Killer Bees

 I have just returned from my second music camp for the month. While I have run a few half marathons, my training has been significantly sub par since the city has flooded nearly a month ago. I was able to get a few smaller runs out while at camp and did a fair bit of walking. As a result I am feeling reasonable about my ability to knock off some distance runs in the near future.

Anyways, I returned Saturday evening and, after little sleep (if you know anything about music camps, you know very well that sleep is of extremely short commodity!) I headed out to Canmore with one of my teammates, Trish. Today was one of our Grizzly training runs out of the Canmore Nordic Centre. The drive was beautiful but the clouds over the mountains looked rather threatening. We left home around seven and arrived in Canmore around 9. A few wrong turns later, we successfully found our starting point – aptly marked with a ‘Grizzly’ truck and trailer. We were among the first to arrive and decided to walk around a bit and to also check out the wildlife sightings report at the centre itself.

By 9:40 most of the runners had arrived and the event coordinator, Tony, had started his pre-run briefing. There were probably about 30 runners in total. Tony would be doing the course backwards on bike to ensure that runners didn't get lost on the few really tight switch backs en route.

A view of our course from the 'stadium' at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
Straight up and into the mountains!

The course was beautiful!!! We started as a group right at ten. The first 3km of the course were straight up the side of a mountain and were definitely not for the faint of heart. This section did a pretty substantial job of separating the ‘big guns’ from the rest of us. It is safe to say Trish and I hung out closer to the back of the pack with some of the newer trail runners…. partly because I was one of the only ones who had a phone to call with in the event of an emergency…! We made it through the first 2.5k before we took a quick walk break to let our calf muscles release a bit. The lactic acid build up was something fierce and I was starting to feel like speed walking the day before hand was maybe not the best idea. I was feeling muscles that I hadn’t felt for a while! HA!!!

The end! A few of the stragglers on the final descent towards
the stadium area of the Canmore Nordic Centre. We took
group photos at the end of the race. It was great gun and a
great run! How is that shot for a great view? Picture that for
the whole course!!!! Amazingly awesome and awe inspiring!

After the 3.5k mark or so the course became filled with more bends and the occasional downhill stint. The uphill sections were smaller and much more manageable on already tired legs. This was Trish’s first run over 5km and her first trail run to boot. I should mention that 7km on a trail like the one we were doing is equivalent to running 10-12km on the road… so it goes without saying that Trish did amazingly well! We had to take it a bit easy on some of the downhill sections due to loose rocks and both of us nursing minor knee injuries. There was one particular section after the switchback that Tony had been monitoring where we were joined by another two ladies and all four of us fell in some way, shape or form. I was leading the group and nearly face-planted (I caught myself at the absolute last second), Trish nearly rolled her ankle on some rocks and both of the other two fell in to the rocks. It was becoming very clear how technical some of the trails are to the newbies but man, are they ever bloody fun to run!

It took us 40 minutes to make it through 5km. This is by far the slowest I have ever run. Even for me this was quite an eye opener as to what will be ahead of me over the coming months in my training leading up to the race in October. I knew I was going to be in for lots of hills and rocks and tree roots but I guess you can never really prepare until you are actually there. We finished our first loop of the 7km in a little under an hour (HAaaaahaahaha!) and made it out wildlife encounter free! The last 1k stretch was downhill and a little bit more open. As a result, I was able to book it at my normal run pace without having to worry about my group getting eaten by any sort of wild life.

Overall, the trails were densely wooded and incredibly beautiful. It was a blast getting to run with a group of like-minded people through one of the most incredible places on earth. Tony has done an amazing job organizing the Grizzly ultra and the bi-weekly run groups in Canmore. This guy is awesome! I am looking forward to our next run already and I am hoping that I can get some more of my teammates out to test the trails. It will be really good for them to learn just how much more difficult trail running is in comparison with road running …and how a 5k trail run is not the same as a 5k road run. Race day will be interesting but hopefully the rest of them come around. I am the speed at the front end of the race with the longest (15k) and one of the more difficult trails, but still! It is no reason for the others to let their guard down!