Captains of the Relay Team's

Kim Larsen

The origin of the Calgary based LDS running relay team was the brain child of Kim Larsen. Runners from the Calgary Stake were personally recruited by Kim for Theatre Calgary's Major Fundraiser, the Banff-Calgary Road Relay. The first edition of the team ran under the banner LDS Leaders and with a couple of strong runners the mostly recreational team placed 31st of 120 teams in its debut run. Although other teams organized or participated in by LDS runners may have occurred before that 1989 race. Kim and the others entry into the then 5th annual race was the first known intentional forming of an LDS team.

Richard Rush

Richard Rush was one of the runners recruited by Kim for that 1989 race. Richard had participated in the 1988 LDS Duathlon finishing high in the open bike-run event. Unfortunately Richards participation in other multi-sport events and his training schedule for Ironman Canada prevented him from being on that 1989 Team. When the organizers of the 1988 and 1989 Duathlon's passed the torch for the 1990 Duathlon Kim and Richard finally met up as co-race directors. They tried to enter a team in the 1990 Banff-Calgary Relay but failed to meet a deadline and found themselves focusing more on organizing their event. It was through the LDS Duathlon's that they later met and recruited the core of the Stormin' Mormons. When a change in focus occurred terminating the LDS Duathlon after its third year of existence Richard and Kim put together the 1991 Team which once again ran under the LDS Leader banner. This time with stronger runners they met from the duathlon's the team had begun to move out of the recreational focus and finished 13th in the Relay.

Rick Jolie

Rick jokes about his first experience with the Stormin' Mormons. After the teams improvement in 1991, Richard and Kim started organizing runs for the team on a more yearly basis, they also had enough interested parties to create both a competitive team and a recreational team. To distinguish the two teams they needed another name. The fast team was nicknamed the Stormin' Mormons, the recreational team kept the name LDS Leaders. Rick was recruited by Richard and when they first met it was on a run. Richard never really admitted at that time that he was testing whether Rick was fast enough for the competitive team but the aggressive training run secured Rick's spot. Along with Rick and a few others the Stormin' Mormons stepped up another notch finishing in 6th in the 1992 Banff-Calgary Relay

Bernie Maillet

Bernie joined the group in 2002 having trained for Ironman with Richard in High River for the previous year. Bernie took over captain role in 2004 for the Banff-Calgary Relay and has continued as captain since. In the last 4 years Bernie has completed 10 Ironman Triathlons with a Personal Best of 10:59. His best for a Half-Ironman is under 5 hours. In May 2007 under the name "Pending" Bernie led the team to its first Banff-Calgary Relay Race finish

This page was last updated May, 2007