Well this was by far and away the very BEST WEATHER YET!!! Awesome clear skies welcomed about 40 runners last Saturday morning in the Panorama Park parking lot. I remembered to bring my camera and snapped a few pics at the start and finish and we will post those to the web site within the next week or so. The agenda was to car pool to Cypress and run the last 3/4's of the race course. Everyone had variations of the route based on experience or just feel, some ran what I call the 'middle half' only, or hard and some shortened the route by taking different combinations of trails.
I tried to run with Eric from the start at Cypress, but had to give up after about 15 minutes knowing that there was no way I could keep this pace up the whole way. I ran with Chris for a while and caught him doing an uncharacteristic 'tuck-and-roll' - it was later decided that the fall was beer worthy....yes! I had a great time following behind him down the chute, it was so fun to run with such a good downhiller, awesome. Then who do we see? Eric pops out of the trail at Brothers creek, hmmm wrong turn or? So we rumbled down the rest of the trail way too fast to Cleveland dam. We do a quick transition and run to Nancy Greene Way and I run up to the start of the steep hill. Eric keeps running and is gone. I'm walking and Chris is running, I asked him do you have any food (for yourself) and he says no. I offer some and he declines, of well he knows what he's doing. Chris gets bored running so slow so I tell him to go ahead. As he pulls away I figure well maybe I should try to run a bit and before you know it we're going through the 'torn down' Grouse Grind gate, awe too bad.
Ran alone for the next 1/4, had a great run, waited at Seymour Demo forest (3/4 aid station) for the rest of the group. Michael arrives looking fresh - I question him on times etc and ask where everyone else is. I opt to wait for my friend Derrick and want to run the last 1/4 with him. Woah who is that? Pat has run from Deep Cove after he had a mechanical on his car that put about 50 min. of road running into his legs before he even started! Way to go Pat. We chat a bit longer and see Alex come up the hill so we all agree that we'll take it easy into Deep Cove and start off.
As we approach the Seymour Grind we see a figure lurking ahead, is it Michael or someone else. It's Derrick, he had gotten ahead of us taking some short cuts to save some energy for race day, smart move. We run together for most of the run, we tell Alex to take off and we'll see her later.
Well not being a very competitive person ;-) when we hit Indian River road it was all I could do to not respond when Derrick said "Isn't that Alex going into the trail down there?" Had a nice run the rest of the way visualizing my goal the whole way, what a great feeling. Everyone ran so well that day, we hung out at the top of the grassy hill and watched everyone cross that imaginary 'Finish Line' running just a little extra burst of speed.
Definitely my best KK training run of the year, now its time to taper and be fully recovered for the big day. I hope everyone is achieving their goals as we approach race day, because after all half the fun is the journey.
Unfortunately I will not be able to make the last run this Saturday, July 7th. I would like to suggest that everyone meets in Deep Cove and car pools to Lynn Canyon and run the last 1/4 or better still run from Deep Cove to Old Buck and run back, that would be easiest from a car-pooling stand point and you get a chance to visualize the finish one more time.
Cheers,