2020 Ekiden - Wintergreen Golf Course

The annual Banff Ekiden was moved to the Wintergreen Golf Course this year. ÆVUM decided to put a team together and try out our beginner legs at a race. Usually when we pull up to a snow covered parking lot ready to snowboard we feel right at home with decades of riding experience behind us...this was different...we were the new guys. The teams around us started to do their pre race routines while we made ours up for the first time, glancing at the other teams for ideas. When the New York and Boston Marathon gear started appearing draped over some of the racers we really felt out of place.

Good thing we had Matt McKay on our team to start us off. Despite just getting into running recently his hard work has paid off and he is a great runner. With Dallin Low out of commission due to sickness Matt volunteered to run two legs of the race, the first and third.

The course was beautiful. Draped in a layer of fresh snow, there was huge trees and beautiful ponds. I was really worried about the condition of the path we were running on since the parking lot was snow and ice but it ended up being not too bad. I noticed the fast runners decided track spikes were the ideal shoe of the day...they were flying.

The way the course was setup racers were constantly passing in the same direction and the opposite direction since different legs were going different directions. The speed at which some runners blew by me going the opposite way was incredible.

We had a great time and cant wait to destroy our 2020 time next year in Banff.