Friday evening started out by helping my mom get set up her new place as she arrived here in Vancouver. Her move here has been a long time coming and I'm glad she is finally here! She is currently staying in a furnished rental that is right across from our old place, and it was fun to spend the evening in the West End again and get to visit some of our old stomping grounds.
Saturday was time for errands, a quick run, actually signing up for the race on Sunday and then our tri club's end of season potluck. It was a good crowd, and Mick, who hosted the evening got a number of good roastings over his adventures of the previous weekend. We were able to stay to the end of the party being that the race on Sunday didn't start until 9:30am.
We headed out to the race about 8:30am this morning. It was a cool morning and I had a hard time deciding what to wear, but decided on full length tights, a tank and a warm long sleeve shirt. I did end up being a bit overdressed, but not to the point that it affected my race.
This was my first trail race and it was a lot of fun! One of my best girlfriends also came out to run and so we got to hang out before and after the race. I have been trying to convince her the North Shore is a good place to live and I think she is coming around. And because it was "Hallows Eve" race, there were lots of great costumes. Including a group of ladies dressed as skunks, and when I ran past them on the trail all turned around and said I startled them and lifted their tails.
So the race. It is a pretty hard route with lots (and lots) of stairs with some good downhill and flat sections. The trail is relatively technical with lots of roots, a couple short switchbacks, along with a lot of raised bridge type walkways.
I decided to start a bit towards the back and I probably should have pushed forward a bit more. The race starts going straight up a hill and I did manage to pass some people in that section. Once you are onto the trail it is hard to get by people. I was stuck behind one woman for a while who was having a hard time on a downhill section when she eventually let myself and one other person by her. I did well on the stair sections, taking them 2 at a time and passing a bunch of people. Of course going down the stairs I think they probably all passed me back.
Overall I felt good about my race. I had been undecided on whether to do it or not as my lungs still weren't feeling 100% from my cold, but it didn't really bother me at all during the race. Overall time was 1:01 and change. Good for 10th in my AG. I'm happy to have had a solid race where I felt pretty strong throughout.
To end off the weekend we had a good and interesting meeting at the tri store, and that will be its own post.
3 comments:
Congrats!! Trail races are very different, aren't they? Pretty interesting. The single-file aspect is tricky. Sounds like you have a talent for this- are you going to do another?
That's really neat your mom moved to Vancouver! How nice to live so close.
I like running in the woods and there are quite a few trail races here, so I am sure I will do more. It was fun!
Nice job on the race! It sounds like a tough course!!
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