Wow what a fun race the Sun Mountain 50km was. It is near the town of Winthrop Washington about a 4 1/2 hr drive from Nelson. The race is a part of the Rain Shadow Running Series which has many awesome events all over the state. Carolyn and I headed down to meet up with her sister and my buddy from the coast and get a good run in as it is time to up the mileage a little. The weather was absolutely perfect- 18 degrees and a slight overcast. The trails were fast and flowing for the first 7-8km until the first of 3 climbs came at you. At the 12km mark I felt like I had run a long time and was thinking the next 38km were going to hurt. Shortly after I hit the first aid station and left it feeling like I hadn't even started running yet!...Running is a weird thing. All I know is, that you will inevitably go through many ups and downs, so just persevere during the lows and almost always you'll get to love life during the highs. At 40km the last and biggest climb of the day begun. Although I still felt great, I was careful not to blow up so close to the finish. I got up to the lookout feeling great and started the long descent to the valley bottom. The wild flowers were out in full force, I was picking runners off quickly, the finish line was coming up fast and I was feeling awesome...when i got to the bottom of the descent at 48km I think I gave it a little too much as the last 2km uphill to the finish definitely hurt. Even though my goal of finishing strong wasn't exactly accomplished, I really had a great race finishing in 5hrs16 in 18th/100. Carolyn came in not too long after in 5hrs40 in 39th/100, but she looked as though she could have kept going. I would definitely recommend this race as the beautiful location, challenging, but not too challenging terrain and the time of year makes it worth the effort...
Well the snow is melting fast higher up and the alpine running is only a month or so away. We've been tossing out the Wildhorse Pass route from Nelson to Ymir as our next fun run, so if anyone is interested, let me know.
