Cabot Trail Relay, Part 1

It was a fantastic weekend in Cape Breton. The weather was perfect, and I was part of a great team. I loved my Cabot Trail Relay experience, and would definitely like to go again.

I traveled with three team members in my van, leaving Fredericton around 2:30, stopping in Truro for supper, and Antigonish for groceries, finally arriving in Baddeck shortly after ten, where we found our team members in fine spirits in their rooms at the Inverary Resort. I knew very few members of the team, but they warmly welcomed me right away. Mark and Greg had a tradition of closing down the ceilidh at the firehall, so we headed off there. They closed it down this year too, but unfortunately it was about 45 seconds after we walked in, as the event had already ended. So, we went to the bar at the resort, where a few of the team was taking in the local music and socializing.

Also occurring Friday night was a drinking game called "Pass the Chip". Here's how it works:

a) have a last minute pull-out from the race requiring someone to take on multiple legs.

b) Get a person who has drunk a fair bit to give that race chip to another decent and sober runner, letting him know he is now doing two legs.

c) Said sober runner, naturally, passes the timing chip onto another person, who agrees to take the leg. Of course, logically, only someone who had too much too drink would accept this.

d) In a room full of drinking runners, the current "two legger" now takes the opportunity to use "Hey - do you want to run a leg for us?" as an opening line to start conversations with women.

e) As a strategy to have the "two legger" give up on his schmoozing, one of the approached women says "Sure, I'll run it for you", and accepts the chip. As the inebriated (former) two-legger moves on to swoon another honey, she throws the chip into the bowels of a large garbage can.

f) The next morning, wake up the (now hungover) former two-legger, and tell him he is scheduled to run his "first" leg in a few hours. He denies having any knowledge of the extra leg, and there is no chip to be found.

g) Scramble for a runner to take the leg during the running of the relay race!

All of the above happened during the weekend, except for "e)". Actually, we can't even be sure "e)" didn't occur ... but somehow we did have to scramble on one of the legs. It just made for an even more interesting weekend!

I'll add more in a future post. Great weather, scenery, teammates and atmosphere made for a truly memorable experience.