Sheep River Road Race 2010 Report, and a follow up…

… about the Live Writer. It’s not just a photo editing program. It is a total replacement for Blogger’s or Wordpress’s Editors. I used blogger for a long time when I got started and just lived with the fact that it would be frustrating and time consuming to produce my blogs. It was like a light went on when I discover LW. Here are the highlights for me:

• Photo management. Upload as many photos as you would like at one time. I mean, if you have 100 photos for today's blog post, you can plop them all into the editor and work with them from there. You can also set defaults for how your photos come into LW, so if you like them all full width with a clickable larger image, you can set this and only alter the few that aren’t needed at your favourite settings.
• You don’t have to alter or re-save your photos prior to bringing them into LW. You can go direct from your phone or camera’s drive and you actually don’t have to bring them into your hard drive if you don’t want to.
• You can cut a photo from anywhere (internets, email, documents etc) and paste them directly into your post, that goes for text too!
• To author your post, you don’t need an internet connection. When you first set up LW to recognize your blog, it takes your theme and all the settings and downloads them to LW, so you can author, and connect at a later date to publish.
• Photo and text adjustments are made very simply via sidebar menus and can easily be undone, by using Cntr Z, or the Undo button in the header bar. Undo can be used multiple times if you really screw stuff up. It’s good if your formatting gets buggered up and you have no idea how it happened, just a few hits on Cntr Z and go back until you recognize things again.
• In blogger you have to sit an wait while photos are uploaded. In LW, you do everything in real time and when you are happy with your post, just hit publish and go away, or move onto other stuff. The new post will pop up once it’s published.
• Changes. I know at 3am I can make some gramatikjal errurs and my speling isnt thayt good. The next morning you can pull your post, from the web, back into LW and make the changes, then republish. This works great for adding pictures and new info (like race times). This re-publishing doesn’t affect things like comments and trackbacks etc.

In summary, if you aren’t using Live Writer, you are wasting your time. Just sayin.

The Race!

Again it was fun. I start every race, having NO clue how I am feeling with regards to how I’m going to finish. I worry, overthink and tend to second guess myself. I love it! The day started with cup of Go-juice from my favourite Coffeehouse. That’s Thelma in the back right of the first photo and it looks like she is saying ‘how much longer do I have to deal with this guy!!??’ A long time Thelma! yum.

It was a nice 15 minute drive out to Okotoks. We have had a lot of rain in the last couple days, which translates to a lot of snow in the mountains.

I had to go a bit early as I didn’t pick up my race kit prior, but I like hanging around on race day anyway, so it was ok. Got there something before 8 and the race wasn’t until 9:15. Had a warm up run, in which my feet got numb to the cold really quickly. I had read that numb feet and barefooting don’t go good together as you lose the sensation and it is like having shoes on. which we all know is bad. right? Well, I think you can probably do some damage by not feeling any imperfections or stones etc.

I bumped into 3 runners that I met yesterday at Good Earth. Being the marketing guy I am, I struck up a conversation with Daren (spelled correctly) as he was in full race gear. Daren, Joanne and their friend from Thailand Debbie were at the GE having a post run snack after running the Dino Dash up at the University. I chatted a bit and found out they were running the Okotoks race today, so I would see them there.

I got a chance to chat with them a bit more this morning. What interesting people! Daren likes his marathons and pretty much sticks to the roads, and he and Joanne travel all over for races. Their friend Debbie was ‘dragged’ (willingly, I'm sure) into these two races, but seemed to have a great time. Daren and Joanne had spent 5 years teaching over in Thailand and had met many nice people there, including Deb, and thus the reason for her visit to Canada. She was leaving for Vancouver to catch a flight home this evening. She is taking the Bus for a 15 hour journey through the mountains. I am pretty sure she is going to need help out of her seat at each stretch stop, as she doesn’t race ever, and she did 15k in the last 2 days. Good Luck Deb! Deb did the 5k today in 36ish minutes!

Nice to meet you guys! Daren was trying to back out of the photo, but I got him anyway!

Joanne’s first love is ultrarunning and she enthusiastically regales a story of her 1 and only DNF at the Powderface trail 50k this year. She was 8 or 9 miles from the finish when she was climbing up the steep mountain trail and all of a sudden WHAP! she slipped and smashed her face into the rocky path. She debated carrying on, but when she put her hand up to her mouth, she was pretty much covered in blood from a gash that opened up her lip that took a number of stitches to close. Yikes, that is a pretty bad-ass story of  ‘Trail Love’ isn’t it? If she was closer to the finish than she was to the aid station, I am sure she would have finished.  Joanne finished the 10k (slowly to her) in 47:30ish and Daren completed his recovery 10k run in 48:30ish. great work!

It was chilly to start, so I hung out in the Gym.  As it got closer to race time, the gym filled up and I made my way out to watch the ever popular kids 2k.

Lots of kids in this. They start the race 45 minutes prior to the adult race so parents can enjoy watching this run. These kids are fast. I think a 10 minute 2k won the race! wow. At the start there was a bit of a casualty. A little girl was tripped up within a few feet of the start and her hands hit the ground with a SMACK that had the crowd gasping. She was fine. Of course I got it on camera… LOL

Ouch! The kid in the red tripped her. I overheard a the tripper’s parent say dejectedly to another person. “Well, we knocked down a little girl in the first 5 steps…”

Our race was a little ways away still, so I ran around a bit to warm up and then headed back into the gym to wait for the start. I did make friends with this guy, Daniel, he was the MC of the event and did a terrific job making sure everyone was on time, knew where they needed to be and injected a good dose of humour into the race. Nice work. Nice outfit. Suit top, running bottom and headband, later he took off the trackpants in favour of shorts and had a great pair of mismatched argyle socks on. When I was finishing the race I am pretty sure he called me a crazy barefooter over the loudspeaker. Ok.

Making our way to the start.

I took this over my head without looking. the guy in the white hat seems less than impressed.

 

I’m impressed!

On your mark, get set…

   

GO!!!

The Roads and paths are quite pleasant, I took a few action shots!

 

Over my shoulder…

 

Nice pathways! smoooth!

The 10k runners go around and end up way down there on the other side of the river.

The hills were REALLY steep!

I ended up going out too fast and got a bad side stitch, but I kept chugging along. I finished 29th overall and 11 of 31 in my age brackets. I still think these races should have Clydesdale divisions as I think my stately 6’2” and 230ish lbs could be the biggest runner here. I still impress myself, but I wonder alot about what I could accomplish if I shed those 40lbs. I am going to try to get to my magic 190 this winter. Still waiting for that lifestyle sponsorship!! 26:11 was my time, 41 seconds slower than my Shod best 5k. Pretty good, If I don’t get the stitch, I blow this time away.

Best exchange of the day, between an observing Dad and a 14 year old girl: I passed this girl at the 4k mark and she pretty much stayed right behind me for the remainder. At 500m left, her Dad is at the side of the road yelling GOOO GO!!!! he yells anxiously “Get going, you gotta pass that guy with no shoes!!! , she responds to him between breaths… “I Know!” Well, if you know me, that’s all the motivation I needed to pick up the pace under ANY circumstances! LOL. All I could hear was her fading ‘whap whap whap’ of her shoes… *not* going to be chicked by a 14 year old with an over zealous dad!

I won! I won a draw prize, a really nice New Balance gym bag! First ever draw prize win! There were a LOT of prizes, excellent race organization, great food and a terrific venue. This race is first class and I highly recommend it to everyone! Best shirts too!

I waited around to see if there was a Barefoot division for the group medals, alas there was none, but I enjoyed the sunny morning amongst my running peers. They gave away a GIANT brand road bike at the very end on a random draw of runners, which was the real reason I stuck around, but if that wasn’t there, I probably would have stayed anyway!

Thank you to the Big Rock Runners for putting on this great day, and thanks to the volunteers and all the awesome sponsors. Seeyou next year!

On the way back into town I figured a recovery meal was in order, so I tried Good Earth’s Lentil and Bean Stew. Now I am not a lentil fan, but I figured I better be if I am going to reach my lofty goals.

I was very surprised at how tasty it was. It’s not lemon meringue pie tasty, but really tasty for a good wholesome meal.

Across from me was another person wearing today's race shirt, so obviously I struck up a conversation with them. So if you read this blog… Hi again! This lady helped a friend finish the 10k and was about 10 minutes slower than she would have been. You are a good friend! we all know how hard it can be to slow down in a race. (although her friend practices run/walk, she made her friend run the whole thing. not. nice. )

All in all another good day. I got home, made a cup of tea and sat in an ice bath for 20 minutes as I am surprisingly sore. I have been battling a cold so maybe that doesn’t help things. Oh yeah, I was photographed and interviewed for the Western Wheel Newspaper, so we’ll see what comes of that. (as I was finishing the final couple hundred meters, the reporter is snapping shots and yelling “Hey, are you part of the barefoot craze???”, he told me during the interview afterwards that he was reading Born To Run right now… )

Awesome photo of the day: