Sunday I raced the final event in the Coast Mountain Trail Series called Survival of the Fittest. I was hesitant to enter the 18km race starting and finishing at Quest Univ. in Squamish but decided to go for it. The race features a huge climb off the start with several big ones to follow. The climbs were matched only by the technical descents on trails normally left for the crazy downhill mountain bikers.
I started the race still feeling my sore achilles tendons from the previous few weeks training. This was definitely a factor on the big climbs. While typically I find the steeper sections ideal for me, I can just grind away, this race featured lots of runnable ascent sections on rolling terrain. Forced to run fast, I found myself struggling. I tried to keep up with eventual winner Kristopher Swanson and found myself redlining pretty quickly. Mike Murphy caught me soon after and though I tried to hang on, he ran ahead on a rolling section. By myself for the rest of the race, I found it hard to push on the descents and spent considerable time thinking about how much worse I will feel running these same trails during the Squamish 50k in August.
I finished in 3rd feeling pretty wiped. Kris and Mike are both exceptionally strong guys so I am not too worried. Hoping my running legs are feeling a bit stronger as the summer wears on and the training kicks in. It was a hard race! When the sun came out strong it was tough. I definitely will be using some sort of water carrier for the Squamish 50.
Thanks a lot to Gary for putting on a cool race and all the volunteers for helping out. Overall it is a very cool race venue, a beautiful start area at Quest, a good course and it was very well organized. Cool prizes too. Im definitely excited to do a few more of the Coast Mountain Trail Series events next year. Also thanks to Sarah for biking up to cheer me on into the finish.
Results are here.
A bunch of photos are posted up here and here.
Gear:
- Dynafit Feline Superlight Shoes, React Dry Shorts
- Patagonia Capilene 1 T-Shirt
- Suunto Ambit 2 HRM/GPS
My Dynafit Feline shoes are working awesome. I am looking forward to racing in the Ghost model as soon as my legs are feeling a little less sore. The Ambit 2 worked well for most of the race but seems to have give out at the bottom of the course and cut out the last 5 or 10 min. Movescount file here.
Stats:
- Time – 1:37:26.6
- Distance ~ 18km
- Ascent ~ 1050m