Registering for my first stage trail race seemed like a good idea in January. I figured I was ready to try something new, plus who can resist a weekend in the Canmore/Kananaskis/Bragg Creek area in the summer? I was feeling so confident that this was a good idea that I even registered my wife (who is not a runner) to run the first stage with me! Carla was registered to run Stage 1 of the Kananaskis 3 and I was originally planning on running all three legs.
Winter training went better than usual thanks to my participation in a Brainsport Marathon training clinic. I felt as prepared as I was going to be to run 13km, 42km and 24km in the mountains, but as always I knew I had not done enough hill work.
Friday July 4th was leg 1 and a distance of 13ish km. This stage started and finished at the West Bragg Creek Trailhead. Upon arrival we were informed of bear activity (so be sure to have your scatbelt) and that the original trail was too muddy and wet, so we were now running two loops of roughly 8km for a total of 16km. Not too much of a leap for me, but my wife who was already anxious for her first trail run, was ready to call it quits. Thankfully for her mental well being, the organizers mentioned that runners could easily opt out of the second lap and come home after 8km.
We both positioned ourselves towards the back of the pack and started off nice and slow. We started in the parking lot, lots of open space and made our way to the singletrack trail. Uphill, uphill and more uphill. For the first 3ish kilometers we climbed, nothing terrible, but enough that the best I could do was a fast hike. Carla and I separated here and she tells me it was for best that we did as she was none to pleased at how much she had to climb!
The course was great singletrack, lots of rocks, roots and dirt. Very runnable as evidenced by the front runners who finished almost 17km in just over 60 minutes. I completed my 2 loops in 2hours 18 minutes and felt great about my accomplishment. I was also super impressed by my wife Carla who gutted out her lap and was still smiling and standing when I rolled in!
Possibly one of the best parts of this stage was sharing a celebratory pizza with Carla after the race! Now she was starting to understand my cravings for pizza and pop after long runs! However she did inform me that she wouldn't be doing anything like that again.
I decided not to run Saturday mornings stage 2, as I could tell that my body was not going to hold up for both Saturday and Sunday. So Saturday ended up being a tourist day and recuperating for Sundays 24km. More on that in my next post.
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