I ran with a girlz team this weekend in the 28th annual Klondike Road Relay (KRR). Our team was called, "Newbies, Pros and In-Betweenies"!. The KRR consists of 10 stages ranging from the shortest stage which was 9.3km (my stage) to the longest stage 25.6 km. The race runs from Skagway, Alaska and finishes 180km later in Whitehorse. The great thing about this race is you can be as competitive on your section of the race as you want and still run on a fun, non-competitve team, which was very cool. As I'm sure is obvious from our team name, we had a wide range of experience on our team. I have to say - it was so fun to live vicarously through the excitement of new runners! The energy and excitement from the newer runners was a great reminder to me of why I do what I do...we're all in it for different reasons, but for all of us, it's about pushing ourselves to be better than we thought we could be and the work and commitment it takes to get to the start line. Way to go girls!
As for my run, I ran the shortest section (I know, what a wimp!)....., but in my defense it was a 1500ft climb over the pass...(I know, still a wimp)... This was the second stage of the race and started around 9:55 in the evening. The great thing about running at that time in the evening, is that it was very dark, which was just fine with me, especially when you are running straight uphill and aren't that keen to see what is ahead of you. My run went quite well, but I must say when it was all over in 44min:15 seconds, it seemed like I was just getting started... Not being used to running short races like this, I think I need to work on my suffering tolerance for short distances! While I was pretty happy with my run, (I ended up 1st female/2nd person overall), it was a bit anticlimactic, back in the car, heading back to Whitehorse in less than an hour! A big thanks to my support crew - Kimmie and Shannon!
I met the girls at the finish line the next day as our team crossed the line after stage 10. Our team finished 10th/17 womens team - not too bad for the newbies, pro's and in betweenie's! Think what the girls will do next year when we're all pros!
