VIRA Race Recap: Port Alberni Paper Chase 15k!

A new one to the series and I’m glad to see the return of the 15k distance, though my legs may not necessarily agree 😉

Last year this was a 10k and I found it challenging. Rolling hills took a lot out of my legs and my season last year was full of difficulties, so it equalled out to a really tough race. How would an even longer race this year fare?

Photo courtesy of Lyndon Cassels Photography.

Ha. It was TOUGH.

Rolling hills galore! It was tough to maintain any semblance of pace. There was  neat trail section that took runners through the historic MacLean Mill site, which was pretty cool though I was running and staring at the ground for most of it! Missed on me, haha.

So yep, first off I got passed by pretty much everyone- flew past me like I was standing still! It’s hard to start races like that, but I knew I had to run ‘my’ race and be careful about pacing. It was going to be hard.

Mentally challenging start for sure, and my pace kind of tanked, even though I felt like I was trying really hard to ‘run’ if that makes any sense?

At the turnaround just before the Mill section of the run, I was like whaaa?? This is so hard!  Luckily the Mill part broke it up, though my pace dropped hilariously (over 17 seconds lost there, hahaha). Oh well it was pretty!

The run back I was kind of in a funk, but not quite a deep a funk as I started with. I had a goal- how many KM’s can I get at 4:30/km? It was a game I played with myself, ha. As soon as I hit a hill though it fell apart. Another young runner and I played rabbit on and off, with each of us running neck-and-neck. It actually really helped me stay on my game, and I ended up passing her in the final KM or so. She was right on my heels!

Photo courtesy of Lyndon Cassel Photography.

The finish is on a slight uphill that is an absolute pace killer, ha! I charged up it though and ran to the finish. Done! My time was 1:08:20 good enough for 2nd place in my age category. Sweet!

The food was SO good after too- candied salmon chowder, foccacia bread, fruit/veggies and milk and yogurt. All my favourites! Delicious! A big thank you to the great volunteers and chefs handling the day. A well-run and very safe race. I do recommend it if you are looking for a tough 15k to challenge you. 🙂

After the race, my husband and I checked out the Port Alberni Brewery Twin Cities. I tried the pineapple-coconut sour beer and it was SO GOOD! We bought a growler of it to bring home. Highly recommend!!!

That’s beyond our skill set! Well, how do you expect to learn that skill then?

Wish it was summer!

Hah, we had an interesting and challenging dressage lesson last night.

We worked on picking up the canter on a 10-metre circle from a walk and GASP- keeping the canter!

Now, to note, we were definitely not really successful with many components of this exercise…The circle part, the transitions, staying in the canter…But overall it was a very good learning exercise.

What did I learn from it? To trust that Oats will do it, to not lean in and drop the contact, effectively ‘dropping’ him in the transition (which he doesn’t like!) and trust that he will complete the transition, not be a jerk about it, and will continue in the canter.

We didn’t quite achieve all of it, but I did find that I was expecting the worst. Expecting him to be a little shit about the transition, dropping out of the canter, etc. I did all of my worst habits- leaned in, dropped contact, let my hands get defensively high, took my leg off, etc.

And it was tough! I was like ”this is above our skill set!!” and Karen was like, ”well how do you expect to get that skill? Keep trying at least!”

HA, no excuses here. Though I did feel like a bit of an excuse machine! We moved on to the left, which did still have issues but was smoother, and then back to the right.

We were definitely not ‘successful’ but I was learning, inch by inch, to trust that Oats wants to do this and we CAN do it (or something close to it). I also got the mother of all butt cramps in my high hip/leg area and holy god it hurt.

It was also death by 1,000 transitions night, which was a challenging time in itself. But it felt pretty good, better than it has been. We ended with getting a big trot, and working down to get their heads low, on the ground low (note- this didn’t happen either, but oh well…learning process right?).

A good, mentally challenging and apparently physically challenging lesson as well. For me and Oats! Haha.

Oats after our lesson (not actually, this was him tranqed for a clip)