Woohoo! It's Winterstart time! The annual 5 miler run, in the dark, in Banff. Wait...something is very different this year... Why is it so light out?! And how come it's so darned warm?!
I finally figured out the light thing. It was still so light out because our Prime Minister likes to imitate the President of the United States. (Insert major heavy sigh here.) So when the States decided to move out the date of Daylight Savings, we had to follow. Therefore the sun was still out - a bit.
As for the warm thing - no idea. Hello global warming?!
I met up with Trudy in Canmore and we had enough time for a hot cuppa and a chat before we were off to Banff.
There was quite the group outside of the Caribou Inn, all eagerly awaiting the countdown before they could run their hearts out. Many people had on fun costumes - perhaps they hadn't been home from the Halloween festivities the night before?! Of course there were the usual glow sticks and glow jewellry. I was wondering if they'd be needed, but finally it was getting dark out.
With the imaginary gun start we were off! As is normal, it was quite congested at the start of the race. Trudy and I had a pretty good pace going as we meandered our way through the crowd. When we got out of the view of the street lights I turned on my handy dandy LED ball cap. (Thanks Moeder!) Every piece of reflective clothing in front of me sprang to life with brightness! It was actually pretty neat looking.
In what felt like no time at all we turned right and started our way up the mountain. There were still a fair number of people in this section, but we were also now starting to pass people. I especially wanted to pass the little girl in front of me. She was 3'9" of spitfire with braids and it was imperative to me that I pass her! Fine, I'll admit it, I do have ego. Only sometimes though! At least I didn't stick out my tongue as I went by - not that she could have seen it.
It was very very dark now and if it weren't for the glowsticks of the speedy people coming down the hill there would have been no way to see them.
We had a pretty quick pace going up the hill. It was then that I gave thanks for the fact that I live at the top of a hill and had to climb it at the end of all my training runs!
Again, it seemed like it took no time at all and we were at the turnaround. I was feeling really good at this point so decided to just giver back down the hill. True, easy to do on a downhill! We made it back down to the bottom and turned left back onto Banff Ave.
Trudy and I were checking with each other about the pace. It was pretty cool to run with someone that held the same pace as I did. Actually, on the way back we both kept each other going. I started it off by saying that I thought I could use a challenge and wanted to keep this pace. When I started to slow a bit Trudy kept us going, and we kept trading off like that. We were so in synch at one point that even our breathing patterns matched! It was awesome.
At last we were at the finish! They didn't have a clock up this year, but we were given time chips so I figured I could look later if I felt like it. Tell me, is racing in the dark that competitve that one needs a timing chip?! I know not. Of course because it was there I did decide to look up our times just because I could. We ran a 49 minute 5 miler. Works for me!
Peace out my friends!
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