Mutha's Nature Trail Run - 2009

20 September 2009 - 5 Starters, 5 Finishers + the Red Bull gals

Report: It was a beautiful day for a run this morning but with a small turnout on an action packed weekend.  We changed the date from last year to avoid a contact with Gottfried's apparently totally stunning Frosty Mountain 50K.  Unfortunately it ended up being the day before, along with the Buntzen Lake 5 Peaks event.  Add the Grouse Grind Mountain Run and there were a small but enthusiastic group of runners.  Only Craig actually took up my advice to run this as a way to recover from Frosty, but apparently it actually worked quite well for him.  Seriously this is an easy course, but interesting for any level of runner with great views of the Indian Arm from 'the other side of the tracks'.

At the start line we had the Red Bull Girls show up, with some ice cold Red Bull and for a photo op.  They said they might actually join us for a run sometime and one took this picture while the other one joined us (far left).  Then they left and we started our run.  Ean and I pulled away pretty quickly chatting about possible ideas for future runs, including some of our more isolated local trails and an idea for a forage run where we run to collect food such as a sweet potato like vegetable called wapato that was a staple of the Coast Salish and many other native people, mushrooms ect... and cook it up after.

Reagan (on his first organised run ever) had run the course a few times preparing for the event and led Craig and Sibylle to a steady pace not far behind us.   Clear skies and a warm autumn morning greeted us as we entered the trail section of the Trans Canada Trail.  We passed many people out for walks with their dogs enjoying the beautiful day. 

My favourite section of the 10K course is the section heading into Confederation Park, a nice rocky little piece of single track.  Shortly after turning onto Confederation Park Loop, we see a big barrier at the next intersection where we are supposed to go left.  It had warnings on it but someone also drew a little picture on it that said 'why?' turns out there was a piece of the staircase missing but we were just running beside it anyway.

We barely made it up the short, steep, slippery section and it wasn't even that wet.  Reagan commented on that afterwards then mentioned how cruel I was when I told him that the 25 and 50K courses also go back down that little hill.  As long as you don't want to stop until the bottom it is OK though.  If you want to stop, then you're pretty much screwed to sliding down on your butt.

There is a decent climb out to Penzance Drive where the trail is beside the road for a short stretch back to the park entrance, then we started our return leg.  It was pretty uneventful until we got close to the finish and I had to stop and think for a second which was the right turn.  Ean bugged me that the event host had almost taken him off course.  After 50 minutes we were back at New Brighton Park.  Not long after we saw Sibylle steaming in with Reagan keeping up and Craig falling just a few metres behind on his tired legs.

We headed to JJ Bean of Powell and Victoria for coffee and muffins where Reagan cleaned up in draw prizes, since only him and Craig were eligible to win any.  He walked away with a Trail Runner Magazine subscription, a Nalgene Water Bottle, a Devinci/Jim Beam shirt and some running socks.  Craig walked away with a 3 pack of technical socks and could have won the other Trail Runner subscription but had just won one recently.

Anyway next year we will try to find a quieter weekend, this course would be fine for a rainy day or even when there is snow up higher but is still quite enjoyable.  Hopefully we see more of you out next year!

Photos: If you have photos of the day, upload them to the Flickr CFA group, tag them with MuthasNatureTrailRun2009 MuthasNatureTrailRun ClubFatAssEvents and ClubFatAssEvents2009.  All photos will automatically appear in this slideshow.

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