivores on Facebook and asking them if they'd be interested in doing a relay together and getting an enthusiastic YES!
  • Asking a tall stranger at a korean restaurant if he was looking to meet up with a group of relay runners. Good thing he was! 
  • Meeting our last recruit while skating with friends (and scouting out possible runners on the ice).
  • Finally getting all 8 runners together was a magical moment. Yes, magical!
Group Bonding:
  • The Mystery Room that we didn't manage to escape from. Darn Mummy's Curse!
  • Exploring the trails of Newmarket, Unionville and North York together: Not knowing where we're going, and only knowing where we'd meet (most of the time). XP 
  • Sharing deep thoughts on runs: "Why are beautiful things always so dangerous?"
  • (Post-race) Lunch that involved much discussion about everyone's relationship statuses/preferences. XD
Race Day (Sunday May 3, 2015):
  • Finally spotting one of the runivores running at me and handing me the small potato so I could conquer the only big hill on the course.
  • Seeing my friend's face and shouting his name as I passed him the potato. So glad he was there so I didn't have to keep running. >_<
  • Hugging my teammate (whom I missed at the checkpoint!) as she was nearly the end of her first 5K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • The countless group jumping photos.
  • The death of our team mascot, the little potato that we passed from runner to runner, that I did not witness but became aware of only when it was too late. =(
Almost perfect team jumping photo! If only we had 2 more people in this shot...
All of us getting a bit crazy from receiving our finisher medals.
I feel blessed to have met these fun loving people who share my enthusiasm for running! Thank you to every one of the Hot Potatoes for helping me make this idea of running a relay marathon come to life!! I hope we have run more races together in the future, whether it be the Goodlife Toronto Marathon next year or another race! =)

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