Orcas Island Trail Run

Sunday February 17th was the Orcas Island Fatass Trail Run. Due to snow at higher elevations, James created a 25km alternate route which didn't go up to the top of Mount Constitution. Foolishly, we thought that this meant that it was going to be an easier run, but some people (me included) thought it was at least as hard as last year.

I ran most of the way with a guy I met named Darin Bentley, from Vancouver area. He is an amazingly good runner whose path I've never crossed up until now. Another amazingly good runner who I hadn't met yet was Jen Seeger, who finished the first 25km loop with me and Darin in 2:23. No wonder DART wins adventure races, if she is on the team. Darin and I kept a steady (but slower) pace through the second loop and decided to run together the whole way for some social company. We were comfortably in third place coming into the last mile with Brian Morrison and Michael Sanders a few minutes behind us when made a very embarrassing mistake. We stayed on a road instead of getting off on a side trail, and we ended up coming to a spot that we didn't really recognize from the previous loop. After another 100 meters or so, we saw some flagging and followed it; however, it was the other trail heading back up the moutain, and we were cursing all the unexpected hills until we finally came to a bridge near Mountain Lake that we _did_ recognize, as being definitely _not_ where we wanted to be. We got ourselves turned around and headed back in the right direction, but not after we had made a fifteen minute side trip and slipped from third to ninth. The company was good, however.

Kathy ran her second trail run ever, her furthest run ever, her longest run ever, and the run with the most elevation gain ever, all at the same time. She said that she felt better in the second half than in the first half, and that she passed several people camped out at the side of the trail, carnage from all the hills. She finished the 25km loop in 3:43, which was really good. Each loop ended up being about 3200 feet in elevation gain rather than the 2500 feet advertised, so this run was definitely one of the tough ones. I'm proud of her.