Knee Knacker Training Run - First Half

50 or so brave souls showed up at the Knee Knacker start line just off of Westport Road to tackle the first half of the course.

Reports from last week's first 3/4's training run were of deep snow, buried trail markers, and some runners approaching hypothermia at the highest elevations.

With those reports in mind, I seriously considered not tackling Black Mountain and the Hollyburn sections of the course until race day. I hate snow, I hate being cold and my new trail shoes hadn't arrived from the US yet.

However, while laying in bed last night I tried to remember as much as I could about my only three times going up the "beast" - Black Mountain.

I really couldn't remember much other than a spectacular view from the Bluff and cramping up fairly significantly coming down the ski run into the first transition. Oh yeah, and suffering over the last 3/4's everytime because I tried to be the hero just a tad too early.

I resigned myself to the fact that today was going to be another early wake up call. Thankfully my wife took one for the team by getting three times through the night to feed our son so I could get as much rest as possible.

My goal today was to run / hike at what I felt would be as close to race effort as possible. I had run 10 miles up in Squamish at a relatively hard pace the day before, so I knew that I would feel a little rough for the first 15 minutes or so.

True enough, I felt sluggish and even a little queasy as we headed up the Trans Canada trail towards the new connector trail that takes you across Nelson Creek and over to the Baden Powell (BP). As an aside, this relatively new start to the Knee Knacker is much more enjoyable than the old route which would have you run down the on ramp to the highway, then straight up Black Mountain.

Within minutes, it was down to two of us - Chris Downie and myself. Now, Chris is a pretty quick runner, having put the boots to me a couple weeks early at a 5 Peaks race by more than 3 minutes. However, Chris is 190 lbs and I'm 145ish so I figured he was going to have to eat my dust on the climb. Apparently appearances are deceiving as Chris promptly started pushing the pace, me hanging on for dear life, questioning whether I should let him go or not.

Instead of easing up, I started talking, hoping to drag Chris into a conversation which would hopefully slow the pace down. Im not sure if it worked, but we carried a great conversation all the way to Cleveland Dam.

The Cabin Lakes section of the course, which is just a few minutes past the Bluff, was a mess. The options were mud, snow, or lake. Since there was no way around the muck, we just plowed through. There was some flagging up to help us on our way, but we still managed to get turned around a few times.

Because of the construction on Cypress for the Olympics, a new section has been built for the Baden Powell which takes you down the west side of Black Mountain and connects with the Yew Lake trail. Although this section is probably shorter than the old route down, it's considerably harder, our quads feeling like hamburger by the bottom.

I was excited to see that we made it through the first 1/4 of the course in 1:31, just a few minutes off of my best time from my second attempt at the course. And I felt great.

After a short water break, we were off to tackle the second 1/4 - Cypress to Cleveland Dam. Although Black Mountain can be challenging, it's the 2nd 1/4 of the course, with it's nearly 3,000 feet of downhill terrain that can be difficult at times.

I'm a terrible downhill runner, so I always approach this section with trepidation. Others, like Kevin Titus, the legendary course record holder, eat this section up. A few years back Kevin absolutely rocked this section, running it in 58min!

Fortunately for me, the snow and downed trees slowed the pace down a bit. That being said, there were some pretty sketchy sections heading down to Hollyburn Lodge. Hopefully we will get 10 days of smoking hot weather to melt the snow enough to make passage relatively easy.

My plan was to turn off at Brother's Creek and head down to Millstread Road, then find a pay phone to call my wife to come get me. However, I was enjoying the company so much I decided to go all the way to the Dam.

We finally reach Cleveland Dam in just over 2:44, a great pace considering the conditions and that Chris ran from his house in Kits to the start of the run!

Feeling a little fresher than I had hoped for, I turned onto the Cap Pacific and ran to Ambleside, then over to John Lawson Park (17th and Marine) where I finally caved and called my wife. So that I wouldn't feel like a total wimp, I had her meet me half way...

With the last long run out of the way, it's taper time!

Enjoy the sun.

E