Posted by: Karen | November 4, 2016

So Long to a Streak

Remember the number 114, my friends, because that is how long my latest Calgary Roadrunners XC Grand Prix race streak has been. For over 11 years I have not missed a single race in the series! For all of those years I was fortunate enough to have Saturdays off, but tomorrow I will miss the Okotoks race.

Tomorrow a new era begins with my shiny new two-week-old job, which involves shift work Saturday mornings at the airport for a while. The new job is cool so far, and it’s time to say farewell to this race streak.

I will still hold the record for the youngest “100” streak holder until a couple of young upstarts catch up next spring, and I’ll always be the first woman to achieve 100 in a row. I hope I can make it to my running buddy Ken’s 100th at Silver Springs next month. We’ll see how that goes.

For those racing tomorrow, give a big woohoo! on the descents for me. It’s all downhill from here 😉

kc-okotoks-2015

Taken at Okotoks XC race, November 2015

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Posted by: Karen | July 5, 2016

Fun Team Mountain Relay Race

In June this year our club’s relay team enjoyed the Kananaskis 100, a 100 mile relay race between Longview, Alberta and Nakiska ski resort.  I was to run leg 2 and then help with course support, but I sprained my ankle recently, so Gillian filled in as my stunt double. I drove the support van and took pictures instead.

Check out our race report here: CRR K100 2016

My full size photos are posted here: K-100 CRR 2016 Flickr Album

Correction: I refer to some scraggly mountain goats in the report, but I’ve been informed those are big horned sheep.

To our knowledge, no bears, goats, sheep, park wardens, support crew, volunteers, or runners were harmed in the making of this report.

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Posted in Canadian Content, K-100, Mountains, Road Races, Running, Running Friends | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Karen | April 5, 2016

XC Series Wrap Up

Ah, April; otherwise known as the month many Calgary Roadrunners go into cross-country running series withdrawal. No more snowy, icy, treks out into the frozen parks with the comforting knowledge that multi-layered volunteers will tell us where to go and pick up the marker flags after we’ve gone past. No more homemade soups and potluck dessert tables as we thaw together in community halls after conquering the hills and weather. We’ll have to run with other groups until the series starts back up again in the fall.

In March we wrapped up the season with the annual awards banquet. The banquet is potluck, and the food is always awesome. I brought a representation of spring-y runners on a muddy background, done up with decorated sugar cookies on marbled cheesecake brownies.

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25863699751_d835bf2324_nAt the awards banquet there are different kinds of awards. The Ironperson award goes to anyone who runs all 10 races in the season. I like it a lot because I don’t have to be fast to earn one25658081120_910097fc9a_n.

This year I also placed in my age group, yay! This is an award I usually don’t win, so I’m tickled pink to win third in my category.

In 16 years of running, I have now placed in this series three times. It’s a great way to say farewell to this age group. Next year I’ll be moving up to another one.

I won a bowl for Ironperson and a mug for third place. Our awards are hand painted by our racers and volunteers, and fired at a local ceramic shop. Our painters are very talented!

As icing on the cake, I also won the coolest draw prize at the banquet; a gift card to my favourite running stuff store, Gord’s. Thanks Gord!

I’m already looking forward to next season.

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Posted by: Karen | February 21, 2016

Weaselhead CRR XC Race

It was very icy! It took some courage to trust the spikes on my feet, and then I loved digging into the descents. Sarah and Nikky kept me motivated on the first loop.

KC Weaselhead 2016_Karen_Nikky_and_Sarah

This was my 111th consecutive race in this series. Even though I finished nearly last in the “ultra 8k” distance (Strava decided it was 9k), I was still third in my age group.

Finish lines are a wonderful, happy place!

kc weaselhead 2016 finish

Photos courtesy of the Calgary Roadrunners awesome photographers.

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Posted by: Karen | February 12, 2016

Winter Bike To Work Day 2016

I received a nice foggy facial on my bike commute this morning. For the record, today is bike commute number 8 this year (click on the pic to see my Strava log).

Almost there

Almost there

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Posted in Bike, Calgary, Commuting, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: Karen | February 7, 2016

Weaselhead Wonderland

Our next Calgary Roadrunners XC Grand Prix series race is on the Jack Rabbit trail leading to the Weaselhead flats. It’s one of my favourite race courses, as I love lots of big trees.

Running the Jack Rabbit trail always makes me feel like Alice in Wonderland following a crazy rabbit underground.

2014-07-06-0078

Even on a sunny day it’s shady in the woods, and there are some delightfully dramatic descents on the rolling path heading west. When I enter the woods with a bunch of other runners in a race, there is a sense of urgency, like a white rabbit pressed for time. Sometimes at the far end of the 8k course I get turned around in a dreamland, and if it weren’t for signs and course marshals I’d surely wander off course.

The final couple of kilometers coming out of the trail always seem to take longer than I think they should. The roller coaster feel of the hills heading out hide the fact that the course has been descending. On the way back to the finish, like in Alice in Wonderland, I feel like I’ve eaten something that’s made me smaller and the hills seem bigger. Towards the very end of the course, we duck under low branches that make me feel I’ve grown too big for the trail.

I haven’t encountered any tea parties, mad hatters, murderous queens or flamingo/hedgehog croquet on that trail yet, but they would be very fitting! Maybe I should bring tea cookies to the post-race potluck dessert table.

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Posted in Calgary, Running, XC Races

Posted by: Karen | February 7, 2016

Lean Into It

At the Nose Hill CRR XC Race yesterday, the thermometer said “warm”, but the very strong wind at the start line insisted that I wear one more shirt than I’d brought. I borrowed one from my running buddy and was glad I did. This race is held on a big prairie plateau which soars high above Calgary. It’s scenic, but not sheltered from the weather.

We were warned the course was very icy, and it was. I was very glad for my Kahtoolas. The wind was bad enough; if I had fallen on the ice I might have been blown off the plateau! In the first loop I chatted and sometimes walked with some buddies running the 4k route. It was hard to catch our breath with the challenge of bumpy, hard terrain plus the wind.

I was mostly on my own for the second loop, and after the climb back up to the plateau, I gritted my teeth and ran the rest of it. By that time I had caught my “second wind” (pun intended), and was not interested in prolonging my time out in the gale. A fun part of the course wound down through a little copse of trees, and my spikes dug well into the hard packed path.

The best part was the very long descent to the finish, totally worth the two blustery loops up top.

KC Nose Hill CRR XC 2016 Finish

This photo is courtesy of the Calgary Roadrunners awesome phojographers. Check out more in their galleries on the club website.

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Posted by: Karen | January 24, 2016

Scroll to the Bottom

One very nice thing about being a slow poke at our club races is that it’s easy to find my name in the results later. Racers are listed in order of placement with the fastest at the top. I just scroll to the bottom to find my official time and placement.

There are folks who get disappointed in themselves for coming in last in a race, but hey, yesterday I came in top 10 in my age group, and top 100 in the whole race (8/8 and 80/80). It’s all perspective, eh? Yesterday, at the 12 Mile Coulee ravine, I enjoyed the race course for the longest of everyone in the 8k.

The CRR XC trail race series has some very scenic courses, and yesterday’s was one of my favourites. Often this time of year, the coulee gives us crusty, uneven footing on the ridge, and nasty hard, ice-filled single track trails in the creek bottom. Yesterday we enjoyed much nicer hard-packed paths throughout the course with only one wide frozen creek crossing. The creek crossing was manned by our delightful David-the-wee-Scot, which had me looking forward to it on the second loop.

I dreaded the horribly steep climb at the end of both loops, but the second time I was cheered on by Justin B., who spurred me to pick up my pace to finish at 1:11.

It was nice to hug friends back at the hall and listen to the announcements while tucking into homemade soup and brownies.

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Posted by: Karen | January 22, 2016

Once a Week Winter Bike Commute

It’s really easy to drive my car to work now. With free parking and a no-hassle, 15 minute car commute against the busy traffic flow, I don’t feel as compelled to bike commute, especially on cold winter days and snowy streets. Sometimes it’s an stretch to remember that I want to ride my bike.

This January I set a goal, however, to bike commute a minimum of once per week, at least for the winter months. I hope this goal doesn’t mean I’ll have to ride in really really cold weather, but I’ll give it a shot if that’s all some of the weeks offer. There’s only 10 weeks left until April anyway – how many of them could have really cold weather all week, in Calgary, with our warming Chinook winds?

This goal has me checking the weekly forecast to pick the warmest, least-likely-to-have-accumulated-snow days to bike to work. I like it.

Pick the day each week.

Ride it.

Today marked three weeks of work and my third bike commute this year 🙂

AND I signed up for Winter Bike to Work Day (#WBTWD) on February 12. Since I’m not working downtown this winter, I might have to figure out some way to celebrate it at my own workplace. Maybe bring in treats?

Another goal this year is to track all of my bike commutes and some of my runs on Strava (see my side bar). I understand the City of Calgary transportation uses Strava data in planning bicycle-friendly infrastructure, so I’d really like them to see where I ride when they look at tweaking traffic patterns.

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Posted by: Karen | October 21, 2015

New Job, New Bike Commute

Here’s a first: This year I took the summer off from bike commuting. I was given half the summer off work due to downsizing, and at my new job I’ve been working at a location out of bike range due to office renovations.

This week I’m working back within bike range. The weather today was  incredibly gorgeous for late October. I rode my bike 8 kilometers to the new workplace for the first time, and I really enjoyed it.

The new route to the close-enough office involved some route finding and a trial run to make sure I’m okay with the traffic volume. I used an old stand-by site, gmap-pedometer to plan my way. On Thanksgiving Monday I rode one of the options to the office and back to try it out – it was very hilly. I went back to the online map and plotted a route with different hills. I drove parts of it, to understand how busy the traffic was and how many parked cars might make me slow down buses and car commuters.

Today’s route involved a climb at the start, but then it was mostly gentle descents on quiet side streets, and I didn’t get lost in the dark. It’s very dark at 7:30 am this time of year in Calgary. The commute home obviously involved climbing, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I did some exploring when I inadvertently turned off the planned route, but it didn’t add much elevation or distance. I’ll keep that way in mind as an alternate route.

For 2015, I believe this is bike commute #63. I won’t be doing this every workday to start (I’m a little out of shape), but I’m looking forward to seeing how many more I can accomplish by the end of the year. I don’t know how snow and ice will affect the route, but I’ll find out soon enough.

 

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