No Strava for me

I am somewhat hesitant to write this, as I'm sure no one out there needs reminding that I once stated publicly that I'd never run trails, run an ultra, or learn how to bike.  So these days I am really trying not to say 'never'.

I do not have a Strava account, the only time I've been on the site is when people have posted links of runs/rides and I need to look at it to know where to show up.

Firstly, I already post my GPS data in 4 places: RunningAhead, Garmin Connect, Daily Mile, and SparkPeople.  That is probably already overload, but each one has its purpose and I can't see myself cutting out one of those.  I've gotten my routine down that I can post in all 4 places in under 5 minutes.

More importantly, from what I understand, Strava is all about numbers, about competing to be the fastest, and that is the antithesis of what my workouts are all about these days.  Running, for me, is all about fun and adventure, NOT speed and competition.

25 mile Mini Beast of Burden

I remember in 2008, I didn't want to sign up for the Robbie Burns race, because I wasn't sure I wanted to run a whole 8K in the cold!  Fast forward to 2016 and I'm getting ready to run 25 miles.  In northern New York state.  In January.

Agnes and I don't run without taking pictures.

The hilarious thing is the 25 mile is called the Mini Beast, equivalent of doing the 5K at a marathon race weekend.  When I signed up, I mistakenly thought BoB was a jaunt through the woods.  Nope, the weather and the snow conditions is what makes the race tough.  If the weather had been warmer, the course would be very similar to the beach path in Hamilton. 

Let's get the negatives out of the way first.

1. The course, while not as boring as say, a suburban subdivision, was still really boring. Flat as a pancake, and basically the same scene, with the canal on one side, and trees/road on the other side for the entire 25 miles.

This could have been anywhere on the course.
I only know this is the way back because the canal is on the left.

2.  The race wasn't chip timed.  Which led to this amusing timing snafu:

3:34:21.  Faster pace than my marathon PB.  1st woman. A course record.  HAHAHAHA!!!

The positives:

1. Amazing atmosphere.  Only in ultras/trail races do people say "good job" when you pass them!  

2. Awesome aid stations.  I got a blister fairly early on and had to tape my foot at the 20 and 30K aid stations.  I sat down in a chair, and a friendly volunteer asked both times what they could get for me. (bandaids, vaseline, tape, ibuprofen) and they took care of my foot while I concentrated on eating and drinking.  What service!

The aid stations had crispy M&Ms.  OMG how I have missed you in Canada!

3.  The weather.  There was a horrible wind early in the morning in Niagara, but wind was totally a non-factor.  The temperature was just cold enough to make me feel badass, but I was never freezing to death at any point.  There was just enough snow on the ground to make the running challenging.

The RD and I.  He took pictures individually with every finisher.

My finisher's coin.

Excellent swag.  The sweatpants are so comfy.

Official time: 5:30:17

Garmin time: 5:14:37 (turned off at aid stations)

Field placement: 13/22

Gender placement: 6/12

AG: 30-39

AG placement: 1/1 (WOOHOO!)

The obligatory 2015 roundup post

Thames Valley, Sulphur 50K, MS Bike, Avon Trail
R2H 1K, Agnes & I, Virginia & I, 100K bike ride
#waterfallbeer, 16 mile creek, Mississauga Marathon, Spartan Sprint
BT southern cairn, I <3 deadlifting, Chase the Coyote, CtC with Greg

2015 is the year where 2 very significant things happened:

1. I became pretty much a full time trail runner.

2. I ran my first ultra.

January

Frosty Trail Run - 1 hour of 2K loops at Camp Heidelburg.  I do not like this format of racing.  I like to feel like I'm going somewhere when I run.

February

Gave MAF a good try.  These days, I'm leaning closer to the 80/20 approach, which still emphasizes the importance of slow running.

March

First adventure with Rhonda at DVCA, very decent sub 2:50 at ATB with zero speedwork.

April

Avon Trail Thru Run (2nd adventure with Rhonda).  Signed up for my first ultra, Sulphur Springs 50K.

May

Ran Mississauga Marathon for the 4th time, first time as a pacer, which was also my 10th road marathon.  Sulphur Springs 50K, my first ultra and where I met Agnes.

June

Ran NFWHM for the 4th time, 3rd as pacer.

July

My first and LAST Spartan Sprint.  

August/early September

75K Niagara MS Bike Tour, 100K bike ride on Labour Day weekend.

September

Ran with Virginia Gingras for 3 days as she set a new Bruce Trail female FKT.  I returned to Chase the Coyote for the new 21-ish km distance and did not DNF.   

October

Super fun Vulture Bait 25K in London, preceded by a 10K "warmup" in preparation for...

November

...a third adventure with Rhonda, the Thames Valley Thru Run, new time/distance PB run. (8+ hours/54K)

December

Paced Tannenbaum 10K for the 2nd year in a row, took part in RunTOBeer.  Completed Toronto BT Club end to end run, awaiting badge.

~~~~~~~~~

Stats:

Run: 2579.8K (I will definitely get to 2600K by year end!)

Lifetime total: 17122.1K

Bike: 1829.2K
Sprained right ankle: around 5-10 times.

~~~~~~~~~

Final thoughts:

The theme for this year was FUN.  I explored many new places, saw many beautiful things with like-minded friends.  I just shared a quote on FB the other day, "When I used to run, it was about making my body go as fast as I could go.  Now it's more about getting out there and being free." That sense of adventure will carry me into 2016 as I train for my first 50 miler at Sulphur Springs.  I am not completely filling up my race schedule as I have plans and ideas for my own trail adventures!

Thames Valley Thru Run

First off, this was NOT A RACE.  This was a fat ass end-to-end trail run, of which I did approximately half.

The run started southwest of London, about 20 minutes from my MIL's apartment, she kindly got up at stupid o'clock to drive me to the trailhead, I had left my car in a downtown London parking lot 56K away.  The trail passed by MIL's apartment at exactly 50K, but I wanted to make sure I had a new distance PB at the end of the day.

There were about 20 ladies invited, but there were 4 doing the full distance: Rhonda, Robin, Lizzy and Catherine plus me at the start and Catherine H. dropped in for a few kilometres in the afternoon.  We were supported by Clay and Steven.

The first section alternated between country roads and muddy farmer's fields.  We peed trailside, in a row, as a group (as girls do).

 If we lost sight of blazes, we retraced our steps and consulted the map (as girls do).  At one of the first aid stops, a hunter stopped his truck to comment that we were being loud...um dude that was on purpose!

One benefit to being a midget is that I never have to worry about my head colliding with van trunk doors.

At one point, we were running towards a forest, heard gunshots and saw birds flying away above the trees.  It was definitely unnerving to be running towards the sound of gunfire! As you can see from the pictures, we were dressed in bright colours and we were singing songs, yelling, hooting and using whistles to make sure we were heard. We were in a valley when a shot fired, VERY close to us.  We could see the hunter at the top of the forest, Robin shouted some choice words at him and we got the hell out of there as fast as we could.  Most of the forest was not too technical, but had lots of narrow and steep singletrack, plus all the leaf cover on the ground.

I got laser therapy on my wonky right ankle after the fall I had last week, and of course I stepped in a gopher hole in a grassy area and went down.  All the other ladies were standing over me, Catherine helped me up, Rhonda gave me a ginger chew (which was miraculous for the post-ankle roll pain/nausea) and they made me lead so I wouldn't get dropped.  We walked a couple of kilometres, until we got to a very "shuffleable" provincial park.

Throughout the day, I ate orange slices, Pringles, Chips Ahoy, Timbits and drank a bottle each of ginger ale and regular Coke.  I had Mio drops in my hydration vest and I had a headache that got progressively worse despite popping vitamin I for my ankle.  It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I figured out the cause - electrolyte imbalance - and taking 2 salt caps made the headache go away almost immediately.  Then this morning I read the label on Mio vs. Gatorade - Mio has about 1/3rd the electrolytes as Gatorade, plus with the cool temps I really didn't think eletrolyte imbalance would be an issue, but now I know.

Running through London, Catherine H. joined us, and we ran through a lot of residential neighbourhoods and multi-use paths. By some miracle, every dog we met was leashed and well behaved.

This is Apollo.  He managed to charm even me.  I loved his striped socks.

As the saying goes, "what happens on the trail, stays on the trail" but I must share this story.  We came out of the woods to a busy street with wide guardrails on both sides.  Being about 40K into the run, climbing over them was rather painful and we didn't see any blazes on the other side so back over the guardrails we went to retrace our steps and read the map description, which led us down a very steep embankment, under the road, and back up the other side. "Then follow the multi-use path to the left." All that guardrail climbing for nothing!

This bridge goes under the major road to allow trail users the safety of not having to cross in traffic. Of course they could jump the guard rail and practice their frogger skills oh three or more times... #TVT #thrurun #girlsdayout #anythingforabadge

A photo posted by Rhonda-Marie Avery (@batgirl78) on Nov 8, 2015 at 2:00pm PST

The last few kilometres took us through Springbank Park and towards downtown London.  It was already starting to get dark, and I needed to be back home to meet up with the Sporty Spice girls at 6:30. I also underestimated how hard it would be mentally to run past the apartment.  After passing the 50K mark, fatigue really set in and I walked most of the way to the next checkpoint.  Still got my new distance/time PB, 54K in 8:25.  Steven and Clay drove me back to my car, which was fortunately still where I had parked it the night before.

If I had been mentally/physically prepared with appropriate food/clothing to run the full distance, I would have, as Rhonda informed me there was no FKT for the Thames Valley Trail.

Posted by Rhonda-Marie Avery on Monday, 9 November 2015

I missed rescuing the injured runner, the Fireball whiskey and the instant ramen, but I had SO MUCH FUN!!  Fat ass group runs are the best, even better than races and I look forward to Rhonda's next trail adventure!

The first bite of real food at GNO, after eating crap on the trails all day long.  Photo by Nicole.

Vulture Bait 25K race report

I'm trying to remember what prompted me to want to run Vulture Bait, thinking back, I'm pretty sure it was Jeff's video race report.

Just as Virginia had predicted, there were deferrals and I got off the wait list.  I stayed overnight in London and it was a very easy 20 minute drive to Fanshawe Conservation Area.

To prepare for the ultra distance fun run in November, it was suggested to me that I run 10K extra to get over 20 miles and since the race started at 9, it made much more sense to get it in beforehand.  I had packed my bags in a disorganized manner and forgot a few things, such as underwear and my headlamp.  7 am it was still pitch black and I thought I would have to run road, but when I checked in to get my race kit, Jennifer-Anne, the race director, gave me a brand new headlamp, they were actually selling them, but she let me have it for free.  She suggested that I go a particular direction (which ended up being the last 5K of the course) and off I went.  Of course I wished I could just run the course by myself instead of waiting for the race start!

The course looped around Fanshawe Lake.

Most of the trail was flat and easy.

Glorious sunrise!

Got back with just enough time to throw the headlamp in my car, pin on the bib and take a gel.  The trail was down an extremely steep grassy embankment from the pavilion that was race central and I had this horrible thought that the race would start with a climb back up the embankment.  

I seeded myself in the middle of the pack and we were off.  There were a few very mild grassy hills and I walked them, not knowing what was coming up later.  The race spread out enough that even on the singletrack sections, I had sufficient breathing room most of the time.  At one point, I felt like taking a little walk break, and thinking I was alone, did so and immediately about 6 people passed me! %$&$@!!! If I'd known there were so many people hot on my tail I would have kept going!  There were several long (~1K) road sections that were mostly downhill and I picked off the people who had passed me fairly easily.  

There were only very small hills on this course, it was pretty much 100% runnable.  I mentioned how flat the course was to the lady behind me and she said I was crazy, but seriously, compared to Sulphur, VB is absolutely pancake flat.  There was one small water crossing with about 6K to go, people were picking across the rocks but I said fuck it and ran through the ankle deep cold water, which felt good on my feet.

I first saw these signs heading out on my solo 10K, but I was getting tired of stopping and turning around to read them, and I was in a hurry heading back so I didn't really see them either.  I did pass the 2 "rednecks" setting up their aid station.  They were dressed Duck Dynasty style with plastic duck decoys, banjo music (as threatened in the sign) and mini beer kegs.  I normally would not booze during a race, but I was thirsty, I had run 30K already, what the hell!

There was a very nice buffet of meatballs, mac & cheese, salad and cake back at the pavilion, along with free massages (that I didn't have to wait an hour for!) 

Did you know that I have a lifelong fear of glowing red space heaters?  Now you do.

I LOVED the course, it's very convenient for me, and I'm thankful that London didn't get the 15 cm of snow the weather people were forecasting all Friday night.  I didn't sign up for 50K this year, thinking it would be a close shave to make the 7 hour cutoff, but seeing the course now makes me think that sub 7 will be achievable.  I'm putting this on my list for next year!

Got a little souvenir for my car.

Official gun time: 3:21:06 (Garmin time was 3:15:43.  Dunno what happened there, it didn't take me 6 minutes to hit start after they yelled GO!)

Field placement: 136/181 (YAY a midpack finish!)

Gender placement: 61/97

AG placement: 52/76 (I was in the 1-49 AG)

Chase the Coyote race report

So I was back for some major CtC redemption.  The co-RD, Norm Nadon, read my race report of woe and offered me free entry.  When the new 21-ish kilometre long course was announced, I went for that distance.  May as well run as much as I can if I'm going to drive an hour each way!  Excellent swag: CtC buff-type thing, Saucony headphones.
  

Just like last year, it was a beautiful early fall morning.

My only goal for the race was to finish, and I thought I would be over 3 hours, maybe closer to 3:30.

We're off!  Note the guy in the yellow singlet.

Right away, I fell to the pack of the pack, in a small group of 4.  There was a guy in a 70.3 shirt, he mentioned how he's never done a trail race.  I was surprised he was so slow...I would have thought a trail noob would more likely start out way too fast and the hills would kill them later on.  I ran slowly up the gradual incline that's the first 2K but walked Cardiac Hill.  

Top of the Lookout.

The girl in the Nike shirt came up behind me quickly, maybe she was late to the race.  She bounded over the rocks, and made "woohoo!" sounds every 10 seconds that came out more like deranged owl hoots.  I was too glad to let her pass.

I reached the downhill where I fell and walked carefully through.  I guess I experienced all of the big hills in the 5K portion I ran last year!  The course was mainly singletrack, gentle rolling downhills, very little technical sections.  Even the "roots of all evil" were not scary at all.

The thing that confuses me about trail races is how I can be a midpacker/occasional AG on the road, but near DFL on trails.  I wonder if I fall to the back of the pack at race starts because I hate running trails with people, especially people behind me? I walked very little at this race and really don't think I am that bad of a trail runner - in fact running a similar (slower) pace was good enough for a BT FKT for Virginia!

I passed the guy in the yellow singlet, he was yowling with pain with every step and gasped out "CRAMPS!" in between yowls.  I alerted the next aid station but I actually think he managed to finish.

Throughout the race, I kept catching glimpses of Mr. 70.3, he was maybe 100-200 m ahead but I finally caught him at 18K.  I thought I was last at this point, and passing him motivated me to run strong to the finish to guarantee I wouldn't be last.  I passed one more female walker around 19 or 20K and that was it.

Agnes and her friends Kristin and Delano.

So happy to finally finish and get this lovely medal!

Official chip time: 2:57:25

Field placement: 67/71

AG: 30-39

AG placement: 10/10

Gender placement: 25/27

Autumn Trail Adventures

Yesterday, Virginia Gingras set a new end-to-end female FKT for the Bruce Trail.  I did not know Virginia personally before joining her for parts of 3 days of her 900 km run, but heard about the need for pacers through a post in a FB group.  I am so honoured to have a small part in her amazing run! I am starting to enjoy these types of runs even more than races.  There is great food, new friends to talk to, and zero pressure.

Day 12, Steve Forrest, Lori Ference pacing Virginia through Cedar Springs.

Rest stop at Kerncliff, with Virginia's sister Velma (blue), Sarah from lulu Oakville (sunglasses) and the Hayden XC team.

The new queen of the Bruce Trail takes a picture with lil ol me!

This weekend, I will be running the long course at Chase the Coyote.  I'm back to atone for my DNF last year and finishing will be the only option!

The next race after that will hopefully be Vulture Bait 25K.  I got accomodations, etc. all figured out, thought I would sign up around NOW but Virginia told me that the race had been sold out for ages.  I am currently 10th on the wait list.

I was going to finish my 2015 season with the Guelph Winter Running Festival HM, but the race starts at 1 pm, and I don't mind running through the early afternoon, but starting then?  hahah, some serious zombie girl would be happening.

Lastly, this week I was invited to a special trail event that is happening in November sometime.  I am pretty sure I'm not allowed to talk about the details yet, but I am stoked to have been invited to something so cool!