Trail Run

After the Hard Rock race, three of us (me, my teammate CK and another Raid friend JH) decided to extend our mileage. CK and JH had both done Raids in the area and produced two course maps we could use. A flick of a marked O-string, and we had a rough idea of which trails to take to put in about 12K extra. The route would have some wide trails that we had in this race and some single track further out. We took turns following along on the map, just to keep our minds fresh.

As we moved through the Hard Rock part of the map, we compared notes on our route choices; always good to hear other ideas. We were definitely moving at a "mileage-building" pace rather than a racing pace. At one point on a main trail, we ran into a dog-walker, and CK excitedly ran off to play with the puppy. He bounded away at such high speed, all JH and I could do was laugh. Where does he get this energy after so many miles?? JH suggested we implement a bungee tow line during our race to equalize the team. Having been on either end of a tow line in past races, I am completely okay with that. Anything to keep the team moving at an even pace.

I wasn't managing my electrolytes very well that day, so about halfway through our run my calf muscles, particularly my left one, started to cramp. We stopped, and JH kneaded the crap out of my medial gastroc - then he recommended his pair of calf compression sleeves - the SL3S - as he has the same problem. He said he can "feel them working." I went on to buy them first thing Monday morning. :)

I continued with the map going across some woods on single-track. But I got distracted and suddenly realized I didn't know exactly where along the trail we were. We stood there thinking about it for a while, but CK was fairly confident that we were still on the right trail as he'd been running here recently. Lesson learned, though. In the race, keep checking off the features along the way.

The woods were so pretty here. No one out, just the three of us running and chatting. Totally sweet. As we hooked back up towards the day's race map, CK pulled us onto one helluva gnarly single track that he loves. JH and I were just chugging along, but CK darted off, bounding from one root to the next. It really was a joyride, but there was no way we could keep up! That tow line is a good idea.

We finally got back to the original junction coming off towards race HQ, but the boys decided that instead of taking our original trail back, they wanted to explore how the heck an L-shaped trail apparently cuts across a huge area of swamp ... a swamp deemed uncrossable by the meet directors. Would it be a landbridge? A raised bridge-bridge? We had to know!

It turned out to be a single-file swath of soggy dirt surrounded by waist-deep water, and fully over-grown with sumac bushes. We bushwacked for a while and soon reached that point in a ridiculous journey where you have to keep going just to see what happens. We kept looking out for a similar piece of land going across at a 90 degree angle, but there was nothing but water ahead. After an eternity balancing on this narrow strip of land, we suddenly broke through to dry forest - with a path running northbound towards HQ. It seems we'd misinterpreted the colouring and hatching on the map. The long part to of the L is actually vegetation with a bit of water, not water with a bit of vegetation (rolls the eyes). CK exclaimed "that wast the longest 200m of my life!" as we started running north. :) This last part was the prettiest section of our run - all darkened woods and mossy green rocks - well worth the fight.

So another ~13.5K in the bank, which added to the race 11K brings us up to about 24.5K for the day. The best thing was just running and laughing with good friends. As always! :)

Route map to follow, as I didn't have the big race maps to work from.