Thank you for making this a successful, memorable and enjoyable Relay for Life.
I was a bit worried this year as I have not been able to put the time and same energy in the preparation for the Relay and recruiting of the team members compared to last year. I clearly did not consider the skills, drive & commitment of my fellow Suthonians.
From start to finish it was an inspiring event and all things being equal I would be honoured to captain the Sutho team again.
Garry organised a delightful and tasty fundraising dinner with raffle and trivia. he rallied around the local enterprises and got some great prizes to raffle of. It gave the Sutho TeamRelay the profile we had been unable to give till then
Regarding the actual event.
There was Paul, Ross (On her birthday!), John, Neil helping set up in the rain on Friday night, We were allowed to set up on the Friday as Neil had helped setting up for the event on Thursday
Saturday morning one of our leading fundraisers Joe kicked of the relay at 10am and we nearly needed to mobilise security to get him off the track as he appeared hell bent to run the full 24 hours. During this period Neil (one of our other key fundraisers) took advantage of the resources and contacts he had forged during the setting up of the event. He organised a pest contol inspection and fumigation of our campsite and
had our floor virtually waterproofed and carpeted by the start of the second hour with the help of Klaus.
Klaus our new member gave us a lesson on how to run the relay economically and effectively by dosing his runs over the 24 hours. he ran a marathon and appeared still fresh by the end of that. he also took many a picture.
Jeff Corsatto and myself covered the next stage, before Lauren fullfiled her first commitment to the Relay. Sally stopped by to ensure we had promotional material for our Sutho half marathon and Winter Cross Country season to hand out. On behalf of Peter Ikin and myself we apologise as we only handed out flyers to the female population on the track. We will better ourselves next year and also will hand out these flyers to male members of the public.
I was excited to have one of our Summer season Athletes Simon and his girlfriend Alexa in the relay team. I hope we get the opportunity to introduce both Simon and Alexa to our winter cross country runners at some stage. Simon and Alexa handed the anklet over to another potential returning summer athlete Pat who put in his solid hour of relay.
Neil, a typical 5km runner, then ran a half marathon. Well done, let's hope your knee will come good quick again.
Next were the runners from 6pm till 4 am who copped a lot of torrential rain
Gabriella and Maria both ran 8km. Great effort from both of you! Tim Yates(walking) and John Shaw one of many who run the Novice that day covered the next 4 hours till Klaus put his second bit in. Ian Graves, Peter Ikin then took turns.My apologies for bullying Peter and not allowing him to enjoy shelter in the marquis when it was raining.
Sally brought clear skies and more flyers and visited every team at the track to promote our club. Garry , Klaus, Tim, Neil, Lauren, Rhonwen (8km well done) and Brandon (PB at Novice on Saturday) brought the relay home.
We have done it again:
we had someone on the track for the full 24 hours.
Thank you team for helping clean up the site swiftly after the event.
Thank you to all those that stopped by our marquis for moral support and shelter.
We have raised more than AUD 3000 in funds so far and we must have run well in excess of 300 km together. Reportedly again the lap counter did not work all the time and further we need to tally up the laps run by our team without the anklet.
I hope you all have recovered or will recover soon from your efforts. We did this again with a good cross section of our club; families, winter & summer athletes, young and old.
Ron Cozijnsen
