Report. Once again the weather gods were watching out for us, I had woken up more than a few times during the night to pelting down rain but by the time 10:00 am rolled around it had stopped, and other than a short sprinkle mid event, the fun stayed relatively dry. The course was by-in-large in great shape… a couple of mucky sections on the west side of Lesser Buntzen Lake loop and 4 or 5" of sloppy snow/muck on the upper part of the course for the keeners that did the full 25 km pull.
Unfortunately with the CFA website down the attendance was a little smaller than usual, but that just meant more tasty snacks at the aid stations and finish line for the ones that did attend :) A selection of bagels, 3 types of chips, gummy worms, Red Bull, Gatorade, water, bananas, trail mix, nuts, bars, greeted the runners at the North Beach suspension bridge, where most runners passed twice on their figure 8. A few of the runners also took advantage of the hidden stash of liquid up at the courses high point -- nicely chilled after cooling in the snow overnight.
2012 event had 9 runners complete the full 25 kms distance on arguably a tough course with the big elevation gain and snow on the power line road up top. Congrats to all. Note: I think about 7 of the 9 are doing the Chuck-A-Nut 50 k run in 2 short weeks, so this was a perfect taper run for them.
Special props go out to Mark and Justin who ran the course and event for the first time, and still had enough left to turn it into a full sprint for the Gazebo finish. I'm going to call them tied for FIRST to keep the peace OK guys. They managed to stay ahead of the trailing runners despite stopping to consult the instruction sheet a few times, well done guys.
It was also great to see the "local contingent" of runners from the Weather Fukarewe Tribe out running as strong as ever -- way to go guys!
Welcome and congrats to Corinne and Keith running their first R2TC event, they had smiles on their faces every time we saw them -- even after running extra distance on the home leg (apparently when they hit the lake trails just a short hop from the finish line they turned the wrong way and didn't realize their mistake until they got to the South Lake bridge again -- the same one they had crossed first thing this morning. Opps… well, like Ean and Sibylle always say, there is no penalty for running extra mileage. Haha…
Oh and… welcome to the few runners from North Van… or lack of I should say ----- thus securing a beer (bet win) from Ean (CFA New Years Day run event host)… he had bet me he would bring more runners from the North Shore to my event than I did down to his… no way pal. Better luck next time :)
A big shout out to the runners that came out for a figure 8 of the 2 lakes or a single lap of the big lake. Always great to see you guys too. Remember, that's what is good about the CFA events. No one is holding a gun to your head to do the full distance. Glad you enjoyed the shorter mileage day. It was fun to see Newmann and Skeena (their 2 pups) out putting in the miles and getting some fresh air too.
Special thanks goes out to my wife Diane for manning the Gazebo between the Start and everyone's finish and getting some fantastic home made soup all heated up and ready to serve so that when runners rolled in they were created with something nice and warm. Thanks to Norco Bicycles for supplying the mugs that everyone had their soup in -- then were able to take home with them.
Pictures to follow as soon as I can get them downloaded off my camera and up onto my Flickr site.
Thanks to all the runners that "made the trek" out to come RUN TO THE CLOUDS today.
Cheers Pete SS, event host.
Photos will be posted on a slideshow posted here after the event. If you like to add yours please add them to your Flickr account, then to the Club Fat Ass Flickr group. Make sure you tag all photos of today with ClubFatAss RunToTheClouds2012 RunToTheClouds ClubFatAssEvents ClubFatAssEvents2012. If you are not interested in Flickr, please send your photos to Sibylle or Pete and we'll post them.
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