Relay for Life -- Our First Year

Team W.T.F. - Walk to Fight survived the Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life! Our team raised $2,943 for our first year.

It was a great event, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We're already talking about next year! Now that we've experienced the whole event, we'll try to make it even more fun for everyone on our team.

I managed to stay away the entire time, meaning I was awake for about 26-27 hours in total. My entire body is achy and sore. Mostly from carrying the 200lbs of stone dust filled bags that we used in place of tent pegs.

I think my favourite part was the Luminary ceremony after sunset. The field lights were all turned off, leaving the track lit only by the luminaries. It was a very touching moment when the bagpipers played Amazing Grace as Sandra and I stood in front of my Dad's luminary.

I think the only downside was having to move our tents 6 or 7 times on Friday morning to make room for the track. Ideally, it would have been nice if the tracks had been marked prior to setting up.

The funny moment of the evening was when three teens stopped in front of our tent and asked if they could take a picture of our team sign. One of them said "it's the most awesomest team name!" Apparently there were other people who commented on our team name.

The last time we managed to see our total laps, we think it was around 130-140. That's about 5 minutes per lap. However, more often than not, we walked in pairs or small groups and those only count for 1 lap. One lap counter per team. We didn't have any designated times for when each member took their turn. It simply worked out that someone was always willing to take the lap counter and do their part, throughout the night. We had a great team!

A few things I learned from all of this that might help for next year:

• Most people either ignored, or weren't aware of, the "no pegs" rule for tents. I was told that there's an underground sprinkler system on the field, therefore they asked that we didn't use tent pegs. We had 200lbs of stone dust packed in freezer bags to use in place of pegs. Moving the bags to and from the truck was a pain. We'll have to think of a better way to "peg down" our tents next year, or get a cart to move the bags!
• I am way out of shape. I should start walking more in the weeks leading up to the event. My body hasn't stopped complaining since we got home yesterday. :)
• We packed way brought way too much with us.
• Parking wasn't as limited as we were told it would be.