K3 - Stage 3



 So I did not run stage 2 of the Kananaskis 3. I think I knew right from January that this was not going to happen, but held out some hope that I might convince myself otherwise. Carla and I walked around Banff for half of Saturday and had a  great lunch at The Magpie and Stump before heading back to our hotel for a much deserved afternoon nap!

 

Sunday morning came all too early and I did my best to convince Carla that it would be a much better day if we slept in, however she wasn't hearing any of my excuses and off we headed to Stage 3 of K3.

 

Stage 3 started at Little Elbow Campground and was to be 24ish kilometers of mountain trail racing. The first kilometer was on the road out of the campground. What a great way to thin out the pack before we started our 6 kilometer ascent to the top of Powderface Ridge. Living on the prairies, there is absolutely no way to prepare oneself for such an ascent. We can run Pembina, Ravine, Big Mac and even Mount Blackstrap, but none of these hills do any justice to ascending for 6ish kilometers. Thankfully I have very little (running) pride and positioned myself at the back of the pack, so I didn't have to feel the sting of being passed going uphill! My mantra was relentless forward progress. As long as I was moving up the mountain, I was headed in the right direction.There were many times I contemplated heading back down the way I came (especially when it started to rain); however when I crested the ridge, the view was worth the effort. Panoramic view for miles and miles. No time to stop and enjoy (too much) as I had to make the aide station before the cut off time of 2.5 hours. Lots of rocks and scree fields on the ridge and then headed downhill through the trees. At this point, downhill still felt much better than uphill, so I made some good time and rolled into the aide station 30 minutes before the cutoff.

 

Aide stations are always a tricky situation. The body wants to sit, enjoy the food and drink, talk with the volunteers, anything to not get back to running. The spirit just wants to grab a pop, some fruit and go. This aide station stop lasted only a couple minutes. A couple drinks of cola, some watermelon and off I went to finish off the last 13 kilometers.

 

These last 13ish kilometers were a real adventure, numerous creek crossings, two snow field crossings, some steep ascents, lots of tree roots and lots of downhill! I could tell that I was feeling fatigued because I started imagining cougars and bears. Every tree stump or cluster of bushes was a bear ready to chase or a cougar ready to pounce. These hallucinations pushed me to keep up an aggressive pace (for me anyways!)! I was hiking the uphills and using gravity to pull me down the downhills. I did my best to run the flats and when that didn't work I played run to the next pin flag. About a kilometer out of the finish line I could hear music and people noises, which gave me that little extra boost I needed to finish. I popped out of the trees into the parking lot and hit the finish line 5 hours and 18 minutes after I started.

What a feeling of accomplishment and the cola and wraps at the food table were a welcome site after too many gels and warm hydration vest water! Thanks to the volunteers and organizers and as always a giant thank you to my wife who chauffeurs me to and from these events and acts as my aide station crew.