It was a long weekend which meant, I can do a mountain run on Monday too! I was only allowed to do about 2hrs tho. Which is like, where am I even gonna go for that? What is also flat cause you know, I just ran a 56K on Saturday haha. I was eyeing Upper Kananaskis lake loop but I definitely didn't wanna do that by myself. Well, Frans offered to be a bear bait! How generous! So we met there at 8am. The weather looked amazing on the way there. I was really excited cause finally, sun and no clouds almost. That unfortunately changed the closer I got to the lake. There were low hanging clouds sitting in the valley. How awesome. We couldn't see anything when we arrived. I was planning to go counterclockwise but with this, I said it's gonna be better to go clockwise cause the first half is mainly in the trees anyways and maybe later the clouds will lift and we will have some views. Surprisingly to me, I was moving pretty well. But we were going really slow. That was the plan tho. But about like half way I started to feel kinda tired hah. It was catching up to me. Clouds started to lift and we had some amazing views! Didn't see any bears. Just some nice little paw prints at the end. Very good run! Thanks Frans for coming!
Tuesday was well deserved rest day. YAS!
Back at it on Wednesday with some easy running and strides. That actually felt nice. Like not bad at all after such a big weekend! I was pleasantly surprised. I also realized on my way to my strides spot that I saw a Strava segment there, it just goes the opposite way than what I usually run. So I had to go and get that Local Legend! Hahah. Fun. I had to do mountain legs after too. Got home, started with lunges. Left leg. Felt bit weird pain on the right side in the groin area. Weird. Switch legs. First lunge. Fuuuuuck. That hurts! WTF? What is this??? Okay maybe don't go so low? Still hurts. Finished lunges very slowly. Started doing step ups and same thing. Whoa. This is not good. Went inside to do some stretching then. Whoa. That's even worse. Okay. Well...shit! Hopefully it gets better? It didn't get better at all through the day. Did I seriously pulled something? Or worse ??? Hopefully not! But of course, of course it would be now, just before Northover ridge again...ugh.
I moved my run to Friday. It still hurts. It's not getting worse but also not really better. I found some stretching exercises online for groin strain and did those. It hurt a bit but not too crazy. Fingers crossed. And, I booked a physio for next week! Like what?! Who am I? Oh yeah, it's me, the old lady who actually needs it....finally. 😅
I still could feel it but had to do the run anyways, to test it out. Cause I need to know so I can plan my weekend. It was pouring rain in the morning. Not ideal at all but I had to go cause we're going to see Stans in the evening. Running was fine. It felt okay. Like I could feel "it's there", some tightness, but it wasn't really painful while I was running, even did few very easy strides. So that's a good sign, right? Stretching after was also okay.
Had to change my plans for the weekend a little bit. Work Saturday, big run Sunday. Which also meant another easy test run this morning. It went pretty well again and I felt better than yesterday. So Northover tomorrow is 100% on. Even coach said to go for it but be prepared to slow down or walk if needed. Weather looks great, it should be awesome! I'm excited! Also...I signed up for IronLegs 60K next week :D. Yes, yes I did. Hahaha. It's gonna be a training run tho.
Northover has been on my list since probably like last year as it's one of the OG's trail runs around here. But it's pretty out there and I'd probably never do it alone. I missed the group run last year when I got sick just few days before the run! I'm so glad I'm not missing it today. It was supposed to be a pretty large group but in the end it was 10 of us? Just the right amount. Started okay. Kinda glad I was in a group, I'd most likely walked some of these sections that we were running. I could keep up without it being too much. It went by pretty fast. First campground and then up to Three Isle Lake. That was STEEP! But also beautiful. Couldn't believe tho how low that lake was. After that there was this huge meadow. I could climb pretty well but running on the more runnable stuff was bit harder for me and I was in the back. I had to keep reminding myself that I just did a HUGE week and this is gonna be another one and that it's okay to feel tired. I just kept going. The climb up on the ridge was long! And freaking steep! But the views! Like wow, this was something else! I thought most of the steep shit is behind us but I was so wrong. More climbing, more steep. There was one bit sketchy section but nothing too bad, I just kept looking at my feet and tried to keep those stupid thoughts out of my brain. It worked. Towards the crux on the ridge! At first it looked scary. But again, just look at your shoes and nowhere else, one step at a time a you are done! That was easier than it looked. Now just a looooong ridge run. WOW! Incredible views. Down some pretty crappy scree/loose rocks towards Aster lake. We refilled bottles there at this beautiful waterfall. I got bit behind on that runnable section again, but we regrouped soon. There was still lots of ups and downs and then lots of very slippery/loose descend towards Hidden lake. Around Hidden lake we got separated again and I ended up running by myself for quite some time, even after I reached Upper Kananaskis Loop again. Luckily they waited at the falls and the rest we ran together in a smaller group, with the rest somewhere behind us. What an adventure! That was freakin epic! So glad I was able to do this with such an amazing group of people. I don't usually like to do group runs, but this one was hand down the bestest yet and would go again for sure. Now I rest. Finally. What a week!
87.22K / 12:17 TOF
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