K-100 Race Report

Saturday was my first race of the season...exciting yet depressing at the same time...I can't believe it...i'm so late starting this year because of my foot. But guess what...the race turned out great and I had zero pain whatsoever during the run and even afterwards it was just a little stiff but no big deal at all. I'm so happy and relieved, what a great day! This means there are definitely more races in my future this summer, wahoo!!

Ok, on to the good stuff. I arrived at the start of Leg 7 way early because last year I arrived a bit late to the start of my Leg and didn't want a repeat of that. I barely had enough time to use the bathroom before my teammate had arrived and it was time for me to go! I do like arriving early but saturday was a bit too early...if I had known, I would have brought a book! There's no cell service where I was either so I occupied my time with a few games on my iphone. I was feeling sleepy and even dozed for a bit. Finally more and more people arrived so I figured it was time I get my running gear on and get psyched! The sun was out and it was starting to get hot. I was feeling pretty anxious waiting around and wondering when our runner would come along!

I was feeling nervous as I haven't raced since October and have been injured ever since so I have had majorly inconsistant "training" until recently. When Tanya arrived (our Leg 6 runner), I took off fast...way too fast...what was I thinking? I couldn't help it though! I felt great and it was a rediculous downhill for the first 4-5 km so I took full advantage! It felt effortless to hit 4 min/km and I was loving every minute of it! At about 5km was the start of a hill, which seemed to go on forever...it was only 2km but it felt like forever to me! I was impressed that I flew up the first part of it feeling good...then it flattened and turned into a bigger hill. That was where the suck happened...I was still feeling strong initially but all of a sudden it started raining and I was running into a gross headwind. I immediately felt like ass. I cursed myself for going out too fast...rookie mistake!...and just allowed myself to slow down...and then finally I crested the hill and it was flat once again.

Up to about the 11km mark it rained and was super cold...my arms and legs started to go numb but I actually felt pretty good. I was relieved it wasn't hot out there and preferred these conditions anyday! My teammates in the support vehicle brought out a longsleeve for me but I decided i'd rather keep going as is. Even though the weather was kind of gross for part of my leg...I soaked up the amazing scenery out there...wow, Kananaskis is so beautiful. I ran into Blaine (another fellow Newfie and ran Transrockies last year as well) before the start of my leg and he had said he thought Leg 7 was the most scenic of them all. I think he was right! I just wish I had some pictures to show!

Anyhow, I took a gel at about 11km and it gave me a huge kick in the ass...suddenly I felt great again and my last 5km flew by. I kept surprising myself with the pace I was able to hold...and really relieved that I wasn't going to let my team (or myself) down. The last 2km had a lovely downhill to lead me into the finish and I just let my legs go. I was hurting but it felt great! I ended up finishing the 16.5km in 1:15:29. Not too bad. Bring on some real training again and speedwork. I can't wait! Man I love to race!

Our team did awesome! And I can't wait to do it again next year! We finished 3rd out of 28 in the Mixed category and 21st out of 164 teams overall.

First (and hopefully not last) Race of the Season!

A year has flown by since I ran in the K-100 relay last year and i'm back to do it again tomorrow! Because I was training for a ton of trail stuff last year, including Transrockies, I had opted to do Leg 5 which is the hardest leg of the relay so I could work on my hill training! It was pretty tough indeed and I happily refrained from volunteering for that leg this year! Here is my race report from last year in case you missed it!

I wasn't sure for a long time that I'd be able to run it this year because my foot has been giving me problems for such a long time. But i'm happy to say it's doing quite well lately and although my fitness is nowhere near where it was last year, my team still wants me so I said that the best I could do would probably be 5 min/km (~ 8 min/mile) for the 16.5km that is Leg 7...one reason is because of my inconsistant running/"training"...and the other reason is because I don't want to kill myself racing and risk hurting my foot...and screw up my chances of running the rest of the summer and training for the NYC marathon in the fall.

Here are the stats of the leg below and while the profile pretty much makes it look like a piece of cake since it's all downhill, i'm not so sure. With any luck I will find it fairly easy and maybe all the downhill will help me run a faster time...guess you'll just have to wait for my race report next week! Wish me luck!

LEG SEVEN
START: Roadside turnout 860m past the service road at the top of a small hill.
DISTANCE: 16.5 km
DIFFICULTY RATING: 5 - 6
FASTEST RECORDED TIME IN 2006: 1:02.27
PACE: 6:06 per mile
DESCRIPTION: The drop from the Highwood Pass continues through the first 5 km with a 170m loss of elevation. The last 11.5 km are moderately hilly with a further overall elevation loss of 90m. The course has now entered the Kananaskis Valley. The surface is older asphalt.

Beautiful K-Country!

Last weekend, Andrew and I went camping with some of his friends down in K-Country in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. While everyone had plans to go fishing on Saturday...Logan and I had other plans...we were going trail running, wahoo! I decided since it was a bit of a warm day for a husky (18 degrees) that we would run around Upper Kananaskis Lake (16km) which is pretty flat and we can pretty easily go down to the lake for him (us) to cool off!

Unfortunately Logan doesn't know how to pace himself as he likes to take off and go balls out for as long as he can. By about the halfway point he was getting tired and I realized this run was going to take a lot longer than I had intended! We stopped lots to take pics and for him to cool off a bunch. I was pretty happy when we saw Andrew at the parking lot when we were just over 14km as Logan was so beat that I had already decided we were going to walk the last 2km to where the guys were fishing. Turns out fishing had not been so good and everyone else had gone back a half hour or so earlier and Andrew had to wait for me.

I had an awesome day out there though and vow from now on to not put my dog through torture like that again...only if it's a cool and a non-sunny day! I think he prefers hiking anyway :) Here are some of pretty pics from our run around Upper Kananaskis Lake!

Good-Bye...

...to cable! Will I miss you? Nope! What a waste of money for me...i've been hardly watching tv at all...and while I've been thinking about getting rid of it for a long long time, I finally took the plunge today! I love the idea of not having it or being tempted by it and can think of so many other things I'd rather be doing with my evenings. Hopefully that means i'll be a guitar playing superstar in no time! Well...maybe not...but I plan on spending a lot of my free time learning! I started last week :D

My first week of no running and recovery has gone pretty well...I did a bunch of crosstraining and am getting back into a regular weights program again. I'm loving doing legs again and I plan on doing lots of good leg workouts so when I get back into trail running i'll be able to climb some serious mountains!! My knee is feeling much better...now I just have to get that foot under control before I start easing back into the running again!

On Saturday I acquired some new skis from kijiji...well, they are "used" but only twice!! They're freakin sweet and I can't wait to get out and use them...along with the skis I think i've also acquired a new obsession...wanting to head to the hill for a ski every weekend :)

Andrew and I went snowshoeing yesterday at Ribbon Creek in Kananaskis...did around 20km. It was a great day and super warm out there...above zero! Logan had a blast as usual and no doubt did double what we did with all his racing around. He came home and crashed pretty quick, as did we...after we made some delicious home made pizza...mmmm.

Have a great week! I know i'll be enjoying the spring like weather in Calgary...10 degrees today!!

Fall is my favorite season!!

It was winter in Calgary this weekend...seriously...not cool. It was snowing on Sunday...blech...so not ready for winter yet! Funny in a week and a half it went from 33 degrees to below 0. It's sad for me that Fall is my favorite season as it is soooo ridiculously short in Calgary.

Now that the colder weather is here, I think literally every single person around me is or has been sick...i've been fighting if off as best I can with Cold FX, Vit C, Echinachea etc...and it seems to be working well for the most part...except this weekend I did feel like complete ass. So while I had some runs planned I ended up bailing on them and doing zero exercise.

I think hopefully it'll be for the best as I have the Okanagan marathon in less than a week now...frig...that came quick didn't it? Wasn't I just running at Transrockies? Damn! Anyways, i've been quite excited for the marathon for a while but after feeling under the weather for a week i'm getting a little nervous. Plus the stupid taper always makes me feel out of shape and doubt myself...should be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out though!

Anyhow, since this weekend pretty much sucked for me...let us reflect on last weekend...which was AWESOME. I got out to the mountains both days and enjoyed Fall in all it's glory!!

On Saturday my friend Jason and I went for a 25km run...an out and back along Jumpingpound to Cox Hill trail. It was a beautiful day despite the insane wind going on.

Jason freaking out the infamous Kananaskis "killer" cows!

Deb the Dork!

Cox Hill

Pumped to be at the top!

Woop woop!!

Jason rockin the downhill

On Sunday I joined some friends to hike Burstall Pass in Kananaskis. Again...another beautiful fall day....

Tara, Steph, Leanne, Ash, Jeanette

Dogs: Charlie and Logan

Ninja?! Nope...just dorky deb again! :)

My friend the Larch!

me and my boy!

Logan appreciates a good view too!

I've got my horseshoe for Transrockies :)

Transrockies is approaching fast and i'm getting pretty excited! Sunday past marked 5 weeks till Stage 1 of the race. I just booked my flight last night to Denver and i'm leaving nice and early...i'll be there about 5 days in advance before the race so hopefully I can get somewhat acclimatized in that period. It should be interesting to see how my body feels. I do remember what it was like to move from Ottawa to Calgary and run for the first time...I felt slow, winded, and out of shape...and that was only an increase in about 3000ft. The race starts in Buena Vista, CO which sits at just under 8000ft...4500ft more than Calgary (that's not even to mention how high we get during some of the stages)! So yeah...this is why i'm heading down 5 days in advance!

I managed to get in some pretty decent running this weekend. Friday I got in 25km and unfortunately Saturday was a weak day for me and I only managed 14km...it was damn hot, I was damn tired, and just felt like hell. So I cut it short and headed home to sit in a cold bath...felt mighty nice on my legs! I made out better on Sunday and joined the Trail Trash group for 45km out in Kananaskis starting at the Little Elbow Campground. It was a long day and I hadn't anticipated how long we'd be out so I ran out of the 2L of nuun I brought...luckily a bunch of people had those water bottles with them with the built in filter so you could fill it up anywhere...they saved my butt for sure! Much of our run was on a horse trail and there was some crazy deep mud and I almost lost my shoe a couple of times...the same thing must have happened to one of the horses as I picked up a horseshoe along the way and brought it home with me!! That's gotta be some kinda good luck for Transrockies no?

It was a beautiful day and there was nothing I would have rather done! I felt guilty spending my entire day in the mountains and not having my best friend Logan to join me! He wouldn't have made it past 15km...those huskies get HOT quick! So I made it up to him later by taking him on a good trip to the park!

Here are some pics of our run...some were taken by Alan with my camera, some by Hugh....

At the start - Little Elbow Campground in Kananaskis

Took me about 5 mins to get warmed up and shed the long sleeve!

1st of maybe 15 river crossings!!...wet feet for about 30 of 45km!

And another...

Are you kidding me?! Argh!!

She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes!

This is more like it!

Our view from the top of Paradise Pass - at 8300 ft

Me and Adrian

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! :)

K-100 tomorrow

Tomorrow is my first road race since Boston 2 months ago. I've been busy enjoying the trail running/racing way too much! :) Anyhow, it's the K-100 - Kananaskis 100 mile relay. It should be fun as i've wanted to do this since I moved to Calgary 3 years ago but never found a team! Friends I've met through the running room, including the guys I went to Boston with this year asked me if i'd like to join them as they had 9 confirmed people and needed one more person to make up the 10 legs of the race. We're sponsored by the running room so our team name is plain and simple - Eau Claire Running Room :)

I quickly jumped onboard and asked if it was possible to do the leg that was hilliest (just because I need to train train train on hills to help me with my other races this summer!). Ha...like I had to fight with anyone for that leg...i think they were pumped that I was the only one jumping at the chance to do Leg 5! The description specifically says "this is the toughest leg of the relay"...hmm...maybe i should have actually looked at the legs in advance before asking for this? Ha ha. Nah, it'll be fine :)

Here are the stats of my leg...looks pretty fun no?

LEG FIVE
START: 0.5 km south of Mist Creek at the Pickle Jar Recreation Area
DISTANCE: 17.6 km
DIFFICULTY RATING: 10
FASTEST RECORDED TIME IN 2006: 1:04.07
PACE: 5:52 per mile
DESCRIPTION: This is the toughest leg of the relay. It's hilly with a number of segments at a 7% grade. The runner will gain 450m over the length of this route; 250m are packed into 6.8 km. The runner will be truly tested on Canada's highest engineered road. The road peaks at Highwood pass, 2206m above sea level. The surface is new asphalt. Watch for wildlife.

Anyhow, all the running i've been doing for transrockies has made me feel pretty strong so I feel prepared but I'm also hoping this profile is just exaggerated and it really isn't as bad as it looks!

I've also forgotton how hard road running is on your body as i've been mostly doing the trail thing. So while I keep saying I'm not going to kill myself in this relay so it doesn't take me a couple of weeks to recover (as Powderface 42 is in 3 weeks from tomorrow)...i'm super competitive and i'm sure i'll give it everything I have. I really need to get in the planned 32km run on sunday with the Trail Trash group from Calgary so i'm hoping i'm good to go for that too!

So I think I left you last night saying I was heading to Nose Hill for a run with Logan. We got in 9.5km...fun and uneventful till about the last km. I decided to run down this little valley so I could come back up and get a good hill in at the end of my run. We turn around to go up and Logan sees something and runs up this little enbankment into the trees...I hear a racket and turn around to him and a coyote getting into it. Damn those effin coyotes do they ever piss me off. I ran back towards him and yell for Logan to come and he actually listens to me right away which shocked me as if there is other wildlife around he usually ends up following/chasing it and completely ignoring me. I don't think he really knew what it was...some kind of crazy wild dog maybe?

Anyhow, he ran up to me and I quickly nabbed him on the leash and we took off. That coyote followed us all the way back up out of the valley to the top of Nose Hill. I've heard of this happening at Nose Hill before but often there are multiple coyotes ganging up on the dog. Or they'll send out a scout and it ends up bringing the dog back and that's when they all pounce!

I'm greatful that Logan is a big boy at 85lbs as this wasn't a scrawny little thing like most people thing they are. Over the winter we were up there and saw 3 giant ones staring at us from the distance...they were huge (and needless to say I got freaked and we took off back to the car then too haha).

So that was my little adventure...funny how all I ever worry about are bears and I go for a run in the park within Calgary and I've got to worry about those little buggers.

K well that's it! I'm going to relax tonight and get ready for tomorrow! Wish me and my team luck and i'll let you know how it goes :)

Deb

Happy March 1st!!

Is anyone as excited as I am that March is here? Yay!! I can't believe how long ago Christmas was! Wow! Well I had a great 3 day weekend...friday started off with some heavy duty sleeping in and then an awesome hill workout...I felt great...the sun was shining, it was a nice and warm -4 (felt balmy next to our -20 temps!)...and I had zero pains anywhere... no foot pain, shin pain...everything was great! Don't you just love runs like that!!

Saturday was a day out in the mountains with my friend James and our dogs for some snowshoeing at Chester Lake near Kananaskis!! It was about 8km in total with around 1000ft in elevation gain...not too bad :) And it was yet another gorgeaus day out there...so beautiful and sunny..and warm! We left Calgary at -22 and I was thinking...uh oh, it's gonna be a super chilly one...we get to the trailhead, out of the car...and it's a scorcher! I don't know what the temp was but after about 10 mins in I was stripping down...no jacket, no toque, no gloves...awesome!


Mmmm...some dirty boxer beer to go with our lunch at Chester Lake :)

As for today...I was all dressed at 9am...ready for a nice 4 hour run...got back from a walk with Logan and just felt really off...I had to lie down and thought i'd wait an hour and go then. But I'm really just feeling a little worn out...last week was my biggest week of running in a while...71kms...not too shabby...anyhow, I was sad when I decided maybe it would be best to take a rest day today but I think I made the right decision on not running. I needed some extra rest I think and that means some good running for the rest of the week! Yeah! :)

Sooo...what did I do today? I finally went out and got my new runners...i've been in desperate need for a while! My kicks of choice on the road are the New Balance 769s...stability for us pronators. They've never failed me...only problem is they're too freakin white...I can't wait to take them out tomorrow and dirty them up! :) Oh and I also made a sweet ass pot of chili for the week...so so good...my mom's recipe of course :)

Have a great sunday weekend...i'm really looking forward to a fab week of running ahead!!

Cheers!