Monday, June 22, 2009

K-100 Race Report

Well this was my first year participating in the K-100 and I must say that it was a blast! My team was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again next year! The official results aren't in so I'm not sure how we did overall or how I did overall for my leg but i'll let you know soon enough!

We all had to predict how long we thought it would take us to do each leg so we'd know when to be at each leg to meet our runner coming in. The first 2 guys ran well under their predicted time so by the time Leg 5 came around I ended up starting 20 mins earlier than planned. Luckily I was ready to go...a bunch of kind runners had let me infront of them at the portaloo cuz in casual conversation I was like "yeah i'm gonna seriously bust if I don't pee soon" LOL. I wasn't lying...I drank tons on the drive to Kananaskis!!

This one guy infront of me in line gives me this look up and down and then he's like "so you're doing leg 5?" and i'm like 'YUP'! He proceeds to ask me if i've ever done it before and I give an enthusiastic 'NOPE' and he continues with yeah...there's so many hills, then it flattens, then there's another crazy hill and then at the very end it goes on forever up this one hill blah blah blah...the whole time i'm giving him this fake grin and ask that's cool, how many times have you done Leg 5? ohhhh 6 or 7 he says. I'm like that's awesome, way to go...giving him the pat on the back he feels he deserves I guess...as much as I loved our conversation it's my turn to pee (jackass)....later!

Anyhow, shortly after I meet up with our team leader Garrath and he says Jen (our leg 4) has just passed the 1 mile to go mark and is getting close! I cross the highway to get in the shoot to meet her. She gets there waaay quicker than I anticipated, gives me a high 5 and then i'm off!

I started out feeling very good and sticking with 5 min kms...I didn't want to go out too hard and then die when I hit the hills. I have to say I didn't find the first 10km to be too bad at all...i thought, wow this is it? This is nothing! Although really I think it was hilly and I was just feeling good from training hills lately! My biggest mistake in the entire race was taking the gatorade that was given to me early on. Our crew had water or gatorade every couple of kms...and while I only ever drink nuun...I wanted something other than water...I take the gatorade and it immediately gives me the worst stomach cramping i've ever had...I thought to myself...you idiot, this is why they say don't try anything new on race day. But i've never ever had this problem from anything i've drank or eaten so I was shocked.

Regardless of that, our crew was kick ass...they showed up every couple of kilometres...would slow down as they drove past to yell at me and blast some sweet tunes to pump me up. I couldn't help laughing everytime they drove by! Here's me giving Garrath my half smile/half this sucks face...i'm hurting, i can't fake that i'm not for the camera :) That sweet VW van in the background is our crew/team supporting us the whole way!


My stomach was in such pain that I couldn't even think about eating the gel I brought with me that I wanted around the 9km mark. Finally by 12km I was fading and forced down a gel that i'm still holding onto in this pic...sometimes it takes me a while to get through a whole gel!


Luckily it helped huge. The hills were getting worse too! Finally I get to I think about 2km to go...this is the bitch of all hills and as I saw the cars off in the distance still going up this endless hill I just thought uh oh...this could be trouble!

I see this guy in the distance...spandex clad...it looks like a triathlete to me...you know, they love their spandex (and no I'm not making fun...they do!!)...I begin to wonder if it's my new friend Trevor...I just started reading his blog through Cam's blog and found out we were both doing Leg 5! I'd never met him in person but kind of knew what he looked like and decided I wanted to try and catch up and see if it was him!!! I get closer and yup, it was definitely a triathlete (again...spandex, hello!)...I start to pass him on the left...look over and say...

"is that Trevor?"


"Yup"


"Hey, it's Deb!"


He laughs and responds with "see I knew you were going to kick my ass!" LOL. I tell him i'm dying...which in fact was true! I actually stopped on this hill twice to catch my breath and the second time I stopped I looked back as I had visions of him just blowing by me at this point. He's close so I start going again as my garmin tells me the end is near! Finally I get to the top of the hill...there's a little bit of a flat and a downhill and then I can see the finish! I gunned it, high fived our Leg 6 runner Laura, and finished with my garmin reading 17.6km at 1:28:37. I was super happy with that and my 5:03 min/km average.


Trevor and I caught up at the end of our leg...very cool to meet someone in person from the blogging world! I've also been told that the next time I pass him in a race (which I seriously doubt will happen again - this dude is a faaaasst runner/ironman)...i'm allowed to slap him on the butt as I go by just like Cam does :)


So yeah it was a super fun day...even moreso after my leg was finished and I got to cheer on everyone else for the rest of the day and enjoy some beer! Beer has never tasted so good to me as it did shortly after that race! Yum! There was a bbq after the entire race was over...and while I have to admit they weren't the best burgers I've ever had...kind of McDonald's like but worse...I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will pretty much eat anything put infront of me after a race! Here's a pic at the post-race bbq of Laura (Leg 6), Carmello (Leg 5 on another team), and me enjoying our beer :) and waiting in line for our dirty burgers!




What's on the schedule next? My next 2 weekends in a row are long ones...so i'm off to Vernon for both of them to train with my brother...multi lonnnng hilly days in preps for Transrockies. This will also help huge in my preparation for the Powderface trail marathon in 3 weeks! Wahoo!

Hope you guys are having a great monday! I wasn't sore at all from saturday's race but was wiped out yesterday and decided against my long run. I needed some extra rest and enjoyed a very lazy sunday indeed! My body was pretty happy with me :) Today's 10km at lunch felt great and it actually turned into a Tempo run! I love those days! :)

4 comments:

  1. i love the k-100 race! hmm...trying to think of which leg i ran... glad you had an awesome day despite the tummy stuff!

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  2. Wow! Looks like you killed it on hilly leg 5! That's a great pace. Congrats to you and your team -- the pictures are great. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. Holla - those are some hills to conquer. Well done!

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  4. Nicely done! You rocked the toughest leg of the race!! We'll have to get out for beers one of these days!

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