autumn's here

"...autumn's here
And it makes you sad
About the crumby
Summer we had"
-Hawksley Workman

This summer's weather sucked. Sort of a maritime-arctic mix. Very atypical for the normally scorched prairies.  But what a fall we're having. So far it's been the summer we barely had.

I took a couple of weeks off after Lost Souls to recover. I was both physically and mentally tired from running. My apathy was not helped by the crumby weather.

However, it's been too nice lately not to be running so I headed into the river valley where I knew I'd get a good dose of fall awesomeness.

The run itself wasn't so pleasant but I expected that. It seems my muscles and joints begin to lock up the moment I stop moving. Coming back after a weekend off is uncomfortable so I knew a two-week hiatus was going to hurt. This crash has definitely become worse with age and mileage. So long as I keep running I've never felt better.

Fall never lasts long around here. All it takes is one cold, windy day to strip the trees of their colour. At that point we transition into the much less inspiring and much longer gray phase of fall - basically winter without skiable snow. Hopefully the nice weather sticks around awhile longer. There's still quite a bit of crumby summer weather to make up for.

30th Annual Terry Fox Run

This morning I braved the cold with the Mrs. and a few friends to participate in our local Terry Fox run. It was an honour to recognize a truly inspirational Canadian. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Terry's Marathon of Hope. Go for a run and show your support.

Lost Soul Ultra

coulee (kū'lē): A deep gulch or ravine with sloping sides, often dry in summer.

You might have to be from the prairies to know what a coulee is. However, you don't have to be a prairie person to appreciate the beauty of this course. Three laps, 6 legs per lap, up and down the banks of the Old Man River valley through the city of Lethbridge.

This was the trail-iest trail race I'd ever run - 99% of the course was unpaved and, of that, more than 90% was single-track. Narrow, steep, and often overgrown single-track running up and down the coulees.

Race HQ and the start/finish line was in the back parking lot of the Lethbridge Lodge.

The first leg heads south, descending to the valley bottom.

The climbing begins almost immediately

and is repeated over

and over

for the first 3.5 legs.

Several of the competitors, which had also finished the Death Race, said the Lost Soul was harder. I disagree. True, Lost Soul 100 mile has about 18,000 feet of elevation change, which is comparable to the Death Race. However, most of the Death Race elevation change comes in big, ass-kicking chunks with each of the three peaks. In comparison, Lost Soul is the death of 1000 cuts. Each hill is small but there are sooooo many of them.

The remaining 2.5 legs were largely flat (only 3 climbs) and followed the river bottom back to the start/finish.

A single storm cloud passed through and in minutes the trail became gumbo. Fortunately it dried out nearly as fast so the running only sucked for a short while.

With all the rain the normally scorched coulees were lush. Yes, there is a trail through there but I couldn't see it either until the third lap.

Fifty-three runners started the 100 mile race. Twenty finished. The winning time was 23:06:26 (WOW!). I finished 4th overall in 27:53:06. I was 2.5 hours behind 3rd and 30 minutes ahead of 5th so it was a solid fourth. I'm so pleased with my performance. And surprised. This was the furthest and longest I'd ever run. My goal was to finish. Placing third in my age category (18-49) was icing on the cake. Here I am, busting for the finish line.

I'd heard horror stories about Lost Soul at each race I went to this summer and I was dreading what I expected to be an unending painfest. I had little motivation when I toed the line. Three things kept me in this race. 1) I wanted to finish for my wife/support crew. I may have done all the training but she made many sacrifices for me to get to this point. 2) I didn't want to admit a DNF. Facebooking my intent of running this race to friends and family was a powerful motivator to finish. 3) Finishing the Alberta Triple.

Now that I've done it I'd run it again. The volunteers were awesome, the organization was top-notch, and the course was both gorgeous and challenging. I thought I'd hate running 3 loops of the same course - I thought the lack of new scenery on top of growing exhaustion would kill what little motivation I had. That turned out not to be the case. The second loop was in the dark so it looked totally different from the first loop. The familiarity with the course on the third loop, and knowing each accomplishment was a final task, was a strong motivator to get each leg done.

transferable skills

I've received several opinions on the utility of cycling as a training tool for running. The qualifications of these sources is undoubtedly suspect but I've been reluctant to spend much time on my road bike this summer and risk being under-prepared for my races. That sucks because I really like riding my bike.

A recent article in Trail Runner (Aug 2010) gave me reason to reconsider ditching my bike. I headed out to a favorite route that loops from South Cooking Lake to Miquelon Lake Provincial Park (100 km with a couple of side trips thrown in). 

I've cycled this route many times, particularly when I was training for my tour to New Mexico. The main roads have wide and generally smooth shoulders and the secondary roads have little traffic, including bike traffic. Cars are still few, thankfully, but cyclists were everywhere. (In reality I probably only saw a dozen cyclists but it seemed like a lot compared to the typical zero.)

Roads are fun and relaxing to ride when they look like these.

These horses were more tightly coiled in a single mass when I first passed them. It was some sort of group grooming/petting/fly-swatting maneuver.

Miquelon is not quite halfway but the beach is a good place to stop for lunch. I watched a kite surfer bob up and down in the water as his kite repeatedly caught then lost the wind. I've always wanted to try kite surfing but the learning curve looks super steep.

I stopped at this memorial to the local Frontiersmen that served in WWI. It sits on a slight rise on the side of highway 14. Despite having ridden this loop several times, I don't recall seeing it before. It was erected in 1935 so I can't use that as an excuse. I wonder what the monument saw 75 years ago? It probably looked pretty much the same as today except the cars were fewer and slower.

I can confirm that running is transferable to cycling. I finished the 100 km without difficulty despite a 60 km run the previous day. The only pain was my sit muscles, which leads me to conclude that desk work is not transferable to cycling. Bummer.

Iron Horse Trail, Pt. 3: Bellis to Spedden

Let me put my bias up front. I did not want to run today. I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to leave my coffee and my spot on the couch in front of the television, and I certainly didn't want to spend 6 hours in the heat plodding down a gravel trail. I went anyway. With Lost Souls around the corner I felt like I didn't have a choice. Besides, I usually find the necessary motivation once I'm running. Not today. All I could think about was being back on the couch. Keep that in mind when reading this trail report.

I arrived in Bellis around noon. The early morning rain clouds had moved east and temperatures were warming quickly.

I had the trail to myself with the exception of a coyote, this white-tailed deer, and more goldfinches than I ever remember seeing on the prairies. This deer is actually looking away from me despite me being upwind and making considerable noise on the gravel path. I was within 15 m by the time it turned to look at me. I wonder if there's a slingshot season for white-tail?

I arrived in Vilna in the early afternoon. Vilna is a member of the  "world's largest" club. This is a club that many small towns join so they can claim to be interesting, at least to someone. For Vilna, the claim is home of the "world's largest mushroom". They weren't really that big but I'm sure they are what they claim to be.

Vilna's wooden boardwalks and well-kept shop fronts on the main street gave the town a pleasant, old-timey feeling. There were also people wandering about and, apparently, enjoying the weather, which brought life to the town. Many of the smaller towns I've passed through appear deserted except for the manicured lawns.

Unlike previous sections of the Iron Horse, most of today's run, including the entire section from Vilna to Spedden, closely followed highway 28. Because it was a sunny weekend, the highway was choked with weekend warriors hauling boats and trailers to or from some over-crowded campground. Even though the trail was deserted the drone of traffic was continual, which did not help my motivation.

Unlike Vilna, Spedden did not give me any warm fuzzy feelings. I only knew I'd reached Spedden when I passed the sign on the far side of town that thanked me for visiting. I wondered if not first welcoming me was an oversight.

I needed supplies for the return trip so I walked into the only roadside building that I saw hoping that the open sign in the window meant it was a store. Turns out it was a store. It was also a meeting hall for the Secret Society of Something-or-Other and I was interrupting. The half-dozen people that were sitting around a table talking and laughing quickly dispersed. I grabbed salty items and water from the shelves while an older man wearing an apron, presumably the store owner, stared intently at me as if trying to cut me in two with his laser vision. Yikes! Maybe the lack of a welcome sign was not an oversight. I lay on a bench at the nearby ball diamond to refuel and have a short nap before starting the return trip to Bellis.

Words of wisdom on the trail. These need to be posted in avalanche country.

Canadian Death Race

I remember seeing an ad in Outside magazine nearly 10 years ago about this ultramarathon called the Death Race. "125 km, 3 summits, 1 river crossing. Are you tough enough?", was the gist of the caption. Ballsy, I thought.

Well I've had a romantic notion about running this race ever since. There's a reason Canadian running magazine calls this a must-do trail race. The challenge is epic, the scenery is spectacular, and the volunteers are amazing. If you're up for a challenge I would definitely recommend this race. But be ready for a challenge - less than half of the 333 soloists that started finished within the 24 hour cut-off. Another 85 registered runners failed to start.

I finished 25th with an unofficial time of 18:32:02, which I'm really happy with (4th in my age category!). However, this is a race report so the following is a closer look at my performance solely from a finishing time perspective.

I "lost" this race before it began by starting mid-pack. Here we are waiting for the national anthem and the starting gun.

Starting mid-pack meant becoming unexpectedly trapped for the better part of the first 30 km. Heading south on Hoppe Ave.

before making a hairpin turn, passing through the start/finish line again

and heading out of town on Highway 40.

At this point the entire field crammed onto a single-track trail and proceeded mule train-style to the first aid station. This was extremely frustrating. There were too many people on too narrow of a trail to allow passing so, rather than being able to run my own race, I was stuck with many others in this mule train. I finished leg 1 in 164 place among soloists. Mid-pack.

Leg 2 did not start on a better note - the mule train continued its slow, tedious slog up Flood Mt. I'm all about walking up hills, especially steep ones, but when the angle slacked off and the pace didn't increase accordingly I found myself yelling "time to run" from the back of the train. This would be my last Death race, I told myself.

 After topping out on Flood Mt both my race and my outlook improved dramatically.

I "won" this race on the downhills of leg 2. I hate not taking full advantage of gravity so I run down hills at a good clip. Climbing to the summit of Grande Mt before descending 640 m over 6 km to station 2. I must have sounded like a freight train because people were scrambling to get out of way. I'm undecided whether this approach is easier on the quads than a more-controlled descent but the time-savings is undeniable. My pace increased to 30th fastest among soloists for that leg.

I maintained this pace-standing over the next two legs despite fried quads and rising temperatures. Mt Hamel, the objective of leg 4, is more than 1000 m up over a 10 km stretch. Temperatures reached 23 deg C without a breeze - there were swarms of mosquitoes on Hamel`s ridge! - and several of us suffered muscle cramping and were forced to walk.

Cool evening temperatures and a half dozen salt tablets had me running and smiling on the backside of Hamel. I finished leg 4 in the dark.

I also "won" this race on the final leg by increasing my leg-standing to 19th fastest. I don't know if I got faster or the rest of the pack got slower. Maybe I found extra effort in the awesome cheese pizza I ate at the last aid station. Whatever the reason I found enough energy to run up the final hill to the finish line.

Much thanks to the misses for taking photos and for keeping me fed and watered. This was a team effort.

Iron Horse Trail, Pt. 2: Smoky Lake to Bellis

This trail report is several weeks overdue. I've been on a taper, which is like taking away my ritalin, so I've been distracted. Mostly ski-porn. Yes, I do dream about skiing 12 months of the year. Needless to say many of the details of this run have faded so there are more pictures than text.

I started out at the old train station in Smoky Lake.

To my surprise, Smoky Lake is also home to a strong pumpkin growing tradition. The things I'm learning about Alberta...

This section of trail was much nicer than Smoky Lake to Waskatenau. The folks in Smoky Lake must think so too. They don't even recognize the existence of points west.

The trail passes through more farmland, of course,

but it's not as straight as an arrow

or flat as a pancake (although the trail itself is still pretty flat).

However, the trail also passes a large wetland that was teeming with red-winged blackbirds, black terns, sora, lesser yellowlegs, and several species of ducks. This family of mallards was hoping to go undetected.

And it crosses a protected forested region, the Bellis North Natural Area. A sign claimed it to be 'a public land being protected in a natural state'. The numerous ATV tracks criss-crossing the fragile sandy soil had me questioning what exactly that mean. Still, it was a nice change of scenery.

There was colour on the landscape, too, which also made this section of the trail more pleasant to run. Canola is a popular and colourful crop in this region

and the beautiful tiger lilies were just starting to bloom.

Smoky Lake to Bellis was 24 km. Don't count on resupplying in Edwand. I wasn't entirely sure it existed until I saw this old CN building hidden behind a tree on my return trip.

Don't count on too much in Bellis either, particularly if you arrive past late afternoon, which is when the antique/convenience store closes. Also don't bring any bills larger than $5 or you'll be forced to buy a ridiculous amount of pop just to get a cold drink. It was pretty good pop though. I was told there was a gas station on the highway that was open later and had a better selection of food and drinks but I didn't venture further.

"You ran from Smoky Lake? Why?"
"For fun," I replied to the clerk in Bellis.
"That doesn't sound like fun. Sounds like work."
"Well, it's a different kind of fun."
What was I suppose to say?

The shop closed 10 minutes after I arrived. The departing clerk shook her head at me sitting on the sidewalk working on one of my five cans of soda. I watched her climb into her car, drive to the nearest house, which was less than 100 m away, pull into the garage and walk into the house.

It wouldn't have mattered what I said.