“I smell wieners” and the 2011 Stampede Road Race

 Results for the stampede road race will be here.

I got a last minute bib for the Stampede Road Race. I sent out a FB request and sure enough the internet came through! I was at the reg table at 7:15 and there was a bib with my name on it waiting for me, and after a bit of socializing I was at the start and running at 8:00!

Here is my Garmin stats from the race. 

Here are all the race photos from the race.

Here are the shoes I wore at the race

Yeah. I couldn’t find my garmin. I forgot my Camera BATTERY, and I didn’t wear shoes. So I don’t know what my time was and I have no photos. This was as light as I have ever ran. My whole kit was shorts, long sleeve tech shirt, BondiBand and sunglasses. Yeah, I didn’t even use a water belt this run relying solely on the aid stations. I did ok at using the water stations as I would slow down, get a good drink and then get going again. But there was an Aid station at the 9k mark where I grabbed a cup and as I was trying to finish strong i just kept running hard. I was breathing pretty heavy and when I went to take a drink I inexplicably snorted almost all the water up my nose. There was a split second where I thought I was drowning. Turns out you can snort an entire cup of water and still finish the last 1k of a 10k fairly strong.

Today wasn’t about anything but getting out and racing again. Did I ever tell you I love racing? It’s the people that I appreciate the most. I stood around the start line chatting with Darren and Dawn, and low and behold there is a guy in Vibrams standing there. I say “Wow, what weird shoes”. That’s start’s a long convo about all things Vibram, and many others chime in from around. That’s the best part about barefooting. I get to meet TONS of people. Standing behind me as it turns out is a guy in Huraches. That’s a first for me and I was actually surprised how thin the sole was. We chatted for a while and I found out he runs barefoot too, but not this race. He found me after the race for a photo op that he said was going to be on Facebook! Too funny. Who does that? Take all kinds of photos of people they don’t know and post them on Facebook… ahem…

All in all it was a great race. Sub 1hr I think. Best part was it wrapped up a very successful week of exercise. I ran Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with an awesome Hike on Saturday and the race on Sunday. A very good week indeed. I am sore, but a good sore.

As for the hike, building on the awesome time we had out in the Sheep River Valley last weekend, we decided on a bit more of an ambitious hike. We spent some time on Friday getting Andrew kitted up with a new backpack and setting ourselves up so we could enjoy a day of whatever came at us on Saturday.

We got out to K-country at about noon and decided on a test hike around a nice little pond. We were only a few feet from the car and Andrew was whining about the weight of him water bladder, which I thought might be the case. We went back to the car and pulled out the bladder, and then he was fine. So in my pack was about 20 lbs of clothes, safety gear and water, Traci’s pack had 10lbs of food and water and Andrew carried about 11 oz of pretzels, oreos and wholegrain nachochips.

He was pretty happy.

The test hike went very well, so we headed off to our final destination.

I messed up and left our trail map at home, but after a bunch of driving around and some pre-hiking we ended up finding a trail sign that showed we were on the right path.

This was what the first km was like. mountainy meadows with a couple stream crossings. *Side note: Traci was hiking in her brand new VivoBarefoot Neo’s. She loved them! They performed very well.

Once we left the flats the trail was very vertical. In the next Km we gained 800’ of elevation to the top of Ford Knoll.

Traci took her socks off at one point and found the new Vivo shoes were more comfortable without the socks. Andrew asks to take his shoe off, and then tells me to take a picture.

 

Ok.

Here is is marching on! He did amazing. He walked every step of the hike. We are so proud of him. He sang songs, Wooted and was generally awesome.

Here is a short video of him taking the lead on the trail for a while.

We crested the top and stopped on the trail for a nice lunch of granola snacks, beef jerky, fruit chews and oreos. Andrew had a nice treat of  a couple apple juice boxes. On the way back down we were treated to some amazing views. The first photos are taken from down there. We were very happy to be up there.

Traci wanted me to carry this out and put it in our yard. I thought it made a better photo and left it there.

The flowers were very nice with lots of Fireweed, Blackeyed Susan and Alberta Wikd Rose. I sure wouldn’t want to be on these trails later in the summer when the wild strawberries are ready as there were at least a million blooms and the bears are going to be VERY happy with the crop.

Andrew does his best Hero shot.

But can’t keep a straight face!

We were on the last steep down and Traci says “I smell wieners!” heh, that was kinda funny. We were very close to the campground and sure enough the smell of hotdogs was wafting into the woods. Must drive the wild animals nuts.

So then Sunday morning I ran the race and when I got home we packed up and decided to try and find the best playgrounds in Calgary and in the process found some really nice spots we never knew existed. It was a great weekend.

Andrew layed down and was sleeping in about 2 minutes tonight.

We are planning more hikes. We have all the safety and comfort gear we need since I kitted up last year for this epic run. All good stuff. Can’t wait to see what happens next weekend!