Monday, October 03, 2005 - 04:59 PM

The twins haven't slowed down yet...

Today was the 5K Cross Country Team Championships. It was held at Stan
Wadlow Park which is part of Taylor Creek Park.

Now, both Melanie and I know, sort of, where Taylor Creek Park is. Heck, we
even looked it up on Mapquest to make sure we knew whereabouts we were
going. Neglected, however, to check the distance from our place near High
Park to Taylor Creek Park.

This is a somewhat important piece of information because we had decided to
run TO the race site, run the race, and then run home.
The race didn't start til 1:00pm. so we were taking our time getting ready.
We were undecided about wearing/bringing our spikes with us. How would we
carry them? We tried to find someone nearby who was driving to the race to
see if they could bring our shoes with them. No such luck. Ah well. in a
burst of inspiration, I devised a fairly comfortable way of using two small
bags to carry our shoes with us (because obviously we weren't go to run all
the way there in x-c spikes!). a quick test run down the street showed that
there was little bounce and things felt ok. But we had to wear t-shirts to
avoid chafing from the strings that looped over our shoulders. And it was a
warm, sunny day.

So finally we headed out. decided the best route was to run east along the
Lakeshore and then head up the Don Valley Trail. The race started at one,
and we left around 11:10am. would that be enough time??

well, after we had run the Lakeshore part and finally got on the Don, we
were both a little concerned about the time. It was 11:55am. We have not
run up the Don before so were unfamiliar with this route. we knew where to
go once we got to Taylor Creek (i.e. east again) but neither of us checked
to make sure how far north TC Park was.

So, luckily there were a few signs along the way telling distances to
different parts. We both saw a sign that said 4.5km to Pottery Road. we
thought that was close and we had no worries. But, no. We came to Pottery
Road and that didn't look like Taylor Creek Park. We kept upping the pace
now because it was well after 12pm. although neither of us said much, I
know we both wanted to ask all the cyclists etc around how much darn further
we had to go!! But we pretended to be calm, cool and collected and like we
knew :-)

Finally at one point, we decided that Taylor creek was near the "teeth" -
these are LARGE planters that you can see as you drive along the Don Valley
Parkway; and they look like large molars. The Teeth must be coming up.
They have to be. Another slight increase in pace; it was 12:30ish.
Finally we arrived at the Teeth. A quick look at the watch showed that we
still had enough time to get to the start line on time....if the start area
was close by. Neither of us have run through here before. The blind leading the blind here.

Thank god! Finally we see some cones out on the grass. we finally had
arrived!! almost. asked a few volunteers where the start was and they
pointed us in the right direction. Perfectly timed after all. Phew!! jogged into the starting area with just enough time to get our numbers, change into our spikes and get over to the start line.

There was a good crowd out. We hung out near the back while instructions
were given and bam, we were off. OMG, an unusual perspective to racing for
us. We were at the back of the pack :-) The legs were definitely feeling
tired. I wondered how long it would take to get up to a semblance of racing
speed. Well, the first steep downhill in the first KM helped. Then down a
narrow, single file dirt path and down round another slight hill. Ahh,
starting to feel better. We both tried to just pick people off and keep it
moving smoothly. I was ahead and Mel was not too far behind. Yes, we were
reeling in the other competitors slowly but surely.

Early on someone called out "go "honey bees'", but quickly corrected himself. Because, in cross-country, we are known as "The Killer Bees" :-) And before we knew it, we were heading back up that steep downhill and heading towards the finish line. We both ran as hard and as strong as we could...even though we sort of said we weren't going to be serious about this race. yeah, right!! that
lasted about as long as the first 100m metres or so :-)
I ran 17:42 and Mel ran 18:33.

Obviously this was a short course. no way I (April) can cut ~40sec off my
best 5K time on a cross country course!

Then we had some post race drinks and food. and shortly afterwards, we
headed off for the return trip - more running. Ran a bit slower on the way
back. and in fact, we only ran 1/2 way home and then meandered over to
catch a streetcar to take us the rest of the way home. After all, we can't
be too tired for tomorrow. we are both x-c pace bunnies tomorrow!!