Not Since Moses 2009

Last weekend was the Not Since Moses Run; Saturday and Sunday with a collection of 5 and 10 K runs and a Basket Run for the kids (1km) all done on the Ocean Floor of the Bay of Fundy at low tide.

Its really a Unique event :)

We planned to camp the night before but didnt manage it with poor weather forecasts and cranky kids and now I am regretting that because the weather didnt turn out awful (not too much rain) and it would have been a lot of fun. :(

So we drove up the morning of the race. I thought we were too late for the Basket Run (for kids) but we ended up in time; I couldnt convince Holly to go in it but we watched it and I think she thought it would be fun :)

The Bay of Fundy has really high and low tides. When it goes out it leaves miles of ocean floor uncovered. So we waited until tide was way out, and then started from the beach. :)
Behind me and the lighthouse you can see the five Islands named Moose, Diamond, Long, Egg, and Pinnacle lol. Long Island is the big one back there behind the lighthouse, where we landed.

The girlies on the lighthouse :)



I think that is Moose Island. Im not sure. lol
Girls on the beach
And the other girl on the beach. Left them all there and ran away on this awesome trek!


This is us starting out on the beach :) It was loose gravel which ended up being comparatively easy to run in ;)I thought it would be hard...it was nothing compared to the loose sand moguls.

Crossing some water after the mud. The first few puddles I was thinking Oh dont get my feet wet. What was I thinking? there was No choice but to get feet wet :):):)

Lovely sucking, slippery mud. OH my gads like nothing you've ever ran in! lol
Amazing view of the rocks behind Sarah :)
After crossing mud up to our ankles we went into water. THIS water wasnt deep and cleaned the mud off of our shoes. Not out of them, but off of them haha. There was a lot of water like this and sometimes so deep and with such a current that we almost fell into it lol. we crisscrossed lots of ocean rivers like this. It was almost impossible to run in ;) The waterways were kind of interesting and forced some walking breaks for us. lol


lol After Sarah and I were separated I was reduced to taking my own photo lol behind me is the mud we were running in and the islands that we were running to; once we left the beach there was no time to get back before the tide came back in so we landed on one of the "Five Islands" (Long Island) to wait for boats. That behind me is one of them.


This hole through Long Island was crossed twice. once on the way too and once on the way back.


Some of the Rocky Terrain we crossed.

LOL rock.

So we went around these islands when there was No water surrounding them (this was later when tide was coming back in) and between those rocks out there and back through the hole on the big Island (picture it to the right...you can see the trail where hundreds of runners passed through....)

Second time through the "Keyhole" was annoying; I was still running but some of these people stopped and others were finished...and they blocked the hole and they stood in front of me and they basically made me climb over rocks so that they could take photos. There was a lack of etiquette at this race.

Not much photo taking after this; between the soft sand which was hard to run over, and the moguls caused by tides and waves, I was doing pretty well just to finish. I felt more tired after this race than I did after the 21 km the week before! lol



View of the Finish line from on top of the Island; can see the mainland in the distance from where we came :) The tide soon covered this area.

Once Sarah was back we had a bit of food and then went to grab the bags; someone thought they were on top of the Island so I climbed the 194 steps to the top to get the bags. They were not there by the way; they were on the beach. Sarah waited on a rock a few feet away from them for me to come down lol but once I was at the top I didnt go back down until I had looked around! and the view was AMAZING.
The Stairs

This boardwalk was all over the Island to protect the plants and ferns on the top of the Island.
One of the Views from One of the 4 cottages on the Island. It was neat from up there!

There was a "dumbwaiter" on the beach for hauling up heavy things; I stood on the edge to take this photo of the runners resting below on the beach.
And from the beach this is looking up at the platform.


Neat view of a cliff on the Island

Hard to see but Blomidon/Cape Split is over there. Normally only seen from Wolfville! I thought it neat to see it from this other side.

Once into drier clothes moods improved hahah

View of the dock on the beach with the stairs climbing from there. Portapotties not normally there of course. This dock floats.

The tide creeping closer. Boats almost floating!!


This is the boat we made it onto...I think it was the fifth trip.
The beach from the boat....Few people left :)

Hanging on for dear life!

Ready to go!

And the Island from the boat.

And the boat ride back was SO Awesome on a speedboat! TOTALLY AWESOME!

So my 10 km took me 1:23:15 to do, which isnt a best time but under those conditions I was not going for a best time! I was exhausted, after the mud, water, soft sand, rocks with barnacles, seaweed.....and did I mention moguls? Yea the sand in the tides forms moguls lol try running up and down those!

Definitely the best race ever! I hope everyone gets to experience races like the Not Since Moses!