We made it!

Three flights, 36 hours in the air and we made it to the starting line of the Easter Island marathon, along with 30 other crazy canucks, collectively having raised over $350,000 for the Canadian Diabetes Association. Once again, our heartfelt thanks to all who donated.

It was the weirdest, wackiest race I have ever been crazy enough to participate in. For starters,

there was no printed route map - just a vague announcement over the PA: "Run along the road...If you're running a full marathon, run across the island to the other side and come back; if you are running the half marathon, run halfway along the road and come back!" No high-tech racing chips, just a starter's whistle, as the 170-strong running cloud took off to look for a road. Luckily, we quickly discovered there was only one road, and it was already in use by an assortment of cars, trucks, scooters and horses.

 Easter Island is the stray dog capital of Polynesia, and soon I was "pack leader" to

a motley group of strays lopping along beside me, until they tired of the game and went on to harass some cattle that had joined the crowd on the road.

It was all uphill until the halfway point, which, you might recall, we weren't expecting to be marked, thus causing some debate amongst those runners with enough breath left to argue. I decided that the debaters advocating for the shorter turnaround had the more persuasive argument, and so I turned around. After the race I discovered that we'd missed the official (and well hidden) turning by about 300 yards.

The entire jaunt was racing "Polynesian style", with everything so ultra laid back that even our fellow racers didn't seem to be in a hurry to get to the end. Eventually we did, however, and proudly Heather and I staggered across FIRST in our respective age division! And that despite 600 additional yards...