10k race finisher
Despite Yellowknife’s brief warm season, I was able to wear shorts for most of August. For a California native, shorts are my gauge of good weather. That will change, I know, as the temperatures drop, and 30F seems like a hot day.
My husband and I really said goodbye to the end of the warm season with a bang. We entered into our first SUP race, scheduled for the day before the 10k I’d been training for and the half marathon he’d been working toward.
The SUP race was hard, and I think that was mostly because we were on inflatable SUPs, not racing boards like many of the other participants. Talk about being fish out of water! As fast and beautiful as those boards are, in retrospect, I’m happy that we stayed true to our inflatable boards. I road tripped up from Denver with them, and they gave us the paddle of a lifetime on Lake Louise.* As I see it, I’ll just have to train harder next year to move up in the pack.
The morning after the race, I kind of wished that I had trained harder or that I hadn’t done a race the day before another race. My core muscles hurt, my butt muscles hurt, and my arms hurt, but I still had a run! This was THE run for me this year. Though I had been training for the half, I’d been feeling off all week, and opted for the 10k at my last minute registration. I’m so glad that I did because not only did I PR, but I also got to cheer for the half marathoners and marathoners as they came in, my husband included!
The 10k was a fun race with my favorite sausage and roll stand set up at the finish, making it the perfect end to an active season. For my husband, however, the weekend was more like a final cram session before the following weekend’s Peddle Paddle Pound, an annual triathlon that substitutes kayaking for swimming. I think he came in second in the solo men’s category, so he finished out his season on a high note, too.
Now, it’s on to curling and cross country skiing…
*More on this summer’s epic international road trip with my sister, our three dogs, and two inflatable SUPs another day.
hollanroundtheworld 