At last, the weather has changed! The ice and snow are gone and it is only a matter of days before we start complaining about the heat. To be fair, I pride myself in the fact that I try to bite my tongue whenever I feel like complaining about cold weather in the winter. I believe that people should only be able to complain about either the cold or the heat, but not both. As a fair-skinned ginger, the heat it my nemesis. When I run in hot conditions, my less-happy alter-ego comes out. Heather has named him "the Bear". He first made an appearance at the Canadian Death Race in 2014. After completing the second leg of the race in the highest temperatures in race history, I came into the aid station and was quite rude and demanding to my crew. Those of you who have run with me know that I try to be nice and over-the-top appreciative to all volunteers and crew members but on that hot day, I was less than cordial. The truth is, I don't remember acting that way. I was so hot that I was panicking. I actually had heat stroke and would spend the next 5 hours throwing up and eventually passing out onto my face at the top of the highest peak on the course. Good times.
This has been a great week of running for me. I felt as though my body needed a bit of a rest so, although I still ran every day, I ran comfortably and enjoyed the company of friends on the trail. I ran a night run in the Dundas Valley, I ran on the beautiful Bruce Trail to the Devil's Punchbowl, and I did a pretty solid hill workout as well. The focus of the week was to enjoy all the running that I am fortunate to do.
I went into the weekend feeling fresh and wanting to run hard. I was also feeling excited for a few reasons. First of all, I would be running back-to-back races on Saturday morning with only about an hour in between. Second, I was going to run my first 5k of the year, which I view as a great way to test my fitness. Finally, I was excited that 2 of my children would be joining me for the 1k kids run at my first race of the day, which ended up being a lot of fun. To top it all off, I woke up on race day to find that I had a Facebook friend request from Rob Krar (two-time winner of Western States). The day was off to a great start.
The first race of the day was the Legacy Run. It offers 5k and 10k events, both of which start at the same time. I recognized a lot of faces as we lined up, including Olympic marathoner and all-round great guy, Reid Coolsaet. The race started with a downhill for about 500-750m. Although I loved the downhill, I also realized that we would have to climb up at the end of the race. The pace was pretty intense but I wasn't planning on leaving anything on the table, so I went with it. My strategy was to go out hard and hang on as long as possible. I was running somewhere in between 5-8th place for the first couple of kilometres but at the 2.5k turnaround point I noticed that not a single runner ahead of me turned around to head back to the finish; they were ALL in the 10k race. I decided to push it until the final hill and hope for the best. To be honest, as nice as it would be to win or place well, my focus was on my time rather than my placement. My goal was to run sub 19:30 and I was on pace and feeling good. Well, "good" may be an overstatement but I was not feeling like I was going to die.
I definitely slowed down on the hill and I didn't look at my pace during this section. The highlight of the race was when I could hear my kids cheering for me and my daughter jumped onto the course and ran the last 50m with me. I crossed the line in 18:52. I was very pleased but my attention quickly turned to getting on the shuttle bus back to the parking lot so that I could get to the start of the next race.
The second race of the day was "The Lung Burner". This is a 4km trail race that is absolutely brutal in terms of elevation gain. I ran this race last year and really enjoyed the vibe. It is put on by a great group of guys at "Hustle and Flow", and is a fundraiser for ALS. I got to the start with plenty of time and enjoyed catching up with friends. The course starts at a gate and travels over hilly terrain to another gate and then back to the start. Once runners touch the final gate and call out their name, their suffering ends. My intentions were to race the first event of the day really hard and then relax a bit at this one. Once the race started, my intentions went out the window. I got pulled in with the front runners, who were both friends of mine. The race starts with a nasty climb. I walked the top portion and then tried to really open it up on the descent. This was my strategy for the entire race. I definitely ran a lot harder than planned. It was a tough 4k but I had a great time hanging with friends and pushing the pace.
In terms of my overall goal to run 40 races this year, so far I am on track. We are just over 4 months into the year and I have run 15 races. I have a pretty packed schedule from now until mid-summer with at least one race each weekend. July and August appear to be a little less busy due to the fact that there aren't as many races offered during this time. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I appreciate it. I have had some people approach me recently at races who have been following my journey and have told me about their own goals- many of which make my goals seem minuscule! I love hearing all these stories and I find them very inspiring. Please keep sharing!