Notes from Dan the trail guy #28

Trail Bits

Wow, a short run, we only ran (walked a fair amount) for about 45 or 50 minutes while we were out cleaning trails. What a novelty – don’t expect that to often though! A BIG THANKS to all of you that showed up and helped and thanks to all of you that showed up with your pruners, clippers and saws. We managed to get a lot of work done in a very short period of time and the route is now race ready. All we need now is to get out on July 8th & 9th and flag in the race routes. I went back out on Sunday morning and hiked the same route that we ran on Saturday while I was measuring parts of the Half Marathon Trail race route. The loop we did Saturday was 7.5 kilometers in length. It sure feels farther when you are actually running it.

The full course of what we fondly refer to as the “GutBuster Humility Half” has now been completely measured and I am happy to tell you that what Norm and I guessed might be close to being 21k in distance, is actually that distance. Nanaimo can now boast that it has an actual measured Half Marathon distance “off road” race route and a measured “off road” 8.5k race route. On top of that we also have the Athletics Canada Certified Half Marathon and 10k Road Race Routes plus the measured and marked 6 kilometer route at Westwood Lake. No matter if your preference is road or rock, Nanaimo now has a measured route for you to run…..so get out and do it!

GutBuster Humility Half Marathon and 8.5k Trail races – July 9th. I have had an overwhelming response from people offering to help on Friday night. I think that word got out that we try to go for a beer after flagging and not coffee. I am still in need of a dozen or so more people for race day marshalling if you and or friends or family want to spend some time in the woods on Saturday. Choose from either the Start Finish Line – Water Station – or on the race Route, it’s your choice. Let me know if you can make it.
I also have a need for a sweeper for both the short course and long course. Any thoughts?

GutBuster Registration - is available either on line at http://www.gutbustertrailrun.com or via a drop off entry form which is available at Frontrunners and can be dropped at Frontrunners.

Nanaimo Daily News Harbour City Half Marathon and 10K Learn to Run Programs – We need to get some more people signed up for the Learn to Run 10K Clinic. If you know of people that have been trying to make up their mind about it, ask them to sign up. Please pass the word around. There are still a few spots left in the Half Marathon Training Clinic.

ROC Technical shirts – Nice shirts

Tuesday Afternoon runs – there is an “informal and unofficial” Tuesday afternoon trail run which starts at 4:30 in the parking lot at Westwood. The Tuesday run is a one group, one speed affair. Very few if any stops and we run for about an hour or so. This group generally likes to work the hills. It is very informal, sometimes a number of people show up, sometime it is one or two. All depends. Like I said it is unofficial and informal.

ROC SPONSORED EVENTS;
July 9th is the Westwood Lake Half Marathon GutBuster – ROC provides course marshals and start/finish line volunteers and receives a per racer commission in return.
September 11th is the Nanaimo Daily News Harbour City Half Marathon & 10K Road Race….what more need I say.

This Weekends Run
Hhhmmmm – Which to do? There will be two choices this weekend. A short route and a little bit longer route. Both options will start out together at 7:00 AM from the Westwood Lake Parking Lot. Option # 1 - is a pre-race run of the 8.5km GutBuster Short Course plus a loop of the lake. I will arrange a leader for this group. 60 minutes.

Option # 2 – is a pre-race run of the GutBuster Humility Half long course. I will lead this group and I guarantee you we will be running at an easy pace and we will walk a couple of the bigger hill attacks. This run will be about 2.5 - 3 hours in length. YOU MUST bring your own water and a snack. You can’t possibly do this distance without replenishing. We do not need someone bonking out on us from lack of nourishment. There will be several places during the long run that you can opt out and head back to the lake if you find the run too daunting of a task. Please email me back if you think you might want to run the Humility Half with me. We could start out early than 7:00 if interest is there.