Thetis 20K Relay

November 11, 2009

I think I mentioned this in my post about the relay last year, but I am still (pleasantly) surprised at how popular this event is. There are no race numbers, you time yourself, and there is minimal prizing or post race food so it is great that it sold out for the second year running with over 600 registered. I think one of the main reasons it is so popular is that there are not many other local relay running events. This race allows you to get four people together to run around both Thetis Lakes, and your teammates can cheer you on while you are doing your leg. The distance its modest (under 5km per lap), the terrain relatively forgiving, and taking place on Remembrance Day, has no other races to compete with. All in all quite the fun little event which the Prairie Inn Harriers have put on for 13 years now.

With so many people in the event, parking is an issue unless you arrive pretty early. Sonja and I did not, and ended up having to hoof it a little ways. Not a big deal, but it didn't leave a ton of time before the race started. Conditions were great for this time of year, dry and mild, so a shorts and a short sleeve were all that was required. The first year I did the relay back in 2005, it was only a couple of degrees out and the rain absolutely pounded down. I remembered being completely soaked within minutes and freezing later while waiting for my teammates. It is still stands as the worst conditions that I have raced in.

I've done this event 4 times with various teams, so this year I decided to try it as a solo. This would also fit in well with my training program as I had a scheduled 10 Miler anyway so I traded that tempo for this race. The trick with a solo effort (besides the possibility of getting bored with 4 laps of the same trails) was not to go out too hard initially. Most of the runners would only be doing a single lap so trying to keep up with people I normally would run with would be quite unwise. There were 7 other solo racers, with Jeff Hunt being the fastest. Jeff is a experienced ultra runner and I thought that pacing him for the first lap would be a good way to make sure I didn't go out too hard (I didn't actually end up doing this, but it was a good idea anyway).

"Ready Set..." Photo Credit: Sandi Heal

Once the race began I quickly got into a comfortable rhythm. I rarely wear my heart rate monitor in a race, but I decided to use it this time. It turned out to be a good tool to have, particularly on the first lap. Even though it felt comfortable, the heart rate started to creep up steadily so I tried hard to keep it in the low 150's (under 90% of my max). I ran with Jeff for the first couple of km, but then he had to pull off to tie a errant lace (I'll give you tips to avoid this next time Jeff:-)). I passed a few single lappers who had gone out too hard and felt strong going over the 3 small hills near the end of the loop. I finished the first lap in 17:25 feeling good. It was great to see so many people cheering on myself and others at the transition zone. It really does give a little energy boost when people shout your name as you pass them so thanks to everyone who cheered us on!

My goal for the day was to try to keep the laps steady (or even slightly speed up with each successive lap). With this in mind I kept what I thought was the same pace as the first lap, but unfortunately held back a bit too much finishing that one in 17:59. Seeing this I pushed harder on the 3rd lap, determined to get my time down to around 17:30. I started passing runners on their 2nd lap and from here on in, I ended up saying "On your left!" quite a lot. Pretty much everyone was great at letting me by although a few still got confused about what left meant. Clocking in a 17:36 got me close to the first lap speed and I was feeling quite good so with a single lap left, I ignored the heart rate monitor and pushed the pace. The final 3 hills hurt and forced my pace down, but I hammered out the flats and downhills quite well. With a hundred meters to go, I didn't feel totally spent, so I sprinted in for a 17:27 lap and a 1:10:27 total time. This was good for a win in the solo division and 6th place overall. While I probably left a little bit in the tank since I didn't feel as drained as usual, I was still generally pleased with my performance and how smart I ran the race. The Senior Men National Triathlon Team took first place in a blistering 1:01:34 (15:23 average laps). Final Results. It was great to see some many Harriers out and I hope this little event continues on for many years to come.

Checking my splits with race director Bob Reid. Photo Credit: Sandi Heal

I'm going to continue to concentrate on my training for the remainder of the year although I will be heading over to Vancouver in early December to run the Gunner Shaw XC race there.

New Training Program

Since I haven't posted anything is a little while, I figured I was due to get something up here. As I noted in my previous post, I decided to hire a coach this fall and start a more regimented training program. I decided to go with Paul O'Callaghan who is a former Irish international runner with some stunning racing history and personal bests. He qualified for the 1988 Olympic Games and has competed in a total of 6 World XC Championships. It made since to me that someone with such a stellar running career would know something about what works and what doesn't.

I'm now on my second week of the new training program. The basic program calls for 7 days on, 1 day off. The idea of having a rotating day off is to avoid your body from getting used to have the same day off each week and therefore starting to anticipate getting that break. At first I was a bit worried that having to run so many days in a row since would leave me constantly fatigued and unable to get quality workouts in as I was used to running only 4-5 days a week. However, once I saw the schedule, I realized that it wasn't going to be too bad. While it calls for a lot of days in a row, only 2 of the days are hard workouts, the rest are generally pretty easy, with some days with only calling for an easy 20 minute run.

The main hard workout is the now somewhat infamous "O'Cal 10 Miler." which usually consists of a hard hilly tempo one in the Broadmead area. The first time I did this route, the skies opened up and dumped on us the entire time so we got completely soaked - quite the nice initiation! I was eased into the course though as Paul had Jairus Streight show me how to navigate the route and we ran at a fairly relaxed pace. Last week we did the 10 Miler on the last 16k of the RVM Half Marathon route. At this time, I ran with Eric Findlay, Sean Chester, and Shawn Nelson, all of whom are currently faster runners. We went out pretty hard and after about 15 minute I wondered if I was going to be able to survive the hectic pace. I stayed close to all 3 of them until around 8km when I relaxed just a bit. Once I got into my groove, I was actually able to feel pretty strong for the remainder of the run. I finished around 58min which is pretty solid for a training run for me. Having others to chase during is definitely going to help me in the upcoming months.

This Wednesday there will be no tempo run for me. Instead I'm going to be running the Thetis 20K Relay solo for the first time. Getting my pacing right so I don't die on the last lap is critical.

Royal Victoria Marathon 8K

October 11, 2009

Here is a quick race report just to get something up here before I head to Salt Spring Island for the weekend. This year marked the 30th anniversary of the event and there were a record number of participants doing either the 8k, half marathon, or full marathon.

As I mentioned in some previous posts, due to some vacation time over the summer, my training, though remaining generally decent was not as consistent or intense as it usually is. This coupled with the fact that I hadn't run a road race since the Times Colonist in April left me wondering what sort of performance I could expect. A PB seemed unlikely, although if things went really well it was possible. My best 8K came last year at the RVM where I ran a solid race in 26:45. I figured anything in the 27-28 minute range would be decent, anything better a bonus.

The race started at 7:15 so about 20 minutes before, I did a short warm-up which felt reasonable although not amazing. I made my way through the crowd of runners to the front of the starting line just a few minutes before the gun. After the countdown, the usual rush of overexcited runners blasted off. By the first turn (about 400m), the race favorite, Scott Simpson, was already way ahead of the main pack and was moving at an incredible rate. I heard that he may have been trying to beat the course record of 23:23 set way back in 1989. Unfortunately for Scott, he may have gone out too hard as I later heard that he pulled out at the 4km mark.

The first 2km didn't feel that comfortable for me. My breathing was more laboured that it should have been this early in the race and it felt like I was working a little too hard. Fortunately, this soon passed and I started to feel fairly good once we neared Ogden Point. I somehow missed the first km marker, but hit the second at 6:35 for an average of around 3:17 - probably a little fast, but not unexpected for the start of this race. On the long gradual climb up to Mile Zero, I was feeling strong and made up some significant ground on some of the runners in front of me and passed several. I didn't know most of the runners around me, but Shelby Drope wasn't far ahead and Mark Nelson was just a little ways further. I figured that if I could reel in one or both of them I would be doing well.

I completed the 3rd km in 3:23 which good considering it is primarily uphill. I lost a couple of seconds on the next km, probably partly due to the turnaround. I briefly caught up to and passed Shelby before the 5km mark, but on the downhill (where I still struggle to maintain as fast as pace as others of my caliber) he caught back up and ever so slowly pulled ahead over the next few kilometers. A guy running in toe sock shoes (basically just a thin cover over the feet) caught up to me around the 6km mark and we worked together for a little while. The pace was holding steady at around 3:24 for the final km which was good since it meant that I hadn't burnt myself out too early.

I seasoned veteran, Kevin McGinnis, from Washington State ran with me for the last 2 km or so and his encouragement did help me get a little bit more out of my body. He said, "go for it, I can tell you have a lot more in you," and it was definitely true that I didn't seem to suffering as much as normal at this point in the race. Thanks to him, I picked up my pace more than I might have otherwise and powered towards the finish. I started to reel in Shelby for a while, but he sprinted with a few hundred meters to go and I just didn't have enough time to catch him. A hundred meters out, I looked at the clock and saw that it was nearing 27:00, but wasn't quite there yet. I sprinted at full speed trying to get in under that magical minute marker. Based on my chip time I did it, getting a 26:59 (although my official gun time was 27:00 even). My time was good for 11th place overall (3rd in my age group) which was very similar to last year (where I was 10th and 3rd respectively).

Although I was 15 seconds slower than my PB, I was satisfied with my race. For some reason I just wasn't as psyched as I usual for this race and a few times out on the course I didn't push myself as much as I could have. Still, this race shows me that I am basically the same fitness level as last year (and as fit as I have ever been). This is good news to me as I plan to take my training to a new level this winter and next spring with a coach and proper program and now know that I will be entering into that training in good shape.

I knew a good number of people running the half and the full marathon so it was great to stay and watch them finish their races. Most of the people I know ran well with many PB's - congrats to all! Final results are here.

My spits were: 6:35 (2km) , 3:23, 3:24, 3:26, 3:24, 6:48 (2km).

On another note, check out Sonja Yli-Kahila's new running blog where she writes about her racing and training experience from the non elite perspective. You can read about her RVM half marathon race there.

Are you the Ultimate Althlete?

I received an e-mail from the promoters of a new event to be held in Oregon next June. Billed as"The Ultimate Sport Competition", the concept is to find the best athlete in a wide variety of mainstream, emerging, Olympic and extreme sports. Some of the sports include riding, swimming, skiing, surfing, climbing, and skating. It sounds pretty cool and would be something I would love to try although I don't think I have quite the range of disciplines to make it happen. I'm sure you don't need to be great at all the sports, but you probably need some level of competence in all of them. I'm not going to look too good eating coral on the surf board I'm afraid. Top prize is a very healthy $100,000 US though - that would be pretty sweet. Check it out here.

Cumberland MOMAR

September 26, 2009

The second of two MOMAR races this year, this one turned out to be very popular. With about 360 racers entered into both the Enduro and Sport courses, it was a record field. Unlike the first race this year in Squamish where I entered as a solo, this time I again partnered with Garth Campbell. Together we have finished 10 MOMAR's and have had a lot of fun. We have also managed to find our way onto the podium a reasonable number of times. In addition to be able to share the experience with someone else, there is a distinct advantage to racing in pairs due to the presence of a kayaking stage. Double kayaks are faster than a single and unless you are a strong kayaker (or own a surf ski) the kayak stage will prove to be a challenge. Since neither Garth nor I have been in a boat since last years Cumberland MOMAR, we really needed all the advantages we could get.

Garth and I headed up to Cumberland the night before with Alison Sum (who was racing solo for the first time) to check in. We also met up with Roger MacLeod who was staying with us at a condo on Mount Washington. I hadn't really gotten myself too excited about the race, but seeing all the other participants and getting a general description of the course in the race package always gets the blood pumping again. Besides being a large field, this was also a deep one. Race director, Bryan Tasaka, always releases a racer list prior to the event. Not only is it nice to see who we know, but its also useful to scout out the competition; and this one was going to be tough. With the exception of Todd Nowack, who is still in Norway, nearly all the top finishers of the last couple of years were on the roster. I counted no fewer than 10 solos or teams who could conceivably take the overall win. The great thing about these races is that uncertainty. Unlike a road running race, where the overall favorite almost always wins, MOMAR's are much harder to predict. Squamish winner, Bart Jarmula was in attendance, as was 2nd place finisher Gary Robbins. Other talent included local Jeremy Grasby who is a very talented mountain biker and adventure racer John Markez. In the teams of two men, our main competition would likely come from Norm Thibault & Graeme Cockshedge and Jay Latiff & Jeff Riemer all of whom are very strong cyclists. With all the talent on hand we figured a top 5 finish would be very respectable.

Up at mount Washington, we did our final gear, hydration, and fuel preparation and then turned in. I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep, but luckily slept well (although not enough) until our early wake up before 6am. After dropping our bikes off in Cumberland, we headed to Comox Lake to get our rented kayak ready and wait for the map release at 8am. Conditions were cool, but sunny and most thankfully not windy - quite perfect for racing actually. Every one of the 3 other times we have raced at this venue, the wind was whipping up white caps on the lake and making an unpleasant kayaking stage even less enjoyable.

Once we got our hands on the map, we could quickly get a good idea of what the course would look like. It started with the predictable 9km kayak stage (the same as last year). This was followed by a unmarked 10km trek with a big climb where we had to find 6 checkpoints on our way to the bike drop location in Cumberland. A suggested route was marked on the maps, but we could take whatever route between checkpoints we felt was appropriate. We would then get on our bikes for a 20km cycle on a marked route which would include gravel roads and single track. We would make our way back to the bike drop location again, hop off our bikes, and do a small run in town picking up 3 checkpoints. Then we would get back on our bikes and have to pick up a single checkpoint on an unmarked route on our way back to Comox Lake. The final stage was small orienteering course. I was happy about having the orienteering last as that means the teams would be well spread out and there would not be the major traffic jams we had last year. I was also glad to see the bike course was shorter than in Squamish. I had only been on my mountain bike maybe 4 times since that race so felt I might be a bit rusty. Garth had been out a lot earlier in the year and had improved so I hoped I would be able to keep pace.

Before we know it we were out on the water and paddling. If you read my post from last year, you know that kayaking is my least favorite of the disciplines in this race so I didn't expect much difference this time around. However, it actually wasn't so bad this year. We did a little better job at drafting some of the other boats, kept pretty well in sync with each other, and put forth a solid even effort. This in conjunction with calm water, allowed us to take over 6 minutes off of our 2008 time - not bad for not training at all. We came out of the water in 58:56, good for 13th place. Altough I didn't notice it until after the race was over (thank you adrinaline) I did manage to rub a by back raw on one side with the kayak seat.

Not in sync here! Me working hard and Garth posing for the camera:-) Photo Credit: Tony Austin

Garth had some problems with his pack not being adjusted properly as we begin to run and had some choice words to say about it. Luckily, it was minor and only took a few seconds to remedy. Both our legs took a bit to get going after being stuffed in a kayak for an hour, but once the blood got moving it wasn't too bad. The course was mostly flat until checkpoint #2. After this, though, it headed sharply uphill. We had the choice to take the recommended trail that headed steeply up hill or a road which looked to be a little less steep. Since we are both strong hikers, we chose the trail. The map was a little confusing at the next intersection, but we ended up taking the correct route along with a good sized group of other racers who were around us at that point. We managed to push ahead of most of the group except Gary Robbins, who predictably was moving fast. He didn't get far though, as at the next intersection he was running around looking for checkpoint #3 thinking we were already at the top (we were not even close). Gary is an amazing athlete, but navigation is not he strong point. He even admits that he can't navigate himself out of a paper bag so even though he soon disappeared in front of us again, I thought there was a good chance that we would see him again.

It was a long grind up to the top (around 500 meters of climbing in total) and then things got a bit confusing again. As is frequently the case, the map didn't seem to correspond to what we were seeing. We lost a couple of minutes trying to figure it out, and the group that we had left behind caught up. Soon though, we all figured it out and started to run down the hill toward where the checkpoint had to be. We got there, punched in and pounded our way down the gravel road. We passed Hayden Earle heading up on what apparently ended up being a better route choice, but you just never can tell unless you know the area. As running is our main strength we managed to get ahead of most of the group we around at checkpoint #3; only Gary got away. Checkpoint #4 also did match with the map particularly well, but fortunately we found it right away. We chose to take the recommended trail to checkpoint #5 which was easy to find, but almost certainly ended up being slower than an optional road route. After a steep decent, we saw some teams thrashing around in the woods near a creek. Apparently, they were looking at a checkpoint that was there. However, it must have been for the sport course because it wasn't one of the ones we needed to get. After this, the rest of the navigation to the bike transition was straight forward.

Heading for the first transition. Photo Credit: Tony Austin

Norm Thibault and Graeme Cockshedge were just behind us as we came into transition, but they must have changed shoes quickly and so beat out out by a few seconds. While we didn't need to change shoes, we had tried a new strategy of leaving one of our fluid bladders at the bike so we didn't have to haul it for 10km on the trek. While it took a few moments to put away, I think it paid off as not having that extra liter on the back make a difference. The first leg of the bike was a gradual climb up gravel roads. It wasn't too tough and we were moving relatively well. After checkpoint #8 we moved onto single track. It first it wasn't bad, but soon it became a bit rough and difficult to get any flow on. Jay and Jeff passed us as they are very strong on the bike. A bit later Kristenn Magnusson and Justin Mark also got ahead. A trail named "Off Broadway" turned out to be the most technical of the day. I managed to ride it all, but with white knuckles the whole way. Surprisingly though, for the most part, I felt quite good on the single track and not rusty at all. It seems as though you don't need to practice much to keep from losing skills.

After the descending, it was time to go back up. A steep climb on gravel roads was following by pleasant little hike a bike section. Unfortunately, Garth was feeling a little nauseous on the climb which held our pace back a little, but as usual, he toughed it out. Kristenn and Justin were just in front of us for the whole climb, but try as we might we couldn't reel them it. She is one fit woman! Then it was time for "Bucket of Blood," the infamous trail that has often been used in these MOMAR's. This year, it was somewhat changed as logging had taken place and I think it was a bit less challenging because of that. We make one small deviation from the marked route at one point, but it didn't cost us much.

Back in town we dropped our bikes and were handed the urban navigation map. There were three checkpoints which were all on the main street. It was pretty straight forward except for one checkpoint which was hidden in a tree which we fortunately were able to find pretty fast. It was definitely to our advantage to have running shoes on at this point though as most racers wearing clipless didn't bother to change them for such a short stage and were clomping around. Then we were back on our bikes to find one checkpoint in the woods before heading back to the beach. The map was again a bit off on its classifications (at one intersection, the main road was shown as a trail), but we managed to take the correct route and found checkpoint #20. Then onto the paved road for a couple km quad burner. We didn't know exactly where we were in the field, but we figured we must be in the top 10. It was time to see if we could improve that with a solid orienteering stage.

It took me a minute to orientate myself to the map. We were lucky in that it was the same map as last year so that helped me to get into the scale (which is larger than typical). At our way to the second control we caught up to Kristenn and Justin again and we proceeded to help each other out for 5 or so controls. We all did well, finding the controls quickly and then moving in the right direction to the next. At one point, I did take a minute to get my bearings again, but soon got back on track. With two controls to go, Garth and I moved ahead a bit while Kristenn and Justin ended up getting a little off track and we managed to get the last two smoothly.

We headed for the finish really having no idea where we had placed. We ended up 6th in 4:40:11, only 3 minutes behind Gary who had led for much of the race, but struggled on the orienteering. Jeremy won overall, crushing all the competition on his single speed steed - quite amazing to see what he can do with that one gear! Local knowledge of the trails helped him a lot though I'm sure as his trek time was ridiculously fast. It may have been the closest finish in MOMAR history as the top 4 teams came in within 2.5 minutes of each other and the top 8 teams all came in within 17 minutes. Norm and Graeme had a strong race coming in 2nd overall. The solo woman's title passed to Genevieve after being dominated by Sarah Seads for a couple of years. Roger raced to a solid 9th finish and Adam Lawrence and Brent Chan came in well under 6 hours. Alison raced well in her first solo and will surly be back again.

Somewhat fresh after the race: Photo Credit: Aimee Asselin

Overall, we had a very solid race with minimal mistakes and we even managed to set the best time on the orienteering stage (a first for us). Other than additional training there we couldn't have done much better. At 12 minutes behind the winner, time wise it was the closest we have even been to the podium. There had been rumors that this may have been the last ever MOMAR, but thankfully those rumors were laid to rest. Next year, there will be the same two venues, with what I'm sure will be brand new courses. I can't wait! Final Enduro Results.

5 Peaks Butzen Lake Half Marathon

September 19, 2009

Now that I am two races behind in my blogging, I thought I'd better get something up here. The 5 Peaks race series is a well known Canadian trail race series with races in 4 provinces. I'd heard good things about the Butzen Lake race and I've been itching to try some new trail races this year so I decided to give it a go. The the race offers 3 courses (an 11km Sport, a 15.5km Enduro, and a Half marathon that is a combination of both the Sport and Enduro).

It rained a decent amount the night before the race and as morning came it was still drizzling lightly. It looked like it might be a soggy day on the trails. Fortunately, by the time the half marathon started, the rain had stopped and it gradually improved over the next couple of hours. By the time I finished, it was clear and sunny.

Perhaps the distance scares people away, but the half marathon had a small field with only 35 finishers (the Enduro had 150 and the sport 237). Based on previous years results, however, the small field didn't always lead to slow times. Last year, the winning time was an incredible 1:55:09. I knew that I would not be posting such a time, but based on times posted by other runners that I know, a finish in the 2:15-2:20 range was reasonable.

It is sometimes nice to go to races where I am less likely to know many of the racers. Although its great fun to socialize at local races, there also tends to be a bit more pressure to perform well. I generally know how I compare to many of the local runners and don't want to be behind someone who I normally would beat - definitely an ego thing. At destination races, I feel less pressure and just go in with the attitude that I will run my own race and do the best I can.

I moved off the start line at a comfortable pace, this wasn't a 5km race so I knew that I would have plenty of opportunity to use up my energy later in the race. A Burnaby resident, Paul Shewchuk and I quickly distanced ourselves from the rest of the field. We continued to run together for the first couple of km. He told me that the upcoming climb was a tough one as he had run in in training previously. I had expected as much as the profile shows a big climb from km 2-4.5. Paul was keeping up with me, but definitely seems to be working harder than I was. He was also a powerfully built guy with a large upper body. This extra muscle certainly would be useful for other tasks, but packing all that bulk up and over a mountain takes a lot effort. As soon as the big climb started, my first impressions were confirmed, and he soon started to fall back and I was left to run the rest of the race on my own.

The climb on the Diez Vistas trail was quite tough although there was a small reprise about half way up. I really wanted to run all of it, but the last 0.5 km or so just became too steep for me to tackle and I was forced to power hike for a few minutes. Eventually, the summit came though and breathed a sigh of relief as I knew that there were no more large climbs in the race. I was soon treated to some of my favorite type of trails. It was all technical single track that requires all of your attention to pick a good line, but still allows you to move at a good clip. The only downside on this day was that the roots and rocks were wet which made some of the steeper descents a little risky. On a dry day, this trail would have been even better to run on. I estimate that I may be lost a couple of minutes by having to be more cautious on the descents.

About 30 minutes into the race, I decided to drink some of my Gatorade (I had brought 300ml each of water and Gatorade in my fuel belt) and just about had to spit it out. It had fermented (probably due to electrolyte tablets that I had put into it a while ago) and I had failed to check it before filling my bottles. It is amazing what new lessons you learn even after years of racing! I manage to choke down perhaps a 100ml of the Gatorade throughout the race, but since it seemed to not be agreeing with my stomach I dumped out the rest. Luckily, it would not prove to be a big factor for me.

After the fun decent, the course moved onto a wide fairly flat trail that made its way around the east side of Buntzen Lake. I was feeling pretty good and continued to pace myself well. I still had the whole sport course to do so didn't overdo it. I completed the Enduro course in a respectable 1:26:03 and make my way onto the sport course. After a little while, I started to pass sport course participants who had started 1 hour later. I think I confused some of them who didn't know about the half marathon race and couldn't figure out where I had come from.

The course description for the Sport course indicates that it has a total elevation gain of 630m, but this is definitely a gross over estimation (as is the 978m figure given for the Enduro). There are a few hills on the Sport course, but nothing with more than 50m of gain and I estimate probably no more than a two hundred meters total. Having said that, however, the 50m hill still felt tough as the legs were starting to fatigue at that point. As I passed the trail that the Enduro racers used, the number of racers on the trail increased. I was tiring as I made my way around the north end of Butzen Lake, but having already done this section before, I knew exactly what to expect and paced myself accordingly. Contrary to what I normally experience when repeating the same sections, it actually seemed to go faster than the first time around.

I had a bit a water still left in my bottle so with 1km to go I decided to go ahead and finish it up. While trying to extract every drop from the bottle, I got careless and caught my toe on something. Before I knew it I was on the ground and my bottle went flying! The damage to my body wasn't significant, but it was kind of embarrassing especially since I had navigated all the technical terrain with no issues. I pickup myself up quickly and made my way to the finish crossing the line in 2:18:01. Paul came in 2nd place over 18 minutes behind. My time was within the window I had thought reasonable, although I had hoped to be a little closer to 2:15. Overall though, I was content with the way the race went, especially considering my training has been a little inconsistent over the summer. Sonja also ran to a solid 4th place finish in woman's division. Final results are here. I would recommend the Enduro course to those who like to run single track as it really has some fun stuff. The Sport course is less interesting and is comparable to running around Thetis Lake (just longer).

Juan de Fuca Epic

August 22, 2009

First of all I'd like to thank Jeff Hunt for organizing this event. While some people may have still run the trail in their own little groups, it was a lot more fun to be involved in a bigger event. A total of 21 runners (16 would do the full distance) came out to test their mettle against the 47km character building Juan de Fuca Trail.

We met at Thetis Lake parking lot at the unreasonable time of 6am. The plan was to car pool and then head to China beach where most runners would start. Adam Lawrence joined Sonja and myself and we arrived shortly after 7am. After some logistical planning, it was decided that all the runners doing the full distance wanted to go from China Beach to Botanical Beach. This meant that we needed to make sure there was at least one car on the other end so we wouldn't end up stranded. Fortunately, Shawn Nelson's parents were kind enough to offer to drive Sonja's car to Botanical Beach where we would use it as a shuttle after the run.

Once that was taken care of, I barley had time to strap my hydra pack on before the group was off. Jeff and Shawn bolted so fast, it took me a couple of km to catch up. This was the 'easy' part of the trail being predominately down hill from China Beach to Mystic Beach and was only somewhat technical. However, this was a long run and the pace did seem pretty brisk, but I didn't want to fall back so soon so I kept up.

The three of us ran together for a couple of km before Jeff fell back slightly and Sean Chester moved into 3rd place. Sean is a very strong runner, but tends to specialize in track rather than trails, I wasn't sure how he would far on such a long technical trail. He also didn't look all that prepared, as he was sporting running flats, was carrying a 1.5 liter pop bottle, and didn't seem to have any nutrition (he did in fact have some stowed in his shirt). That being said, I really didn't know how I would fare either. I was just one week back from 14 days in Norway where I didn't do any running. In an attempt to get back to my normal trailing, I had punished my legs a bit in the days before this run so they were not feeling as fresh as they could be. Also, I don't routinely do runs longer than about 2 hours, so 6 hours was going to be a interesting challenge. Last year, Garth Campbell and I had run from Sombrio Beach to China Beach (29km) in around 3.5 hours at a fairly cofortable pace. Based on this time, I thought it was quite reasonable that I could cover the entire distance in 5.5-6 hours.

For the next 10km or so while Shawn and I ran together, Sean continued to catch up and then disappear again. Eventually he decided (quite prudently I might add) to fall back a bit and run with Jeff. I commented to Shawn that we did seem to be moving quite fast and in my mind I was pretty sure it was too fast for me given the distance and difficultly of this trail. However, I ignored the that logical part of the brain and pushed on ahead swapping the lead with Shawn from time to time. When we hit the halfway point, we were just over a 5 hour pace. If we could hold onto that, it would be an amazing time. I was feeling pretty decent although the climbs set up quads burning within the first hour. And climb we did, the section between Bear Beach and Sombrio Beach is very tough consisting almost entirely of steep climbs out of creek valleys and steep (often technical) descents into the next one. While no single climb is huge, they all add up and become quite relentless. This mixed with roots, rocks, stairs, and mud are what make this trail so very difficult.

As we were descending to Sombrio, I felt my left leg cramp up slightly. It was not major, but with about 20km to go this was not a good sign. Even though I was drinking Gatorade with some extra electrolytes tabs mixed in, I needed to make sure that I got some more electrolytes into me soon or things could turn ugly. I'm not particularly prone to cramping, but am certainly not immune either and know how debilitating they can be. Fortunately, I had brought some extra electrolytes tablets with me so as soon as we hit the beach I consumed one. Shawn's parents met him on the beach and acted as his refueling station and we kind enough to give me some sports drink as well.

Much of Sombrio Beach consists of smallish to medium rocks which are not really much fun to run on especially as you begin to tire. We also found ourselves running too close to the ocean where the rocks had more slime on them. Just as I was thinking it might be better to move up to a drier area, down I went. The fall itself wasn't bad, but the rocks there were covered with barnacles which cut by left hand and right wrist up. It was nothing too serious, but did bleed nicely.

At this point I was definitely starting to feel the effects of going out so hard on tired legs, but I still thought that I should be able to hang in there at a reasonable pace. We were soon back on the trail, but after a relatively short time, I ended up with a rock in my left shoe that needed to be removed. As soon and I bent down to untie the lace, my whole left leg cramped up. It was the worst cramp I have ever had, but luckily I was able to shake it loose and continue on fairly quickly. I took another electrolyte tablet right away and hoped they would kick in soon.

While I was dealing with the cramp, Shawn had pulled out of sight. I started to try and pick up the pace in the hope of bringing him back into sight, but I soon realized that I was spent. The legs were tired and the energy was low (the cramping and fall probably hadn't helped either). With about 15km to go, I realized I was now going to be in disaster avoidance mode. I could no longer sustain a fast pace at all and was forced to hike pretty much all uphill sections. Even many technical sections that I would normally be able to run with no problems became difficult to navigate in my weakened state. The run had ceased to be fun at this point, but despite the fact that my body didn't want to run at all anymore, I forced myself to slowly run the easier sections. My km splits were down to around 10min when they should have been more like 6 or 7min.

As Botanical Beach started to get closer, there are more and more boardwalks on the trail. This would sound like it would make the running easier, but they are still tricky as they are permanently wet and slick. Running on them is hazardous and at one point I went down hard on my ass. This caused my whole body to seize up for a moment, but luckily receded quickly. Given the pitiful pace I was able to sustain, I was expecting that Sean or Jeff may well catch up. With about 4km to go, Sean did just that, blasting by me like I was barley moving (well I guess I was barely moving). He said that we navigated the last 10km in under 1 hour (it took me close to 90min). I finally managed to make it to the last 1km section up the access road to the parking area and surprised myself a bit by actually being able to run it even though it was all uphill. I finally hit the finish at just under 5:51.

While the last couple of hours were not the way I wanted it to go, I wasn't that unhappy with the time itself as it was within the window I had expected. Next time, however, I should do a better job of pacing myself. Shawn had also slowed and suffered a bit on the last section, but still managed to get an awesome time of 5:28, bettering his time from last year by about 45 min. Sean put 8 minutes into me in 4km finishing in 5:43. Next time, I'd like to finish more like that. Carolyn Goluza set a very solid woman's time of 6:50. These times my not seem too fast for a distance only 5km more than a marathon, but if you have run or hiked this trail you know why it takes so long. All times are available on the JDF Epic site.