Bluenose Expo

Well, the Bluenose Marathon Expo has just finished. The big news from the Expo was. of course, Mark Campbell's 12 hour treadmill run for Brigadoon. He completed his run, as we all knew he did, clocking an amazing 106km in the 12 hrs, not to mention raising over $6000.

The tale of the not inconsiderable tape

He started at 06:00, 2 hrs before the Expo opened on Saturday, and had already run a marathon by the time most people turned up to collect their for their bibs for the following day. He started off at a conservative 8 kph pace but steadily increased during the day; he was running faster at the end than the beginning!

Not a number you usually associate with a run on a treadmill

Mark was kept busy by a steady stream of well-wishers, not to mention constant media attention. His final 30 minutes were practically electric and the atmosphere when he finished was enough to bring a tear to even a strong-man's eye; there were very few strong men (or women) at 18:00! He looked strong throughout the day and the odds on him finishing the Great Silliness; that is running the 280 km of the Cabot Trail solo next week-end, are surely shortening.

Yeah, "0", it started at 12:00:00

In other news, as you are probably aware, TNS had a booth there, just up from the chip activation booth, and we were very busy for the two-day duration of the Expo.

Just in case you were wondering how it all got put together, the TurnAround turned up on Friday morning a about 09:00 with bags and boxes from the TNS office.

and was shown to an empty booth.

Just like race day: a car-load of stuff and an empty space to transform by lunchtime!

We have to admit, it was amusing to see the little sign on the booth telling us we were in the right place...

which sport are we again, triathalon?

...or were we? Triathalon? Sounds kinda familiar.

Anyway, the first thing we did was unpack all the boxes. If this was triathalon's spot, they were going to have to fight us for it! There is always something of the Tardis about this; how did all that stuff fit in there? Not sure if a five-minute frenzy of unpacking is actually helpful but it does make us feel better.

Then put it all together. The T-shirts on the booth walls, the race-day banner on the back. We played Ron's DVD from the 2006 season on one day, and switched it out for a slide-show from the 2009 Canada Games on the second day.

After about an hour, it was looking good, and we still had time for a seriously strong coffee before doors opened at 11! We were going to need it.

As always, we're trying to improve the booth, and this year we raffled off a TNS hoodie and sold TNS mugs as well has having neat liitle luggage tags for your race-bags as giveaways.

Don't worry if you didn't make it to the Expo, we're sure the luaggage tags and mugs will be making an appearance at a TZ sign-in table near you soon.

As always, the TNS booth seemed to be a bit of a magnet for triathletes old and new; it was nice to see both new faces as well as some old familiar ones. Welcome one and all.

A huge thanks to Linda McLeod and Marie-Claude Grégoire for staffing the booth.

We know many triathletes, and triathaletes, will be racing tomorrow at the Bluenose, because you told us. So good luck all of you. If you are in town but not racing, turn up and cheer on, especially Mark Campbell as he runs his 7th Bluenose full (our mistake in the previous post), a trifling little matter of a run after today's excursions.

See you soon

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