Christmas and Crescent Park cross country

Blog or die! But if i have nuthin' to say it's a little hard to justify putting something up. So i'll compromise and keep this short.

Christmas was spent in the Seattle area with family and gave me a chance to get out on some different trails. Even though they look much like our trails in North Vancouver (rainforest etc) .. it's still somewhere else and somewhere new. The trails are a little more groomed and less technical which makes it nice for zooming along. I was pretty impressed with their network of trails in urban areas and it's easy enough to join them up for a 2 hour run.

They have some amazing parks and sports fields that, as a teacher, i would love to have access to with a class. I'd be out there all the time and yet as i run by they sit empty!! Kids safely locked away in their houses glued to their new electronic devices. Ever noticed lately how if you plunk a group of kids on a field and tell them to go play they will stand around talking for 20 minutes and then come to you saying they're bored and want to go home? I'm sure if you're from my generation you don't need to be told that those sports fields and parks would be full of kids playing unstructured games all year round. I'm truly scared about what's going to happen in North America when these kids start developing diseases at younger and younger ages and start passing on their own life habits to their kids.

Anyway ... off the lecture podium and onto the Resolution 8k cross-country run this morning at Crescent Park in White Rock. No celebrating the change over from December to January for me (I mean about 2 billion other people in the world don't believe in it or celebrate a different day. I just don't get it). Even so, I woke up and slowly, slowly .. it began to dawn on me that there was a bit of light in my room .. enough to see objects and their colours. This could only mean one thing to my highly trained internal clock.... I was late! Hopped out of bed and phoned Craiky to relay the delay. Rush around and get ready. Pick up Craiky and head off hoping there's a coffee shop open.

Then off to Crescent Park. Really nice park with forest and big open spaces and nice groomed and semi-groomed trails criss-crossing it and, by north shore standards relatively flat.

The race was put on by Peninsula Runners and their series, The Campbell Valley Trail Series, is attended by mostly fast roadies and track/club runners. Great tempo training. I'll get my sandbagging done here -- Craiky and I had run 3hrs on Wed and 1 hr yesterday and then off to this thing so we were a little tired.

Up to this point it was 2-1 to me in our little competition between me and Craiky in the cross-country races. I had managed to burn him off on a beautiful sunny day at the Jericho 10k in December. As I said in my last post .. it's amazing what the promise of coffee and a sticky bun at Grounds for Coffee can do to motivate me =D

Today we were a little surprised to see such a big turn out. Looked like at least 150 runners and White Rock's newest resident, Ward Beemer among them!

The starter said "go" .. i think .. and i took off. About 50 metres in i heard Ward's voice behind me:
Ward: "where's he going?!"
Craiky: "that's how he runs.."

So I knew i was in front as we zoomed around a wide path and funneled into some fun single track through the woods. I zipped and swooped down the trail passing less sure-footed roadies and banked back onto a wider gravel/needle path, leaning into a little climb. Looking up I saw 20metres ahead of me a rather nice bum and the tanned calves of a cute girl fresh back from Mexico. As I was admiring her I noticed on her left a runner in black capri running tights and a familiar gait....

Doh!! What the #%$#%@ !!!?!!! How?!! Oooooooooo ... what?where... how? ... Bewildered and frustrated I closed the 20 metres in less than a minute and pulled up alongside Craiky.

"How'd the hell you get in front of me?!!!!!!!!! How'd you do that?! There's no way you passed me on that single track!!!"

Somehow that weasel had gotten by me at the start before we went into the single track and without me even noticing! The guy is a freakin magician!!! Kinda reminds me of this bugs bunny cartoon i watched as a kid.. there was no kissing involved though ...and no $10. =D


These races are great. I mean I like the long stuff but you don't really get the lungs going on those unless there's a big climb. But in these your lungs and heart are in overdrive the whole time, just on the edge between staying on the pace and being on your face in the dirt callin' a cab.

We both came through the first 4k loop in the 16minute area with craiky about 25 seconds ahead and he managed to keep that gap for the second lap too although i managed to pass the 3 people between me and him so that i finished 1 place behind him.

So now we're at 2-2 and neither of us really wants to go for a tie-breaker cuz it'll be piano wire and razor blades the whole way!

Another reason i liked this race was because they had pizza at the end! Really tasty and still fresh and hot in their little cardboard boxes! Then it was off to see Beemer's cool new place and eat bacon and french toast. That's my kinda new year's day!

No word on the results yet but craiky was 32:10 i believe, and i was 32:35 i think.

Damn .. so much for keeping it short. :p