January Blues Finale – STARR Torch Relay

By Leslie Ann Bent

We’d hoped for a lovely warm and sunny day to complete our virtual journey from Athens to Cortina, Italy, but that was not what the Vancouver Island skies had in store for us, although it was about 9C. When 14 STARRs met this morning, we had 12km to complete while carrying the torch for the completion of our challenge.

From January 1 to 30, seventeen of our STARR members completed more than 3,000km of running and walking as part of our January Blues Challenge.  If you haven’t been following Ian’s weekly running club updates of our progress, I summarize by saying that this distance is the equivalent of taking the Olympic torch from Athens to Cortina with a variety of side tours along the route to virtually visit previous sites of the Olympic games and arriving in Cortina just in time for the Opening ceremonies and sport competition which starts this week.

We used an official PanAm torch for our in-person relay - 1.2kg in weight and about the size of a baseball bat.  Each of our participants carried the torch for 500m to 1.3km depending on their leg of the route. Each wore a bib in honour of one of our current Canadian Winter Olympians who will be competing in Cortina shortly. We aren’t large enough a club to have 208 bibs, the total of our Canadian Winter Olympic team, but we tried to cover almost every sport and of course we honour all of them. Claude gave out bibs randomly, while Andy was our lead photographer, chasing the parade of athletes along the Galloping Goose course. As the rain gods played a role in impacting the pictures, some of the photos may be a bit blurred, but what the heck, it’s Vancouver Island in the winter. We shouldn’t be expecting sun!

The event today went almost without mishap. One runner who I won’t mention by name, passed her exchange point and kept running. When the other runner reached the 42km marker for the exchange, there was no sign of her exchange partner.  Barb and Andy accompanied the runner to the next exchange (thanks, Mel for covering more than your part!) and we believe things worked out.  No one was left without a turn to carry the torch. Let’s just say the incident made for a comical story as the missing runner’s husband just smiled and shook his head when he heard what she’d done!

Thanks to everyone who participated virtually this month, plus in person today.

Good luck to all of our winter Olympians. We are very proud of each and everyone of you who will be living your dreams in the coming weeks. We’ll be watching those spectacular performances, starting February 4 (February 6 for the opening ceremonies).

The roster recap in order of relay exchange:

Honouring Cdn

STARR Participant Olympic Athlete Sport

Andrea Marie-Philip Poulin Hockey (women's)

Danny Connor McDavid Hockey (men's)

Leslie Ann Abi Strate Ski Jump

Melanie Sonjaa Schmidt Cross-country ski

Jackie Valerie Maltais LT Speed Skating

Jill Reece Howden Freestyle/ski cross

Paul Adam Runnalls Biathlon

Barb Melissa Lotholz Bobsleigh

Liz Mikael Kingsbury Freestyle

Lisette Rachel Homan Curling (women's)

Tori Trinity Ellis Luge

Claude Laurence St Germain Claude

Andy Mark McMorris Snowboard

Kari Haillie Clarke Skeleton

Spare Kim Boutin ST Speed skating

Spare Gilles and Piorier Figure Skating

January Blues Athens to Cortina Week 5 Review

Before leaving Turin we reflected on the 2006 Winter Paralympics and our countryman Brian McKeever’s treble gold medal performance in the partially sighted Nordic skiing and biathlon events.  Brian started losing his sight aged 19 due to Stargardt's disease.  Guided by his older brother Robin and then childhood friend Erik Carleton he went on to win a total of 16 Paralympic gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals!  You might recall the brothers starring in a Toyota Superbowl advert in 2022.  Watch here and get inspired! 

Brian & Erik courtesy of skitrax.com

Brian’s nephew Xavier will be competing in Cortina, see here for the roster of all Canada’s Olympians competing in 2026.

Our route took us around the south side of beautiful Lake Garda and Lisette suggested we stay a while and enjoy the Colombare peninsular.  For this she wins a pair of Canada running socks.

Leaving Colombare it was time to head for Cortina, our journey’s 10th and final Olympic site, carrying our torch to finally light the Olympic flame.  The Olympics are not new to Cortina or officially Cortina d’Ampezzo, as they were very successfully held here in 1956.  It was the first venue to have all the events Winter Olympic events held in the same place.  The opening ceremony is remembered for the torch bearing speed skater Guido Caroli tripping over a microphone cable draped across the ice but somehow juggling the torch, getting back to his feet with the flame still burning [NB those of you running on the Goose on the final leg of our torch journey!].  Here is a photo of the incident.

Courtesy of Olympedia website

Other highlights include Austria’s Toni Sailer a.k.a. “The Blitz from Kitz” (Kitzbühel), comfortably winning all three alpine events, and then going on to have a starring career in the movies!  Here is a photo of the handsome devil!

Courtesy of Olympedia

These games are also famous for ski jump’s Fosbury Flop moment!  The two Finns, Antti Hyvärinen and Aulis Källakorpi, were early adopters of Windisch and Däscher techniques whereby the skis are held parallel and the arms are held back by the sides of the body.  Meanwhile all of the other competitors were still ‘Superman-ing it’!  The Finns won gold and silver.  So, next time you trip on a trail run, or head over your handlebars, remember hold your arms back by your sides because i) you will go much further and, ii) you won’t break your wrists or collarbones!

The crew stopped 12 km short of Cortina so that the torch can be carried the final 12km tomorrow in the STARR torch relay on the Galloping Goose.  Maggie was carrying the torch as we entered the camp, and wins a Kodak Charmera thumb sized camera!  On winning the camera Maggie said, allegedly, something along the lines of “ the Charmera is so cute and its tiny size makes it perfect for taking on all STARR runs its retro photos are perfect for publishing on the STARRs Insta site!  STARRs are going to go viral!”.

Congratulations to the 17 STARRS that got out there every day and completed more than 3,000 km or running and walking over the month of January.  Now that the flame has arrived, let’s hope it inspires Sid and our other Canadian athletes and para-athletes to achieve their dreams in Cortina!

RACE #2 OF THE ISLAND RACE SERIES—COBBLE HILL 10KM

Andy, Jill, Maggie, Barb & Kari

On Sunday, January 25th, the second race of the 8 race Island Series took place in Cobble Hill.

A record number of participants (613 finishers) participated in the 10 km race under perfect running conditions, frosty and sunny. The route has been changed a bit this year, apparently now being run in the opposite direction, but I’m not sure about this. I have run this event the past 2 years, but I’m honestly not sure how it was different. By the end of the series, all the routes start to blend together for me! I enjoyed the route nonetheless.

The route was run entirely on roads in a lovely rural setting. A fast downhill start and one towards the finish. There was a slight climb to the finish, but not much of one (as in running in Sooke). Traffic was handled very well, with runners having full use of the roads for parts of the race. Overall, the course was not that hilly. As Kari noted, “it felt like I was running downhill for a lot of the run”.

George Bonner School provided their facility for pre and post race activities. Chill, wraps and sandwiches along with cookies and fruit were provide as post race nourishment. Water, coffee and tea were available both pre and post race.

For the first time at one of the series races, I made use of the massage and physiotherapy services provided by Start LIne Health and Wellness. They offer about a 10 minute session at the end of the race at no cost to you. This is something that I probably will be signing up for at each race. I think that Maggie, who also used the service, would agree with me. It did definitely help with my recovery post race.

The winning time for the event was by Louis Maruk (M35-39) of Port Moody BC with a time of 0:30:24. Alison Mcpherson (F30-34) from Canmore AB, was the first woman across the line with a time of 0:35:43.

STARR runners at the event had a great day:

Andy Smith 0:42:58

Barbara Cina 0:45:29

Stephanie Croft 0:48:29

Melanie Eskildsen 0:53:38

Jill Potter-Hellmann 0:58:02

Maggie Curtis 0:58:55

Kari Toovey 1:01:35

Pauline Nielsen 1:07:28

Erin Nielsen 1:07:29

Joldine Lee 1:17:01

Well done everyone!!

January Blues Athens to Cortina Week 4 Review

After resting in Sesto Sexten, we headed to Innsbruck home of the 1964 & 1976 Winter Olympics. Sarah was our torch bearer and wins a prize of a book.  Last week we learned of the curious tale of the 1976 Olympics so this week we will have a review of the 1964 events.  Calgary were the runner up bidder, but as you know prevailed later in 1988.  The 1964 organising committee forgot to order the ……snow!  The Austrian Army stepped forward and delivered 20,000 m3 just in time.  Lastly, we should remember Italy’s Eugenio Monti, for a wonderful act of sportsmanship for which he was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin World Trophy. Read all about it here here

Innsbruck Courtesy of reisenexclusiv.com

Eugenio Monti, Courtesy of Wikipedia

1976 was also the year of the first formal Winter Paralympics. But not in Innsbruck, it was arranged as an entirely separate event in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden.  It wasn’t until Albertville, France in 1992 that a common venue was chosen for both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Bumper Crowds at the 1936 Winter Olympics

Next up we headed into Germany at the mountain village of Scharnitz.  Andrea was carrying our torch at the border and wins a prize of a book.  Just across the border we stopped at Garmisch-Partenkirchen home of the 1936 Olympics, presided over by Hitler, as were the summer Olympics held in Berlin that year too.  This was the first Olympics to feature the alpine skiing events!  Famously, 150,000 spectators showed up to watch the ski jump, and the Hockey gold was won by Great Britain, Canada winning silver!  (Ok the GB team was entirely made up of Canadians with British heritage.) 

Heading south back through Austria took us into Switzerland crossing at the border town of Schalkl.  Appropriately Barb was carrying the torch here and wins a prize of a book.

Next stop was Saint Moritz (with Maggie holding the torch and winning a book), home of the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics and the famous Cresta Run skeleton-toboggan track built in 1884.  Women were banned from riding the Cresta Run from 1929 for the next 90 years due to fears that it caused breast cancer?!  Here is a photo of a female rider from 1904, hats off to her!  Paul carried the torch into Saint Moritz and won a prize of a book. Both of the Saint Moritz Olympics were blighted by the Föhn, a strong southerly warm wind.  The 1928 the 50km cross country ski race saw temperatures rise from zero at the start to 25 deg C.  This caused havoc for the waxing.  The race was won by Swede Per Erik Hedlund in just under 5 hours, with a lead of 13+ minutes over silver.  On the day he wore a white suit instead of the official Swedish blue, and since then Sweden has followed his lead and adopted white as their colour for their national team.   Elsewhere, Canada won the hockey gold with a record breaking goal margin of 38-0 over the tournament.

From Saint Moritz we passed though Milan (with Steve holding the torch and winning a book).  Milan is co-host of  the 2026 Winter Olympics with Cortina, so we stopped by for Sid to check in on the hockey arena construction….. still going on.  Next stop, Turin the home of the 2006 Olympic events.  Canada won an impressive 24 medals.  Amongst their stars were Cindy Klassen wining a gold, two silvers and two bronzes in the speed skating and Canmore’s Chandra Crawford winning the gold in the cross country sprint.  Then CBC commentator Brian Willams watching the medal ceremony said of Chandra: "If you're ever standing on top of the podium, this is how you sing our national anthem.”  Watch and learn here!

Cindy Klassen practising her weight lifting!

24 days in Sid, our chauffer advised us the odometer read an impressive 705 km for the week and 2,597 km overall.  Well done team, we have now visited 9 Olympic sites and 11 countries!

Island Race Series, the Harriers Pioneer 8 km

Barb, Jill, Maggie & Kari at the start

The first run of the Island Race Series, the Harriers Pioneer, took place January 11. This is always a fun race and a chance to get our post holiday cobwebs out of our systems. The course changed this year (or rather, returned to its former route) and was a nice flat route through the Saanich countryside, in the area of the Saanich Fairgrounds.

The route allowed for some very fast paces – the run leaders could be seen way off in the distance looping around as those of us closer to the back of the pack were either inspired by the speedsters, too busy breathing and putting one foot in front of the other to care, or just taking in the scenery.  The winner of this year’s race, Jaxon Kuchar, finished in 23.34 (mindblowing)!

During my run I always like to focus on the scenery, the dogs on the sidelines and for this run, a pony in a coat being walked by his handlers!

Leslie Ann Bent, another STARR runner who took part said of the new route “I really loved this year's Pioneer 8k course - the farms, old country roads and the lack of traffic - plus a new-to-us course made it interesting as I'd never been on the route before.  What was also exciting was there large group of very fast runners which always impresses and inspires me. It was fantastic to see Natasha Wodack run in this local race too. I enjoy seeing familiar faces before and after the race”. 

As always, the Island Race Series is a great way to get out of the house, spend time with friends, pet some dogs, eat some food…oh, and enjoy a run.

STARR had an impressive 11 runners this year, with the following results:

Andy Smith 34.39

Barbara Cina 38.43

Stephanie Croft 39.02

Emily Mann 40.38

Melanie Eskildsen 43.31

Jill Potter Hellman 47.44

Maggie Curtis 48.23

Kari Toovey 50.02

Pauline Nielsen 52.13

Erin Nielsen 52.15

Joldene Lee 1:04

Great jobs STARRs!

January Blues Athens to Cortina Week 3 Review

We set off NW from Sarajevo and Paul was carrying the torch through Banja Luka famous for the ‘Banja Luka Incident’, this being the first ever NATO combat engagement in the skies above in February 1994.  https://youtu.be/WevXTsed_oc this link tells the story.  Paul wins a blue Tely 10 long sleeved shirt for his modern history knowledge.  At Kostajnica we crossed the border from Bosnia in to our 6th country, Croatia.  Georgia was our torch bearer here.  Georgia wins a Valley Harvest long sleeve orange shirt for her efforts.

The Balkans, aside from Sarajevo, are somewhat short on Olympic history so we pressed ahead to Harmika and crossed into Slovenia.  Rick suggested we stop a while by the spellbindingly beautiful Lake Bled and enjoy a well earned coffee and vanilijevi kifeljčki (crescent cookies).  Rick was so taken by the cookies that he grabbed the recipe https://sloveniankitchen.com/blogs/desserts/slovenian-vanilla-crescent-cookies and Rick is likely to bring some to a future STARRs event!  This is certainly worthy of a prize of a(nother) Valley Harvest long sleeve orange shirt. (Courtesy of yaska.si and sloveniaalps.com for the photos.)

From here our path becomes much more Winter-Olympic-like, as we begin the steady climb into the Julian Alps.  Kari suggested we stop a while in the ski resort of Kranjska Gora, which is on the World Cup circuit for slalom, giant slalom, ski jump and the Nordic events.  What a beautiful place, and also the hometown of the LA Kings Captain and Centre Anže Kopitar.  Kari wins a prize of her choice of book.

Just a short distance from here we climbed Mount Dreiländerec/ Peč/ Forno which is the border tripoint between Austria, Slovenia and Italy (hence the 3 names).  Here we need to make a decision to go straight to Cortina or head off on an Olympic themed Alps detour.  We checked in with Sid our driver and he was very relaxed about the schedule as, after all, the 3 foot short Olympic hockey rink isn’t even finished yet!  So it was Leslie Ann, who wins a prize of a Paris Olympics 2024 tote bag for suggesting we head to Innsbruck, home of the 1964 & 1976 Winter Olympics.  Why twice, why so close?  Originally, Denver won the 1970 bidding for the 1976 Winter Olympics, but the Citizens of Colorado voted 60/40 in a 1972 State referendum to decline (for environmental and cost reasons)!  The IOC then asked Whistler to fill the slot but the looming 1972 Federal election prevented Canada from committing.  Ultimately, Innsbruck agreed to step in.

We didn’t quite get to Innsbruck this week so stopped at the tiny Italian mountain ski town of Sesto Sexten.  This is the hometown of the of the Italian 2008 Giant Slalom aged 7 and under ski champion, who went on to have a promising youth career as a soccer player, and eventually swapped sports again and became…… the world’s number 1 tennis player, Jannick Sinner!

17 days in Sid, our chauffer advised us the odometer read an impressive 726 km for the week and 1,892 km overall.  Well done team, already we have visited 4 Olympic sites and 9 countries!

January Blues Athens to Cortina Week 2 Review

Leaving Trikala we headed north west for the Albanian border at Trestenik. Jill was carrying the torch as we crossed and earned a prize of a ‘hat/buff thing’ courtesy of Sarah.  From there we took a short detour to bag another country, North Macedonia and rest by Lake Ohrid.  It is way better than it sounds and locally known as the Pearl of the Balkans!  Thanks to Barb for suggesting we stop by the lake, you win a prize of one of the books.

Lake Ohrid courtesy of tourtirana.com

From Ohrid, we headed back across into Albania and some km’s later at Hani i Hotit were back on track with Kim holding the torch as we crossed into Montenegro for which Kim wins a prize of one of the books.  Next we crossed into Bosnia & Herzegovina at Bobotovo Groblje!  Danny was our torch bearer there and picked up a prize of a light, courtesy again of Sarah.

Mel was concerned about the lack of Olympic sites we had visited and suggested we veer direct north and head to Sarjevo, the host of the 1984 Winter Olympics.  For this Mel wins a prize of a book. Here the Canadians had their best Olympic results since 1960 and won 4 medals with speed skater Gaetan Boucher picking up 3 of them; two golds and a bronze.  Sarajevo was also GB’s Torvill and Dean Golden Olympics with the pair receiving the first ever perfect set of scores for their figure skating free programme to the music of Ravel’s Bolero.

Gaetan Boucher on the Podium in Sarajevo

It is difficult to believe that just six years after the Olympics Sarajevo was held at siege during the Balkan conflict.  Lasting just short of four years the siege is amongst the longest endured in modern history.  Little of the Olympic infrastructure survived but we did climb the hills to visit the derelict bobsleigh and luge track and athletes village and take a moment to reflect on the Balkan tragedy. See photos below from laughingsquid.com and Feel Bosnia.

There is a recently released critically acclaimed Canadian movie documenting over 5 years 3 young Bosinan wannabe lugists and their inspirational coach as they attempt to meet the Olympic standard by practising on this track on wheeled sleds. The movie is called The Track and is highly recommended viewing https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35699183/. Its been a recent film festival favourite and look out for it on streaming services soon.

10 days in Sid, our chauffer in the support car advised us the odometer read an impressive 816 km for the week and 1,166 km overall.  Well done team, already we have visited 4 Olympic sites and 5 countries!

January Blues Athens to Cortina Week 1 Review

As promised we started our Journey on the 1st of Jan leaving the Acropolis in central Athens at sun rise, descending the hill to the Panathenaic Stadium used in 1896.  Buoyed by the sense of adventure we made an early detour to Athens 2004 Olympic Stadium 11km in and Ian was carrying the torch as we entered the Olympic Stadium and he won a prize of an Italian yellow race shirt. 

Image from Olympic.org

Next we headed out east to visit the Marathon battle site where the Athenians defeated the invading Persians.  Sarah carried the torch on to the battle site in Marathon, where we learned the real story of Pheidippides and his famous run.  Herodotus informs us that he was nowhere near Marathon that day.   He ran the entirely opposite direction, hot footing it from Athens to Sparta, 120 miles, to raise the Spartan army to help.  The Spartans were full-on partying during a festival and declined, so he ran back on his own.   Clearly, Pheidippides is father of the Ultra…. not the Marathon.  So who can claim the Marathon?  Herodotus recalls that the retreating Persians jumped back in their boats and set sail down the coast to sack Athens (after all their army was in Marathon).  It’s the Athenian army that jogged the 42.2km lightening fast back to Athens just in time.   The Athenian army are the true fathers of the Marathon.  Thanks to Sarah for the detour and the history lesson for which you win a prize of a book about running!

Image from Etsy.co.uk

After the detour we set off north on the long march to the Alps. Three days of pretty impressive mileage by the team, has us camped at Trikala. Sid, our chauffer in the support car advised us the odometer read 350km for our effort so far. Unfortunately, Trikala has no rich Olympic heritage to share, however, it is the birth place of Asclepius, the Greek God of Medicine & Healing. The perfect place to be to get us patched up for week 2! Jackie carried the torch through the city walls and won a prize of an original Vancouver 2010 Olympics beanie for her efforts.

Asclepius God of Medicine from Wiki

Breaking News......STARRs to Save 2026 Winter Olympics

The unusually wet rain of the last few months has extinguished the Olympic torch flame being carried to Cortina.  Sooke as the Volunteer Capital of Canada has been asked by the IOC to get the flame from the Olympic Stadium in Athens to Cortina, Italy asap.  Sooke of course has enlisted its premier (and only) run club STARR to simply make this happen.

We have now raised the STARR team (of 18 runners and walkers) to travel the distance by foot from Athens to Cortina c. 1,711km minimum, to carry the Olympic torch as this year’s January Blues Challenge for 2026.  As a token of their appreciation, the IOC has arranged a Team Canada support car, naturally a red Cortina and a chauffer named Sid.  Join us on this important journey.  Expect weekly progress updates, via the website, throughout the month.

The planned route is attached below.

2025 Island Race Series by Maggie Curtis

Registration is now open for individual races in the Vancouver Island Race Series, and the first one is coming up on January 11th. I have been meaning to write a report about the series for a while, because it is so awesome to do.  I am heading into my fifth consecutive season, and I highly recommend it to all.

The Island Race series is a series of 8 races that take place roughly every two weeks on Sundays (11-1130 start) all over Vancouver Island.  I posted the dates and locations for the 2026 races at the bottom of the article.  The distances range from 5km to a half marathon and there are usually between 300 and 700 participants, depending on the race.  It is a great way to get in the racing experience without fighting the large crowds and the early mornings of the TC10K or the RVM.  It is also relatively cheap, with each race costing around $40 and with a further discount if you sign up for them all.

Why do I keep going back year after year?  I sure as heck am not winning.  My strategy is to keep doing it until I reach my eighties, and then I will get a first place ribbon for my age category.   Bruce Hawkes, a longtime STARR member, won an award for the most consecutive seasons a few years ago (in his eighties).  He also has had many first and second place age category ribbons in the past few years..

The series is a good way to keep one’s energy up through the bleak and dreary late winter and early spring.   There is going to be at least one race that is terribly wet, windy and generally unpleasant.    Some of the races have long drives to get to them too.  It seems like such a silly thing to do--but is it really?  Persevering through crappy conditions does positive things to our brains—it makes us feel unstoppable and super bad-ass.  It also means a good story to share afterwards.  And there are 500 other silly people doing the same thing, so you feel like you are in it together. 

On the last race of last season, a friendly woman in my age category came up to me and said that we had finished within a minute or two of each other the whole season.  We had a good laugh, saying we would keep an eye on each other next year.  Then I realized I was turning 55 in 2026 and would be going into a new category—but so was she!  So I have a rival for the next few months.  If you keep doing the races year after year, you get to know the people, the courses and, most importantly, the food that each club provides.

Oh yes, the post-race spread is often wonderful—beer, chili, pizza, sandwiches, coffee, cookies, fruit, and even pancakes.  For the last three years, I have run with my good STARR pals, and we have occasionally stopped and had a lunch for the up Island races, or made an overnight trip of the Comox half marathon.  There is a lot of research that suggests linking exercise with little moments of fun (like our post-run coffees) will keep us coming back, and I feel like the food at the race is a way to achieve this.

The food is definitely second the companionship and the camaraderie though.  A few of us STARRs traveled together to all the races over the past couple of years.  We saw lots of familiar faces.  The Sooke race is especially well attended by STARRs.  There are some very competitive runners, with huge teams like the Prairie Inn Harriers and Speedfarm, and competitors from all over the island.  The vibe is very friendly and encouraging and it is inspiring to see such strong runners.

The courses are also pleasant.  There are some hilly ones (Royal Roads and Sooke), some flat ones (Bazan Bay) and some really pretty ones.  Personally I like McLean Mill and Cobble Hill quite a bit.  Most of the running is on roads, except Royal Roads, which has some trail.   The series gets you out to different places around the island.  And, if you like prizes and tracking, each race has medals/ribbons for the top ten in five-year categories and at the end there are overall medals/ribbons for individuals and teams who did the whole series.  Quite a few STARRs got ribbons last year, in individual races and for the series.

So, if you are looking for a pick-me-up to get you through the winter and early spring, I recommend the series.  There are usually a few STARRS who sign up for one or two races and some who do the whole thing.  If time is tight or you don’t want the big commitment, it may be worthwhile to try one!  Maybe you will wind up planning to keep running them all into your eighties too. 

January 11 — Harriers Pioneer 8K – 11:30 am

January 25 – Cobble Hill 10K – 11:00 am

February 8 – Hatley Castle 8K – 11:00 am

February 22 –Bastion 12K – 11:00 am

March 8 – Westcoast Running Sooke 10K + 1K Kid’s super days $5 ages 0-12 – 10:45 am kids/ 11:00 am main race

March 22 – Comox Valley RV Half Marathon – 11:00 am

March 29 – McLean Mill 10K – 11:00 am

April 12 – Saanich Physio + Bazan Bay 5K – 11:00 am

Thetis Lake 20km Relay – November 11, 2025

By Leslie Ann Bent

Our Super-STARR Thetis Lake Relay Teams (6 in all!)

This year was a special year for our annual Thetis Lake relay. The rain gods took the day off and with the warm temperature, it sure didn’t feel like a typical Thetis Lake relay.  The annual event, organized by the Prairie Inn Harriers, attracts well over 100 teams each year rain or shine, and is a great fall event for clubs across Vancouver Island.  The vibe on site couldn’t be better. Lots of music and comradery are evident along the beach and staging area.  Leslie Ann and Andy brought the tent, while Sarah brought her portable heater. We had a comfortable STARR team spot to gather.  

The relay is a hilly nearly 5km course around Thetis Lake. Teams have up to four members and each team completes four laps around the loop.  The route has some gentle moments over the first half of the race, hugging the lake’s shoreline and providing nice forested terrain on wide trail.  As runners’ legs get somewhat comfortable, finding a good rhythm, the short, steep hills appear and the race gets more challenging over the last section. Pacing is important at least for the older folks like me. We didn’t call our team “Huffin, Puffin, Gaspin,’ Wheezin’ for nothing.

This year STARR had six teams competing.  It was a great venue for catching up with club members and cheer everyone on. Andy and I were unable to stay for the awards ceremony but we know STARR took home some hardware. The race results haven’t been reported as of the race recap. Congrats to all of our team members who came out and a special “whoot whoot” to the teams who placed. 

STARR Teams

Huffin', Puffin', Gaspin', Wheezin': Leslie Ann, Andy, Joldine, Barb

Hustling Mamas (and a Dad): Brianna, Steve, Alex, Karla

Defibrillators: Jackie, Danny, Steve Kent, Mark Ziegler

The Young and Breathless: Sarah, Emily (2 laps each!!)

Resting Pace Face: Maggie, Vanessa, Jill, Kari 

Three Thorns and a Rose: Pauline, David White, Claude (2 laps for Claude!)

2025 Edition of the Predict Your Time Event

By Leslie Ann Bent (with photos courtesy of Bri)

We had a decent day for STARR”s annual “Predict Your Time” event on Saturday, October 18, held at the Potholes Park. Last year runners were challenged with an atmospheric river while this year a light drizzle didn’t seem to keep members away. This event is fun for a number of reasons.  Everyone is on equal footing regardless of age, gender and ability.  The goal is to predict your time over either the long course (9.4km) or the short course (5.3km) and complete the course without a watch or other timing devise.  It means the feel of your pace is most important and the fastest doesn’t necessarily mean a win. There were ribbons and some swag as well as cookies and water. Steve and Rose came out to cheer on the runners. Of course, there was also a chance to socialize after the event.

Ten participants came out for the event, trying their hand at pacing.  Everyone did amazing. It was great to have so many people come out. Congratulations to all of the runners. Thanks to Bri for the photos!

Results:

5.3km                          Predicted time            Actual time                 Difference

Bri (gold)                                 28:42              22:34                           6:08

Melanie (silver)                       40                    31:46                           8:14

 

9.4km

Emily (gold)                             55                    54:44                           44 seconds

Kari (silver)                              64                    63:03                           57 seconds

Maggie (bronze)                    62                    63:03                           1:03

Sarah                                       50                    48:41                           1:19

Jill                                            60:35              63:03                           2:28

Andy                                        50:36              53:10                           2:34

David D                                    46                    43:18                           2:42

Claude                                     48                    53:10                           5:10