Running: Bear causes commotion during Odyssey relay race

Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 08:51 PM

The weekend's 178-mile Reno-Tahoe Odyssey Relay Run Adventure turned out a little more exciting than planned.

*Photo may vary from actual bear.

About 2 a.m. Saturday, runners encountered a bear in the Kingsbury Grade area.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office scared away the bear, race director Eric Lerude said Sunday.

"They fired something off that gave us all a little bit of a thrill, and the bear went running off into the woods," Lerude said.

"That actually concerned us, because it was running toward the next relay exchange point," he said. "We weren't certain if we were just causing the situation to be worse for the next point down the road. But it didn't turn out to be any problem."

No injuries were reported to the bear or any participants.

"It was never a dangerous situation," Lerude said.

The bear had been hanging around a Dumpster.

"After it got done with the Dumpster, about 50 yards from the exchange point, it started walking in a casual manner toward the relay exchange point volunteers," Lerude said. "It never got to the point that we had to stop the relay in any way."

About 900 people took part in the second annual race that passed through the Truckee Meadows, Lake Tahoe, Carson Valley and Comstock.

Lerude said 73 teams participated, with 71 finishing. The Bonanza Casino Calvary team won in a course record of 18 hours and 33 minutes, Lerude said.

The footrace started Friday in Reno's Wingfield Park and ended in Idlewild Park on Saturday.

A couple of runners along the way were treated for heat-related troubles.



Ed. Note -

a very similar incident occured in the 1999 Jaspar-Banff annual Relay Race, with yours truly on the Marathon Dynamics Running Team and leg #11 (out of 17), scheduled for approx. 10 pm - midnite was cancelled out-right as a pregnant Black Bear was wandering near the road. That of course would have been my leg....fortunately I was able to run the last leg, #17, then had some beer and Jagermeister shots (breakfast of champions) to celebrate the weekend and subsequently showed up drunk and silly at the post-race awards brunch (Banff Springs Hotel). Erica and Alana are you reading this....?