Riking Diez Vistas – 2 June 2013

After a month of on-and-off running post-marathon, Colin and I decided that we should probably start training for our 23km trail race that’s in August.  We live fairly close to some great hilly trails and felt (unknowingly, foolishly) that Diez Vistas, at about 13km – I think, would be a good starting point.  Colin had hiked it many years ago – sometime around when we started dating in 1999 and even further back when he was 12 and in Scouts.  Apparently hiking is like giving birth… one romanticizes it and doesn’t really remember how bad it was.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s a beautiful route.  It was a beautiful, warm day.  We actually ran together as apparently trail running is the great equalizer (at this point anyways).  However, I’m a baby when it comes to hills and Colin hasn’t trained for them since April.  We’re both a bit out of our element with trail running as we’re new to it this year – and we both were breaking in new shoes.

Sorry it’s blurry. There were people coming on the trail and I didn’t want to look like the weirdo taking a picture of her shoes…

We did the loop around Buntzen Lake counter-clockwise, which seems to be opposite of the vast majority.  We decided to do it this way so we had a decent rolling ~4km warm up before the hills.  It was kind of nice, though, because after we got past the North Beach we didn’t see too many people for a while.  And they didn’t see me cursing the rocks and roots.

Here are some pictures of our adventure:

Heading away from the lake – one day I will run all the way up that stupidly short, but steep, connecting path without walking…

Headed the right way!

Butt rot – hehe!

It’s steep looking back down, even though it doesn’t translate well.

Roots on the way up.

Orange dots of doom.

Mushroom

A view!!!

Mt. Seymour

Vancouver, way in the distance.

Nothing captures the glamour of trail running like snot falling out of your nose unnoticed.

The top!

Totally posed because he moved right before I took the picture so I made him do it again.

All in all it was a great day.  Took us longer than we planned (thanks Mum and Dad [who babysat Spud] for understanding!!); we took a left at the end when we should have turned right so did a bit of flagged bush-whacking back to the road/parking lot.  I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus – it’s way worse than after the marathon – but I know it’ll get better the longer I do it.  Who knows, I might actually do this trail again too.

Hopefully I’ll have more pictures of trees and trail runners soon.