Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Pick your Poison 50K

This was my first race since last year's cancellation of the Swiss Iron Trail http://www.irontrail.ch/news-irontrails-1.phtml and months of suffering from all kinds of injuries and pains. Most of the winter I was running on the treadmill to avoid doing any more damage to my bad knees (tear in my left meniscus) and calves, and to keep off the freezing Canadian temperatures. So running up and down some steep ski sloops was challenging, especially on the uphills.


At the start of the race

The race was a 4 loop course with still snow in some sections. My plan was just to finish and not to worry about time.


My custom "winterized" Hoka Mafate were perfect for the course

The first 2 loops were slow but otherwise I didn't have any problems. That changed suddenly at the beginning of the 3rd loop when I started to get cramps in both legs and had to slow down even more.

Walking the uphill - still smiling

When I came back to the start/finish line I wasn't really looking forward to go out for another loop. I couldn't really figure out what the cause of my cramps was - salt, dehydration or just simple tired muscles. It is very rare that I get cramps. The last time it happened was at the Dirty Girls 6 Hour race back in 2011.

Since I still could move, even though slow, DNF was not an option. "Suck it up princess" and off I went for the last loop. During the entire race I was looking forward to have a glass of red wine with my good friend Gord England to celebrate my birthday. That really kept me going :)


So glad I'm done!

When I got to the finish line, Gord was waiting for me with a glass of Rodney Strong Cabernet Sauvignon. How awesome is that! Thank you so much Gord! 

My finishing time was 6:48:23, which was quite slow. However it was a good training run for my main race this year - the Badwater Ultramarathon.

It was great seeing all my OUS http://www.ouser.org/ running friends. The post race celebration was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the next race - the Sulphur 100 http://www.burlingtonrunners.com/index.cfm?pagepath=Club_Races/Sulphur_Springs&id=571