The NorthFace Endurance Challenge lives up to its' name. The race has distances including 5k, 10k, half marathon, marathon, 50k and a 50-miler. It is a trail running series that tests a runner's endurance with challenging terrain and constant elevation gains and falls. Last year the series came to Canada for the first time and I was unable to participate having lived in Alberta for the summer.
This year I wasn't missing out! My partner in crime Heather and I signed up with 2 weeks to go and threw together a rough "training plan" by which we set dates after work to get together to run parts of the course as we both work at Blue Mountain Resort where the race took place.
We signed up for the shortest available distance, the 5k, as we didn't have much time to prepare and neither of us had ever run a trail race before so we thought we'd enter with caution...sort of.
Trail running and road running are related but they are unknown relatives. My parents both come from large families (6 and 7 kids) and as a result I have a copious number of cousins. There are some I couldn't pick out in a crowd or even name. That's the relationship trail running has to road running. You struggle to find connection between the two.
Heather and I "trained" 4 times on part of the course. We ran up the one trail and down the other. Most runs came out at about 4ish km. Though we struggled through our training runs we saw definite improvement each time in our overall pacing. We learned that trail pacing is nowhere close to road pacing. When signing up for the event you have to estimate a finish time. Both of us, confused and never having ran a trail race put down 35minutes. My 5km PB is 22:50 so I thought, add some time because of the hills and terrain, sure 35. I should mention the winner of the 5km ran the event in just less than 35 minutes. We were WAY off! When reading online information about trail running I read somewhere that trail pacing is sometimes more than double road running. I can attest to the truth in that statement!
The NorthFace Endurance challenge is a whole weekend thing. Saturday the 3 longest events take part. The 50 miler heads out at 5am, and the 50km and marathon follow after. A friend I grew up with ran the 50 miler. He is a trail running lover. I think he is ridiculous but in a way with a lot of respect behind it. Extremely athletic kind of crazy is better than some other kinds of crazy :). The Endurance Challenge has live tracking features you can sign up for. I tracked Adam throughout the day. He ended up finishing in around 11hours and 22 minutes. I couldn't even imagine ever in my lifetime running for 11+hours, not even on flat, even terrain let alone these trails.
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| pre-race chats with fellow Blue Mountain employees and friends |
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| more BMR ladies and friends |
So Sunday morning the half marathon, 10k and 5k were held. Though I was disappointed on Thursday with my packet pick up being just a bib and shirt I was pleased upon arrival on race day to see how many sponsor booths were set up. Post race we got lots of great swag including free socks, lots of food, coffee and more.
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| swag |
We started in wave 1 right at the beginning. I felt a little like a wolf in sheep's clothing. I am not a trail runner, I am a road runner and here I am lining up right at the front. Dean Karnazes puts on these events. Though I don't know who he is I can recognize him to be a pretty accomplished person. Google him and see that he is the ultramarathon man. He stood at the front with the mic and before sending us off asked who was there for their first ever trail race. Heather and I both raised our hand and he kind of flinched and said "enjoy the pain". He knew we were in for worlds of pain and so did we, but not fully. You brain is good at wiping out pain directly after experiencing it. If it weren't that way I wouldn't run long or fast ever.
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| Getting ready to run! |
At 9:15 we were off and instantly on uneven terrain and headed up. We didn't realize the beginning of the race headed up the ski runs and across on of course a gradual incline. Heather and I ran and ran and ran and couldn't understand how we still hadn't made it to "the grind" trail we had trained on. By the time we finally reached it we were already wiped. The weather was better than anticipated- not rainy or lightning like predicted. Rain would make the trails very difficult. However it was hot and humid. There was a breeze in the open areas but also hot, hot direct sun. As soon as we headed into the trees of the trail the air movement went away.
As we went up the hill our running slowed to a walk many times. But we noticed that everyone was walking, I guess its common in trail running due to the challenging terrain and elevation gains. My body started to warn me that the heat was getting hard to handle. My head felt so hot and big. I started to feel swimmy in the head and dizzy. Then, as we got closer to the top I started to get cold shivers. I knew what that meant and tried my best to ignore it. At the top I was excited to see my friend Adam cheering us on. I saw him again at the finish as well. It seemed many runners from the previous day's longer distances were there to cheer on runners for the Sunday distances.
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| A friend since Kindergarten! |
I was so happy to finally get to the top where the trails are at least flat...sort of. Having practiced these trails were beneficial to know an end was in sight. When we finally made it to the water station I was so excited, I half drank a cup and poured the other half on myself. Then we headed for the downhill section.
Downhill has always been my weakness. I don't trust my balance or leg strength to catch myself. Though I have improved in our short two weeks training! Heading down I had a hard time getting my head focused, I was still fighting the dizzy disorientation from the heat and was having a hard time watching my feet pick their next foot fall. It felt like I wasn't in my body anymore. I tried to explain this to Heather so she wouldn't be disappointed in my performance and letting her down.
Finally the finish was in sight, we grabbed hands and made our way across the finish. I instantly got myself a water bottle and downed it. Post-race we got our swag and though the food table included skittles and m&ms I passed them up thinking that 5km wasn't worthy of those kinds of treats. I got myself a kicking horse coffee which weirdly enough on a hot day was really nice post-race.
My watch said our race was actually 6km long. It also told me Heather and I had hit our fastest overall average yet (it certainly didn't feel that way) Our average pacing according to my watch was about 8:36min/km. This is crazy to me that that was our best and exciting for us considering I'd normally run about 5:00-5:30min/km on any given training run.
The photographers were fun on the course- it was nice that they interacted with us and seemed to enjoy doing their job. There was one that made his presence known to us as we approached so we could prepare a smile to cover the pain and feeling of death.
The course was well marked with flags matching with bib colours. The finishers medals all had the same medal and different ribbons matching the colour of the distance.
After the race I was still able to make it to church to hear part of the message (yes, in my running clothes!) and then to Wendy's (a post-church Sunday tradition).
Overall I really enjoyed this race and intend to do it again next year. Whenever I can run local I will and do. I haven't decided if I'd like to run the 5km again and properly train and dominate (prove something to myself....maybe set a goal of a 1st place age category finish (this year I was 3rd in my age category)) or push myself distance wise and go for the 10km. I have a year to decide.
I am so glad I got to chance to meet a distant relative of a sport I love so much. It has grown my love of running in ways I didn't know it could grow. I am definitely looking forward to integrating more trail running and trail races into my running future.
