The Race

Arriving in Sooke this morning to see that Gary was in full control and was already motoring along on his speed bike doing the first lap of four and already finished his swim at Young lake by Camp Barnard where he had to finesse his way through the swimmers who had all started in one group swimming over ,under and upside down he plowed his way through the mass of swimmers and finishing had to fight his way out off his wet suit, once on the bike he had to do a four lap course fighting his way up a few long steep hills, then luck didn't stop, going at top speed his chain managed to free it self from the sprocket, stopping twice to replace it back on the railing. coming in the transition for the biking to running I had waited, watching runners come and go seeing they as they had a sprint , Olympic and half Marathon course on at the same time, but it seemed as hard waiting for my turn to run because you didn't know if everything was alright with your bike rider, finally placing the timing chip from Garry's ankle to my ankle was the least of our worries , it was up to me to finish the race having the easy part and only having to do one stage. I started my run at John Philip's park and started with a slight incline to grant rd where I made a right turn and running down hill a few hundred feet came to a trail which was flat but had to look OuT for your footing because of the loose gravel, the end of this trail runs into West Coast road, Hey this seemed all right more down hill what more could a runner ask for, coming to Nordin rd we had to make a sharp right turn cause this road took me to whiffen spit road which end up on whiffenspit trail which is a nice rocky uneven gravel trail going on for a good k.m and more, so they wanted us to enjoy the scenery also, Yes this is a nice trail for walking biking and jogging and just to enjoy yourself,coming to the turn around I was met with the same run only this time it was tougher seeing what goes down has to go up. and yes it was up all the way back to the transition point, but I had changed my running pattern a bit instead of using a long stride i was shortening it up a bit and using the hills as more of sprint stride although I didn't seem to be going as fast as a sprint. Doing this stage twice turned out all right and not pushing off with my feet and toes and using my quads and a shorter pace seemed to be easier on my calf muscles and making sure I stopped for water drinks and only at the last couple of stops I drank a bit of Gatoraid for some more energy to finish the race. Run smart-- Run Safe