Back To The Grind!

After the Dirty Feet Trail Race, I took Monday off. I felt great physically, but knew that we would jump back into training full force.
Last week saw 2 road runs, which was a nice change to my normal training week. It was nice to stretch out the legs and pick up the pace!! WOOHOO!!!
Saturday, we did one of my favorite runs up to Divide Lake in Okanagan Mountain Park....Rene, Kevin and I enjoyed the sun, great conversation and some great elevation and a super long descent (my favorite:) ).

The next day, Rene, Alison, Karen and I set out at Ok Mountain Park once again, this time to run to Naramata! We had another beautiful day, and set out on the Wild horse canyon trail.....where we were following some REALLY fresh bear scat, but didn't see any bears.
This run was really cool for me, the last time I did this trail to Naramata was at night during a 36 hour adventure race, RAID THE NORTH.

 I got to see the cliff we repelled down, the trails where we were hallucinating on after being awake for 30 hours, the creeks where we filled our hydration packs in...... it was great, I've been wanting to run that trail again in the daylight for the past 2 years!!!  It was so much fun- good company, great views!! I feel like we almost ran every trail in the park last weekend:)

It was our first time training with our new black diamond trekking/running poles from Valhalla Pure, and I love them!!! I couldn't believe how much load they took off the legs when descending, and how much they helped on steep climbs!

This week has been a good training week with hill repeats, and another flat tempo run on the greenway- something I am going to incorporate each week into my training.
This is going to be a 4 day training block weekend, with it being a long weekend. I'm hoping to see some great trails, beautiful weather, and have fun with friends!!!

Life After a Rest Week....

I was so looking forward to a rest week, after the high mileage from the week before......but once it hit, so did the fatigue!! It's sometimes not until you stop, that you realize how tired you actually are. In retrospect, I wonder wether I should've kept up more mileage that week, but to be honest I don't think I could've done it physically and more importantly, mentally.
The last 6 months have been some of the most stressful and full of change I've ever experienced. I've moved into a new clinic for work, moved living locations 3 times in 3 months, and seen the end of friendships and a separation from a relationship. All this while trying to maintain high mileage weeks of training for the Trans Alps Race. It's been a struggle to find balance in my life, needless to say.
Living so far from my family, my friends really do become my family and my daily support system. Don't get me wrong, I feel immensely supported by all my family in PEI but they are far away, and some days hard to talk to (with the 4 hour time difference).
So, having any loss to this support system is pretty upsetting, and I do feel like there is a mourning period that goes along with this. So, I have to thank my friends, family, and everyone who has supported me during these last few months. I can't thank you enough. A really big "THANK YOU" to my Trans Alps partner, Rene for being such a great friend, and soundboard on all our long runs. You've helped me through a lot of tough days.
So, after the rest week, I got to run on Saturday with my friend and adventure racing partner, Mel and a new running friend, Hjelmar. We went out for a 2 hour run on the greenway and that was my first consistently paced run on flat terrain for as long as I can remember. I got to hear about Mel's race in Ireland where she competed in the World Championship 50miler Trail Race (and placed 8th female, and 1st canadian!), and also about Hjelmar's upcoming Death Race. I feel so inspired and am so amazed at what the people around me are doing!! So amazing.

The next day, Rene and I did the Dirty Feet 21km trail race in Kal Park in Vernon. It was a great route, and our first time racing together. We had fun, took it slow and finished strong. I have a great partner to race with in the Alps!! Just for the record, we did NOT plan on wearing the same running outfit.....

Leap of Gear Faith!

I just got a new order of fabulous clothes from Icebreaker last week, right before our long training weekend on the coast and coquihalla. I have to say, I usually try gear out on short workouts just to minimize any chaffing, blisters, etc. This weekend, I jumped right in and wore my new La Sportiva Raptors on my feet, and ALL new Icebreaker gear. New shorts, sports bra and the new Rush top.
Rene and I set off for a 4 plus hour training run on Saturday up the grouse grind, down the MCPC (aka the BCBG trail, as I can never remember the acronym for the trail!!), then on the Baden Powell Trail to finish a 4 1/2 hour run.  This was the same day that Knee Knacker was happening, and we were out looking for our friends, Andrew, Erica, Stephanie and Jenn.  We ended up running with a small group of 6-7 runners, and funny enough, one of them commented on how we didn't smell and how sharp we looked in our new gear!  I yelled back at him "thanks, it's the icebreaker!!" To which he responded that yes, that is a great pick up line on the trails...."Hey! you don't stink!".... after this, we picked up the pace and got by that group of runners:) LOL!
It was absolutely amazing to see our friends after we turned around and were heading back to the bottom of Grouse. We missed seeing Andrew as he had a great first 20 miles, but got to see the girls all looking strong and still smiling!!! So Amazing:)
I felt tired on this run, and my body was acting funny......I'm not usually a big sweater, but I was drenched!!   In a nutshell, my body was just telling me to  F#@* off!!!  Not so much fun..... my body simply needed a break, it was a long few weeks and I hadn't been finding the balance with training, working and managing stress!! I slogged through not feeling very well but we got the 4 1/2 hours in, and got down to Deep Cove in time to watch the girls finish!! YEAH!!!
I had absolutely no gear issues,  no chaffing, and felt ridiculously comfortable even being soaked from sweat!

That night, Rene and I drove to Hope....Yup, Saturday night in HOPE!  Got up early, and met up with Rene's husband and our friends Alison and David to hike Needle and Yak Peak.
Keeping up with the theme from the weekend, I put on all new gear again. La Sportiva hiking boots, Icebreaker capris, sports bra and Dash Crewe top.
We hit snow, got some great elevation in, saw some phenomenal views, did some bouldering, ate pepperoni and danishes...YUM!!!   All in all, we had an 8 1/2 hour hiking day that ended with a beer, standing in the freezing cold creek! Thanks Alison!!
I felt way better on the hike, compared to the previous day!! My body wasn't as mad at me, and liked the slower, consistent climbing pace:)

Again, I had absolutely no gear issues and never fidgeted with gear once!! So impressed!
Now, it is time to rest and get massage (thank you Shaun at NudDepth), physio (Martha and Greg at WAVE), and possibly some ART (David at Valleyview), all in the name of staying ahead of the game and staying injury free!! Bring on the Rest......

Finding a Foot and first blog entry:)

So, this is my first in hopefully many, detailed accounts of our training for our Trans Alps Race in September. My Partner for this race, Rene and I have been training for the past 5 months together. It is an 8 day stage race that starts in Germany, goes through Austria, Switzerland and ends in Italy! It is approximately 290 kilometers and I won't even post the elevation gain because it just makes my legs hurt!!

I like to take pictures on all of my training runs and long races....I have so many pictures of deer, moose, bear, and gorgeous vistas from various remote locations. But, I have to say- last Friday's pictures were the most gruesome!! I started off on a hike up to Black mountain around noon, and we decided to go up a steep lil' mountain before bushwacking our way up to the summit. Well, at the top of this mountain, we found what we thought was a human foot. YUCK.  I know anatomy. I was trying to rationalize how this couldn't possibly be a human foot in front of us. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of what other kind of animal would have the same configuration as a human foot. So.....long story short, after a quick RCMP call, they told me to take pictures of it, and to meet them at the bottom of the mountain. After seeing the photos, they also thought it was human, so we showed them were it was and continued on our hike up to black mountain.

It was definitely one of the most eventful hikes I've ever had (and I've had a lot!), a couple of hours later, I almost stepped on a FRESHLY killed deer (thanks to a cougar, we think).....so needless to say, after that I armed myself with bear spray and a large stick and was on high alert looking for the cougar.....
6 hours later, we are home and pooped from all the findings, bushwacking, and did I mention the stinging nettle?!!!!

I got a call 8 hours after finding the foot, that it was in fact the rear foot of a bear!!! So.....if you are ever out hiking and find a foot that looks human, it could be a bear!! It's amazing- I googled it to see the difference/similarity and it's amazing how similar they look!!! I won't post my gruesome pics of the foot in my first blog, but it was tempting....
All in all, it was a great training weekend with 12 hours on my feet......this will be the last build week before some REST!! YEAH!!!  Wish us luck this weekend, as we go down to run the north shore trails for 5 plus hours followed by hiking Yak and Needle Peak on Sunday another 8 plus hours of hiking. Very much looking forward to rest:)
Good luck to everyone who is running the Knee Knacker Race on Saturday!!!! Can't wait to see you all finish:)