Mt. Seymour

Back at it. I was a bit unprepared for this run but it turned out really well. I had a book to return to the SFU library so I was going to do a city route trail run and avoid any more late charges. At the last minute I thought better of it and sucked up the $1 charge, and headed to the north shore again. Due to this last minute change I had to just scramble to find some food to bring along since I wasn't stocked. Well, to be honest at this point I don't even know what I should be stocked with because I don't know what kind of food my stomach is going to be able to handle at this point other than Power Gels. So anyway I went to the Chevron convenience store and picked up some of those fruit leather things to try out. I also grabbed the last of my banana chips. I had thought earlier in the week that my long run would be to run over to and up Mt. Seymour and see how long it took me, that is, running from my house because I feel like bussing over to the Shore is pretty time consuming. My foot is still a bit sore so I decided to wear my Brooks Ghost trainers, they are decently light and seem to protect my foot problem, and I would be putting in a decent amount of road miles getting over to Tsleil-waututh territory.

Mt. Seymour from Second Narrows Bridge

So I filled up my water bladder and headed out the door snaking my way through east vancouver over to the Second Narrows or Ironworkers Memorial Bridge over to the Shore and up Riverside Drive to the trail. Luckily there was a gravel path all along the drive so I only had about 11k of pavement pounding. From there I headed up the trail that follows the Seymour River until the turnoff which follows the powerlines across the mountain. It takes me about 20mins to make the climb up and I decided I would follow the trail past Mushroom Trail down to the Old Buck intersection. It turns out this intersection is a fair bit lower than the connector so I lost some elevation there but the point of the run was to also get familiar with the trails. Heading up Old Buck I was feeling good and just grinding away, I had two of the fruit leather things and they went down really well which was a relief, but as I connected onto the Perimeter trail further up the mountain I ran into snow at I think around 800m elevation. Fortunately the trail markers were easy to spot because there was a some windfall/deadfall on the trail...

but not too much, just a few big trees. From about this point it was a bit of a scramble through the snow. 

There were some areas where the snow was hard enough that I could continue to run a bit but other parts where I would fall through the snow unexpectedly not to mention stepping in frigid water now and again. It was pretty fun actually but once I finally came out on one of the cross country ski trails I was getting pretty tired of slipping around and happy to get onto some more consistent footing. My foot was only sinking a couple of inches into the snow on the ski trails so it wasn't too bad.  Once I got to the top I decided I would take the road down part way to avoid the snow, although it was fun, it was more of a novelty I think! I had some tourists take a quick shot of me at the top, then I actually had to put my gloves on as I headed down the hills since it was a bit chilly up there.

Unfortunately I ended up running down the road further than I needed to because the trail actually comes very close to one of the road switchbacks whereas I was planning to get back on the trail where the connector crosses the road near Mushroom parking lot. Anyway, the road section was probably the least pleasant of the run but was only about a 20minute section. Getting back onto the trail the section from the road back down to the powerlines was a bit rocky and I had to be a little careful as the odd rock would get my foot in just the wrong spot but other than that my legs were feeling good and so was the energy level. The somewhat steep downhill of the powerlines wore on me a bit by the time I got down to the river but again it wasn't as bad as the descent I made down Elizabeth a few years ago(the mountain on the right).  From there I cruised along the river and back on to the pavement but things go tough there. Probably the combination of running out of fuel, the pavement, and no longer having the shade of the trees, along with the climb up the bridge got to me and I really had to get my grind on. Oh and having run longer than I ever have before...time-wise anyway.  But that only lasted another 20mins or so and I tapped-out about 3kms from my house, picked up some potato chips, coke and a protein bar and walked home, slowly.

It was definitely an excellent run and I learned a few things on it:

1) Fruit leather things are digestible and taste good

2) Banana chips are out, gave me upper GI gas

3) Bring a spare hair tie

4) Think about bringing a map next time

5) Bus there, run back. Running with 5lbs of water in a backpack on pavement sucks

I tried to do the Map My Run thing. The quality of the image is representative of my computer skills and patience for things computer related. It is also only roughly half-way, and in miles.

I realize it looks as though I ran to Dog Mountain but that one is just west of Seymour. I think i'll experiment more with this map my run stuff. 

Well thats it for this week. Very happy with the run and running for nearly 4 hours. My longest run before this was a 3 hour run I did a few years ago, however I also covered 30miles, so it is still my longest run distance wise.