Vegan Mofo: Cross-Country Provincials!

Sorry for not posting Thursday or Friday! I've been real busy- I went to see Feist, I had a few big exams, plus this past weekend was provincials for cross country! Yay! (I talked a bit about this after the City Finals)

The races were held in Canmore, which is an absolutely beautiful town in the Canadian Rockies. I hadn't been there since last summer, so this was really quite exciting :)

The 75 runners from my zone (that's all the age groups) left together Friday at noon, on two buses. It's a 4-hour drive, more or less, which isn't too bad. I watched some movies on my iPod: the end of Factory Girl, Little Miss Sunshine, the end of Chelsea Girls, and a bit of Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind... in case you were wondering.

Getting dinner Friday evening was a little chaotic. I was with 8 other friends and we set off to find Subway at 7, then after much walking we find out at 8:30 that it was closed. We went to Boston Pizza, but I didn't really want anything there, so after ordering pasta takeout we went to Safeway... Long story short, I had a mango, a banana, and two kiwis for dinner. It was delicious :)

Oh, and Saturday's pre-race breakfast? It was some steel-cut oatmeal that I'd soaked overnight in soymilk and cinnamon! SO GOOOOD. Just like last time!

Unfortunately, it rained ALL Friday night, so it was cold, foggy, and WET in the morning. I usually kinda like that sort of weather, but not for running on DIRT trails. There were big puddles everywhere. The start of my race wasn't so great... "Grizelda" actually pushed me and I had to sprint right through a huge muddy puddle!

Otherwise, the race was great :) As an Intermediate Girl, I had to run 4km as two laps of 2km each. The course was very hilly (this was at the Canmore Nordic Center and we were using some of the trails used in the Calgary 1988 Olympics for cross-country skiing), but I was fine with that. I like hills, hehe.

In fact... I actually passed my nemesis, Grizelda, on a hill! It was right near the end of the first lap, and boy did it feel great. I don't like how competitive I can be, but Grizelda was always just so mean to me... plus she had a "cheer team" come to provincials to cheer her on.

Anyways, I ended up coming out 33rd out of 120, which I am VERY HAPPY with! I came 10th at the City meet, so I was aiming for top 80 or something. So 33rd makes me quite happy :)

Needless to say, I was VERY muddy!

My school did pretty well overall, too, considering we only had 5 athletes running. My buddies got 5th, 6th, 13th, and 51st. Go them!

All in all, provincials were really a great experience. I think I really want to join a track club, though. Most of the people there actually ran competitively most of the time, while I'm just a plain old neighbourhood jogger. I need to get serious!