Welcome to the
Post Race Letter From Your Run Director
20 JUL 03
Hello Wakely Runners,
Did you ever have one of those dreams where you found yourself at school in your
underwear? You remember that helpless feeling you had not knowing quite
what to do? Then you might have some insight into what was going through
my mind when the big blue bus failed to show up on Saturday morning. I had a
premonition of dread that started Thursday morning when I arrived at Wakely Dam
to find that there were no camping spots available. Who could have
predicted that the New York State Outdoor Guides Association would be holding
their annual campout at Wakely Dam on our weekend? Thankfully, one of the
campers took pity on me and invited us to double up on his campsite. That
night as I lay in my sleeping bag, I thought that this might be a sign of things
to come.
Saturday morning when 4:15AM became 4:30AM and our bus still had not arrived, and only a handful of runners appeared, I optimistically mused that the rest of the 40 bus riders were stuck following the slow rolling bus somewhere along the winding Cedar River Road. As it turned out, most of our runners were still waiting in their warm autos looking for big blue while our bus driver was still sawing logs in his warm bed (it turns out that the driver had been ill and not sleeping well... until that night of course). At 4:45AM the decision was made to take the 15 passenger van to the start so that the runners waiting there would not be hanging around wondering what was going on. Thanks to some generous, trusting and thoughtful Wakely runners, we were able to muster enough cars and drivers to successfully shuttle all of our runners to the start. I cannot thank those people enough for coming through in our hour of need. When the last set of cars arrived at the start my anxiety level returned to almost normal. On behalf of the entire Wakely crew, please accept our apologies for the confusion and any inconvenience this mishap may have caused.
Given the potential for a real disaster, I'm thankful that we only suffered a 45 minute delay in our scheduled start. But my troubles did not end there. Twenty minutes into my run, my hydration system bladder sprang a leak and I lost all of my water. Luckily I had a second small Gatorade bladder and Kevan Matthews kindly offered me one of his hand held bottles compete with vital fluid. Having packed iodine tablets I was able to provide for my hydration needs with no further trouble and managed to take a half hour off my last year's time. A full recovery.
At least the weather was nice and in the end all 49 Wakely runners completed their Adirondack adventure. Finally, My thanks go out to the Wakely crew who pulled off a great race.
RD Jim
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PS: Mark your calendar for next year's run which will take place on July 24, 2004 - second to last Saturday in July. This year's runners will be guaranteed a spot in next year's run.... though I won't make any promises on a bus ride...just kidding, arrangements have already been made.
