Phantom Race 2010

I made a last minute decision to race the 19km Phantom Race this past Saturday. It is the last local trail race of the year and the course covers many of my favourite trails on the North Shore so I figured why not.

Here's all the gory details...

My girlfriend and I decided that since neither of us had trained or specifically planned for this race we would stick together and run for fun.

The race started off well we were chatting away & the first few clicks seems to float by. It was the moment we hit our first climb that I realized my legs were completely shot...they felt like DEAD weights and even using everything inside me I just could not run up the hill. I walked up the hill trying to convince myself maybe I just needed to warm up or maybe it was just this hill. Even as I walked up (I can't even call my pace a power hike) I felt my heart rate was maxed out.

After a steep downhill I thought my legs might be waking up...I was wrong. When we hit the next slight up hill, my legs felt worse than the first up hill - was that even possible? I asked my friend to leave me but she said she was happy to stick it out with me, even though the hills were absolutely killing me. We hit twin bridges and checked our pace it was looking like we were still moving at a pace that would allow us to finish in around two hours and I just kept telling myself to push through, that I would have to start to feel better. Using this flatter section of the race I tried to regroup my legs, my lungs and my emotions, telling myself it would all be over soon and that this WAS what I came here for...or was it??

I focused on convincing myself to smile (I think that even just smiling can spread goodness in your body) and enjoy the stunning forest, rivers and scenery that surrounded me.

Upon reaching Homestead hill I again tried push myself to run yet again (I KNOW I can run this hill), but the legs weren't there, it literally felt like it was taking every ounce of my energy to walk up the hill let alone run it. I tried to pull from one of my favourite quotes: LEARN TO RUN WHEN FEELING THE PAIN: THEN PUSH HARDER. Even this didn't work.

We reached the top of the hill (thank god) and were running to the 12km mark (also the start and finish area) my girl friend looked at me and said "do you want to keep going?  You could pull out at 12km if you weren't aren't feeling it"...The problem is I know I can run that trail and I am stubborn, so I told her to leave me and that I'd battle through & see her at the finish line.

Running on Varley Trail felt like I was moving so slow, I seriously felt like I was running backwards. I hit the Lynn Headwater aid station and could barley muster up a friendly hello for the volunteers working it.

I continued on along Lynn Loop trail, seriously I think I must have been delirious because my main motivation to keep running was that I thought I must have been in dead last place and I was fearful the sweepers would be passing me soon.

Climbing the Lynn Loop hill felt more like a death march, I honestly felt light headed, as though every ounce energy was gone and like each leg weighted over 200 pounds. I suffered through it reminding myself that I've done this before, that I've run much longer in the past and that it was almost over...I finally reached the top of the hill, where the terrain turns more technical and rolling, I think this is where I got "half" of my first wind.

I finished the last few km's much stronger then the rest of my race but was still not feeling anything like I should have.

Reflection:

1. Do I think it was a nutrition issue?  No, I ate well leading up to the race including the morning of and during the race I downed lots of fluids and gels.
2. Was I hung over? NO!!! Seriously people
3. Did I have enough sleep? I think so - I actually slept well the night before. I went to see Warren Millers Wintervention which was EPIC! can not wait to hit the powder this year - my snowboard is already in the shop getting waxed.
4. Did I taper? No - this is probably what did it. The week leading up to the race I race H2H relay on Saturday, did a trail run Sunday with Brad, went for a seawall run with friends on Monday night, hit up a brand new intense gym class on Tuesday, suffered through a major hurt session with Pricey and Clint on Wednesday and did Yoga on Thursday.

I honestly think this race reminded me the importance of tapering and REST.

In the end I finished in 2hour 17minutes - Most importantly I finished.  I battled through the worst I have ever felt on a trail race and made it to the finish!

After refueling and some shopping I headed to the Commodore Ballroom to check out two fantastic bands; Ra Ra Riot and Wintersleep.

K

Hiccups and Quills on Chuckanut

I didn't go out for Halloween on Saturday night; instead I did a bit of shopping at Lululemon and baked cookies. This was the prefect way to spend an evening on the eve of a long run especially because Saturday was action packed for me; morning orientation run for The Phantom Race, birthday brunch with friends and then an afternoon of mountain biking on the North Shore.  

I organized a group of runners to meet at 7:30am Sunday morning to head down to Washington State to Chuckanut Mountain to ran part of the 50km Chuckanut Mountain race route.  I plan on running the race in March so thought this was a great time to check out the route.  We adapted the race route a bit by leaving out the first and last 6 miles; this section is supposed to be non technical, flat trail along on old railroad line. 

Nine brave souls turned up for this extraordinary run.  We could not have asked for a more amazing day.  The sky was clear, the sun was shining and the temperature was not even that cold for November 1st.  The route starts off with some up hill climbing and then it levels off as you reach Fragance Lake.  You loop around the lake and then hit another hilly section; similar to the North Shore's Mountain Highway which is quite runnable.  I've really been trying to focus on improving my hill climbing; distance running is new to me and I've notice that as I been adding distance to my runs my hill climbing as been suffering.  This day definitely tested my hill training, my goal is to try run all the hills and not power hike up them.  Tom Craik gave me some great advice during this run and so I'll be focusing on these pointers in all my training runs as I approach my first 50km race.

At one point on this hill Duncan Coo ran up behind me and gave me a little push - just thinking out loud - maybe this is the way I should improve my hills...

The run consists of at least 20 minutes of ridge line running which was spectacular.  Views of the ocean and surrounding areas were picture prefect (too bad I forgot my camera in the car).  This is what makes trail running so rewarding - only a small percentage of people actually get to experience this, it reminds me why I'm so lucky to be able bodied and living here.  People sometime ask me how and why I like to run as far and often as I do.  I prefer to switch the question and ask them why they don't.

This run marked the first time I've seen a porcupine in the wild in real life. He was climbing a tree that was leaning across the trail. I chose to remember him like this but in actual fact he was much larger and not nearly this cute.  This adds to the list of creatures I've seen on my running travels; one bear, a bunch of deers, one scary ass cougar and a porcupine.














After the porcupine run in we continued on towards a very very steep climb called chin scarper.  Once we reached the top of this climb it was almost all down hill switchback running to the parking lot.   At the parking lot I reveiled my baking to the group which surprisingly was a hit.  I guess after 4 hours of running chocolate chip cookies baked by anyone taste good because they all got eaten.  It was definitely a good thing I elected to bake for this run because my car broke down so I delayed the whole crew from getting back to civiliziation by almost 2 hours while we tried to get my little VW started.  Thanks for everyone for making me laugh and not being angry at my poor little Jetta.  I'm tending to her now so this won't happen again.

I used this run to test out my nutrition plan for San Fran.  The plan was to eat a gel every 30 minutes and drink water (I really like to drink water and not a sports drink).   However a gel every 30 minutes was too much gel for one Katie so I'm revisiting my plan: a gel every 45 minutes to 1 hour, a handheld with accelerade, my pack with water and some solid food.

I took Monday off as a rest a day and hit up Mountain Highway Tuesday after work for some further hill training.  This was my first time doing this hill training route by myself (in the dark).  I had a head lamp and managed 20 minutes up which is when I got too creepied out, all I could think about was how tasty a dinner I was going to make for the cougars larking in the dark woods that surrounded me. At 20 minutes I turned around and sprinted back down the hill to the car.  I'm now accepting/recruiting Tuesday night hill training parnters.

Wednesday I got in a great cross training work out in at my gym.  Normally I go to Tim's 5:30 cycle and core class but I had an engagement for work at 6:00pm so I decided to try Rebecca's spin class that starts a bit earlier.  She was a wicked teacher and I manged to really get my heart rate going with some high intensity interval training.  After the class I quickly dashed back to the locker room to throw on my "little black dress" and headed straight to the Lotus Awards which is Vancouvers biggest advertising awards show.  The show was hosted by my agency Rethink Communications, they did a fantastic job and managed to win the medal count for all their fabulous work throughout the last year.

Tonight I'm heading to the track for 800's and then to Lululemon on 4th to try out a new crossfit class they are offering (for free) which I'm super excited to try.

Saturday I'll be running 40km, followed by a session at Peak Performance and then I'm headed to see one of my favourite DJ's Kaskade at the Commodore.  Sunday I will will likely be a degenerate because Saturday night will probably involve the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol.

One month until I head down to San Francisco for the North Face Endurance Challenge and my first 50km trail race!