5 Peaks Butzen Lake Half Marathon

September 19, 2009

Now that I am two races behind in my blogging, I thought I'd better get something up here. The 5 Peaks race series is a well known Canadian trail race series with races in 4 provinces. I'd heard good things about the Butzen Lake race and I've been itching to try some new trail races this year so I decided to give it a go. The the race offers 3 courses (an 11km Sport, a 15.5km Enduro, and a Half marathon that is a combination of both the Sport and Enduro).

It rained a decent amount the night before the race and as morning came it was still drizzling lightly. It looked like it might be a soggy day on the trails. Fortunately, by the time the half marathon started, the rain had stopped and it gradually improved over the next couple of hours. By the time I finished, it was clear and sunny.

Perhaps the distance scares people away, but the half marathon had a small field with only 35 finishers (the Enduro had 150 and the sport 237). Based on previous years results, however, the small field didn't always lead to slow times. Last year, the winning time was an incredible 1:55:09. I knew that I would not be posting such a time, but based on times posted by other runners that I know, a finish in the 2:15-2:20 range was reasonable.

It is sometimes nice to go to races where I am less likely to know many of the racers. Although its great fun to socialize at local races, there also tends to be a bit more pressure to perform well. I generally know how I compare to many of the local runners and don't want to be behind someone who I normally would beat - definitely an ego thing. At destination races, I feel less pressure and just go in with the attitude that I will run my own race and do the best I can.

I moved off the start line at a comfortable pace, this wasn't a 5km race so I knew that I would have plenty of opportunity to use up my energy later in the race. A Burnaby resident, Paul Shewchuk and I quickly distanced ourselves from the rest of the field. We continued to run together for the first couple of km. He told me that the upcoming climb was a tough one as he had run in in training previously. I had expected as much as the profile shows a big climb from km 2-4.5. Paul was keeping up with me, but definitely seems to be working harder than I was. He was also a powerfully built guy with a large upper body. This extra muscle certainly would be useful for other tasks, but packing all that bulk up and over a mountain takes a lot effort. As soon as the big climb started, my first impressions were confirmed, and he soon started to fall back and I was left to run the rest of the race on my own.

The climb on the Diez Vistas trail was quite tough although there was a small reprise about half way up. I really wanted to run all of it, but the last 0.5 km or so just became too steep for me to tackle and I was forced to power hike for a few minutes. Eventually, the summit came though and breathed a sigh of relief as I knew that there were no more large climbs in the race. I was soon treated to some of my favorite type of trails. It was all technical single track that requires all of your attention to pick a good line, but still allows you to move at a good clip. The only downside on this day was that the roots and rocks were wet which made some of the steeper descents a little risky. On a dry day, this trail would have been even better to run on. I estimate that I may be lost a couple of minutes by having to be more cautious on the descents.

About 30 minutes into the race, I decided to drink some of my Gatorade (I had brought 300ml each of water and Gatorade in my fuel belt) and just about had to spit it out. It had fermented (probably due to electrolyte tablets that I had put into it a while ago) and I had failed to check it before filling my bottles. It is amazing what new lessons you learn even after years of racing! I manage to choke down perhaps a 100ml of the Gatorade throughout the race, but since it seemed to not be agreeing with my stomach I dumped out the rest. Luckily, it would not prove to be a big factor for me.

After the fun decent, the course moved onto a wide fairly flat trail that made its way around the east side of Buntzen Lake. I was feeling pretty good and continued to pace myself well. I still had the whole sport course to do so didn't overdo it. I completed the Enduro course in a respectable 1:26:03 and make my way onto the sport course. After a little while, I started to pass sport course participants who had started 1 hour later. I think I confused some of them who didn't know about the half marathon race and couldn't figure out where I had come from.

The course description for the Sport course indicates that it has a total elevation gain of 630m, but this is definitely a gross over estimation (as is the 978m figure given for the Enduro). There are a few hills on the Sport course, but nothing with more than 50m of gain and I estimate probably no more than a two hundred meters total. Having said that, however, the 50m hill still felt tough as the legs were starting to fatigue at that point. As I passed the trail that the Enduro racers used, the number of racers on the trail increased. I was tiring as I made my way around the north end of Butzen Lake, but having already done this section before, I knew exactly what to expect and paced myself accordingly. Contrary to what I normally experience when repeating the same sections, it actually seemed to go faster than the first time around.

I had a bit a water still left in my bottle so with 1km to go I decided to go ahead and finish it up. While trying to extract every drop from the bottle, I got careless and caught my toe on something. Before I knew it I was on the ground and my bottle went flying! The damage to my body wasn't significant, but it was kind of embarrassing especially since I had navigated all the technical terrain with no issues. I pickup myself up quickly and made my way to the finish crossing the line in 2:18:01. Paul came in 2nd place over 18 minutes behind. My time was within the window I had thought reasonable, although I had hoped to be a little closer to 2:15. Overall though, I was content with the way the race went, especially considering my training has been a little inconsistent over the summer. Sonja also ran to a solid 4th place finish in woman's division. Final results are here. I would recommend the Enduro course to those who like to run single track as it really has some fun stuff. The Sport course is less interesting and is comparable to running around Thetis Lake (just longer).

Juan de Fuca Epic

August 22, 2009

First of all I'd like to thank Jeff Hunt for organizing this event. While some people may have still run the trail in their own little groups, it was a lot more fun to be involved in a bigger event. A total of 21 runners (16 would do the full distance) came out to test their mettle against the 47km character building Juan de Fuca Trail.

We met at Thetis Lake parking lot at the unreasonable time of 6am. The plan was to car pool and then head to China beach where most runners would start. Adam Lawrence joined Sonja and myself and we arrived shortly after 7am. After some logistical planning, it was decided that all the runners doing the full distance wanted to go from China Beach to Botanical Beach. This meant that we needed to make sure there was at least one car on the other end so we wouldn't end up stranded. Fortunately, Shawn Nelson's parents were kind enough to offer to drive Sonja's car to Botanical Beach where we would use it as a shuttle after the run.

Once that was taken care of, I barley had time to strap my hydra pack on before the group was off. Jeff and Shawn bolted so fast, it took me a couple of km to catch up. This was the 'easy' part of the trail being predominately down hill from China Beach to Mystic Beach and was only somewhat technical. However, this was a long run and the pace did seem pretty brisk, but I didn't want to fall back so soon so I kept up.

The three of us ran together for a couple of km before Jeff fell back slightly and Sean Chester moved into 3rd place. Sean is a very strong runner, but tends to specialize in track rather than trails, I wasn't sure how he would far on such a long technical trail. He also didn't look all that prepared, as he was sporting running flats, was carrying a 1.5 liter pop bottle, and didn't seem to have any nutrition (he did in fact have some stowed in his shirt). That being said, I really didn't know how I would fare either. I was just one week back from 14 days in Norway where I didn't do any running. In an attempt to get back to my normal trailing, I had punished my legs a bit in the days before this run so they were not feeling as fresh as they could be. Also, I don't routinely do runs longer than about 2 hours, so 6 hours was going to be a interesting challenge. Last year, Garth Campbell and I had run from Sombrio Beach to China Beach (29km) in around 3.5 hours at a fairly cofortable pace. Based on this time, I thought it was quite reasonable that I could cover the entire distance in 5.5-6 hours.

For the next 10km or so while Shawn and I ran together, Sean continued to catch up and then disappear again. Eventually he decided (quite prudently I might add) to fall back a bit and run with Jeff. I commented to Shawn that we did seem to be moving quite fast and in my mind I was pretty sure it was too fast for me given the distance and difficultly of this trail. However, I ignored the that logical part of the brain and pushed on ahead swapping the lead with Shawn from time to time. When we hit the halfway point, we were just over a 5 hour pace. If we could hold onto that, it would be an amazing time. I was feeling pretty decent although the climbs set up quads burning within the first hour. And climb we did, the section between Bear Beach and Sombrio Beach is very tough consisting almost entirely of steep climbs out of creek valleys and steep (often technical) descents into the next one. While no single climb is huge, they all add up and become quite relentless. This mixed with roots, rocks, stairs, and mud are what make this trail so very difficult.

As we were descending to Sombrio, I felt my left leg cramp up slightly. It was not major, but with about 20km to go this was not a good sign. Even though I was drinking Gatorade with some extra electrolytes tabs mixed in, I needed to make sure that I got some more electrolytes into me soon or things could turn ugly. I'm not particularly prone to cramping, but am certainly not immune either and know how debilitating they can be. Fortunately, I had brought some extra electrolytes tablets with me so as soon as we hit the beach I consumed one. Shawn's parents met him on the beach and acted as his refueling station and we kind enough to give me some sports drink as well.

Much of Sombrio Beach consists of smallish to medium rocks which are not really much fun to run on especially as you begin to tire. We also found ourselves running too close to the ocean where the rocks had more slime on them. Just as I was thinking it might be better to move up to a drier area, down I went. The fall itself wasn't bad, but the rocks there were covered with barnacles which cut by left hand and right wrist up. It was nothing too serious, but did bleed nicely.

At this point I was definitely starting to feel the effects of going out so hard on tired legs, but I still thought that I should be able to hang in there at a reasonable pace. We were soon back on the trail, but after a relatively short time, I ended up with a rock in my left shoe that needed to be removed. As soon and I bent down to untie the lace, my whole left leg cramped up. It was the worst cramp I have ever had, but luckily I was able to shake it loose and continue on fairly quickly. I took another electrolyte tablet right away and hoped they would kick in soon.

While I was dealing with the cramp, Shawn had pulled out of sight. I started to try and pick up the pace in the hope of bringing him back into sight, but I soon realized that I was spent. The legs were tired and the energy was low (the cramping and fall probably hadn't helped either). With about 15km to go, I realized I was now going to be in disaster avoidance mode. I could no longer sustain a fast pace at all and was forced to hike pretty much all uphill sections. Even many technical sections that I would normally be able to run with no problems became difficult to navigate in my weakened state. The run had ceased to be fun at this point, but despite the fact that my body didn't want to run at all anymore, I forced myself to slowly run the easier sections. My km splits were down to around 10min when they should have been more like 6 or 7min.

As Botanical Beach started to get closer, there are more and more boardwalks on the trail. This would sound like it would make the running easier, but they are still tricky as they are permanently wet and slick. Running on them is hazardous and at one point I went down hard on my ass. This caused my whole body to seize up for a moment, but luckily receded quickly. Given the pitiful pace I was able to sustain, I was expecting that Sean or Jeff may well catch up. With about 4km to go, Sean did just that, blasting by me like I was barley moving (well I guess I was barely moving). He said that we navigated the last 10km in under 1 hour (it took me close to 90min). I finally managed to make it to the last 1km section up the access road to the parking area and surprised myself a bit by actually being able to run it even though it was all uphill. I finally hit the finish at just under 5:51.

While the last couple of hours were not the way I wanted it to go, I wasn't that unhappy with the time itself as it was within the window I had expected. Next time, however, I should do a better job of pacing myself. Shawn had also slowed and suffered a bit on the last section, but still managed to get an awesome time of 5:28, bettering his time from last year by about 45 min. Sean put 8 minutes into me in 4km finishing in 5:43. Next time, I'd like to finish more like that. Carolyn Goluza set a very solid woman's time of 6:50. These times my not seem too fast for a distance only 5km more than a marathon, but if you have run or hiked this trail you know why it takes so long. All times are available on the JDF Epic site.

Norway

August 2-16, 2009

Since it has been nearly two weeks since my return, I decided I should get something onto my blog about this trip. Todd, Kim, Sonja and I spent the better part of the two weeks car touring around, car camping and hiking. We landed in Trondheim (where Todd and Kim are living for a year) and went west and south making it as far down as Bergen. In lieu of a full write up of our travels, here are a few of my impressions about Norway (in no particular order).

- Much of the scenery is spectacular, often rivaling what we have here in Canada

- The vertical nature of the mountain in some areas is awe inspiring. You can find places where it goes from a flat valley bottom straight up over 1km (and I do mean strait up!)

- While it is not a tourist destination for North Americans, it is very popular of Europeans and Asians

- It is very expensive. Most things are twice as much as here in Canada, some are more. How would you like to spend about $30 on 1 liter of motor oil or close to $1,000 on a winter jacket? (I'm not making it up).

- Amazing waterfalls and streams are everywhere. There were so many great ones that after a while, a waterfall that would be the destination for the day here, wouldn't even warrant a photo - Norwegians are generally polite, but somewhat reserved

- When buying food there, selection and more importantly quantity is limited. What 4 liters of milk? Forget it, 1.5 liters is the biggest they sell. How about a kg of peanut butter? Nope, better get used to 350g jars.

- There was surprisingly little wild life. The most exciting thing I saw was a fox, but it was actually in town. While hiking in the mountains, we mostly saw livestock (cows and sheep) and not anything wild

- Norwegians are avid hikers and cross country skiers and have set up an amazing network of trails and hiking/skiing hostels (where you can sleep, buy food, take showers, etc - all for a fee of course).

- Likely a result of their outdoor enthusiasm, they also seem to be fitter than the average Canadian

- The selection of interesting cars (particularly small wagons and hatchbacks) it much more extensive than it is here. There are also diesel options for many models. Diesel Toyota Yaris, check, Diesel Ford cars and vans, check.

Here are a few photos. You can find many more here.

Mount Doug 11 km Gutbuster

July 26, 2009

This was my last Gutbuster of the season as I will miss the Mount Washington race because Sonja and I will be in Norway for two weeks doing some traveling with Todd and Kim. We have actually been having a summer here so I knew this race was going to be a pretty hot one. The course summits Mount Doug 2 times and Little Mount Doug once. While most of the course forested, there are significant exposed portions, many of them on the climbs where overheating is the most likely.

I had taken my normal one day off before the race and had taken it a bit easier during the week. I race way too often to do proper tapers, but I do like to go into races with relatively fresh legs (particularly one with significant climbing involved). Since I was pretty well rested I expected to have a decent race unless the heat got to me too much. I've suffered in the heat in past years, but more recently it seems I have been able to take it better.

While the field was fairly small for this race, there was still fairly deep talent pool. Jason Loutitt was in attendance again and ended up taking off even sooner than at Royal Roads. He was out of sight even before the main start of the first climb. Kelly Guest was also running, but he had just finished a hard 1.5 hour cycle to the start line so was not going as fast as he normally would. The first climb up Whittaker and Irvine Trails is challenging and was hot near the top. I felt reasonable on the climb and managed to make the summit in 3rd place just behind Kelly.

We descended from the lookout on a trail composed mainly of bedrock. It is quite technical, but I feel pretty comfortable flying down it when it is dry. A fall here could really hurt though so you have to be extra vigilant. I managed to pass Kelly and was just ahead of Shelby Drope by the bottom of the decent. The next slightly uphill segment to the base of Little Mount Doug is also technical with a lot of rocks and roots. I have run it many times before with no issues, but this time I caught my toe on something and found myself careening off the trail right into a large patch of blackberry bushes. I uttered some sort of profanity and I extracted myself and got back onto the trail just ahead of Shelby. Luckily, It was a minor incident that only cost me a couple of seconds and left me with a few minor scratches.

After a short, but intense climb to the top of Little Mount Doug we were treated to quite gnarly decent complete with a good dose of loose rock and dirt. After this, I was expecting the course to descend all the way Mercer Trail as it did last year, but the course had been changed and that section short cut. Unfortunately, with my head down and my mind expecting to follow the same route, I completely missed the turnoff. I am generally competent with navigation during trail races, but I have screwed up a few times in the past. It is never fun to work that hard and then blow it all by not paying attention, but it a reality of trail races sometimes. I knew I had made a mistake before too long as I didn't see any course flagging, but since I didn't know exactly how far back the cutoff was and I knew I would get back onto the course before too long, I continued on. Unfortunately for them, Shelby and Kelly followed me. I apologized as it sucks to be led astray even if they also missed the turnoff.

The blunder cost us six positions which was of course discouraging. I decided not to give up though and challenged myself to see how many positions I could earn back. One the first part of the final climb I reeled in Ben Kingstone and Mark Nelson and managed to get some more time on Shelby. Kelly, however, had moved ahead and gained a bit of time on me. I also caught up to Lowell Rockliffe, but he managed to hang in strong during the final climb. It hurt a lot, but we ended up pulling almost even with Nick Walker and Kelly. The final decent is yet again technical with loose dirt and I again moved well managing to get ahead of all three. The final couple of kilometers is fairly flat, however, so I wasn't sure I was going to be able to hold out against the speed of Kelly and Nick. I was feeling really good though and I cranked the strides out. Nick nearly caught me near the finish though, but I managed to stay ahead by 2 seconds.

I finished forth in 46:28. Based on the times of Shawn Nelson (who ran very well) and Michael Liedtke I would have most likely ended up in 2nd place had it not been for my navigational blunder. Kind of annoying, but at least my fitness felt strong. In the typical pattern, Jason blew the field apart, winning in under 42 minutes. My time was actually over 2 minutes faster than last year even with my mistake, but because the course was a bit shorter it was difficult to judge if I was actually moving faster or not. Final results are here. My next race will probably not be until 5 Peaks Butzen Lake on September 19, so I will actually have nearly two months break - this may well be my longest break since 2006.

Half Monty and Hurricane Ridge

July 18-19, 2009

This is a quick report from last weekend. On Saturday, I took place in the 5th running of the Full/Half Monty Trail Race. This is a very low key Club Fat Ass event. The event takes place at Gowlland-Tod Provincial Park starting at the McKenzie Bight entrance and the course follows the main trail south through the park, going over Jocelyn and Homes Peaks. The course turns around at Cabeb Pike and traces the same course back to McKenzie Bight. Total distance is close to 25km round trip and includes a good amount of climbing and lots of moderate difficultly technical terrain all on single track. For those who like trail running, this is a really great place to run. The Half Monty does one out and back, the Full does it twice to make 50km.

I had run this exact course a couple of times in the past and this time I just wanted to run it as a race to see what time I could get. So far the event has not attracted any elite level runners so the course records of around 2:30 was readily attainable. The conditions were hot and I suffered a bit on the way up to Jocelyn Peak although I was still moving pretty well. I managed to recover somewhat on my day down to Cabeb Pike and I cooled my self down with water, which the race organizer, Carlos Castillo, was kind enough to leave at the turn around. I felt good on the way back, but on the final climb back up to Jocelyn, it was tough to keep the legs moving. I was able to run all of the course though which I was happy about. Despite some fatigue in the last few km, I moved well to the finish, posting a time of 1:56:57 which I quite please with as it was over 2min faster than my previous best time. It was too bad there were not a few more runners out as that would have made the event a bit more exiting, but I think everyone enjoyed the challenging terrain and great views. Carlos has a short write up here.

On Sunday, Sonja and I got up at 5am to join over 30 other Prairie Inn Harriers on a running trip over to Hurricane Ridge on the Washington Olympic Peninsula. The main run too place between Deer Park and Observation Point (about 12km) . Some people (including myself) also added another hour+ on some other trails. The vista were spectacular as is evidenced by these photos.


You can see the rest of my photos here. I spent most of my time running with Jeff Hunt who kept moving well really well for the entire day. Jeff has a great write up on his blog so please have a look there if you are interested in more details about our trip. I didn't know how the legs would hold out after the 2 hours of punishment I gave them the day before, but they felt pretty decent. Fatigue did catch up to me after about 1.5 hours though and the final climb that Jeff and I did was pretty tough. After a quick stop at Hurricane Ridge itself, we returned to Port Angeles for a late lunch/early dinner before heading back to Victoria. Thanks to Bob Reid for organizing the event - it would not have happened without him! All in all it was a great running weekend for me, with nearly 50km of challenging trail running completed.

Royal Roads 13km Gutbuster

July 12, 2009

Royal Roads is probably the easiest of the 5 Gutbuster races as it does not have as many sustained climbs as the other courses and less technical terrain. However, this is not to say that it is easy as it still includes a ton of small climbs (some of them very steep). This year, Royal Roads Running club redesigned the course making it longer and adding even more hills. The official distance was 13.8km and although I never really trust measurements given for trail races, it was about 2km longer than last year.

My last race was the Kusam Klimb which felt like quite some time ago (although it really was only 3 weeks ago). My training has been steady, but not intense in the last few months. I didn't expect anything amazing from this race, but hoped to still put in a respectable performance. How I would place would be mostly dependent on who else showed up. The Gutbuster races usually seem to attract a good number of talented runners and I expected nothing less for this race. I spotted Jason Loutitt on the way to the start line so knew who was likely to take the race.

The legs felt pretty good during the warm up I did with Sonja so that was an encouraging sign. For the first time in quite a while, I decided to wear my heart rate strap for the race. I didn't expect to really use it to pace myself, just more for interest sake to see what kind of heart rate I can sustain for an hour.

Once the race was underway Jason stayed with the lead pack all of about 300 meters before accelerating away. I could have tried to match him, but not without killing myself after a km or two. The course included a large number of small, but steep climbs, the first being only a few hundred meters in. Shortly after the climb, Jason quickly disappeared and wasn't seen again.

I was working hard, but feeling in control. During the first couple of kilometers I took a look at my heart rate and was surprised to see it edge over 170 on one of the climbs. Since my maximum heart rate is about 175, anything over 170 is getting into a range that I can not sustain for very long. Despite the fact that I felt in control, I did need to be careful not to push too hard so soon. I took it down just a notch, hoping I could maintain that effort for the remainder of the race.

I was in second place behind Jason for the first few kilometers. However, Shelby Drope and Shawn Nelson were not far behind and slowly pulled ahead of me. Knowing there was still a lot of racing left, I choose not to pace them and instead kept myself moving at a manageable effort that I thought I could hold for the remainder of the race. They would either have enough endurance to push to the end ahead of me or I would reel them in the second half of the course. I was a bit surprised at both their speeds. Shawn is a talented runner, but I have generally been a bit faster. I've seen Shelby at a few Island Race Series races and he tended to go out pretty fast and then fade somewhat. His fitness seems to be improving fast though and he held strong in 3rd place just in front of me until the half way point (Shawn was in 2nd).

The short course veers off to the finish line at the half way point. I had assumed that Shelby was doing the long course, but when I didn't seem him after the courses diverged I realized that he was only doing the short (which he solidly won). Nick Walker was close on my tail at this point as I expected he would be. He tends to start fairly conservatively and then speed up considerably on the later parts of races. I was holding steady, but he was speeding up. We ended up running a few kilometers of single track together before hitting some wider trails where he was able to use his greater speed to pull ahead.

Unfortunately for Shawn, he was having some sort of side ache problem and Nick and I passed him a after the halfway point and it looks like he had to pull out. It was too bad for him as it looked like he was having a great race. While I couldn't match Nick's speed once the trails opened up, I was still feeling pretty decent and continued to move ahead at a good rate. Most of the additional distance in the course this year was made up in a large loop up past a gravel pit and out toward the the edge of the University grounds. While not particularly difficult, this section drug on longer than expected. Then on the return we had to climb up the side of the gravel pit. Its not a big climb by any means, but was steep and composed of loose gravel which made running up it quite a challenge.

After some more downhill we moved onto the last major climb. Nick had perhaps a 45 second lead on me at this point. I didn't expect to catch him, but still kept the pressure up to make sure that I maintained my position. Most of the final 2km were on gravel road with some little diversions onto single track. The final run to the finish is on an uphill grade just to make sure everyone had enough climbing on the day! It is a good thing that I kept my pace up as Michael Liedtke was moving fast. The final results say he was only 4 seconds back, but the timing must have been off by a bit. I estimate that he was actually 10-15 seconds back. Not that time really matters much in a trail race anyway.

I crossed the line in 1:00:38 in 3rd place, about a minute behind Nick and a full 6 minutes behind Jason who must of flown on his broom to post such a smoking fast time. Harrier, Andrew Pape-Salmon ran strongly to a well deserved 7th place. Care Wakely won the woman division in 1:10:50, just 5 sec ahead of 2nd place. Overall, I was happy with my race and felt like I held together well for the entire distance. My time was about 9 min slower than last year, but I feel this is sole result of the increased length. My average heart rate ended up being 163 (93%) and it peaked out at 173 (99%). Final results are here. for the Mount Doug I hope to see a good crowd out on July 26thGutbuster - probably my favorite race in the series.

Hornby Island #2

Here are a few more videos (I had to split them to get them to load).

Picking up the pace on Mr. Toads Wild Ride Trail #1



#2



On "No Horses" #1



#2



Gary Behind the camera on "The Way" #1


#2

That should be enough running video to bore everyone!

Here are a few photos as well.

Helliwell Provincial Park


Sunset


Evening Light


Mt Geoffrey