Having been born at Lions Gate Hospital and having lived on the North Shore for all of my life it could be easy to take this place for granted. But I don't. I often hear of people complaining about the rain, the cold, the expense etc. I guess complainers are just complainers and I grew up in a family where complaining is a no no. (Unless of course you are standing in a gondola line up on a certain north shore mountain). My only complaint about today is that it's ending.
This afternoon I decided to run the Skyline trail from the 2nd lookout on Cypress to the Baden Powell and then east on the BP to the Lynn Valley Suspension bridge. The "not wife" and kids dropped me off at the lookout parking lot at approx 3 pm and I got ready quickly. With the heat of the sun on my back I looked at the trail under the powerlines and said snow. Lots of snow. I decided to get going and expected this trip to take about 2 hours 45 minutes. Well the snow sure changed those plans. At the start of the trail I'm still in about a half metre of snow and managed to tip toe like a running back dancing down the sidelines. That technique worked the best and lasted until the hikers tracks that I was stepping in went right while I wanted to follow the TCT trail. Now I was on my own to look out for trail markers as there is still enough snow in the trees to loose my way. Crossing the bridges was extremely challenging and dangerous because of the snow except for Brothers Creek which was more like Brothers raging river. I stopped to take in the amazing view and the sound of the rushing current.
Unfortunately the battery power went out on my Garmin GPS watch and I forgot that my cell has the time so I basically said to myself I guess I'm not watching the time and my heartrate so I'll just go on feel. I've been working on implementing my chi kung training into my running so I decided to focus on my energy centre and run at whatever pace the earth and universe decided for me. The good news is that the snow was almost gone at the Brevis trail and was over by the time I hit the BP. What a run I was having - totally immersed in the moment, in the trail, in my chi kung breathing. I made it to Cleveland dam and asked someone what time it was. 4:30 PM. What? That's about 35 minutes slower than usual.
I ran for a minute and walked a minute to the Grouse Mtn parking lot and did the same interval for 15 minutes past the bottom of the Grouse Grind (should I put a trade mark symbol here?). Just before the decent to Mosquito Creek I ran into Richard Hazziza. We caught up on the last year in a 5 minute conversation and said I broke down and picked up a pair of G3 Rapid Transit skis a couple of months ago that he was recommending to me a couple of years ago.
I was enjoying this mostly downhill run and noticed that the quads were feeling a little tired when I reminded myself - no complaining - it's just the first 45 mintues of crossing that snow. At the St. Marys trail crossing I met a group of mountain bikers who where smoking BC finest and I thought to myself I'm on too much of a natural high to get baked. At the end of Varley Trail I heard my phone ring. Who is that? Either the "not wife" or my bro. I missed the call and noticed it was 6:23 PM. Holly cow I've been running for almost three and a half hours and my heart and soul wanted more but it was dinner time and I'm late.
That's OK because I had another experience of North Shore Bliss!
