Fabulosi-T: Hittin the Trails with 5Peaks in Canmore

Last Saturday got up at 5 and headed out to Canmore with Sherrey B to hit the trails for the 5 Peaks series - out that the Canmore Nordic Centre!

Love this series. Hard as hell, rarely a PB, and best workout ever! Its a super well organized race, and I get up and go extra early to get my volunteer on. Which is also fun. I get out here and run for the fun and the amazing workout. And it feels great. It is SO SO SOOOO much harder than any road race. You cant get your footing, you never secure a constant pace or feel a consistent cadence. But you FEEL IT! I love how novice and pros are out there. There are two distances sport and enduro (this race was almost 5.5km and 11km). Normally I do the sport distance, but did the enduro for training and challenge! (And then had a 10km road race planned for next day to push myself to get ready for my first trail half in a couple weeks!!)

My one celeb sighting before the race was registering Chandra Crawford (2006 Olympic Gold medalist, winner of many world cup medals in Cross Country Skiing!) for her sport distance race! She heads up Fast and Female, a very cool organization (Go Check Them Out!)! As she is registering, her colleague introduces me...and tells Chandra about my recent race weekend out in Canmore! She got so excited when she heard about me running the mountain half mara and then followed with a 10km the next day, she asked if she could hug me! ME? But I just ran slow! She is cheering me on saying wasn't it so amazing to know you could? Didn't it jsut feel awesome to know what you can accomplish? It was pretty awesome to have someone like her (this woman has upteen medals...she's a inspiration to a lot of us Canadians) say that to me. I mean, i think I said something about me not being fast or anything...and she was no way! What an inspiration keep it up! And she is right! It is pretty cool to now be able to set a challenge like that for myself and have the endurance to complete it, both in pretty good times. I am going back for MORE next year. Three years ago I would never have dreamed of doing that! Her short pep talk made me feel great! Love her!!! Pity...no pics of that moment :-)

So...back to the race...off we go...climbing up out of the Nordic Centre and into the back country (after the bear and cougar sighting talk, of course).

I am in there...right under the start sign! Ha! Can you spot me??

I never take pics on a race route...but as this was my first trail race of the season, and I knew i was off my planned pace I decided to take a couple!

Yup...these are the easy spots...I took a few moments during the run to grab some shots of the route. Since someone I know asked...boy your times on those trail runs are sure slower than your road races...Thanks for POINTING that out. Maybe if you ran one 'mister go check my times and comment' you might get how hard a challenge they are...a LOT of hills. And not rolling hills. These are mountain trails, rocky, slippery, uneven. I LOVE IT!!!! Running trails has helped me lose a lot of weight, given me strength, mental and physical agility. And I have made me some 5Peaks friends too!

The halfway viewpoint...stellar...had to snap a pic!

I finished the race (just shy of 11km I think, though my GPS was a bit off) check my time and was right around 87 mins. Not bad for hella hillworkout! And, I got a third place medal for Athena category. Athena? That would be the over 165 pound category for women. I am more motivated to get out there and run harder. Can't wait for the next race. I coulda/shoulda been faster...my hills endurance just wasn't quite there. But it is getting there!