As I frolicked down a technical descent, through old forests with soft pine needles and not so soft rocks and roots underfoot this past Saturday I had two thoughts: (1) I'd forgotten how much I love technical trail running and (2) this is classic
Gary Robbins :) Gary, along with Geoff and Linda, host the
Coast Mountain Trail Series, which are various mid distance to 50km races in North Vancouver and Squamish. There is a reason why Gary is the course record holder at HURT - he likes technical and he knows where to find those type of trails in North Van!
In my training for Comrades I had done a decent amount of my training on trails but had stuck to the least technical trails I could find. It was therefore a delight to be back on trails where it's less about speed and more about your ability to rock-hop, leap over roots, hurl yourself around tight corners and jump down rocks and other gnarly mountain biking features. Ok, there was also a fair amount of plain slogging up hill, given Gary had packed some 1300m of climbing (and same of descent) into this half marathon distance course, but that was good to given I've got
Speedgoat 50km in just four weeks time.
All in all it was a fantastic day on the trails; the sun shone, we got to hang out at magical Deep Cove at the end, and I got to watch my friend Kim nimbly tip toe up hill ahead of me (well at least until she got so far ahead that I lost sight of her - congrats on the win Kim).
A definite 'to-do' race and a North Shore classic. I'll be back next year for sure.
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| Photo: Solana Klassen |
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| Photo: Solana Klassen |
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| Chilling at the Deep Cove finish line. Photo: Nic Browne |
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| Me (2nd), Kim (1st) and Chloe (3rd). Fun times! |
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