Running race 4:40:47 [4] 34.69 km (8:06 / km) +1432m 6:43 / km
ahr:153 max:176
"Survival of the Fittest" in Squamish. I started off fairly fast, and enjoyed the undulating hills of the first half. The second half was one big up, and one big down. I struggled on the up, but there were some sweet sweet views to distract from the pain. I'd initially thought I'd crush the final descent, but nope! The trails were a bit too technical for my tired legs, so I was doing 8min/km on a descent! Last little bit was on a road, where I actually picked up some speed again.
This was my first Coast Mountain Trail Series race, which is organised by Gary Robbins and team. Man, do they know how to put on an event! In no particular order:
* Really well-marked course. Thousands of pin flags out there.
* Gary greets every finisher at the finish line. Hi fives and hugs all round.
* Free massage from Langara RMT students (not at every race, but most). It felt so good! And got some good pointers on more things to roll.
* Fun ways to give out draw prizes. The smaller items were given out by answering trivia questions about BC (e.g. where is the world's largest hockey stick (Duncan), what's the highest waterfall in Canada (Della Falls) etc). The biggest prizes were given away by: a) getting everyone to line up 10m from a box and take their shoes off; b) throwing the shoes towards the box; c) the closest 15 got to round 2, which involved running to a pile of potato sacks, sack-racing to a chair, running back to the pile of shoes, putting on shoes, and running to the swag table; d) first 10 people to the table get the good prizes. I came in 11th in the shoe toss (so qualified) and 9th in the sack race (so got a prize). Now I have to decide who gets to drink my growler of beer!
I need to focus on road running and orienteering mapping for a while, so this is probably going to be my longest run of the year. Very happy with my choice!