This was the 36th running of the Cabot Trail Relay and the second year of the Halifax Old Hammers running in pursuit of the Masters Category Win.
Last year, we placed 3rd in the Masters Division and 6th overall, behind the Toronto Harriers Masters in first and the Cape Breton Road Runner Masters in second.
Relay teams tend to return with their core intact, plus or minus a few pieces depending on what real life was lived over the year.
That was true for us.
Mostly the same squad, returning for a rematch, with a few fresh additions ready to join the fight.
We came back ready to battle.
I love writing these recaps for myself. I revisit them as the years go by, reliving the effort, the silliness, and the stories. Others are welcome to come along for this latest installment of Old Hammer Relay Lore.
The 17 stage, 276km Cabot Trail Relay is a weekend-long collection of amusing and silly moments with your best running friends, punctuated by one fierce stretch of racing each amid hours spent hyping each other up.
We start the hyping long before the relay actually begins.
Our fierce captain Drew spends months organically building us up, shaping us into the strongest team possible and meticulously crafting what he believes to be the smartest race order.
The hyping is enhanced by a healthy and amusing amount of chirping with our Nova Scotian rivals, the CB Road Runners Masters, led by Chief Chirp Correspondent Ryan MacDonald. He said I could give him that title. Add it to the LinkedIn Profile.
There is some chirping directed toward the Harriers too. This is admittedly one-sided. The Harriers themselves are not actually participating in the chirping for reasons including: they live in Ontario and we don’t really know them.
Still, that does not stop us.
With a final hype group chat message from Drew, via chirp to Ryan, I am ready to get after this year’s relay.
My fun car/hype car of Matt, Mike and Jarvis set off in early afternoon on Friday, destined for the church based pasta dinner. I had created a new team playlist for us. Everyone’s top pump up songs, to be played during their legs. Last year, I gave my team a lot of grief for ruining my apple music channel with their excessive amounts of techno music. This year, there’s a notable absence of techno music but no absence of weirdness. Case in point: Jarvis requests the theme some to Sailor Moon.
So the playlist is rolling as a flurry of team texts starts flying. There are a few stalwart relay traditions when it comes to herding your team to the relay start line, and one of them is called The Last-Minute Leg Reassignment. It’s an especially prominent tradition when your team is a bunch of old dawgs.
That’s what’s happening. The leg assignments are actively being reassigned.
I’m driving. I can’t see my phone- just the group chat lighting up.
Jarvis has his phone in his hands as this relay ritual unfolds. He’s shook.
Meanwhile, I’m talking about my playlist and how I had to organize the songs alphabetically because I couldn’t get them to line up properly in relay leg order.
“Well, you can just hit shuffle on the playlist, Erin. Just hit shuffle,” Jarvis exclaims. “That’s what Drew did to these legs. He just hit shuffle.”
I have to laugh and simply bring him to church to feed him some pasta.
Well – a double serving of pasta, because he’s now running two legs.
Later that evening, Captain Drew leads our team meeting with a rundown of the final leg assignments. For me, this meeting is also the true camaraderie kickoff of the weekend.
I’m sitting on a sofa between Matt and Tony, laughing with Matt at the silliness of it all.
Drew was born to be a team captain. We owe our strategy, and most of our logistical success, to him. During the meeting, he either accidentally or intentionally discloses that he has a spreadsheet tracking all of our PBs and recent performances.
I don’t even have that for myself.
This is why he’s captain.
I’m equal parts impressed and amused by this revelation, but then quickly distracted by an equally amusing declaration that this meeting needs to wrap up because one not-to-be-named Old Hammer has to get to bed early in order to wake up at 5:00 a.m. and take their beet juice.
Obviously.
Wrap it up.
Here’s a loose rundown of the Old Hammers next 276km.
Jarvis, or shall I say “Sailor Moon,” opens our relay for us.
We catch glimpses of him a few times along the route. Blasting the Sailor Moon theme at the competitive end of the field is an unexpected funny surprise for me and, presumably, unexpected for the other fast men in short shorts if they can hear it.
He’s not fighting evil by moonlight…. just fighting a masters field. He finishes behind the other two masters teams but only two minutes separating all three squads.
A strong opening from Sailor Moon.
Tony’s up next.
We are standing in a team circle, talking about Tony while Tony warms up. CB Master Ryan is with us, heavy on the chirping. I think we are talking about Tony’s vast supplement knowledge.
“I didn’t know that about Tony,” says Ryan. “I thought he was just a pretty face.”
Our own teammates chime in, “And a pretty body.”
I’m equally excited to see Tony race and to see his WWE costume at our waterstop. It’s “Perfect” for his pretty face and body.
The soon-to-become Mr Perfect executes a perfect take down of the Toronto Harrier in the back half of leg 2.
It’s an official Cabot Trail Relay Tradition that at the awards banquet, the fastest male and the fastest female on each team are awarded a pair of socks. At the team meeting, I tell the team that I, Erin, am awarding a winning pair of socks to each Old Hammer who beats both the CB Masters and the Toronto Harriers. Beat one Masters Runner, get one single sock.
Tony, Mr Perfect, wins one single sock.
Leg 3 features another cherished relay tradition: Score a New Runner at the 11th Hour.
This year, ours is Kyle.
A ringer.
His reward? A whole pair of Erin Socks as he proceeds to crush the entire field- not just the masters field- with a 3:33/km effort that lands him 3rd overall. That placing is a team reward.
This is a fun leg to cheer on, and by now our cheering prowess is really starting to hit its stride.
We cheer for our rival Ryan because the rivalry makes the whole experience more fun. We cheer for Coach Tonya. And we’re elated to see Doran, captain of the Halifax Road Hammers Mixed Fun Team, executing a stellar 13th-place run.
Smokey Mountain, Leg 4: Graydon, Old Hammer living in Montreal, became our Smokey Runner just the day prior, in the great leg reassignment of Friday. He’s incredibly chill about being served this epic mountain leg with less than 24 hours notice. At our team meeting, we come to know his Toronto Harrier competition is Alex Hutchinson, of running science fame. “Ah!” says Gradyon. “I will have a scholarly conversation with him.” Instead, Graydon offers a scholarly study in epic mountain battling as he goes pretty much toe to toe CB’s John Corbitt for 20km. Seeing them summit Smokey stride for stride and run down the other side locked in a dual is Smokey-Sized Epic. Corbitt gets a step on him with a finishing kick in the final 100m. They finish 3 seconds apart. Running Science finishes 8 minutes later.
Leg 5 features our Old Hammer Aaron, my running partner Amy, and my other running partner Ryan.
I love this leg for its abundance of prime cheering locations. One of the great hopes of relay support is that you’ll yell the exact right thing at the exact right moment and propel someone toward their best possible performance.
This is where I do some of my finest work.
Though, notably, it’s for Ryan – not even my own teammate Aaron.
Aaron doesn’t need the extra help.
He’s out in front of the Harrier and in contact with the Cape Breton runner, looking fierce and fully in control. He holds strong to finish ahead of the Harrier and just 48 seconds behind Germani of CB.
Our steadfast captain is up next on Leg 6. No one is more dialed-in to the task at hand than Drew.
Except for this rare moment, when I come upon him having a very human one.
It’s nearly go time. He’s wearing his easy shoes and holding his race shoes in his hands. Chris and Alex are chattering at him, offering advice.
“Hmmm, what’s going on here?” I ask gently.
Drew has a complicated rationale for why he’s struggling with this shoe decision. Should he wear them for this reason or that reason? Maybe not. Something about holding form, the wind, and competing with the masters field.
Sometimes the captain needs an order too.
I’m here for it.
“Wear the race shoes. Put them on now,” I tell him.
He obeys.
He and his race shoes go out and does what captains do and absolutely throws down on this brutal “all guts, no glory” leg.
Whatever internal debate was happening in those final moments disappears the second the gun goes. Drew races fiercely, opening nearly a 90-second gap on the Harrier while holding steady contact with the Cape Breton runner, finishing almost exactly the same margin behind.
Captain may occasionally overthink his footwear, but never the task at hand.
My car needs to be equally steadfast here and get Matt to the end of Leg 6, because he’s up next.
My own steadfastness, however, could use some work.
Another time-honoured relay tradition is Losing a Runner. We almost lose Jarvis at the end of Leg 4 when Matt, Mike, and I casually walk back to the car without him.
Here, after cheering for Drew, I begin to drive off without Mike.
Luckily, Matt intervenes.
Despite these close calls, I manage to make it through without nearly losing Matt or fully losing anyone, which by relay standards is like a logistical triumph.
Matt runs next. I like having our legs close together because it makes our shared wish to drive together actually work. The downside is that, with me up immediately after, I have fewer chances to stop and cheer for my longtime training partner.
I would have liked to see more of his leg unfold.
Instead, an unwelcome wind steps in to take my place.
A strong headwind picks up and makes itself everyone’s problem. The relay is always a competition against your division, but just as often it’s a competition against Mother Nature.
Matt handles both. He earns himself a single Erin Sock for beating the Cape Breton runner and holding his own against Mother Nature.
It’s my turn now on leg 8.
Something I love about the relay is the way you watch your teammates go to war for the team and feel your own excitement and anticipation building for your chance to do the same. That feeling grows all day.
I’m eager for my turn.
I’m also looking for redemption.
Two weeks earlier, I had a race where the performance I had hoped for simply wasn’t possible on account of my son’s serious injury. He is healing well now from a surgically repaired fractured femur, but that race was not mine to have.
This one is.
I also love this crew so much. I want to race hard for them. This crew are valiant supporters of women in sports. You see that by the presence of 2 women on this team, along with 14 men, in an ungendered masters category. I can’t speak for the other teams. I can use my eyes. I go into this leg wanting to prove that the women belong here.
Sometimes you are lucky to get yourself into an ideal race flow state and that’s what happens for me. I get off the line out front and I climb the first hill glued to the Harrier’s back. The CB master is behind me. It’s a 3km climb to begin. I’m wondering why the Harrier is so slow. It should feel reckless to be on the shoulder of this particular Harrier but I feel like I am supposed for an opening km. We split through 1km uphill with an uphill slow 4:50. He floats away after this split and the CB runner gets out in front of me and that’s nearly the final movement of runners on this leg.
The strong headwind remains, challenging the entire field. I understand it’s everyone’s struggle, not my own personal struggle.
You’re stronger than the wind.
That’s what I’m repeating to myself. The CB runner stays pretty much the same distance in front of me. A few helpful coaching cues drift through my awareness, but mostly I’m just running each kilometre as hard as I can.
It’s a quiet leg. Most of the relay is trapped in bridge traffic from the lane closure on Leg 7.
This suits me fine.
I’m locked in and barely noticing the passing cars. If you cheered for me and I didn’t smile back, thank you.
I definitely smiled to myself as Jarvis yelled, “ERIN! You’re a Firework!” as I ran by. Speaking my hype song lyrics to me.
At kilometres 7, 8, and 9, we finally drop into a bit of a valley and find shelter from the wind. I hit splits of 3:46, 3:46, and 3:58 and briefly let myself hope it will last.
It doesn’t.
The wind returns.
Every second matters, so I keep driving.
I’m proud to finish 8th overall, behind only the fast open teams, the Harriers, and the Cape Breton masters squad.
I’ll collect the first-place female socks at the banquet.
It wasn’t as fast as I had hoped, but that was true for everyone out there. Probably no one on my leg was as fast as they hoped.
One of my favourite moments from the entire relay comes from this leg, though I know it only through my Road Hammers teammate Paige from the mixed team.
Her car had cleared the bridge traffic and was doing an excellent job cheering, every bit as loud as my own car.
Paige told me she was parked beside another masters team, waiting and watching.
The Harrier goes by.
Cape Breton goes by.
The other team, scanning the road, asks: “Where’s the third masters guy?”
Paige responds: “The other masters guy is her.”
She points at me.
Apparently he replies, “Trip her!”
And Paige says, “No! She’s my teammate!”
I love this story because:
It is not a guy.
It is me.
Later, looking over my splits, I’m pleased to see my heart rate data. I spent a long time racing 5Ks, and despite being a 45-year-old masters woman, in race conditions, I can still reach and sustain the kind of max heart rate that usually only shows up in a true 5K race day effort.
I show Matt the numbers: sustained 187–193 over the final 5km, max 197.
“What are you,” he asks, “18 years old?”
My car needs to drive to Cheticamp now because we have a leg 14 and 15 runner and a trunk full of WWE costumes for leg 16. As we drive over North Mountain, we see Doug. Last year, he destroyed Smokey Mountain for us. This year, he is destroying North. It’s a sight to behold. The Harrier and the Road Runner behold it too – from behind. He beats them both.
We have a beauty sunset to behold too on North and Mackenzie Mountains which feels like a fair reward for the day’s efforts.
Next comes Waboo Pizza, and then bed for a very brief and complicated period of time.
My available rest window is 10:45 p.m. to 3:45 a.m., except it’s not that simple.
Jarvis’ leg 14 details aren’t nailed down tightly enough, and I lose some sleep over that.
I also lose some sleep that I fully deserve, having prioritized my 6:40 p.m. race performance with a strategic amount of caffeine that is now exacting its revenge.
At some point after midnight, I open my phone again and am greeted by what is unquestionably the MVP performance of the Old Hammer relay:
Absolute Dawg Ian Holdway.
Age 50.
MacKenzie Mountain. Leg 10.
Fourth overall, behind only the Slow Ship, the Maine-iac, and the X-Man.
3:49/km up the mountain.
The Old Hammers bow down to him.
Frankly, the Harrier and the Road Runner should too.
And Harrier Alex Hutchinson should write his next running science book about Ian Holdway.
Ian himself says he dosen’t know how he did it. He was over 10 seconds a km faster than he expected and was less than 4 minutes behind a recent AUS Cross Country Champ who broke the course record. Hutchinson: write this book!
Late addition Phil, fresh off a hot new half marathon PB, carries the team down French Mountain for Leg 11 — and he does it quickly.
3:55/km.
That earns him one Erin Sock.
I’ll award him the second later for his WWE performance.
Chris takes Leg 12 and delivers what we unanimously award as the Most Badass Performance of the relay.
He falls with 3 kilometres to go.
Then he gets up and finishes at essentially the same pace he was running before he hit the ground.
Chris is pure nails.
Ryan takes on Leg 13, the absolute middle of the night.
Jarvis gets to the start of Leg 14 courtesy of the Captain and takes on the first double of his young relay career.
He arrives at the finish fully hyped, and I request a Gun Show to lead us into the Leg 16 water stop.
Before it’s Royal Rumble time, it’s Mike’s turn to deliver a knockout performance on Leg 15.
Mike and I get in the car at Laurie’s at 4:15 a.m.
Normal for relay.
Foolish for real life.
At 4:00 a.m., I was standing in my hotel room in a WWE costume, pulling warm cheer clothes over top.
That felt weird.
Even by relay standards.
I like Mike’s prerace vibes. He’s quiet. Focused. Fully locked in. No unnecessary chatter, no wasted energy — just a man calmly preparing to go to work on the course.
And go to work he does.
Mike rolls through Leg 15 at 3:57/km and works his way past plenty of the field, including his Harrier competitor.
His song selections for the leg were Can’t Hold Us and The Greatest Show.
Appropriate.
It was a great show.
And they definitely couldn’t hold him.
That performance earns him the win in the Hammer-to-Harrier matchup and gives us exactly the momentum we need heading into the main event.
The championship belt now passes to the WWE water stop.
I’ll just leave some pictures from this stop.
I believe this: the measure of a relay’s success can’t be did we win?
That’s an outcome available to only four teams.
The better measure is fun, joy, camaraderie, and memories.
This water stop had all of that.
Sarah is the lucky Old Hammer who gets to run through the full silliness of our water stop.
Part of her prerace preparation apparently included some visualization work around: don’t laugh too hard at my crazy teammates.
Just before her leg, I gave her a hug and reminded her:
“We (the women) belong here. We know that. Go run like that.”
She does.
This brings us, finally, to our Old Hammers eating pancakes at the end of Leg 16 – thank you, Great Canadian Honking Geese – and to the glory leg, #17.
Our Glory Runner is Alex, our Old Hammer currently living in London, ON.
We know heading into this final leg that our team will place third.
It was a valiant effort against formidable foes.
At several points throughout the relay, we held the lead.
Eventually, it slipped away.
That’s how it goes.
We showed up. We fought hard. We’re proud of that fight.
Alex delivers a glorious closing run to cap off an impressive team performance.
When the final numbers settle, we’ve improved by seven minutes over last year. Full results here.
The conditions were tougher. Windier through the day, colder through the night.
And still, we were faster.
We didn’t win our division. The weekend was full of team wins.
Wins measured in effort. In laughs. In ridiculous costumes. In fierce racing and louder support. In traditions kept alive and new stories added.
Last year, we spent essentially the entire relay chasing the Harriers.
This year, we leveled up.
So did the Cape Breton Road Runners.
That is the nature of good competition: it asks everyone to rise.
I can’t wait for us to rise again next year.
This recap has been full of praise for Drew, and rightly so, but I want to close with one final heartfelt thank you to our captain.
My friend and teammate, you were the backbone of our rise this year.
It was an honour for all of us to go to battle with you.
And now, I’ll step aside and let my teammates share their own highlights — their own measures of a relay.
