I don’t know what you have heard about this year’s race so I’ll do my best to bring you up to speed on how it all went. The weather leading up to race day was near perfect all week long and that bit of information will come into play as this update continues. The race has always been on the last Saturday of February and this year was no exception. The announcement had been made early in the year that there would be no registration on race day or the day before therefore making Thursday the last day to register and be an officially registered entry. Also the race would be capped at 800 entries this year to help plan a better event for everyone. Late Thursday evening the entries were counted and finally all in the system and the count was exactly 800. Unbelievable that we hit it right on the head.

Friday morning came early and there were plenty of loose ends to tend to. The finish line area in Coral Bay requires many hours and many hands to prepare for the 800 expected finisher on Saturday morning and all that goes with that part of the day. By the time I finished everything up and got home it was 8:00 PM and I had 27 messages waiting for my reply. 26 of them were people wanting to now register for a race that had sold out the day before. One of the calls was a person that needed to know if they were going to be able to get out of Coral Bay on Saturday morning to make a ferry boat to St. Thomas and eventually make a flight to the states. Their call was the only one I returned that night to assure them that they would be able to drive up the hill and make their way on to North Shore Road and on into town. The other 26 calls were deleted as it would have taken me more than an hour to tell them all the bad news. I needed to settle down and get rested for what would be the largest attended road race ever in the Virgin Islands. With that said you need to realize that everyone who lives locally has had seven weeks (since January 1st) to register for this race. Those coming from the states or beyond have had since early October (via online service) so in my eyes there are no excuses from anyone. My team and I have made it very easy for the entire world to register and officially be a part of 8 Tuff Miles.

For me Saturday starts at 2:30 AM with a cup of coffee and a hardy breakfast. I slept about 4 hours and that’s not bad as I have somehow done race day with less sleep in past years. Even with the hundreds of volunteers that are there on race day I still feel like there are something’s I must do to just know they are done. By 6:00 AM I have been to Coral Bay and back to Cruz Bay making sure everything is in order and now the Cruz Bay Volunteers are in place and months of planning are paying off with crowds of people filing in and preparing themselves for the next 8 miles of their lives. At 6:50 AM the chartered ferry boat full of St. Thomas entries arrives in the Cruz Bay Creek and 212 people step off and flood the area. With that the day begins to brighten but there are clouds in every part of the sky and it feels like rain. The local Cub Scouts bring up the color guard which this year included the flags of the England, Scotland, Canada and the BVI as we have entries from outside the United States and I felt it is important to recognize them. Our national anthem was sung and soon after that the newly appointed Chief of Police drops the bright orange flag to start the 12th Annual St. John Gatorade 8 Tuff Miles Road Race. A sea of athletes fill the downtown streets and make their way up to Center Line Road as all vehicle traffic is stopped or re-routed for the next three hours. Soon after we (yes, I am an entry too) make our way up the hill there is water and Gatorade waiting for everyone, eleven water stations in all. Thirty minutes into the race it begins to rain and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. For now we are all enjoying the coolness of what will be the most rain, “race day” has ever seen. Personally I managed to pull off a time of 1:13:16 placing me in the top 100 finishers this year and I was very happy with that.

The rest of the morning sees 726 entries cross the finish line, 74 no shows. As far as I know, all that started this year’s race eventually finished. Last place was just under 3:00 hours. Bottom line, everyone had a great time despite the weather, actually people enjoyed the fact that the rain kept it cool. At 4:00PM that afternoon about 200 people gathered near the starting line area for the award ceremony which began with live music and was followed with the presentation of the 84 age group trophies, the Best Water Station trophy, Overall Male and Overall Female trophies, the youngest male and youngest female award and then the college scholarship funds totaling $4600.00. The weather was dry by then and again it is important to say one more time, everyone had a great day.

By Monday morning the Daily News had filled the back page of the newspaper with an 8 Tuff Miles story.( By the way the back page of the Daily News is the same as the front page of the Sports Page). The local television station, TV 2 dedicated the entire 4 minute of the weekend sports to 8 Tuff Miles and at the end of the sports section added that they would catch up with the rest of sports from that weekend during the rest of week. (To me that was HUGE coverage). The St. John Sun Times who is the Official Newspaper of 8 Tuff Miles filled the pages with a color photo section and updates of the event in their next release.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my recap of the weekend that made Virgin Island history and next year’s planning is now less than 6 months off although my thoughts are focused on the economy and how it will affect this event. The next couple of years could be without frills but we will have a race no matter what the economy deals us.

All the best,

Peter