Sunday, January 4, 2009

5 Peaks Whistler Enduro August 23, 2008

Apparently, the Cypress trail run was just a warm up.  The big mountain for running was about a month later:  Whistler.  Yes, there is an event that involves running up a part of the mountainside in Whistler, BC.  The one used for "world class" skiing.  Skiing DOWNhill that is.

Given the construction havoc on the Sea to Sky highway that leads from the Vancouver area to Whistler, participating in this trail race mandated, in my opinion anyway, a weekend stay in Whistler.  Clara and I booked for two nights stay right in the heart of Whistler village, just steps from the gondola that would take the racers up to the start line.  We arrived on Friday afternoon, checked in and then enjoyed a great meal at one of the Umberto restaurants located in town.  As usual, we had great Italian food and it gave me an excuse to have a large plate of pasta and dessert too (gotta load up for the event).  On Saturday morning I slipped out of our hotel room in full trail race gear and went to have breakfast with pace bunny and her beau.  That's right, I was going to do this race WITH pace bunny and I was very glad of the company and encouragement.
We finished breakfast and headed off for the gondola right up to the start line.  This would be my first trail race that would start "'at altitude" and just keep going up, so I was prepared to have a slow and steady run.  As we ascended in the gondola, we passed over a family of black bears having a poke about the bushes around one of the gondola towers.  It's kinda cool to ride over bears - certainly better than running into them on the trail - and seeing them made me think about how lucky we were to be able to participate in trail races like these.  Though I continue to do road running and races, there is something naturally visceral about hoofing up and down trails that urban running just doesn't provide.

We disembarked at the top and immediately felt the temperature difference as compared to the village.  Fortunately, I had my space age Sugoi windbreaker on, which does exactly what its name implies and weighs just about as much as a sample of, um, broken wind.  The three of us headed into the "chalet" and did last minute stretches and bio breaks before heading out.

Approaching the start line, the landscape looked very moon like, or at least like one of the thousand of quarry scenes shown on Doctor Who!  Despite it being August, there was still snow piles scattered about.  Oh boy, no tall trees and cool shaded valleys on this hoof.  The race started with pace bunny's beau heading out in the first wave and pace bunny and me at the start of the third wave.  Just to put us in a good mood, the race started on an incline and as the path flattened out we were treated to a nice icy micro glacier of icy snow.  The trail shoes shone on this bit and I was glad to have aggressive treads.  We then did some ups and downs before coming to the first real uphill slog.  Pace bunny and I were trading places leading one another at this point as most of the trail was single track.  Instead of tall trees or mossy slopes defining the trail, the single track was mostly defined by huge puddles, loose rocks of not small size and a few boulders.  I was noticing the thinner air so my breathing was a bit more laboured than normal.

After some time we came to our first alpine meadow.  This was a view that made it all worthwhile.  Due to the weather conditions throughout the summer, this was THE weekend when the alpine flowers were at their peak bloom, so we were treated to a beautiful carpet of yellow, purple and sage green.  If only I had the skill to hoof along these trails while safely carrying my camera and the ability to slow my heart rate down like a biathlete so that pictures wouldn't be a blurry mess -- there were some beautiful shots to be taken.  Instead, I enjoyed the scene briefly and continued with relentless focus on the trail ahead.  I did manage to twist my left ankle twice throughout the run, but thanks to the brace the effect was minimal.

I kept pace bunny amused throughout the run with my sporadic outbursts declaring my exhaustion and windedness, but she just laughed and kept going knowing that I was not in any danger of running out of steam.  After the ankle sprain at Golden Ears, though, I did notice that I was not nearly as adventurous with my footing as I have been in the past, so pace bunny got a bit ahead of me on the parts of the trail where we had to run over curling rocks sized, well rocks!

We chatted with a few folks along the way, but for the most part our conversations centred on the topic of "Why are we doing this?", a favourite topic for those who run at the back of the pack.

The race course ended on an uphill note.  Pace bunny leapt ahead of me to see if she could cross the finish line ahead of the women who was about 20 metres ahead, but she just fell short.  Pace bunny's beau was there at the finish to cheer us on to a strong finish.  I can respectfully say I was not last and that despite the oxygen deprivation that it was a great course and would be happy to do it again next year.

I do feel sorry for the tourists from Alberta who travelled in the gondola with the three of us back to the village.  We must not have smelled that great after hoofing up and down the mountainside for the best part of 2 hours (well some of us anyway).

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