The Lazy Trail Runner

When is a Run a Hike?

2012-01-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

Ok ...I was reading the iRunfar article on UTMB entrants and started looking around the UTMB website at the insane collection of 4 races they have. They are incredible events requiring incredible feats of endurance, no question.

However, as I browsed through the stunning scenery and looked at the race descriptions 10 000m elevation gains and times etc.... I got to thinking..."How much of these races do most people actually run?" I mean you look at many of the pics and you see streams of people hiking up long, grueling ascents. So my question ... more to myself was.. at what point does an ultra race become an ultra hike? How much running should a race require of the average racer in order to be called a run versus a trek or hike? 51%? 60%? 80%?

Granted a lot of people walk most of a road marathon, for example, but it fits in the category of a running race. How so? Is it a running race if the average runner...or the top 75% of racers can run all or close to all of the race?

If a race is so hard that only the top 10% can run anything near 60% of it... is that a running race? Or a hiking race? Or what is it?

I'm not trying to be an ass here....I was really wondering all these things as I looked through the website. And I don't really have an answer. Off the top of my head I'd say a running race should allow a middle of the pack runner to run 70% or more of the race. But I don't know. Am I out to lunch? If so...what are these European events to be called? Are they "fell races"? Is that a different category than "trail race" and one whose definition incorporates more hiking because of the vertical nature of the courses?

What do you folks out in the running community think and especially those of you accomplished athletes who have done several of these ultra events? I'm interested to know your thoughts.

When is an ultra trail race an ultra hike/trek? Or does this never apply?

Twas a Day for Reflection my Friends!

2011-12-11T15:51:00.001-08:00

Ha! I made a funny! ...Shut up...i did so!

I ran around with a big mirror today and got these shots..

Again..keep yer dirty paws off them or you'll get a visit from the monkeys...

could be a couple o' god particles floating around here... =D

Where's the divider between water and air?!

ooooooh....aaaahhh!

Mmmhmm...

2011-12-09T16:52:00.001-08:00

Let's face it.. you know you'll never be as good a photographer as i am... but you can dream. And you can look at my pics and slap yourself with a piece of cheese to assure yourself you aren't seeing things.

Yah... and don't even think about tryin' to steal them and sell them or i'll send a couple o monkeys around with hammers...

Er...soo...bit of an update perhaps..?

2011-11-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

Alrighty then... let's not hang about. Moving right along...hitting the main points.... during the summer i buggered off down to Oregon for a bit of a toodle around. Loved Bend and Hood River.Wish I had a second home there.... wait a minute... I don't even have a first home.. screw it... start with the second one and worry about the first one later... second one would be a hell of a lot cheaper.

Anyway... it was great... cheap camping...perfect weather... amazing trails and scenery...good coffee

and great customer service in stores etc... something that doesn't happen here in I'm too good to work in retail and provide pleasant service Vancouver. Oh and cheap gas and no sales tax!! Hello!!

This run was pretty cool...on the way to Bend in a place called ... something rock.. plymouth rock? castle rock? thirty rock? ...whatever... it was nice.. but piping hot!

Then it was off to the Coast... but that was a bust. Spent all night trying to find an empty campsite on a foggy, cloudy, windy coast on a weekend. Nothing! Hotels were a rip off.

Over rated coast! To hell with

you.. we thumbed our noses at it and buggered off back to the sunshine in Hood River.

October -

4 day weekend so took off to Jasper to get away from the rain here in Vancouver. The Rockies were nice and crispy and sunny. Awesome trip except for the $65 or whatever it was Park Pass... holy crap!!

But I'd always wanted to run the Tonquin Valley and we got the perfect day for it. Sunny, enough frost to keep the ground hard in the morning. Though coming back it got muddy as hell (Not good for my brand new

Speed Cross!). Still... it was everything i thought it would be and more. Fantastic trail and scenery. We ran in and out in maybe 6 hours taking lots of stops and photos. Trail is all very run-able. About 40km. Did it on one water bottle ...hmmm... maybe drink a little more next time...

Which takes us to yesterday .... oooooh..really nice day in Vancouver. First bit of snow in November again. Sunny and frosty and fall/winter like. So we buggered off out for a noodle from grouse to deep cove. If only Vancouver had more days like this in late Fall/Winter. If only the average person could afford to live here and actually get ahead! But no..only non-resident Chinese can do that now.

Anyway..nice out. Got some pics. And now you'reall up to date. Coming soon... x-country..sticky buns at gunner shaw.. bit of cyclocross in north van.. new years xc in crescent park and off to orcas again in Feb.

Why?

2011-08-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Apparently this is how this dude trains for ultras. Personally, I think he should get a new coach. The gains, if any, over my spike training system would be marginal and he'd be able to spend a hell of a lot more time in that hammock...

Salomon Compression .. Euro style..

2011-05-09T20:33:00.001-07:00

The skinny French dude in tighty whitey compression heads out for a third season..Follow him on the "Tube"

Duncan in Duncan

2011-05-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend on the Island and decided to try out some new terrain and a new race (for me): The Gutbuster is a series of trail races on the island much like the mainland's 5Peaks series.

Headed down to my namesake town for the Tzouhalem Gutbuster -- a 13k loop that started at the lovely Providence Farm and proceeded to kick our teeth in with a relentless, 6k wheezefest ascent of Mt Tzouhalem (roughly 30-35 minutes non-stop up for me... and pretty steep in places.. as in time to lick the ground with your tongue steep). The route follows the near ridge from left to farthest right on the hill in the picture and returns along the top (right to left) and back down through some nice, swooping singletrack to the farm.

Race was dominated by the Prairie Inn Harriers who cleaned up many of the top spots. However, I managed to eek out a 12th overall and 2nd in my age group.

Pippi managed a 2nd in hers too so there was cause for celebration all round with a visit to McDonald's for milkshakes on the fast food strip in Duncan!

Thanks to Frontrunners Victoria (Mark and Care) for putting on a great event ... even if Care did chick me :( .... i'm getting closer!

Results www.racedaytiming.ca

Runnin' with Chickens

2011-04-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

Who can't laugh at chickens/roosters? Especially ones that are on island time. These ones waited til late afternoon before they started crowing! :-D Guess they had a few late nights..

Me n Pippi spent a couple of nights down on Orcas island. Stayed at a nice B&B that doubles as a farm so there were sheep, chickens, highland cows etc doodling around the property.

The great thing about off season is not many people. We had an entire converted farmhouse to ourselves the whole time! A lady would show up in the morning to make us breakfast and that was it!! Great place too ..highly recommend it ... the Turtleback Inn.

If you haven't run or mountain biked over there you should make the trip. The trails are challenging but smooth. We lucked out with a sunny day and ran a 25k or so loop up and over Mt. Constitution. The pics speak for themselves about the trails and scenery in this area. Enjoy.

Off-the-couch potato chip eatin' lazy ass

2011-03-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

I had a good chuckle at that tongue-in-cheek comment made by the master of funnies, and my friendly rival, mr craik prior to Dirty Duo race day. It's about time he started some smack talk since I'm usually throwing it around to amuse myself and get people riled up. :p

Found this picture of me that seems to fit the title too!

Dirty Duo is probably one of the hardest 25k runs in the area and it's early season and usually not so nice weather. Just once i'd like to race this thing in the sun!! You know ... spring .. in Vancouver! C'mon!

Anyway... i rolled my fat lazy chip eating ass to the start line for 11 and waddled off at the sound of the gun ...or was that someone popping the cap off a tube of Pringles... mmmm!

What is it with these races? You look at the registered list and not too many names and then race day you find yourself in a pack of greyhounds careening across the fields! Where the hell did you people come from?! I hate having to work for a good placing! C'mon!!

About 8 of us went up lynn canyon at a dumbass pace. Mr unpronounceable, no vowels in my name, 1:13ish half marathoner from victoria, took off never to be seen again and killed the course in 2:03 ... course record i think. 2nd place dude was 2:12 but i never saw him after lower section of lynn canyon. That left about 5 of us idiots burning our legs up to the gazebo in 28 minutes. Heading down twin bridges i was already wondering if i'd blown it and gone out way too fast ... wasn't sure i could sustain it as i tried to catch Ross i-sprint-downhills Greenwood. Jesus! Is this guy related to Ellie Greenwood?!

Anyway ... i yodelled back and forth between 4th and 5th spot all the way across bridle path with another guy ...Simon I think, as we tried to chase down Ross the rolling stone. No moss on this guy! In some ways the bikes that were also on bridle path helped because if i passed some on a little uphill section i knew they would be bearing down on my chip eating ass on the other side of the hill so i sprinted those parts. Needless to say, i chewed up bridle path nicely, dropping Simon and spat myself out onto old buck... right on top of Ross who took off when he saw me. He was a slippery son of a kipper but i saw him start to walk every minute or so. Aha! Gotcha! Slowly reeled the oily weasel in and caught him at BP and passed him but the sucker stayed right on my heels like a ....well, like a sucker... and then passed me just before mushroom.

But he stopped at the aid station for some fish food and i took off down neds. He came after me and wasn't far behind, but i managed to hold him off to twin bridges. As we started up Fisherman's trail that good fer nuthin Pete Watson shouts out to Ross ..."Go get him! That guy's almost 50!" I laughed at first thinking he was talkin to both of us about maybe 2nd place dude.... but then i was like ...."wait a minute... was he talkin about me?!" Anyway... i think it spurred the young Ross to action because he took off again! I caught him half way up Homestead and passed him and held him off to the Suspension Bridge but then he passed me and it stayed that way til the end ... by about 25 seconds! Doh!

I got 4th ... but i'm ok with it. This off-the-couch potato chip eatin pushin 50 lazy ass ran 2:16:27 .... 3.5 minutes faster than my best time 4 years ago I think it was. I might start selling my training system ... remember... I called it the Spike Training System way back when I first started this blog! :p

[Nah ...wouldn't be right... I've been off the couch quite a bit and even ...shock! ...yes... the gym!! Thanks to Mr Ivanic and his own training advice ..I seem to be a little leaner... but I still eat chips and frequent the couch! ; )

Huggy Bear, Starsky and Hutch

2011-02-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

Looked all over the streets of San Francisco for Huggy Bear but couldn't find him.

Fun zooming around on the trams though, checking out the different districts and food. Great being able to take a bottle of wine into any restaurant and having them uncork for you for $10. Great little Thai restaurant on Market street .... mmmmmm!!!

Warm and sunny since I got here Friday morning!

Spent too much time in hotel lobby, conference rooms and hotel rooms today but managed to get out early for a run when the fog was just starting to lift. Nice little trails a few blocks from the hotel...hilly!

Whoa! These aren't running clothes! =D

Battle of Fort Langley

2011-02-06T12:21:00.000-08:00

Quick trip out to Fort Langley this morning for one of the Fraser Valley trail series xc runs put on by Peninsula Road Runners.

This one was at Derby Reach park....photo at left except gray and rainy'ish and a bit chilly.

We were a little close to the start arriving in a packed parking lot with 10 minutes to spare ...luckily a lot of other non-punctual types like me so we were good for about another 10 minutes ... enough to register and then run to the start about a km away ... weird..

I ran with DK ... think a really fast Pippy Longstocking (she even had pink knee-highs) and you've got it .... pic isn't real but pretty close! Nearly got my ass kicked by her ... only 1 minute behind and first girl overall.

The course was mostly flat and fast (not great for hill runners like me) but nice trails. Guy at the start mentioned a hill we were to run up twice, called the "Big Nasty." Every little rise we came to i'd blurt out to the runners around me ... "is this it? is this Big Nasty?!" No takers ... very serious runners... Anyway, Big Nasty was a bit nasty but i was glad to have it so i could stay up ahead of some of the flatlander runners.

Last 2k was just holding on and hoping not to get passed by anyone ...especially Pippi. 10k is far for an xc and i'd put an hour twenty on my legs the day before... (nice... snuck in my sandbagging comment...). Ended up 5th though i think .... overall! :) ..Correction....3rd!!!! see results!

Although I'm not so sure about the current shake-out on the list because they have Pippi as being 75th in the 5k race =D ... when i'm sure she was about a minute back of me in 4th or 5th place in the 10k and 1st chick overall =D ...hmmm...

Barely had my breath back before Pippi crossed the line. We got our massive, crinkly, shiny scotiabank space blankets, a couple of miniature peanut butter ritzes and then made a dash for great little coffee shop/bakery in Fort Langley for the really important part of why we were out there.

Nice that i get to be one up on mr Tom for a race effort since he was away skiing, sitting on chairlifts, gorging himself on fatty resort food and generally loafing about ;)

Not secret training though! It's out in the open. Thanks for the push Pippi ... I only beat you because I was trying to get away from those shocking shoes!

Nice out..

2010-12-30T14:36:00.000-08:00

So nice to step off the plane this morning into this gorgeous day. After the brown/white treeless sprawl of Calgary's suburban nightmare, I felt like I had been granted a pass from Erebus (the not so nice part of Hades) to the Elysian fields. Frosty air, the colour green and clear, white peaks. I sat on the Canada line and just took it all in.

By 11:30 I was on the trails in Lynn Valley. Amazing what a few days away will do for your appreciation of this place. I forgot to take my gloves so my fingers were a little numb trying to snap pics of things I wouldn't normally bother with. I just felt so invigorated! I snap my fingers at the cold! ...er..ok well I would if I could feel them that is..

Perfect trail running weather. You can't beat it. I was running with a smile much of the way and a nod from the old man with white beard and red flannel shirt, hiking in the opposite direction, told me he was having the same experience. Yah, you know what I'm talkin' about Santa! Come to think of it, he did have a bit of a twinkle in his eye...

Good to be back. Looking forward to more of this weather for the Crescent Park xc run on New Year's day. Hope to see some of you out there. Since you're up in the Arm of the Salmon, Tom, can I have your post race pizza slice?

Not expecting miracles against the trackies and a little sore anyway from following Curb's gym program he put together for me. Thankfully it gets me in and out of there pretty quick. Pretty soon I'll just need a hat and a pipe and I'll be lookin' like Popeye! :p

On a side note... I often get asked what I looked like with hair. So, since I was visiting family, I dug up some photos. Had to go a loooong way back to the days of film! Here I am circa 20 years ago. Oh, to have back our youth, non?! ; )

Hare and Hounds #2

2010-12-08T19:43:00.000-08:00

Date: Saturday, December 11th
Time: 9:15am
Place: Starts by John Henry Bike store on East 5th Ave, North Van. Turn north onto Brooksbank Avenue and go to E 5th St and turn right. You're there. (It's basically opposite to the Park and Tilford shopping area. You can park your car in there or try on E 5th if there's room). See map.

Distance of the Chase: just over 11.5km
Course: See maps below in the description section
To Bring: 3 quarters (I'll explain at the start. No, it isn't coffee money for me)

This will be a fast out and back course with a little loop at the top. Most of the trail follows Lynn Canyon from John Henry to the Gazebo at the top of Lilloet Rd and back. Start/Finish is also a short walk to JJ Bean for coffee after!

The mostly out and back means there is less risk of people going off course and the opportunity to perhaps see your pursuers/quarry to keep the excitement level up. (Thanks to Tom for that idea.)

For a description of what a Hare and Hounds run is look at the posting on my blog about the first Hare and Hounds (basically below this one).

Course Description:
There is a gravel path by the river just east of John Henry Bike store. The start and finish is there.

Starting out you run north along this gravel path following the river underneath Hwy 1 and continue for another kilometre up to a footbridge over the river. Turning right, you cross this bridge and turn immediately left after crossing, onto a broad gravel path.

You continue north on this along the river bank. After about 800m the path narrows into a dirt trail that takes you into the forest and the start of a long steady climb through the canyon. Just stay on the trail. There is nowhere to go wrong ... (Princess...!).

About 3.5km out from the start this trail then meets the Baden Powell trail at a junction. Stay left and descend down a steep, technical hill (Girl Hill) to a boardwalk at the bottom. It's flat for a bit then climbs some stairs again and goes to a bridge (not suspension bridge). Stay right and follow the trail on the East side of the Canyon (which you have been on since crossing the footbridge near the start). The trail goes up more stairs and little climbs and takes you to the junction for the Suspension Bridge. Turn left and go towards the Suspension bridge but don't cross it (....Princess!..). Stay right at the Suspension Bridge and this will take you down to the Ten Foot pool and the start of a big stair climb. At the top of the stairs stay left and follow the gravel trail out to the pipe bridge. Don't cross this bridge. Instead turn right and go up the gravel path until you can see the Gazebo structure. Turn hard right again though before you get to it, onto another gravel trail that loops you back to the Suspension Bridge junction.

Once there you now just return by the same route you came out on. Easy! Then it's coffee time! :)

So far (Wed night) I have 7 or 8 other people and myself ready to go. Feel free to join us. You can indicate on the comment section on this blog posting if you want to come or have some questions, or just show up.

The important thing to do now is to try to guess as close as you can the time you think it will take you to cover the course. This determines the order people set off, who the hares are, who the hounds are and also a couple of other things. If you want to post your estimate on this blog you can, or just hold on to it until start time.

I'll start things off and say It's going to take me an hour.

Hares and Hounds Kick-off

2010-11-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

Note: No animals were harmed in the running of this event...mostly because treadmill runner Brad wasn't there ... We'll let you bring your hamster ball next time if you want Brad..

The idea for this (may or may not be original i have no idea, but it was original to me) came out of an email from Craiky. He wanted me to run from the Headwaters to Deep Cove with him ... with "no messing about" in his words. "What? Me mess about?" I wondered incredulously. "When do i ever mess about. I'm not the messing about kind am i ....?" ;-p

...Moving right along.... I knew he meant "run hard with no breaks, no shootin' the proverbial waste products." This is hard for many of us to do, and I wondered if there might be a way to make it a bit more interesting than just going out there, putting your head down and trying to hang on 'til the misery is over.Basically we're trying to re-create the racing effect without the $50 entry fee.

I have no idea how the electrical path was suddenly forged between my contemplation of that current problem, to an experience that occurred 29 years earlier on a snowy country lane on the Yorkshire moors in England. Crouched behind a dry stone wall, my friend and I waited for the sound of a car... any car ... it didn't matter. Darkness was settling across the moors with just a rose coloured strip across the far horizon and the white snowy fields for light. As the car came around the blind corner we stood up and hammered it with dense, heavy snowballs that thudded into the driver's windows. The brake lights lit up and the car came to an abrupt halt. An instant shot of adrenaline had us on our feet, stumbling into a sprint as the angry driver peeled out of his car and raged across the soft, silent fields in pursuit of us. Fear from the chase kept us moving long past the point where we would normally have given in to the protestation of aching legs and lungs. We kept going until we realized we had far out-distanced our pursuer, then collapsed against a wooden gate laughing and gasping for air. It was exhilarating.

"That's what we need to create," I thought! The exhilaration of pursuit by a monster or something. Ok.. maybe not a monster... we don't want people dying of fright. What about those greyhounds that chase the rabbit around the track to try and catch it? (It's a fake rabbit folks .. or at least it is these days). The feeling of being chased would keep people honest .. it would keep them pushing from start to finish.

A little more brain ache and the idea was formed for the Hare and Hounds run. We managed to gather six people for the first test run. The idea is you give an honest appraisal of the time you think you are able to cover the course in. Others can vet your time and harangue you if they think you aren't being realistic. Then you order yourself in reverse order. The slowest time goes first and then the next and so on. The last person to go is the hound ... the chaser. If you are passed by the hound you're "dead" ... or buying coffee or whatever punishment you choose ... UNLESS you can beat your own forecasted time by at least 30 seconds. This part is important because it prevents the "dead" hare from giving up. He/she still has a second chance at "life" but it requires him/her to keep pushing hard to the end.

That's basically it. Our first one seemed to go well and we all enjoyed it. We all experienced a nervousness waiting inside the End of the Line store for our start time. Once on the trail you know when the hound will start, and when you look at your watch and realize he is now coming out of the door and you're only across the bridge, the exhilaration is there... you really feel it! Tom and I ran pretty much the same pace and we were constantly looking back to see if the hound was coming. But we were also looking forward and trying to catch those ahead of us .. not because we could "kill" them but just because it feels good to see people ahead of you and chase them down; and also to put a buffer between you and the hound.

Stefan .. the hound... had given a time estimate 2 minutes faster than mine and tom's so he was the hound. In the end we were 6 or so minutes ahead of the hound and within 1 minute of our time estimate.

Kevin and Linda were also within a minute or two of theirs and the Pink Princess..? ..... well..... let's just say there was some "hare loss" happening that day ... ;)

But the whole thing was a lot of fun. It was fun to feel you were being chased and also to be trying to chase down those in front. Everyone pushed themselves from start to finish and got in a great speed workout. Perhaps just as important was the exercise in getting to know your own pace and estimating how quickly you can cover certain distances.

Thank you to the other 5 runners who agreed to submit themselves to this experiment (Tom, Linda, Kevin, Stefan and the Pink Princess).

Design Modifications:

The first iteration of anything is rarely perfect and this was no exception. It can get better and Craiky and I were already coming up with ideas for round two as we sped through the forest.

1) Money -- people could start off with 5 loonies or something and if you are passed then you hand over one loonie to the person passing you. If you re-pass them you get it back. The idea is to come out with more money than you went in with ... or at least to break even.

2) If you are 10% or more faster than your time estimate then you have to take your original time estimate and figure out if you would have been passed if you had run that time. If so then you hand over the appropriate amount of loonies, coffee, donuts or whatever currency you have decided on for your hare and hounds run. You can modify the percentage to whatever you think is fair for your group. Doing this forces people to (A) be honest with their estimates and/or (B) really start to begin thinking about their pace.

If everyone is quite accurate with their time estimates then all of the passing should only occur in the last kilometre or so of your run course. This keeps it exciting ... keeps everyone pushing to the end.

A group of ten or twenty would make for a lot of fun. So stay tuned for Hare and Hounds #2 and come and join us! Feel free to make any other suggestions for modifications. Happy hunting .... (no guns please).

November Snow

2010-11-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

Beautiful run on the trails this morning with the Pink Princess and three of her friends.

It's an odd feeling being the only guy on a group run. What would we talk about I wondered as I waited awkwardly in the parking lot for our start.....? Shopping? Spa treatments? Tea parties? Colours I have never heard of? Oh god.... feminine health topics?! Ew!

Just when real worry began to set in, someone mentioned yak trax. Yes! Thank you! I know something about those! And we were off...

Luckily, the girls kept to safe topics and ones I could participate in (at least when I was around). So thanks for that.

Run was really nice. Love running when there is a dusting of snow but the trails aren't covered and you get that mix of colours ... green, brown, white, gray (...see.. i can talk about colours after all).

Anyway.. thanks for the invite Princess. Fun morning. Nice diversion from report cards..

Don't Go into the Light!

2010-10-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

...or is it "Do not go gentle into that good night" ?

Whichever it is we did not lose Kevin today and managed to coax him back with a trail of harvest crunch crumbs. Although i swear i heard a voice, not unlike my own, screaming hysterically "go! go! i'll look after Linda!" followed by a mysterious figure, again, not unlike my own, scrabbling around in the dirt with a straw (insert sucking noises) in the vicinity of the harvest crumbs....

Our two hour jaunt up and down a large hill on a certain quiet trail captured the beauty of fall with its vibrant colour, soft light, cool temperatures and earthy smells from the decay of summer. A ghost or goblin would not have been out of place in this silent forest.

Anyway... it was a perfect morning with perfect friends followed by perfect coffee. I'll leave it at that and let the pictures tell the rest..

Happy Halloween...

Rocky Mountain High

2010-08-17T07:53:00.000-07:00

Well ... we're off to see the Wizard folks! Driving down the yellow brick road to Colorado this morning and taking our sweet time about it so we can enjoy the scenery, get some runs in and because we can!

Trans Rockies starts Aug 22nd and you can follow it through the website and through their tweety bird thingie @TransRockiesRun ...and.... through Craiky's tweety bird thingie on his blog site...

chowder!

"Miracle Mile"

2010-08-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

Sort of in keeping with my previous post, the "Miracle Mile" was used to describe the race between John Landy and Roger Bannister, at the Empire Commonwealth Games, back in 1954. They were held here in Vancouver, at Empire Stadium, and it was quite a race with both milers going under 4 minutes, and both battling it out til the final straightaway.

Every year the Lions Gate Road Runners club host their own Miracle Mile race. It takes place on a cinder track at Balaclava Park where Bannister used to go, in the days leading up to his race, to train and escape the spotlight. So last night was the day for this year's event ... a beautiful sunny evening.

I had an invite from Linda Wong, a member of the club featured here in fine form during heat 1 of the race, where she turned in something like a 6:30 mile. Then it was my turn. Although a low-key event it was a little "eek" with all these fast roadies and club singlet wearers, some shaved legs and spikes and a big digital clock timer!

I stepped up to the line with about 10 others (maybe 20 total between 2 heats) and we were off. I think the "miracle" here is that i made it around the track 4 times at the zippy pace set by everyone. I kept forgetting to look at the clock to see my splits for each lap so I had to run by "feel" and it felt wheezerish for sure. I think I paced pretty well though and ended up with the best time I could get out of myself at this juncture. My 5:27 mile got me 4th overall and I'm happy with that.

(Pretty similar lookin' huh?! No? ... shut up.. close enough..)

We finished off with a 4x400 relay so I got to sprint another lap and earn a few more cream puffs from the pot luck table ... remember what i said waaaay back in one of my posts about motivation?!

Thanks again to Linda and LGRR for hosting and welcoming the "outsider." Back to the couch...

Chubby Chook

2010-07-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

There were also impromptu lessons after their meals, like the time when Cerutty
lectured them on warming up. A cat was sitting on a ledge outside one of the
huts when their coach snuck over and emptied a bucket of water over it. The cat
leapt away and disappeared in a flash. Cerutty then expounded: "There. Did the
cat do stretches? Did the cat jog around? Did the cat do knee bends? Did the cat
have a track suit on before racing? No, the cat just got up and went. No more
warming up. Forget it!" (Excerpt from Neil Bascomb's The Perfect Mile)

Don't believe him? Get a bucket, find a cat and see for yourself!

Cerutty was an unofficial coach for the Australian olympic team for the 1952 Helsinki olympics. He trained John Landy ... one of the contenders at that time, along with Roger Bannister, for being the first to break the 4 minute mile barrier. Cerutty was big on training mental fortitude by putting athletes through grueling bootcamp style regimens. Daily long runs up and down hills and over sand dunes, through rivers etc were standard fare. The idea was to basically train people to push themselves to their limits. It certainly worked to build endurance and mentally strong athletes but, unfortunately, he neglected speed training and Landy failed to break the mile barrier that year.

Too bad because Cerutty would probably like some newer ideas about training like the 30 second workout where you sprint as hard as you can for 30 seconds, rest then do it again 6 or 7 times. This is supposed to have a better training effect than running for an hour at a steady, easy pace. I haven't tried it yet but I like the idea of being able to get that same benefit in about 5 minutes! But here's the catch: to do that workout you need some fairly serious mental fortitude to push yourself as hard as you can for 30 seconds, several times over ... until you taste blood and/or bile in the back of your throat in other words. Most of us, I think, would rather do an easy hour than a painful 5 minutes. Physical and mental discomfort is ...well... discomforting to us.

For we have become a nation of softies looking for the easy way out. Look at me ... the lazy trail runner. A perfect example. I want to do the least amount possible to get a decent result (or at least beat monsewer Craik). But to do that I have had to become less lazy, eat less chips and push myself. And doing that has yielded some decent results.

Mental fortitude is necessary to improving at, I would say, just about anything in life. If we want to get better at something we have to put in the effort and sometimes do things that we don't like or that aren't pleasant or don't make us feel good. It reminds me of something I read in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers" where a direct correlation was made between student successes in math and the willingness of students to persevere and not give up on math problems. Students who didn't give up or tried for a long time before asking for help were generally more successful than students who gave up quickly and easily.

I'm a teacher, and the empirical evidence is right there in the classroom for me. A lot of our youth lack mental stamina. "Why do we have to run? It's hard! I'm just going to walk and talk" "It's raining, we'll get wet!" "I can't do this work .. it's too hard. Help me!" ... and so on. The slacker culture. How did we get here? Whose fault is it? How the hell do I know. Are kids inherently lazy? Do we have low expectations of them? I dunno .. those are hard questions. I think I'll give up. Ok ... anyway ... a lot of "pushing" these days seems to be external (parents). That's fine .. there's certainly some place for it. But what of the internal drive to overcome problems... to test one's own limits (be they mental, physical or both) for the purpose of self discovery, self esteem and the feeling of accomplishment you get from not giving up? Do I have what it takes to finish that second bag of chips..etc? Have we overcompensated on the external whips at the expense of the internal ones?

I'm not talking very young kids. They haven't developed that yet. But certainly by the time they're 12/13 some interest in pushing one's limits/abilities should be present at least some of the time. And it certainly is .. mostly in girls which may support the premise of an article in Atlantic monthly magazine called "The End of Men" which talks about how women are now far more successful in school, university and work than men and how they are beginning to take up more of the workforce than men, especially in so called information age industries. It's pretty interesting and a bit of a wake up but I think the title is a little sensational. There's no doubt women are really kicking our collective male behind these days but, speaking from my experience in a female dominated profession, I can say that there is a point of diminishing return when a work force is either all or mostly women. It has its issues. So I'm not quite ready to write off men just yet ... but let's not be complacent! Anyway ... I digress... that's a discussion for another time..

Get out there and drive yourself into the ground sometimes folks. It'll do you good! Look at Gary Robbins. He's uglier than a mule! Hell if I looked like him I'd wanna lay down and die too! (..wait a minute... I...) .. Never mind. The point is he's out there whippin' himself and doing some mental fortituding and whatnot and he's had some pretty stellar successes for it all! So don't be a chubby chook. Get out there and give life a good rootin'!

That's two postings in as many days. What the hell is wrong with me?! Ok ... i'm tired and no one's helping me with this so i'm going to bed. Lazy's working for me right now. Night. ... (did someone say chips ..? .. )

Haze - The latest quarterly installment from the lazy blogger

2010-07-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

The word describes my return to the Kneeknacker 5 years on.

I woke up in one at 4:59 followed by the sound of a distant but somehow familiar voice "crap!" ... my own. I've been known to oversleep on the odd occassion but have an uncanny knack of waking up just when Tom arrives to pick me up. Surprising myself with my mental agility at this moment, I implemented a diversionary tactic and sent him off to get two other people on his delivery route. That bought me a precious 8 minutes or so ... enough to awkwardly put running gear on a body that still hadn't woken up fully; put contacts in without getting an eyelash with them; stuff pack with gear i had laid out; drink a glass of orange juice (trying not to let the misery set in from not having time to make coffee) and head out the door hoping i had most things i needed.

The start was a press of people anxiously sizing each other up and jitterbugging around with nervous energy. Me? Nothing. Quite comforting really. I didn't care who was there or what was ahead of me ... I just wanted to get under way .. get my legs moving and get to the end.

The memory of the 5hrs:47mins it took to do that is ..you guessed it... a bit of a haze. It was rather surreal and I will just recount it with the random thoughts/images that stick out ... which should help keep it shortish.

1st half - Humid, heavy air. Not a whisper of a breeze in the trees. Thinned out racers. I hiked/ran dripping sweat onto the parched Black Mountain trail. John Foy sighted ahead and Rob Doyle. Slowly gaining and then catching them where we reach the open bluffs and still no damned breeze! Fun and a few laughs as the three of us run together to Cypress.

Cypress - A little faster than I wanted. Foy takes off into the Hollyburn section bitter and cursing ... at what i don't know. It seems pleasant enough out here. The air by the streams is cooling. Foy disappears - i run stride for stride with doyle for a while and talk about the world cup. Hollyburn .. a larabar ... holy those things are dry. I can barely get it down without choking. Down, down to the dam. Sun's heat is coming through now. Feel a little weak but nice to see familiar faces.

Nancy Green - with Mr Green .... walk/run .... walk/run .... chocolate gel all over my hands... bottles... frustrating little inventions. Back into the forest. Energy returns slowly. St George's bench - recovered and running alone.... pretty much from here to the end - kind of like it. I accelerate and it feels good and sustainable. Unlike Black mtn the forest here seems cool and fragrant, holding the light like wine in a glass.

Mountain hwy .. two blue shirts ... Mr Green and Tom .. dependable and efficient as always. He made it easy for me to run on auto pilot while i noodled with a different kind of race ... the kind where you don't know where the finish is! Bummer..

Lynn Canyon, tourist slalom .... girl hill ... john foy .. yes! gotcha. Hyannis, Seymour grind and it's down to the finish... relief, satisfaction, cherubs in the grass and hot water on the legs...

Good night from Seattle..

First Peak - First Blood

2010-04-26T16:40:00.001-07:00

It's no secret that Mr. Craik and I have a healthy and amicable rivalry between us when it comes to racing. Pretty much all of our training is done together (except for a 2month secret training stint this time last year by Mr. Craik). Our training is intense, but full of laughs and we keep each other motivated.

But when the gun goes off so go the gloves, and not one inch is given up ... not for pity nor friendship. We wouldn't have it any other way.

And so it was without the slightest concern this last Saturday, that I beat him over the head with a chair and shoved a hornet's nest down his shorts, before delivering the coup de grace by sticking a knife in him and giving it a little twist for good measure.

Oh don't worry ... he's ok. I'm speaking in metaphors. It was the first of the 5Peaks series at Golden Ears Park in Maple Ridge. Since the area has a bit of a wild west reputation I decided to go with the theme and call it our "dust up in the Ridge!" So the seemingly violent preceding paragraph just means that I beat him. ; )

When the young, spring chickens are givin' us old coots a can of whoop-ass, we have to get wiley and devious. So all that stuff about the chairs and knives, is just me saying that I used the element of surprise to lay him out on the saloon floor by blasting off the start line, and holding a pretty hard pace down the opening 3 or 4km stretch. As expected he did the smart thing and didn't follow - holding to his own pace and strategy and reasonably thinking that i'd probably blow up.

However, this wiley old coot was firing on all 3 brain cells this day and I knew i could hold that pace for a while and still only have to back off the pace a little to recover... instead of die. Which is what I did: after opening a good gap I just eased the pace a bit and started my recovery up the lake access road while maintaining a good clip.

The rest of the race went to plan as I dashed through the deluge and mud, feeling good all the way through to the finish in just under an hour, for a 9th place finish overall and 1st in age group!

Four more peaks to go in the series and the problem with surprises is that they tend to only work once before the other person wises up and shuts that avenue down. Since Craiky is a pretty wise ass with a newer and zippier set of wheels than me, I know that eating humble pie in the next few races is a very real prospect ..... which is why i'm gonna be a cocky little bastard today while I can be! =D

Shoes For the Day: Salomon Speed Cross
These shoes were perfect for the wet, muddy conditions. The Speed Cross are essentially racing shoes for the trails. They're extremely light with a heavily lugged sole to grip the trail. Like a well-built German car, the faster you go the more stable they become because you get up off the soft heels and on to your forefoot.

Shout out? How 'bout Shut up!

2010-02-27T11:54:00.001-08:00

Apparently there is a list of the most tiresome, overused phrases as compiled by a group of researchers at Oxford University. The top 10 for 2008 are shown here: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/11/oxford-research/

It seems a little geographically/culturally limited as I could think of quite a few others that I'd put above those ones. According to a U.S. survey from last year, "whatever" topped the list in that country.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here (hmm.. is that overused..? .."go out on a limb"?) ...[and what kind of limb is it that i'm going out on ..? a tree limb? or an appendage ... like a leg or an arm or something ... should i really be saying "i'm gonna go out on an arm here..] .. i'd be just as apprehensive about going out on an arm as i would going out on a tree limb ... both seem pretty risky...

.. anyway .. so back to my train of thought ..(that could be overused too.. train of thought) .. but i'd like to add another phrase to the list of tedious and downright annoying phrases out there right now, and it seems to be "cropping up" all over the sports world "at this moment in time," especially the ultra world. That phrase is "SHOUT OUT"

Apparently a lot of people feel the need to "shout out" ...a lot! They shout out for people (as in "i'd like to give a big shout out for dumbass here!..."), products ("i'd like to give a shout out for.. oh, i don't know.. apples!), sponsors, fans, weather, girlfriends, hamsters, ... you name it and people seem to be "shouting out" for it.

With all this shouting it's gotten awfully noisy! "Absolutely" it has. And "at the end of the day," "I personally," "at this moment in time," "with all due respect," think "it's a nightmare!" I mean "like," "whatever!" it's like this shouting out has become "24/7" and "I for one" think we need to exercise some moderation in its use. Surely there are other creative, less annoying and less noisy ways to do all this shouting ... "it's not rocket science!"

But for now i'd like to introduce an old, "time-honoured" and to-the-point phrase for all you "hipsters" and "gangstas" out there who are for ever "shouting out" for everything and anything: ..."Shut up!!"

You sensitive folks who don't know me .. i'm all about the "tongue in cheek" .. although it's only half a tongue in cheek this time because, really, this phrase ranks right up there with "rockin' the" this, that or the other as one of the finger nails on blackboard phrases bouncing around the "blogosphere" right now... sheesh! And please ... don't "holla back, y'all!"

Orcas Island 50 or so K ..... take two

2010-02-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

This quiet little unassuming race, tucked away on one of the San Juan islands, is the Medusa of ultras -- beautiful but lethal! Its steep climbs turn your legs to stone and the plummeting, never ending descents leave you wishing the rest of you would turn to stone so you could just roll down the hills.

Tom and Dr. Kevin picked me up at my school Friday afternoon and were lucky to escape with their lives after being mobbed by my unruly class who descended upon them with poking fingers, awkward questions and pinned them to the blackboards. (Lecture given Monday morning on how to make new adults feel welcome in the class...)

The weather this year was perfect ... sunny like last year but warmer and no snow. I didn't sleep too well (although apparently i was snoring at some point) but one of our cabin mates was thrashing around all night as though he was being eaten by a school of piranhas or something...

Last year i wore a pack to carry stuff. This year i decided to wear a bike jersey with pockets in the back that i could fill with grub and carry two bottles. Worked pretty well! Food is secure but easy to get at and the bottles can be filled fast.

At 830am we were off. The trails on this course are fantastic! Beautiful single track and really nice soft double track lined with vibrant green moss. Not very technical either. A real treat to run on.

The course has three big climbs and three big descents where you pretty much lose all you gained in the last climb. It's exasperating! You just wanna cry sometimes.

Anyway .. last year i didn't train much and also had a bit of an injury which took care of a two or three weeks and was still around a bit for the race .... so my time was around 7 hours. I enjoyed it more though i think... going slower : )

This year i trained more and smarter (although still not as diligent as i could have been) and i hoped to come in around 5:30 and beat Tom of course. Hmmm.....

I lost sight of him about 10 minutes in and ran for another 30 minutes or so without seeing him anywhere ahead of me. This had me cursing at myself that i couldn't be that much slower - heck i'd pretty much done the same training! Where the hell was he?! I pressed the pace a bit but tried to remind myself of the hours ahead of me. Then finally ... contact! I saw him going up a trail toward the top of mt pickett. I don't think he saw me and i tucked in behind trees and got out of sight but pressed a bit more to close the gap ... he was maybe 200m ahead. Doesn't sound like much but OMG!! is it ever hard to close it! I would round a corner after the trail levelled off thinking i'd see him ... but gone! poof! What?! Then i'd see him again .. almost at the top of mt pickett now and i was maybe 150m behind.

We descended the long winding double track down mt pickett. Tom always either out of sight or briefly in sight on a switch back below me .... each little maddening glimpse causing me to accelerate a bit. Then he disappeared as we neared the first aide station. But as i turned a sharp corner i saw him about 80metres ahead of me ..... walking! Haul in on the reel while i get the bat ready to beat him over the head with when i pass him! But then when i got to the spot where i thought for sure he'd be within clubbing distance i see him disappearing down the trail in the forest ahead! God damn it! I knew this pressing the pace to close was going to cost me later on but i wanted to catch up. As we started to drop into the first aide station i saw him below me again and he saw me out of the corner of his eye at which point the gig was up and i yelled "ooooooh yeaaah!!' to let him know i was right there.

At the first aide station Tom had filled his bottles and was on his way out as i came in. I wondered if he'd stop and wait ... but no .. he took off ... gloves are off when it's a race. I filled my bottles quickly, grabbed some grub and went after him as he disappeared off the end of an open field 150m away. I don't know if it was right to push at this point or how much it would cost me later but i wanted to catch up. I saw him look back as he went into another trail ... this time only 50m ahead and i knew he was thinking "damn!!" and started to push a bit himself.

The powerline was coming up. A one mile climb pretty much straight up that you pretty much have to power hike. I really wanted to catch Tom on this climb and felt the burn in the legs but i also felt pretty strong and i put some effort into closing a maddeningly small but persistent gap. I could see him checking back and knew he was a little worried and pushing hard himself now.

But as i crested the top of the climb i looked and the gap had blown open. i couldn't see him and i knew there was a long descent coming and that he was better at those than me. Going into that descent i kept looking as far ahead as i could see ... but nothing. Same for the loop of the lake where some of the leaders were running back against the grain .. wrong direction. I maintained a decent turnover around the lake but was feeling the ache and it was a little disheartening to have lost contact with the Creakster ahead of me.

I hoped to catch sight of him on the big climb up mt constitution but i couldn't see him. The first half of the climb is punishingly steep and my calf muscles and achilles tendons were screaming. The second half levels off a bit and you can run some good sections and see out over the ocean to mt baker and the snowy coastal peaks. The sun felt warm and my spirits were raised a bit by the views and the sun and the prospect of food and coke at the summit aide station. I reached the top and left (after a sandwich, some coke..and a few more pins in the tom craik voodoo doll... use silver pins next time ) at around 4hrs:07. Tom had left about 7 minutes earlier... not that i knew at that point. But a 2 minute gap had now become 7.

It only got worse though. The trail drops steeply off the summit and i ran gingerly down and then ascended quite well back to the powerline and crossed it to begin the pounding descent to the lake and the last mile or two. Again i was painfully slow going down the steep trail and only managed to find some speed and turnover for the last loop of the lake to the finish. 5hrs:40. The 2 then 7 minute gap had turned into 22 minutes! Tom had blasted the downhills and everything else in the last 12 miles to give the old jedi a butt kicking.

He is a more dedicated and whole (nutrition, recovery, stretching, strategy) runner than i am (i like my donuts, sticky buns and chips too much) and this dedication compounds the time he beats me by the longer the race gets. He has earned his victories and continues to make inroads against some of our community's better known runners. Look out! If you see a guy behind you with chocolate all over his face and a witty line in both holsters ... it's likely him! He never forgets a face or a name ... and you'd be wise not to forget his..

Meanwhile ... i'll try to give him a race over the shorter distances where i can hang on better ... up to 30k.

Christmas and Crescent Park cross country

2010-01-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

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

Motivation and Running

2009-12-02T18:12:00.000-08:00

Ah! Got ya! You were expecting some crap about sticking inspirational quotes on your mirror, telling yourself you're a winner and that you have friends (they just have busy schedules), putting upbeat music on your iQuit and setting a goal to set more goals ...etc. Shut up - i know you were.

Anyway ... forget it. None of it works. Coffee and cinnamon buns are what i use and if you can't get out the door for a run in the morning with the lure of a sticky bun and the elixir of life to follow then you're a baboon. Just looking at these pictures makes me wanna throw some salomon products on my feet and head out.

So it was the Aldergrove ramble last week and if you read wing cmdr craik's blog you have a pretty good idea of how that went for me. Egg macmuffins usually make my mouth water in a good way but just a nibble of that cheese had me pointing craiky off the road lickitysplit and saving his car by mere seconds from being decorated with the contents of my stomach. C2H5OH is an evil evil molecule. Aldergrove was a rough 4 laps and there was no stopping craiky from giving me a beating. But i was glad that i still showed up and prevented the letters D, N and S from appearing after my name.

This weekend is the Gunner Shaw Memorial at Jericho. It's a 10k and the terrain is classic cross-country with undulating ground, forests, open areas, mud, water and a couple of stretches of sandy beach to heckle your resolve. Hopefully the weather remains sunny and crispy, frosty. My favourite. I'm gonna stay clear of the evil molecule and snooze early. Then it'll be time to go head to head with craikster and see who falls first (should be him if i let him lead out. Piano and cheese wire are my friends in the forests.....).

Just remember... all this wouldn't be possible without the motivational assistance of Cinny and Beany .... I'm the Lazy Trailrunner... I know these things....

Race is at 11am, Saturday. Join us for the leaf kicking ceremony (where i kick leaves in craiky's face) and after-wheezer refreshments.

Finally!

2009-11-11T21:51:00.000-08:00

Revenge is sweet. I got the weasel at last. After finishing behind wing cmdr craik for most of the year, except a 5peaks race (was there another?), i got him today!

Finish line 8k, 29min:37

(photo courtesy Tran Media Services)

Today was the Remembrance day 8k x-country race around Stanley park. I've been wanting to try these for a while and finally signed up. Good tempo training .... or something ... learning how to run when you're gassed from the get-go.

The rain/hail held off and after an odd start (Craik and another runner actually had to hold the start line string up and start us) we were off. A hundred or a bit less speedsters from the track clubs blasted off the line across the cricket field. Craik made a funny but nobody laughed except me n him ..... it's often that way.

Anyway ... i was hoping for about 35 mins considering it was trail and up and down, and i knew it was gonna be a wheezer. One of those all out speed things. It didn't disappoint and surprisingly i was feeling about as good as anyone can when maxing out heart, legs, lungs.

I had set off at a good clip that i thought i could maintain for a while and found myself near the front ... sweet! even better .... craiky was behind me .... although he does that a lot and then whizzes by me after a few minutes. But as we zoomed across the leafy fields and into the first loop of Beaver lake i was still in front .... and then i began to wonder .... "maybe i can stay in front today!" the other elf said "don't get cocky coo ... still a little under half way. I had some good wheels today though and felt pretty good (unusual) and i was maintaining a pretty good pace as we went into the first longish "hill" and then back down again. I hadn't looked behind me once to see if craiky was there ... and never did til the end..... but i was starting to think that i might get him ... and this was enough to keep me driving up the next steep climb) almost to the height of the top of the Causeway, before a quick descent back down to Beaver lake and back down the home stretch.

Rounding Beaver lake for the second time I could hear two people breathing on my shoulder .... one passed me ... a girl ... damn! As we crossed pipeline road and ran the trail back into the open field where the kids water play area is i sensed, rather than saw, that craiky had fallen back. I was beginning to tire myself at this point but knowing that i might finally get him spurred me to keep going.

Breaking out into the open again on the starting field behind Brockton Oval, the course does a 1km loop of the cricket pitches. 1k to go ... i gave it all i had .... passed some dude in front of me who had passed me earlier and cresting a rise about 200m from the finish i took a quick glance to my right ... couldn't see craiky and almost did a jig crossing the line in 29min:37 ... sub 30! Gigiddy!

I was trashed. Those things are all out! But finishing 8th (2nd in age group) and only about a minute back of the first woman, Rachel Ruus who had gone to the 10k Nationals this year, made me recover pretty quickly. :) Looking forward to the next two (Aldergrove and Jericho) although i know craiky is gonna be out there tying my shoelaces together. But for today at least i get to strut around and kick leaves at him. The old coot still has some fight left in him! :p

http://www.raceheadquarters.com/results/2009/run/Masters20098k.html

Zipiddy do-dah!

2009-11-07T21:40:00.000-08:00

A nice little 2 hour cruise in the rain this morning along the Baden Powell trail with wing cmdr Craik. There was even a bit of snow in places!

Rucky Chucky Recce

2009-11-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

The last time i ran this trail i was in hell. I was ready to crawl under a rock and lick dirt off the underside. It was cold and rainy and my legs were placing calls to local cab companies. It was the Chuckanut 50k race -- prob the worst i've ever felt in a race with the exception of sections of Primal Quest in 2005 or was it 6?? Whatever .. the utah one.

But this last Sunday was puuurrrfect and the promise of coffee and a boo around REI in Bellingham was all the lazy trail runner needed to coax him off the couch.

I headed down with wing commander Tom of the Salomon Flt crew. We were chauffeured down in Ward Beemer's Lexus limo to the trail head ... which is at the 10k point of the actual chuckanut race and thankfully cuts out the tortuous flat section.

The middle 30k of Chucky is mostly on nice smooth single track as it winds up and down and around Chuckanut ridge.

Ok, you're saying, then what the heck is that huge road in the picture up there?! That ain't single track! Your powers of observation are astounding, Holmes! It is indeed a dirt road and it's a bit of a doozy, winding 5km uphill about an hour into the run. Sucks in a race but on Sunday, in the sun and with the fall leaves and a bunch of friends, it was delicious.

At the top of the road you re-enter the atmosphere ... wait a minute ... i mean the single track and zoom along a rolling, wet, slippery, rooty ridge with a 150ft cliff on your right.

The pace ramped up pretty quickly and a small peloton broke off and started speeding down the trail. Me, Wing Cmdr Tom, Stefan and Pricey hurtled along in single file, bouncing and darting among the trees, roots, rocks and leaves for a sustained and leg burning 15 minutes. However, about 10 minutes in we dropped Pricey who went down like a sack of hammers on a root that I had placed there the night before for precisely this objective. I had also been out with a jar of vaseline lubing up roots and rocks. The lazy trail runner needs every advantage he can get afterall ... even on a fun run....

The remaining three surged on for another 5 minutes, heckling our weaker pack member. The hyenas would deal with him later. By the time the rest of the group caught up we were shivering a little and ready to get going again albeit at a slower pace .... we'd had enough of the zooming lark.

On the back side of Chucky some of us came across porky porcupine. Porky climbed a tree to avoid the neon runners while Katie disappeared up the trail at a noticeably quicker pace, worried that Porky could shoot his spines like a Scud missile battery =D .... we were just kidding Katie! Come back! =D

The rest of the run was pleasant but uneventful, except for Pricey going down again on a vaselined rock and spraining his ankle. A little tennis ball soon appeared and he hobbled off back to the car while the rest of us ascended K2 ... i mean Chinscraper ... a nice wheezer of a hill before pounding back down road and trails to the cars, a change of clothes and a trip to REI .... well.....

First we had to deal with Katie. She rolled down from Vancouver on an essentially flat tire and was going to head to the Chevron to put some air in it only her car wouldn't start! =D Luckily it's a manual and we push-started it a couple of times but it cut out. Off went Darin, Brooke and Stefan to buy some jumper cables while the rest of us stood around and got chilly and made VW jokes ... Back came the white knights and jump started the car and we were back in business and off to REI and some food.

Thanks to everyone for coming out and making a great day of it. We had a lot of laughs ... ok ... mostly me and Tom had a lot of laughs and other people looked at us wondering who had invited these 5 year old clowns .. =D If you get a chance to go down to Chucky on a nice day I highly recommend it.

Until my next posting... i toast your couches and spit in your eye,

The lazy trail runner.

Gear for the day: My banana yellow Salomon XA Pros. Fantastic for technical running and longer training runs.

Another visit to Rubble Creek

2009-10-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

Time for the lazy trail runner to get off his lazy ass and update the blog ...

I returned to the Rubble rumble on Thanksgiving Monday. Had been there a couple of weeks earlier on a guys weekend in Whistler .... already capably covered by Tom in his "Run Now" not later blog. That one had been snow free and relatively warm and just guys.

This one had snow and cooler temps and some pretty girls. Hmm... which one was better.... :p

Anyhoo... i think there were 14 of us that day starting in temps bordering the positive side of the freezing point. But the sun was shining and there were new people to meet and chat with and even Jessica from my corporate days which i left behind me long ago (happily) for the rewarding world of teaching. Jessica was a good part of the corporate stuff though and when I knew her she didn't run! Now, 8 or 9 years later she's running ultras and looking to do her first 50 miler next year. It's funny how people come to this sport and the stages of their lives where they decide to take it up, but once in I don't know anyone who's dropped it and why would you when you can run in places like this and with good people!

I'm not gonna ramble on too much about the run. I'll let the pictures speak. Suffice to say it was pretty much a perfect day to run and I was sorry to have to turn around at Taylor pass and leave the group to get back to my car and turkey in North Van. You can't miss out on that and people were eagerly awaiting my famous curried yams afterall! :p

The run back down by myself was great though. Sometimes it's nice to just run through this kind of country with the trail to yourself ... which is pretty much what i had.

Looking forward to the Halloween half next Sunday. It's always a good wheeze and the lazy trail runner is always up for a good wheeze .... I'm a professional wheezer..

5Peaks Wheezer - Buntzen Lake

2009-09-20T11:23:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the last in the series of 5 Peaks races. In the previous one at Whistler I had placed 3rd in my age category but I had to burn a couple of lungs to do it. Going from sea level to a fast 16k at 6500ft was a bit of a wake up. Add to that that my Salomon Flight Crew team mate, Tom Craik, started in the wave behind me, meant that even after crossing the line ahead of him I still couldn't be sure if I was ahead until the times were posted. I was expecting the weasel to beat me again ... but managed to eek out a little victory after finishing behind the whipper snapper all year.

Buntzen is lower down so I hoped to have some lungs. It's a nice technical course and it had been raining so it would be even more like a banana peel than usual. An advantage for me over the newer trail folks out there but also an advantage for the whipper snapper, Tom, who liked it even more than me.

Contrary to speculation, I did not pull an Usain Bolt at the start but tucked in right behind Craikie. I planned to take it easyish for the start but even where I was I felt I was going too fast but Craikie was there and I couldn't let him get away so early. I tried following him up the long climb but by the time we reached the saddle and started the second climb he was out of sight. Rats! But there was nothing I could do. My legs were feeling pretty lead-like and if I pushed harder I knew I'd go lactic and burn out. So I just had to swallow my pride and settle in to what I could do. I was right behind the second place guy in my age category all the way up the climb but when we topped out he took off like a shot and was gone. He passed Craikie too on the downhill, which says something cuz Craikie has some downhill wheels. Strangely enough we would both get this guy before the end though.

I still struggle for about half of the top of Diez Vista ... trying to find my legs and lungs. Finally it came back as I ran along the top by myself and down the steep trails to the north end of Buntzen. Then a little struggle for the next km as my legs recovered from the pounding. I wanted to have something left for the last 4k along the lake - which was nice rolly terrain on good trails. I wasn't sure if I could do it but when I hit the first downhill at the start of that section I could feel the turnover coming back and I pretty much hauled the last 4km hoping to catch the whipper snapper. Twas not to be. I missed him by about 2 1/2 minutes but managed to almost run down the guy who would place 2nd in my age group. Another 50m and I would've had him. Still - I felt good that I had been able to reel in this guy who had just disappeared completely out of sight since the top of the first big climb 4k into the race.

I felt even better after seeing that I had whittled out another 3rd place age category finish and that, combined with my two other 3rd place finishes and a 5th in the 5 Peaks series, was enough to put me 2nd overall for the series and a nice little plaque to go with it! Craikie managed a 3rd in his group too so overall the Salomon Flight Crew had made its presence felt.

Thanks to Mark and Kathryn Stanton for putting on a great series and to JP for putting us in some of Salomon's finest gear. I feel spoiled.

Floe to Numa

2009-09-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a little video of the run I did in August from Floe lake to Numa Creek. As you can see.. by the end of it the isolation and wilderness had turned me into a crazy man xD

zzzz!

2009-08-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Thought about going for a run this morning ...... then thought better of it...

Shuffling the Rockwall

2009-08-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

After toodling around on the bike in Washington I drove to Calgary through Idaho and SE BC.

I was planning to run the Rockwall trail which is a 55k trail that takes you along this huge ..wait for it ...... rockwall in Kootenay national park.

I pulled in to the Marble Canyon camp site at 10pm after seeing a wolf on the side of the road. Yah - I thought i was hallucinating too until about 2 minutes after seeing it I drove by a big flashing park sign saying "Caution - Wolf on highway. No stopping"! Pretty cool .... i'm pretty sure that's my first wild wolf sighting. Not too hopeful for many more because they have been pretty much decimated by traffic inside park boundaries, and by poachers and ranchers outside the boundaries.

I couldn't be bothered to put my tent up in the dark (remember - I'm lazy) so I just put the seats down in the subaru and settled into my sleeping bag for a good snooze.

In the morning light my better sense prevailed and I knew that a 55k run along a trail that the hiking book rates as a 5-6 day hike was a big chew. Don't get me wrong ... it's a totally do-able trail run to polish it off in 10 or 11 hours (I think the record might be 8) ... but in my present shape, not having run longer than a couple of hours since my trip to the grand canyon in march, i decided to enjoy myself rather than kill myself. So I opted to run up to Floe lake then on to Numa pass and down Numa creek to the highway - a run of about 28k and around 4000ft of elev. From there I would hop on my mtn bike that I had stashed in the woods and ride the 8km back along the highway to my starting point.

The run up to Floe lake takes you through a burnt out forest along a smooth and mostly runnable trail. Most of the elev comes over the last K or so as you climb the headwall to the lake.

I gotta say it was a pretty easy run up to the lake. Much more fun than toting a huge pack. Floe lake is pretty nice. Your typical rockies lake - turquoise blue - snugged up against a towering wall of rock. You get the idea from the next couple of pics. It must be amazing up here in the fall when the larches turn yellow and the first dusting of snow clings to the rockwall.

From the lake it was a nice run up through larch trees to Numa pass, although, at around 7300ft I was wheezing a bit.

Once on the pass it there was little sense sitting around as it was windy and cool. With all the hard work done the rest was pretty much all downhill from here. And what a downhill! The trail drops steeply down into the Numa creek valley and I had a blast zooming down the smooth trail seeing the envious faces of heavily burdened backpackers toiling up the same trail on their second day out .... meanwhile I'd only been out for about 3 hours and covered the same distance! :p

It was nice to get a longer run on my legs and see some new scenery. I'd love to be able to run the whole 55k in the fall when the larches turn and I'm hopefully a little more svelt :P

The Salomon S Labs were perfect for this terrain. Light and low profile I could skim along on my toes and know that if i got lost Search and Rescue would have no trouble finding me with those bright red signal flares on my feet!

Cross Training near Mt Rainier

2009-08-13T18:18:00.000-07:00

Ok - so this is supposed to be a trail running blog but like i said ... i'm a lazy trailrunner. Sometimes i hop on a bike.

Anyhoo... last week i was lucky enough to be shown some of the Seattle area's great mountain biking trails.

It was a 30k loop on an almost perfect day at the edge of Mt Rainier national park. The loop consisted of two trails: the Skookumchuk trail and Sun Top. In between is a nice little 3500ft climb up a forestry road. But it was worth it! The Skookumchuk trail is a fast rolling cross country trail along the river. It's pretty smooth and you can zoom along laughing your head off at how much fun it is.

After the long climb up you get even more fun! A 45 minute descent on smooth, winding, fast rain forest trails. It's sooooo much fun. Have a look at the video if you need some more proof.

5 Peaks - Seymour

2009-07-26T15:37:00.001-07:00

So, yesterday was the 5 Peaks race on Mt Seymour and after watching Lance Armstrong race to the top of Mt Ventoux from the coffee shop at the Quay, I dragged my butt off to my own Mt Ventoux to see what I could do.

Being a part of the Salomon Flight Crew is more about being an advocate for the sport of trail running, a product tester, and encouraging people to get involved than it is about being on the podium. However, I still feel like I should somehow project the Salomon image of the lean, adventurous athlete pushing him/herself against the elements. I'm still working on the "lean" part! Motivation has been a little off this year.

Anyhoo... the enduro course on Seymour was around 12km and about 2000ft of elevation gain. It's a very technical 12km covered in rocks, roots, and mud and I was glad to be wearing my S-Lab shoes. They have a relatively low profile, good grip and just the right amount of protection for this kind of technical running.

I did have one revelation while running though. I tend to buy shoes a half size larger so that they are a tad roomier in the toebox. The reason for this is that I typically do longer runs of 25km and up and the extra room allows for foot swelling and doesn't overly affect good contact with the ground and solid footing. But the Seymour enduro is short .. 12k is a sprint and it's a sprint over some really rough ground. I found my forefoot sliding a bit inside the shoe and therefore felt a little less sure .. just a little .. as I was running. For short, fast, technical races I would recommend a shoe size that doesn't have that extra bit of toe room. I'd get the shoe size that fits my foot snugly so that I could have that solid "feel" for the ground that I'm running over.

So.... ultras or training ... get a size with some decent toe room and anything for fast, short cross-country get a size that is a little more snug.

After about a k or two of downhill the enduro wound around a couple of muddy ponds and then began a steady, long, sustained climb that got steeper the higher up the climb you went. That and having to go all out over such a short distance meant that my breathing was just about red-lined the whole way! I haven't been used to that for a while and it was all I could do to keep going and concentrate on not falling on the tricky terrain. Make you want to just say "screw this!" and pack it in. I was glad to hear Kevin Holland say the same thing to me after the race. Kevin's having a great year and is a really strong runner so I was reassured that I wasn't being weeeeak! :p

I finished 12th on the day in 1hr:09 and 6th in my age group. At the previous race on Burnaby mountain I had finished 15th but 3rd in my age group which meant I had been able to stand on the podium after all! I have a few more weeks to cram in some more training before seeing if I can manage that again at the Whistler race. Stubbornness can sometimes make up for lack of training. Still, the Spike Training System proved itself once again!

The Genius is in the Graph

2009-07-24T17:58:00.001-07:00

Someone once asked me what my training regimen looked like. I thought a moment and then described the graph you see above.

During the week, I explained, I do nothing .. or maybe one short run and then there's a sudden spike where I load up on some training. That's the weekend, I said. Really! That's all you gotta do folks. Forget training your ass off 6 days a week and logging insane miles and workouts! Save your suffering for race day! Let's face it. If you run hard in a race you're gonna feel the hurt right?! It doesn't matter if you're first or last ... if you push it you hurt. Training isn't gonna make it hurt less ... it'll just get you to the finish line faster ... and if you've paid $80 for a race you might as well stay out there and enjoy the scenery!

On top of that, you don't have to concern yourself with all this "what should I eat?", "what should I drink?" crap. While your buddy is there sipping a cranberry spritzer and worrying about that extra gram of spinach he/she ate, you can suck back a few beers and stuff your face with chips, chocolate cake, ice cream, lard... u name it!

It's a proven training system. I've done it for most of this year and probably last year and while I don't finish on the podium I'm still up there AND... I'm enjoying all the vices that make the uber mensches cringe and run away in fear!

Mark my words... the Spike Training System (patent pending) will work for you too. For $19.95 I'll send you an autographed, limited edition print of my proven, field tested method.