The Hairy Edge: Billie-Marie

She did it! Two days, 60 K, and she is back home in surprisingly good spirits. More rain today, sometimes coming down quite hard but Collette, Billie and Thelma all made it through. Collette got up before dawn this morning (and I mean before the dawn of time, it was that early) and went back up to Downsview Parc where Billie and Thelma had spent the night in tent city.

The setup in the Parc was pretty amazing, including full food setups, massages, stretching booths, and a huge party last night. The organization of the entire race was pretty impressive, with lots of stations along the way providing food and drink, the girls really didn't need to take anything with them.

I was only able to go to one Cheering Station today but I decided to completely cheese out and get Miss Hayley involved.

The above picture is how you humiliate a border collie in one easy lesson. But she was quite the hit at the cheering station. As the walkers went by I would say "Hayley, cheer" or "Hayley, say thank you" and she would bark. The secret was this little hand signal we have for barking that I can disguise pretty well so people don't even notice it.

As always, there was a lot of community support and a dizzying display of walkers' self-expression.

Collette had no idea that was I going to be at this cheering station, let alone have Miss Hayley with me, let alone have her dressed up ... well, sort of. Miss Hayley is vocal, that is why it is easy to get her to "talk". But generally her bark is not the high pitched yelp of most border collies, it is a fairly deep, definite bark .. expect when a member of her pack is there to be greeted. Her pack consists of Collette and myself and some very special people who have been in her life like Billie, our nephew Jeff who lives in our basement, his parents Dennis and Kay, some of the regulars from our dog park. When Hayley saw Collette she did a little wiggle dance and put on a crying display that had all the female walkers saying "Awwwwwwwwww!!"

So the ladies continued on and the weather turned pretty bad, with some very cold rain coming down. Collette had packed some longer pants but Billie had only her shorts and t shirt. Luckily, Collette had also thought to bring some rain ponchos ... what a good aunt eh?

So the five thousand walkers wended their way through the rainy city down to Exhibition Place where the whole thing had started Saturday morning. Collette told me that the entrance to the hall was handled beautifully: First the walkers who were cancer survivors, then the event staff then all the walkers who had managed to finish the event. Collette told me she had, for a time, walked with a woman who was doing the walk for the second time ... she is 95. And she finished.

Here are the weekend warriors, still smiling after this amazing achievement, to say that I am proud of all them is a total understatement, especially my lovely wife, who set out to do something that she had never done before .. and did it well.