I have to be honest on this one. Each year the Dirty Duo race rolls around and each year I enter, I wonder why I do it. With the trails covered in snow and ice here in Squamish, it’s been hard to get any sort of quality mileage and workouts logged since getting home from Costa Rica. My runs for the past 4 weeks have mostly been on pavement which for me, is less then ideal. It’s been a crazy snow year and I’ve been itching to hit the trails. It rains every year at the Dirty Duo race but I suppose that is March running here on the coast. Take it, leave it or just embrace it.
Anyways, my love for off-road running kicks in time and time again, so I laced up my Salomon Speedcrosses and hit the 25km start line. Usually I race the 50km distance but seeing as I have my first 100miler of the year this coming weekend ( Coyote 2 Moons down in California), I figured a little tempo workout on trails was in order. Also, I had a handful of clients running at the race, always motivating, and that got me really stoked.
Obviously, 25km is not my distance. It’s like having a heart attack for 2+ hours for me. Some people are well trained for speed, I’m trained to go long and steady. Anyways, shorter races are so humbling and I admire all the speedsters out there.
As always though, as soon as the race started, I had a good time and just enjoyed the awesomeness of running in the woods. With the 25km distance, it was neat to see all the cyclists as we follow the same route for a good chunk of the time. I was slightly anaerobic off the start (typical for me) and then just settled into a steady state running, feeling really good from start to finish. My goal was to not push. I just wanted to be consistent, not risk injury or push to hard that I wouldn’t be able to recover. I’m happy to report that I executed my plan perfectly. I had the lead up to 2km to go until another female caught me. I think she is an orienteering gal and speed/short distance is her thing. I let her go by and just stayed steady, crossing the finish line 45seconds after her, taking 2nd place.
Body felt really good the next day and because it continued to pour rain back up in Squamish, I hit the CBC CompuTrainer lab and settled into riding some of the Ironman Kona course. I loaded up on my Udo’s Oil that night and into Sunday, just to aid in recovery.
Congrats to a handful of my athletes who raced (see the CBC Performance blog). Good times on the trails. Although it was nasty and cold out during the run, my gear combination was perfect.
Here is what I used:
Tights – Salomon’s Exo ¾ compression
Arms – Salomon sleeves (new out this year)
Upper’s – Salomon nordic vest
I hadn’t been able to find my Suunto T6 watch since Costa Rica so I used the Navigator. Fortunately, I just found the watch yesterday, in time for C2M. I debated wearing compression calves but decided not to wear during the race, and instead, used for post race recovery.
