Today I ran the Hypothermic half marathon in Moncton, NB. I had been planning on attending this race since about December (without really committing to a training plan.. stupidly).

Lesson one: if you decide to run anything more than 5k without training for it.. it will more than likely end horribly.  (Just for some foreshadowing).

This has been a goal race for me since 2 years ago when I watched Kirk run it in Halifax on the Chain of Lakes Trail. Last year I completely trained for it, only to end up not running on the official day (myself and Kirk ran it for fun the weekend before anyways.. and you can read why in my recap here). Anyways, long story short, I saw his beautiful medal and decided on a new goal.. to earn a medal that represents each season. I already have a fall medal from the Valley Harvest half, so the next was a winter themed one, and this snowflake/abominable snowman medal was perfect.

Kirk and I left for the 3.5-4 hour drive to Moncton, hoping to make the kit pickup at the runners room. Luckily we got there before it closed and we're able to get the race kit? Which consisted of our bibs, a magazine, some snacks, an awesome runners room backpack (that I'm totally using as a day pack in Ecuador in 2 weeks!!) And a running toque. While at the store I bought a fleece buff for the race (since there was a 25% discount, and it's MUCH colder in Moncton than it was in NS.
After we picked up our race kit, we headed straight to the hotel to unpack our things. We stayed at the Fairfield Marriott which happened to be only about 6 minutes from the race venue.
Shortly after, we found an amazing vegetarian restaurant called Calactus and ate our faces off. The Supreme nachos were delicious and then I had a black bean burrito. I would have taken a picture, but we were so hungry after a long day of driving that we ate too fast to get our cameras out! Also as per tradition, we each had a pre-race day beer.
The next day we got up early, ate some oatmeal at the hotel breakfast then headed to the race. Turns out the race is in an industrial park.. which we hadn't realized.

Lesson two: pay attention to the race route and plan accordingly.

For some dumb reason I was thinking that the route would be similar to the Halifax hypothermic half.. with it being in a trail. Boy was I wrong! Neither of us brought road shoes and we seriously suffered.

Lesson three: trail shoes DO NOT work well for road races.

The race started at 9am sharp, with the Runners room maintaining prefer timing, as usual. They're so organized and it makes race day go SO much smoother.
Anyways, we started out with a great group of people following the 2:15 pace bunny. It's a jump, considering I hardly trained for this, and my fastest half is currently 2:20. The first 8km were going very well. I felt amazing and full of energy, was keeping up no problem with the pace bunny.. on perfect pace for a new half PR!
Somewhere around 8-9km in, I started to feel a familiar pain. The dreaded awful hip pain I know too well. I have been healing a stress fracture for over a year now and in my long runs sometimes the pain comes back to torture me. I think it was a combination of not being used to the repetitive pounding on the pavement, not wearing the proper shoes and the cold weather. It was minus 20°c and that made the joints super stiff. Safe to say, my knees and hips were hurting.
At work when someone is in pain, we have them use a pain scale. 0/10 being no pain, 10/10 being the worst pain you ever felt. By the time we reached around 17km I was at an 8/10 on the pain scale. At this point 2:15 was way out of reach, and I just wanted to finish the race without an injury.
Luckily Kirk was there to distract me with conversations about timbits and summer to do lists, because I couldn't have finished strong without him.

Lesson four: when the going gets tough, the tough rely on their running buddy. What you didn't know that's how the saying goes??

Overall we weren't last, and we certainly weren't in the top half, but I worked my butt off to finish. These hard races.. where we struggle to get through, to break through our walls and ignore the pain, these are the runs that cause us to grow and become stronger.

Lesson five: earned, not given.

I come out of this race, not with a new PR, or even a great story about achievement, but rather with a shiny new medal and knowing that I fought for every step to earn it.

Keep pushing for those goals friends,
The Rural Runner

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The end of June I travelled to Toronto for the first time. Kirk and I arrived at the airport on the 30th and got picked up by his sister at the airport. We would be staying at her house for the week (thankfully, because there was no way we could afford a hotel). Once we settled in, we went for a beautiful run down on The Beaches - a great little shakeout run before race weekend.

That evening we had dinner at their house and had a couple beers before going off to bed. Travelling is exhausting!

The next morning we began our day bright and early and did all the typical tourist stuff..
Hockey hall of fame

Ripley's aquarium (my absolute favourite part of the entire trip),

and finally the CN tower.. standing on the glass freaked me out!

We had lunch at a delicious vegan restaurant called Fresh. It was YUMMY! and a great pre-race meal. We both got vegan tacos!

 Then we made a pit stop for some DELISH ice cream from Sweet Jesus.

That night, we went back to the beaches to celebrate Canada day and see the fireworks, however after walking over 21 km that day, and knowing that we had to get up early and race the next day, we decided to head back and go to bed.

Saturday morning we woke early to get ready for the race. Taped my knee with rock tape, eat a huge bowl of oatmeal, and got picked up by our HEXT teammates Fm and Jen.

The drive to Brimacomb ski was just over and hour. Before we knew it we were there, and I was pleasantly surprised at how small the ski hill was. I knew they would kill us during the race with down/up hill runs, but atleast it didn't seem too steep.

Once we were all checked in for the race everyone went to warm up and mentally prepare. Today was the sprint, so we were expecting only 6-8 km of hills, obstacles and mud. The elite heat started at 8am, with males and females leaving together. The course started directly straight up a hill. I was already gassed at 3/4 up, I completely underestimate the hills and overestimate my running ability. After walking to the top we reached our first obstacle, the 6 foot wall. I slowed to catch my breath, hesitated a bit (being a shortie, walls are a struggle for me), took a running leap, and climbed over on the first try. Surprisingly managed well. Right after that was more walls (over, under and through). Straight back down the hill after this, to the hercules hoist (I love Canada's herc hoist cause it's only a propane tank), followed directly by the 20ft rope climb. Which is brilliant and cruel.
I've somehow never failed the rope climb, partially because I'm too stubborn to stop, and partially because it's so high I'm terrified to drop. This one was a slow struggle for me, but I made my way to the top and rang that damn bell. Slowly slid down to the bottom, trying not to get rope burn, and began another ascent. At the top of the hill, there was a long row of monkey bars. The line up was long, I made it halfway and dropped off.. To my disappointment, successfully sending myself to the burpee zone, for the first of what would be MANY Burpees that day.
5 or so minutes later, I've finished my 30 Burpees and am back running. The next obstacle was the slack line. I was already pretty tired from my monkey bar Burpees from before, and approached this one way too fast, falling off at the board part, not even making the slack line. 30 more Burpees.
Back down the hill, where the 8 ish foot wall was waiting halfway. I've been known to struggle at this because it's so tall, however, after thinking about it before the race and coming up with a new strategy/technique, I aced it no problem and continued on my way. Reached the bottom of the hill and you guessed it, we went right straight back up.

At the top was the parallel bars. They zig zag up and down, and have a wonderful sprinkler pointed directly at them so that it's extra slippery and hard. 30 Burpees again. These ones were a struggle. And it felt like I was the only one there doing Burpees. At this point, I knew I wasn't doing well after so many Burpees and so much walking, so I decided to just have fun with it and not stress myself out over placement or time.

More ups and downs, sandbag carry,

Followed directly by jerry can carry, more running, most of it at this point was a blur.. More running through the woods (which is always fun!), lots of mud, spear throw (some how have managed to never miss this obstacle.. I credit my skills to Kirks teaching technique), barbed wire crawl,

then my arch nemesis.. The platinum rig.

The platinum rig destroys my confidence every time. I struggle hard with the rig. I've never once made it across. I like to blame it on my super short arm span and not being able to reach the rings. Of course.. 30 Burpees at this one too. I don't even want to talk about how many Burpees I had to do that day.. It was sad. Borderline pitiful.

Regardless, I climbed the rope mountain type obstacle (A-frame?), and finished strong at the fire jump, where a medal, water and shirt were waiting for me.

I finished 38th which I wasn't super pleased with, but can't complain, it wasn't my best race.

The good news is, I got to spend the day with a bunch of amazing friends/teammates!

After the race, we went to the Toronto zoo with my teammates, which was an absolute blast!

By the time we got back, we were exhausted. We made supper, chilled out a bit, and went to bed early, as we would be repeating the same thing the next day.

Day 2, Sunday, was the super 12+km with the same obstacles as the day before, plus a few extra carries (tire, a pipe filled with water, ammo cans, and a tire drag.. My grip strength was wrote off), and a sternum checker (basically a board laying horizontally that's as tall as I am and you have to climb over. Then the other obstacles from the other day, more carries and more running.

I'm very proud to report that I completed the monkey bars for the first time in my life (yay!), completed the parallel bars that I had failed on the day before, AND did the slack line successfully! That felt great and I was completely burpee free up until the stupid rig. Yup, Burpees. Oh well, if 30 Burpees was all I had to do the entire race, I was happy!
 Day 2 was definitely more muddy than the day before!

Lastly the fire jump, and Kirk was waiting for me at the finish with my medal! I love it when he does that, because he's always the first person I want to see. I finished strong with 36th.. Not much higher placement, but there was a lot of good racers that day. I'm pleased with that for my first super distance Spartan.

After the race we got a drive back with one of our racing friends and had lunch with him. We had a chill evening that day as well, all the excitement and racing had made us pretty tired.

Monday came, and we decided a shake out run was necessary! We returned to the beaches for a nice run along the board walk.

Later on in the day, we decided to visit Casa Loma, a gorgeous castle from the 1800s in the northern part of Toronto.

We did a lot of walking around that day too, and ended our journey at Kirks brothers house. I had never met his brother Garett before, or his wife and kids, so I was very excited to be able to have dinner with them. It was the perfect end to our last day in Toronto.

The next morning, we grabbed an uber (our first one ever!) and got to the airport. It was Kirks birthday, so I upgraded us to first class, and for the first time ever, Kirks legs were crammed against the persons seat in front of him! Tall person probs.

Overall, I had an amazing trip to Toronto, it was very busy and jam packed with activities, but we had a blast and enjoyed our vacation. The weather was perfect the entire week so we couldn't have gotten any luckier!

Next up for races is Montreal, super and beast/ultra beast weekend.

I had been planning for the ultra beast, however after a lot of consideration, and the fact that I've never actually ran a beast before, I've decided to do the beast in the open heat with a few Nova Scotian friends. This gives my the opportunity to support and cheer on my boyfriend and teammates while they attempt the ultra beast, There will always be another ultra, and I think the smartest thing to do is a shorter race first to see how I handle 30+ km first, before jumping into the 50 k one. Especially since my furthest run so far is only 30k.

That's all for now!

Happy trails friends,

The Rural Runner

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We set out on Thursday, June 23 in the morning after my night shift, to drive the 4 hours to Cape Breton. We already had to head up this weekend so Kirk could write his electrical redseal exam anyways, so last minute I decided to join my friends Hannah and Lee to run the tri the same weekend.

We relaxed for a bit on Thursday once we finally arrived and had dinner/stayed with his parents that night. Friday, Kirk did some last minute reviewing for his exam the next morning, and I was able to convince him to go for a quick 6km run along the water. It really helped to blow off some steam before he would have to write the next day.

"Dudeeee lets just run"

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Definitely the best buns in town!

Obstacle training on the rocks.

The next day was Kirks exam in Sydney, so we drove an hour to his sisters place so we could be closer in the morning (as it was an hour and a half from there, as opposed to 2.5 from his parents). We planned on camping Saturday night, so before we left we packed all our camping gear/my bike/our clothes/all my tri stuff.. Aka the car was PACKED!

Kirk had 4 hours to write his exam, so while he wrote, I went exploring! I came across a nice place to run in Sydney called the Open Hearth Park. It was a gorgeous gravel/hard packed trail close to the waterfront with multiple body weight exercises along to way (which I thought was super cool, and a great way to encourage physical activity within the community). My main goal of running this trail was hoping it looped around and connected to the big fiddle.

Entryway photo shoot

Run Forrest!

Finally found the fiddle! By the time I returned to the car, I had run around 8km and felt great. Kirk would soon be finishing his exam, so I headed back to the college to pick him up. After that, we headed to an amazing restaurant on the water together some well earned lunch. The restaurant was called Flavor and it was honestly the most amazing meal I've ever had. I ordered the 3 soup/salad combo and got to pick between a large selection, choosing the squash curry soup, black bean and mango salad and the spinach, dried apricot and almond salad. The spinach one was my favorite.. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Easily the best salad I've ever eaten. Kirk had the peanut butter burger and side salad, which he also enjoyed. And we both had a beer, of course!

Delish!

After that, we headed to Ingonish (about 2 hours away). I picked up my race kit at the Keltic lodge (gorgeous hotel, like a castle and with panoramic views) and then we headed to our campsite at Ingonish beach. We love camping and it was super convenient as our campsite was only about 500m through a trail in the woods to get to the start line.

Carb loading on s'mores the night before haha.

Chillin by the campfire.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to prepare for the race. I ate my oatmeal and banana, drank some water, put on my gorgeous new team HEXT triathlon top and began to bike through the woods to the start. Yes I biked through the woods.. Because unlike everyone else racing, I had a mountain bike haha. Upon arrival, I checked in, grabbed my timing bracelet, and set up my station in the transition space. Before I knew it, the race was starting and I was heading off into my swim!

Now, I haven't swam in years, plus didn't have a wetsuit like everyone else, so this was a little concerning. The swim was 750m long in a fresh water lake (I was doing the sprint so it is 750m swim, 23km bike ride and 5k run). I'm a decent swimming, however compared the the rest of the athletes racing, I was pretty slow. Finishing ahead of only about 10 people. Plus I think I drank half the lake haha. Swimming is hard when your adrenaline is pumping! 

Next up was the bike ride. I'm a good biker, as I have strong legs for it. Again however, I was no match for the other athletes with their fancy tri and street bikes. I got passed quite a bit on the up hills by bikers who made it look effortless. The uphills were brutal and I was pushing it hard in the lowest possible gear and still getting nowhere. However, the route was absolutely breathtaking and I smiled my face off the entire time, while admiring the views.

After I finally returned after a struggle of a bike ride, it was time for the run.

Here's me laughing at how weird it feels to run after biking that far..

The run went decently, although there wasn't much of a way that I could gain placement, so I ran the best race I could, finished strong and stayed in second last.

As much as I was mildly disappointed in my placement, I also realized that I wasn't intentionally racing to win at all, I had simply registered last minute for something fun to do, to test my limits and complete something that's been a long time goal on my bucket list. The thing about racing is, not always are we going to have our best race ever, not always are we going to place in the top few people, and not always will we be 100% happy with how we did. For me, the most important aspect is never quitting, giving it my all, and having a fun time. I almost always enjoy myself during races, meet new people and improve myself in some way.

All smiles crossing the finish!

Kirk was waiting for me with my medal!

Some scenic after shots.

We finished off our awesome time in Cape Breton with a drive around the Cabot trail, stopping at the look offs along the way! It's completely different driving the trail during the day than it was running it at all hours of the night in the Cabot Trail Relay!

Beautiful sights!

Was perfect weather for a race, my favourite place in Cape Breton.

My legs were sore so thank god for Kirk driving!

Monday we drove home. We took a pit stop off the highway to Eastern shore, so we could do a quick shakeout run along the Salt Marsh Trail. Let's felt surprisingly good running after the race!

Plus we took some crazy pictures.

Overall it was a great weekend, and I'm glad I decided to register last minute! I'll probably be back next year to try to improve upon my time. If that's going to happen, I will have to practice swimming, and rent a tri bike!

For now, training continues for the Spartan sprint/super next weekend in Toronto!

Happy trails friends,

The Rural Runner

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Where to begin?!
Brace yourselves for a lengthy post, a 24 hours race means a long recap. But before I can begin talking about my experience, I will provide an explanation of how the race works as best as I can.

The Cabot Trail Relay.

A 276km, 24 hour, 17 leg relay through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia.

(Note yellow highlighted road on the map below!)

The relay begins at the Gaelic College in St. Ann's (near Baddeck). Each runner (from a team of 17 members) runs one leg of the relay. We had 2 support vehicles to assist in driving runners to and from legs as well as providing water/food/encouragement along the way for each leg. The legs varied from about 13 to 20 km each, all on a variety of different elevations, according to their location along the Cabot Trail (See below). Each leg connected together completes an entire lap of the 276km Cabot Trail. The start of one leg would also be the finish line for the previous leg. When you start your leg, you have a certain amount of time to reach the start for the next leg.

For example, leg 1 started at 0700 in the morning. Kirk ran this one, and he had until 0840 to reach the start line for leg 2 (which is also the finish for leg 1). Because they have to continue to move the finish lines along with each leg, if you don't make it to the finish line/start of the next leg, you will miss the mat and the chip cannot be tracked, so you get the same time as the last tracked runner that made the finish +5 minutes as your final time). At the end, the times from each of the 17 legs is added up, and the team with the fastest overall time wins (this year 1st place actually took only 16 hours to run ALL 17 legs.. thats crazy!). Our team only had 9 people, as opposed to the normal 17, which meant the majority of us would be running 2 legs (or more).

Our team name was Running Dirty as we are all primarily OCR and trail runners!

We all met bright and early Saturday morning in Baddeck for a quick breakfast of egg and avocado sandwiches, then drove to the official start line of the race at the Gaelic College. Kirk was our first runner and we cheered him on as he left. We then waited our required 25 minute period before leaving (each support vehicle had a different time, to prevent car congestion). Driving along the first leg of the relay was a great indication of how the race would go. Support vehicles were cheering out the windows of the cars, everyone was having a blast, and the route was absolutely gorgeous. Anytime I get to be near/run by water, I'm a happy clam :D

Kirk made it to the finish of his leg with a time of 1 hour 19 minutes.

Kirk and I after leg 1!

Martin was up next, and his leg started within 20 minutes of Kirk arriving. After we picked up Kirk/dropped Martin off and cheered him on as he began his leg, we started to drive toward the beginning of leg 3.

I was running leg 3 and my excitement/nervousness was growing. Doing the calculations, I knew I would be cutting it close to the cut off time. I had to maintain a pace of 5:58 to reach the finish line at leg 4 before it would be closed. This was stressful because not only is my average pace during EVERY training run EVER only 6:30-7:00 a kilometre, but I would still have another leg to run after this one. Regardless, I braced myself and got my kit ready to go.

Rock tape saved my life.

Starting out, I tried to maintain an even pace at anywhere below 6 minute/km. Running an entire minute per kilometre faster than I've ever ran was hard, but physically I felt great. I maintained this pace for the first 5k, thinking maybe I just might be able to make the cut off time. Somewhere along the way, whether it was a hill, or just that pushing that hard was getting the best of me, I ended up with a couple kilometres being a 6:30 pace. I came into the finish line a mere 2 minutes after they closed it, missing the cut off time. After spending the entire week before this race panicking and stressed out about how I knew I wouldn't make the cut off times, this was very disappointing. I basically collapsed into Kirk's arms sobbing, feeling like a failure and very embarrassed about being such a slow runner. I know I'm still a newbie at this and I can't expect to get fast right away, however I felt like I was letting my team down.

Luckily, team Running Dirty was there for the fun times, and not for placement. Everyone was really just excited about me finishing strong, as opposed to caring at all that I didn't make the mat.

After some talking to Kirk, he convinced me to be proud of the fact that I had just ran almost 16km in an hour and 22 minutes (this is a good 20 minutes faster than an average run for me) and I've realized how much more I am actually capable of when I push myself.

Next up was leg 4, which was up Cape Smokey and run by Mike. He started a few minutes late and still finished 13th out of about 70 people!

Leg 5 was run by Tara, the other female on the team, who is super fast and can easily keep up/pass all the guys!

After Tara was done, it was past lunch and we were all starving so we stopped at a grocery store for some hummus and carrots, apples, orange juice, crackers and chocolate. Not a real lunch by any means but it really hit the spot.

Carrying on, leg 6 was run by Justin, leg 7 was run by Mark and leg 8 was run by Lloyd. I'm going to be honest, most of the day after I ran was a complete blur. Between eating, trying to get some rest (I was still recovering from working a night shift the day before) and checking into our airBnB Tara got in Pleasant Bay, I wasn't really sure where the time went.

Our rental had a short path to a look off! Selfies in-between napping haha.

Before we knew it, it was 8 pm and time for Kirk to begin his second leg, #9. This leg had the most elevation change (gain and loss), was the first night leg, and it was raining. At the top, ironically, the team doing the water station was dressed as devils with signs reading "Welcome to Hell".

Wet and cold. Bad combination.

Looking happy, but inside probably dying.

When Kirk finally reached the end of his leg, we could all tell he was exhausted. We fed him a club sandwich and he got into the shower at our rental to warm up.

Our team was also in charge of a water station, except ours was for 1230 at night. I slept through it in the support van so I can't really talk about how that went, opps! Had to sleep a bit before my next leg at 5 am.

Throughout the night, Martin ran his second leg (10) - the hardest leg, straight up with a lot of turns and no downhill, Tara ran her second (#11), Adam ran his first (#12), Mike his second leg (#13) and Lloyd his second (leg 14).

Before I knew it, my team was waking me up in the back of the van and saying I had less than an hour until I ran again (leg 15). I can confirm one thing.. you don't get a great sleep in the back of a car thats driving up mountains haha. Another thing.. running was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment. Freezing cold, exhausted from barely any sleep, sore/stiff from running and then sitting in a car for hours... I was miserable and really dreading my run. This leg was just under 16km of rolling hills and I knew the cut off time would be tight. There came the anxiety again.

Once I started going however, I was surprised how well my body managed to run while sore/tired/etc. I was maintaining just around the pace I needed. Around 9km in though, I could really feel the effects of the past day and knew I was beginning to be dehydrated. Luckily my team was there to support me and give me water. I carried on, spending some time running with/behind my old friend from high school, Jessica. Having my team cheering me on, and Jessica there was just the push I needed to carry on and finish the leg strong.

I came up short again, by barely a minute, as I saw the next leg leaving as I was rounding the final corner (which meant they had closed the finish). However, instead of feeling disappointed this time, I felt proud that I had maintained a long run at a much faster pace than I had ever been used to before. The crowd was still at the finish since leg 16 had only JUST left (Kirks 3rd leg) which was great because the cheers while finishing the leg was amazing.

Once I arrived, we drove to the finish of Kirks leg, at the start of leg 17 - Martins 3rd, and the last leg.

They had a pancake breakfast set up at the end of leg 16 and it was just what we all needed to refuel!

Is it sad I have to stand on a tree stump to be the same height?

Finally, after over 24 hours the race was winding down. We met our entire team at the finish line in Baddeck and waited for Martin. The crowd was unreal and there were a thousand people there cheering everyone on!

Quite a tall team! Minus the 2 shorties in front ;)

After the race was over, all 1300 of us racers/support crew headed to the arena for a post race meal.

The Lion Club had worked so hard to prepare steak, lobster and vegetarian trays. I had the vegetarian, which had pizza, quinoa/grain mixture and a pasta salad. Everything was delicious, especially the carrot cake for desert! I was so hungry and excited I completely forgot to take pictures of the actual food!

Food, new friends and good conversations

After the lunch, we took some more pictures and said our final goodbyes before everyone left for a long drive/flight home.

Yay team Running Dirty!

Also in the picture are our lovely support crew/driver ladies! I cannot thank everyone enough for such an amazing weekend. Our captains Tara and Mike, for putting so much effort and time into planning everything, and for allowing a slow poke such as myself the opportunity to join such an amazing group of runners for the weekend. I feel blessed for being able to run one of my bucket list races so early in my running journey and cannot wait to run this next year (faster and more improved, of course!!).

Not only did I prove to myself that I can run 30km on little to no sleep, that I can push myself to go faster, but also that I can maintain a 6 minute pace for that a longer distance.

Once my legs recover, I cannot wait to get back out and continue training to see how much I can improve from here. My goal for next years relay (hopefully we can all return!) is to maintain a pace of 5 minutes/km. Tons of time to train.

For now, I continue training for the Ultra Beast in the end of July! A couple months of solid training left to go! I'll be ready in no time.

Happy Trails,

The Rural Runner

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