I don’t hate cross country!

I figured I would do a quick update. Training has gone well since the half marathon. I took a very easy week, then ramped up the training again, and threw in a few races for fun and profit. In late October, Steve got a call from Dave Scott-Thomas saying that Sheila Reid was injured and that he was looking to fill her spot on the team going to Chiba Ekiden, which I was quick to accept.

I’m really excited about this trip. First, because Japan is awesome. And I’m not just saying that because I’ve been playing King of Tokyo with my housemates. Sidebar: King of Tokyo is an awesome game, because you get to play a monster and punch other monsters by rolling dice.

My personal favourite, Gigazaur!

It helps to get into character by talking in a monster voice. Where was I? Oh, right, Japan. If I don’t see at least three monsters attacking Tokyo while I’m there, I will be pretty upset. Seriously though, Japan has awesome depth in road racing. Eighteen guys just went under 63 minutes at the Ageo Half Marathon. Crazy stuff. Secondly, going on the trip and doing this race will be a great experience. I will be travelling with a bunch of fast runners, so I plan on learning a lot from my teammates about travelling, competing, and becoming a better runner. I’m there to race first and foremost, but I also want to get the experience and knowledge that comes from racing on the big stage.

I will be doing some blogging on trackie.ca during my trip, so head on over there, maybe check out the forum while you’re at it and make a few posts, as long as you’re not a troll.

On Sunday I raced the Athletics Ontario Cross Country Championships, which were held just outside of London. Despite my claims that I was done with cross country after last year, I somehow got sucked into racing not only the Ontario championships, but also the Canadian championships in Vancouver. Why? Because three crazy women from my club got together and decided to race, and with me we would make a team or four, so really I didn’t have much choice in the matter.

But I jest. Sunday’s race was actually a lot of fun. When I heard that the race was going to be held at Belvoir Farms, I expected a boring cross country course around a bunch of corn fields. It was still a course around a bunch of corn fields, but they added some logs to jump over and a fun ditch thing that really kills your momentum. I wanted to win this race. It certainly helped that the Athletics Toronto ladies weren’t running, but I still had to deal with Rachel Hannah. Rachel is pretty badass at cross country; she’s just a grinder that tends to beat people who are faster on the roads or the track. I hung with Rachel for about 2k. Of course she put a gap on my on the muddy section, but I reeled her back in when the footing got better. We ran the ditch (it was a quick, steep downhill followed by a quick, steep uphill) and I seemed to get back on pace faster after climbing the hill, so I stepped on the gas and opened up a gap on Rachel. From there I tried to grind out my way to a good lead, as I didn’t want Rachel anywhere near me on that muddy section on the second loop, or anywhere near the finish, for that matter. My hurdle technique was a little rough, but I managed to jump over all of the logs without falling and or looking too ridiculous.

I held my lead through to the finish, coming through in under 24 minutes. Yeah, I think the course was a bit long. I wasn’t wearing a watch while I raced, so I had no concept of how long I was out there anyway. I didn’t mind, though. Logs to jump over and dubious course measurements, that’s old school cross country, I love it!

The best part about Sunday’s race was getting to run on a team again. Last year, London Runner scraped together a senior women’s team by moving a junior up and age group and convincing a master to run as a senior. This year we had four women, all around the same age, who were excited to toe the line of a cross country race as a team. And we won the team title, which was awesome.

3/4 of team London Runner. We couldn’t find Lauren after the race.

The full squad, plus Lauren’s dog. And Steve.

Watching the senior men’s race was great, as we had 11 guys from the club running. In a bold move, Steve split the men into two evenly matched teams. London Runner ‘A’ and ‘B’ ended up taking the top two team spots.

After this race I am happy to say that I don’t hate cross country, pretty much because I didn’t race like a useless piece of crap (which I tend to do when I race cross). Hopefully my opinion doesn’t change after Canadian XC. I will be heading to Vancouver after racing Chiba. This will give me a chance to chill out for a few days and do a workout on the race course before meeting up with the team. Maybe I’ll be less useless this time around. Onward to Chiba and Vancouver!