Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Wow, that was a fun weekend!

Friday Night

An evening at home doing some chores and helping my husband put together the race bibs for Spring Run-Off on Sunday. 
He's the lead guy on the timing team that takes the registrations, feeds them through a program which produces a bar code sticker to be placed on each racers bib, that gets scanned as they come across the finish line on race day.  So that's what we were doing, peel, stick, flip, peel, stick, flip...
Where's the fun in that? I know eh.  Enter stickers here.  Being a part of the local running community in Kamloops now for a couple of years, I have made some great friends and love to see their smiling faces at events, so I doctored a couple of race bibs.  Out came the scrap-booking supplies as I searched for Spring Themed colorful stickers to attach on the fronts of some bibs.  Pretty butterflies, dragonflies, fairy ducklings and motivational phrases, each one in the hopes of eliciting a smirk on an otherwise race day nervous face. 

Saturday

Plans Saturday morning to go for a trail run were dashed pretty early, like when the alarm sounded and I shut it off, rolled over went back to sleep.  Yeah, not today.  But don't worry I still ran Saturday.  One whole mile to be exact.

The Beer Mile

Heard of this? There is an entire web page dedicated to the tracking of it and rules regulating the various versions.  Click the link above for more info. Saturday afternoon was my second go at the BM, last spring a group of friends did a trail run edition that was a hilarious test of commitment to both running and drinking.

I had hummed and hawed on whether to participate again especially the day before a race but preserving my title as Fastest Female Beer Miler got the best of me.
A group of highly serious runners/drinkers (we all must have been part of one camp or the other) gathered at a secret location to walk together to the grass school field which would be our run sight.  Pre-measured as a 200m track meant that after each beer the runner would complete 2 laps.
What to onlookers must have looked like a track club doing speed work unravelled into laughter and hilarity in a matter of minutes.
Things you learn during a Beer Mile:

• fastest runner - not likely the fastest drinker
• fastest drinker - could have troubles running
• Men - not always faster drinkers than women
• beer should not beer really cold - brain freeze
• don't let the beer get shaken shortly before starting
• if you cheat - don't let it get caught on camera :)
• Burping is okay! Puking is not! Sometimes it's hard to separate the two.

After the Beer Mile

In just 10 minutes our group had run the mile, consumed many a brew and crowned a new King of Beers.  The Queen (me) however is sticking around for another term.  It wasn't my smoothest effort at 9:56/mile, but the time was faster this year since the distance was measured more accurately.

Sunday Morning

The River's Spring Run-Off 10km Road Running Race - hosted by Kamloops Ridge Runners

This annual event is in it's 32nd year, a major kick off for the road race season here.  200 runners came out to shake the cobwebs off after a brief abrupt winter in the area.  Always a nod to St.Patrick's Day, the crowd was a splattering of 50 Shades of Green.  Special for me this year, my father was there not to volunteer as he has for years, but to run his first 10km in about a decade. He had a time goal too, under 1:00:00.
After arriving at the school with Dad I went quickly to pick up my race bib, check in with Brian (hubby) doing timing, and wish friends from near and far in the valley a good race.   Warming up on the school's grass field I saw the TRU Wolfpack team prepping to tear up the course along with weekend warriors and run clubbers alike.
With 10 minutes to start time the race director addressed the pack and gave final instructions, thanked the runners, spectators and volunteers for coming out, then we were off.
I hadn't really thought about what pace I wanted to run this race at in the days before, so during the first kilometre I started a math session in my head determining that the finish I'd like is 49:00.  Okay, so there is the goal, 9 kms left.  The first 7.5km are on road, old fashioned asphalt with concrete sidewalks, nothing fancy about that.  The 7.5-9km segment is an out & back along a gravel pathway on the river's dike, requiring runners to adjust stride when they are beginning to tire.  Not really a difficult thing when you are used to trail running :)
What I wasn't expecting was to see a house cat attack the young lady running just in front of me.  Came out of the grass and sage at the side of the trail, leaped out at her feet and ran back to the grass again. I ran out of air for a moment I was laughing so hard. Following the turn around I saw that last marker 9km on the edge of the trail and decided to "Just Giver", my legs still felt good and both lungs were functioning, plus I don't have to run on Monday if I don't want to.
Across the finish line at 48:44, 2nd in AG and 15th F Over All.  A PR after a Beer Mile!  I'm definitely feeling like a lucky runner this weekend.

Icebox and Dad

I made sure to go back up the road and cheer in friends and family as they rounded the final corner to the finish line.  Took a couple photos to share later of those I knew, then joined everyone in the gym for pizza and prizes.  Yeah, they served us pizza!  Brian won a pineapple, Dad hit his target with a time of 59:38 and I got a GC for lunch and yup, some bling for my AG placing.
Thanks to all the hardworking volunteers that made the event happen.  I had a great time running again this year.

Prize pineapple and unique medal!