This weekend, we were fortunate to participate in a 24-hour relay event as a part of the “Relay for Life” movement, benefiting the fight against cancer. I believe it was the first annual and it proved to be an extremely successful event, raising over $300,000 (yes, that’s $300,000!) for cancer treatment, education, awareness, and research – mainly in Bermuda.
It was held at the rugby facility just north of the National Stadium, which is comprised of a huge perfectly flat and manicured grass pitch with a 1/3 mile asphalt track around it. As the relay was 24 hours, there were large ‘stalls’ marked out around the edge of the inside of the track on the pitch for each registered team to camp out in. Jenn and the social committee put together a sweet setup for Lancashire, complete with a huge marquee tent, catered meals, and of course plenty to drink to for those thirsty participants!
We started out with a little happy hour before setting up camp for the night. There were a few tents set up under the main tent – we had ours (all four of us stayed the night), plus there were two other tents for another 4-6 or so of the co-workers / friends / teammates who also stayed or came throughout the night to participate. It was a good, long night – made a little longer by the torrential downpour from about 4-6 am – but everyone kept going and there were still plenty of smiles when the sun came up in the morning.
Typically the mood was a celebratory one throughout the event – but of course there were some emotional moments, given the reason for the event. One was the lap dedicated to the survivors and their caregivers. They walked around the track together with these huge smiles on their faces – as they should – while the rest of us applauded and waved. It was pretty amazing. Another was the Luminaria ceremony – this was a silent lap or two dedicated to those who had lost their battle with cancer. The organizers turned off most of the bright lights around the track, which was lined with Luminarias – little white bags lit up with glowing LED candles inside and the names of and messages to those who the luminarias were dedicated to. There were lots of glow sticks and lights on the participants on the track, and along with the glow of the luminarias it was a pretty cool thing to see.
Despite the rain, spirits were high for those still on the track…
There were ‘themed’ laps throughout the event – one of them was that you could do anything except walk or run, so Josh and I strapped on the rollerblades and took to the track, which was still a little wet from the rain the night before. Josh did really well, we both had lots of fun and got lots of cheers and shouts of ‘what a great idea’ or ‘can I borrow those?’
One of our fine catered meals!
There were kids areas set up as well, and a few princesses roaming around from time to time…
The weather was good for the majority of Saturday (the event started officially at 6pm on Friday evening and went until 6pm on Saturday). A little cloud cover made for great (read – not too hot) conditions.
Josh loved our laps around the track so much that he kept on asking to go again – eventually we just let him zip around on his own, so long as he checked in every lap! He did great on the skates and had lots of fun.
Dippin’ and dodgin’!
Ryley didn’t get much sleep during the night (went to bed around 1am and only slept until 6am!), so naturally a nap was in order late in the afternoon, but only after getting her fair share of cheers in her scooter-riding-superhero-bikini getup!
A great event / fundraiser and a fantastic showing by the Lancashire team, by and large. It was fun to participate with them and to just hang out during the night / day – they are a great group to be around and I’m always happy when spouses get to tag along to these work outings! ;0)