Fish Creek 5 Peaks Sports trial race

[Dstew]

My last long run of 32 K on Sunday really seems to have had quite a psychological/ emotional impact on me. I was stiff and sore after the run but the next day I had recovered physically. However, the thought of just how necessary and vital it was to run that far bounced around instead my head. This then lead to me questioning the entire training process and with the poor attitude, I was preparing for a 9 K trail race in Fish Creek run by 5 Peaks.

Did do the stairs on Tuesday and golfed Wednesday but my tempo run on Thursday was replaced by a trip the range. I hit the ball so well there I resented the fact I could not play nine holes on Friday because of the stupid race. It did not help that I had no love the course and had hoped the comments from last year would be heard.

The course was about a mile of bike path, around 2.5 K of relatively flat bike trail and/or crushed gravel paths. Then through the trees has one climbed about 60 M in around 500 meters. This section is it was single track and when climbing, the hill bank to your left and a drop off that one could also call a cliff near the end but rocks, roots and twisting paths to start. The problem is there were around 400 runners registered and that when doing the Sport course, once to the top of the hill, one turned around and came back down the hill with all of those following runners going up the hill at the same time.

Knowing how crowded that section if before one turns around and basically runs the same way back, I decide I need to be somewhere near the front of the race. With no speed work and marathon related tempo runs only, I am shocked to see I am running my first kilometre near the 4 minute mark. Yikes, way too fast. I slow my pace just in time for the single track and basically bike trails so the timing worked out well. I have to pass the big guy in blue and stay with that women and she is attempting to keep ahead of me but we are now in the part of the race where there is just some shuffling of position.

It was a little depressing as I was about a quarter of the way up the hill noted above when the first young stud coming flying down and past me. Then the next one and so on about 20 times so my fantasy goal of top 10 overall is dead and I am not even at the half way mark of the course. When making sure I am not stepping on a root or rock or off the cliff, I am pretty sure I see at least two gentlemen who are likely in my age category. Not so bad going up the hill when you have to pull over and let someone pass but going down was frustrating as hell. I love going down hills and with my size and strength, it is one time I can make up ground. But I need the whole path as I can only do that with a very wide stance. With literally a hundred people coming up the same path, I felt like a Salmon. I was so worried that if I did not break my ankle on a root, I would bowl someone over and so was completely out of sorts on the downhill.

I got passed by three people before I got my pace back together and that never happens to me at the end of the race. I was pissed off and had thought of shutting it down, but put a bib on me and logic and reason are set aside. With the nature of the flat trails that twist and turn through the woods, I can barely see the runners in front and no one behind. We crest a hill and all of a sudden, a certain hunter instinct kicks in and I do not see other competitors but prey. Logic and reason tell me there is too much risk of damage and no one is really pressing me so be happy where you are. I look over my shoulder and I see a runner closing and so if they can pick up the pace, so can I.

With 2 K still to go and my increased pace is decreasing the distance between me and my prey, it is still too early to really push to 100%. But I am at a 4:36 pace and those in front of me are not so by about a mile to go, I am within striking distance. At a kilometre, I pass the guy in red. He does not respond and so I pick up the pace a little more. The big guy in orange is within reach. Around 600 meters I pass him. He does not respond. About 400 meters, the guy in black is passed and he tries to counter but I have a little left and run just a little harder. Given the waves, I am literally running against the clock and so with 200 meters to go, find just a little more speed and run hard through the finish.

It is a gorgeous day and so after the post race food, I decide they will not even have the results for an hour and I change shirts and go for a 6 K run. The results are posted and I cannot seem to find my name. I keep on scrolling down and there I am, 20th out of over 200 runners registered. And then to my surprise, first in my age group. Turns out the guy in black, the last runner I passed was in my age group and with my strong finish, I CRUSHED me by less then 20 seconds.

This win does put me in a bit of a dilemma. After two races, I have a 20 points, 10 points for each first. The guy I beat today, he has 27 points in his best three of four races. So if I read the contest correctly, if I were to finish in 3rd or better in the final race and beat him again, I would win the points series for my age category. I am not really sure I want to do a series next year and as I am getting older, I am getting slower so get a couple of real runners in the years to follow and I may never have this chance again. On the other hand, I win the points series knowing that when I look at those doing the enduro [longer] races in my age category if I were to run the same sort of paces I would be finishing 5th or lower and so my grand victory would be over other weekend warriors and recreational runners who were merely doing these races to add a little spice to their running when compared to the biking and hiking and swimming that they also do.

I need to add that the Canmore race does tend to attract the real trail and mountain runners from the region and I have been in races where someone in my age category is doing the sport as a warm up or for fun and beats me like an old rug. So I could pay $50 and get up early, drive the hour or so to Canmore, I do not get enough points to win the series and so a bruised and battered ego went to all of the trouble for nothing. The alternative is I pay $60, use the half marathon-ish course as my last hard training run one month before the Kelowna marathon and if I can run my ideal marathon pace over that course and I get lucky, I could get great training benefits and finish 3rd in my age category based upon past results. But if I do not metal, the run is really serving a much higher purpose.

Time enough to ponder this as I stroke my "precious" [medal] and savour this victory for a couple of day. This year, the medals are hand made ceramics from a person in Canmore. They are quite nice and very unique but when I showed my wife the symbol of my greatness and nobility, her response was, "but doesn't look exactly like the other medal you won?" My feeble response was on "all outward appearances it is the same but it is still a symbol of my ... yah, it does". Nice to have someone remind me to keep things in proper perspective.

[barebuns1]

Congrats on that medal. I like the 5 Peaks Series but I have never done more then 3 of them in a season.