Saturday May 26 |
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| Event: Suphur Spring Trail Race
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 | Running race 2:03:26 [4]25 km (4:56 / km) vdot: 43.6 | |
| slept:6.5 |
| Awesome day out at the Sulphur Springs trail race! Bob and I had been discussing our pre-race gitters the night before; the course looked long! We'd run sections of it but never the whole thing all at once and so we both decided that we'd just "have fun" and take 'er easy and finish well. The start line was a mix of our 25km race and the 50km. I started off at a good comfortably quick pace and made sure that I was staying relaxed, I even walked some of the steep hills. The 50 and 100 milers has started an hour before we did and so seeing these people out on the trails ahead of me gave me some added motivation - especially since they were running relatively slower so I just kept passing people - good for the ego! Anyway, there was a girl in a pink t-shirt a little bit in front of me, and I knew from some of the out-and-back sections that there were some strong looking ladies behind me too. At about the 15km mark I noticed that one of these ladies was getting closer and closer. I played with the mental struggle of whether I should speed up, or just let her pass me...she eventually caught up and we had a quick chat (I wanted to make sure if she was actually in my race or not) and she gave a few quick strides and left me behind. I felt happy that I now had a good target in front of me, and judging from her pace and strength on the hills I figured that I still had a chance of catching her again. I never let her get too far in front of me - I wanted her to be able to hear me breathing right behind her :) We had a very steep hill up to the last assist station at the 20km mark and I figured that it was now or never! At the top of the hill managed to catch up and she could probably feel my breath on the back of her neck. I tried my best to put out a good, strong, and intimidating pace as I strode past her on the next downhill section. One more good hill was between us and the finish at this point. Lucky for me I came across TVP at this point (who, by the way, looked very strong and happy!) and his shouts of encouragement pushed me up the final hill. After that there was about 2km of downhill to the finish and I swear my legs almost came unhinged because I was running down them so fast! I finished 2nd female overall, 1min and 1s behind the girl in the pink shirt, and 36s ahead of my rival. Yahoo!
Also, was 20th finisher overall.
Congrats to Bob (who's smile and cool collectedness on the final push to the finish were much more intact than mine), and Hans, and the 50-miler TVP (who was STILL running when we left). Good job guys! |
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| C • Fantastic! 9 |
Thursday May 24 |
| Paddling 45:00 [4] | |
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Wednesday May 23 |
| Running 50:00 [3] | |
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| Some of the Sulphur Loop with Bob. Definitely didn't feel great at some parts, but once I got warmed up it was better. Maybe a good stretch is in store before our race on Sat. |
Tuesday May 22 |
| Note | |
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| Has to miss TNT tonight due to scheduling changes at school. Instead of giving us the day off on Monday, they instead cram all of Monday's stuff into our 4 day week! Lovely!
Had so much work to do that I didn't manage to get out at all today. :( |
Monday May 21 |
| Running 2:40:00 [3] | |
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| Good run, mostly with hansel, around Blue Mountain area. Started things off right with a calf-killing "run" up the ski hill and then we headed west along the Bruce. Lots of good little hills that hurt much more on the way back than they did on the way out. I say I ran "mostly" with hansel because shortly after our turn around point my legs were not quite feeling up to the challenge of meeting his need for speed and he took off and I continued on at our moderate pace.
We also had a short bushwack section in terrain that looked to me like a place I would love to live if I were a poison ivy plant. I did a very thorough job of washing my legs when I got back. Absolutely no need for a repeat of the SAC Long Course in Marmora a couple years ago. 'nuf said. |
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| C • Scenic Caves 7 |
| Note | |
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| The blackflies have descended upon Ontario. This weekend, and especially while climbing on Saturday, I had horrible flashbacks of bushwaking in Timmins. Oddly enough, although I usually bear the brunt of the swollen bleeding neck from the masses of blackflies that love to feast on me, hansel suffered the most this weekend. My bites didn't get puffy at all and are only little red specks on my legs and ankles. It's possible that exposing yourself to 24hrs straight to the most intense blackfly infestations imaginable is some sort of cure for the suffering they impose. Interesting. Maybe we can market this. |
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| C • Marmora 1 |
Sunday May 20 |
| MTB 1:05:00 [3] | |
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| Good trails at Kalopore with hansel and rich. A wee bit slippy though. Lots of good little ups and downs. |
| MTB 1:15:00 [3] | |
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| Fun Blue Mountain trails with hansel. We had a great ride on some good technical stuff. There was also a good flying superman over the handle bars for me. Ripped my computer wire in half - oops!! :)
I'll stick with my motto: If you're not crashing, you're not trying hard enough. ;) |
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| C • Be careful! 6 |
| MTB hills 30:00 [5] | |
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| 2 X 15min hill up Scenic Caves Road. Phew!! |