Relay for Life (Final Wrap)

I know... it's been almost a month... but what can I say. They don't call me Zotime for nothing. The weekend started with an 8-hour poker game at my house. Half the proceeds went to the ACS. I didn’t’ get to bed until about 4 am. We had to wake up early to be in Saline for a first communion on Saturday. After the celebration, we didn't get to the Relay for Life event until 4pm.

We had just missed the "Ms. Relay" event... this is where a male from the group needs to dress up like a woman and complete in a beauty contest (including evening dress, talent event, and short question and answer) our team headed by "The Magic Woman" won this (great job Bruce). I started to walk around the track at about 4:30. A few others and I completed laps being members of the Magic Carpet Ride team.

The RFL also want teams to come up with ways to make more money at the event. Most teams sell things like food and trinkets. Our team came up with this Magic Carpet ride as our moneymaking thing. We made a litter and covered it in a Persian Rug and four of us carried people them around the track. We also had a "Town Crier" in front of the litter announcing the presence of a princess/prince and to make way for them. This was a big hit with the crowd. We made about $150 doing this $5 per ride around the track.

I started to run about 6:30 pm and was going to run a few miles as part of a workout since I didn't get a chance to run earlier in the week. After about 45 minutes, I was informed that we had to do the Mardi Gras hour which is to walk around the track and try to get beads from people. Bruce ran up to me and handed me a bunch of beads as we needed to have someone participate during the hour. This worked, but by the end of the hour, I had already run over 10 miles. I ran a total of 13.5 miles straight. Needless to say that my legs hurt at the end and the cold didn't help at all. My legs started to get immediately tight as I started to cool down my run. By the time I had cooled down my legs were stiff like a board.

At dusk, they lit up the luminaries and several cancer survivors got up to talk about their experiences. At midnight, we had a bagpipe player come in and we all walked a lap around the track. Amazing Grace on the bagpipes has always meant a lot to our family as it was my father in laws favorite song, and when he passed away, it was played on the bagpipes at his wake and funeral. It was very moving for our family. We also sang Happy Birthday to one of the team’s daughter who had passed away from cancer four years ago. She would have been 14. You would have had to be a statue not to cry during this as 500 people sang this song to someone so young.
There was an hour of quiet time where most of the gathering walked around the track and read the lit bags as they lined the track.

At 1 am the festivities heated up again as there was karaoke for an hour followed by field events. At 5 am, it was spirit lap time, as the teams had to come up with a way to show spirit. Our team decided at the last minute to put together a marching band. We had a bell, a couple of plastic bucket (drums) and my daughters’ trombone in the band. We won this along with several choice words from some of the other teams that were trying to sleep at this time... (nothing like being woken up by a marching band) At 6 am, it was the morning walk time as teams walked around the track as the sun rose. All in all it was a very special event with many moving moments during the night. Our team raised almost $4k. In addition, as a site... all the teams had raised over $60k.

My legs were sore for over a week. However, of course, I loved every minute of it (even the cold). I came away with some very memorable moments from this that have permanently etched into my mind. My family will definitely do it again next year. We are even starting a non-profit organization to feed money into this cause and others that we have support through out the year.