Tag Archives: winston churchill

Oct9

Run for the Pumpkin 4km-Recap

Posted on October 9, 2014 by mscurlgurl78

Saturday, October 4, 2014, marked my shortest race since I was 18 years old—a 4km. The local 4km was in its 27th year, and was put on by Lethbridge Track & Field Club. The thing that made this race extra special was that 7 of our WCHS Cross Country athletes would be running in it too. This would be a great pre-zone race for our kids, as two of them had NEVER done a race yet in their life!

The day was gorgeous and perfect for running, We met as a team at 11:00am, which was the start of the 2km race for the younger kids. Our race packages were all nicely grouped together in a WCHS bag, which made it easy to sort and hand out bibs/shirts to my athletes. We had a few age corrections to make and that was quickly changed by Matt K. in the registration tent. The kids were either in the 15& Under or 16-18 age groups. I was in 19 & older.

Glenn, a local runner whose daughter I have taught (he was volunteering that day) kind of laughed at me running this 4km because he knew it wasn’t “my distance”. He told me to go out comfortably the first lap, and take the second lap like the last stretch of the biggest race of my life. Those words were very wise, but I did the reverse. I ran out of the starting area in a sub 6 minute pace. The up and downs over the rolling inclines were a challenge for myself, as I am used to running on asphalt, and the grass just drains your legs! Cross country is tough! By the time I reached mile 1 on my watch, I had hit 7:04. Holy shit, I wonder if I could keep that for the next 1.36 miles?

The nice thing about this course and how it looped was that I could see my athletes running as I ran. I yelled at a few of them a couple times and it kept me pushing. My chest was hurting and my throat was feeling dry. Holy crap, I am not cut out for a 4km! I kept my eye on a younger girl ahead of me, who I couldn’t tell if she was over 18 or younger, and it made it my goal to pass her before the finish. This kept me pushing and I finished in a time of 17:23. My second mile had been a 7:47, and my average pace was back to my old faithful of 7:30. Go figure!

After I finished I caught my breath and turned around to watch the kids come in. One of our boys had finished well before me, placing 2nd in his 16-18 age group with a 15:12! The other six did awesome too! Two of the girls earned ribbons in their 15& under group with a 1st and a 3rd. And another boy earned a 3rd in his 16-18 group! Our one girl who had done junior high cities on September 25, which was a 3km, ran her 4km at a faster pace per kilometer than she did at the city race! And our other two girls completed their FIRST EVER race! It was an excellent day all around.

I have fallen more and more in love with this sport. Yes, I myself am now a “long-distance runner.” But, I never got to be a high school cross country runner. Back when I was in high school, I was on the Pom Pon Team (which I would not change for a second) but this took up three sports’ seasons-Summer, Fall and Winter. One could not do two sports in a season, so cross country (fall) was out. And Cross Country was (and still is) huge back home in southern Wisconsin. I love being part of this sport and this community, and I love even more being able to get kids being excited to run. Our Cross Country South Zone Meet was yesterday, and we brought 15 athletes. 8 qualified for Provincials, which is hosted by Strathcona-Tweeds unit on October 18th. I am so excited to take these kids up there and run in the big show! And even though our regular season is done, I spoke with a bunch of the kids today after school and we are going to do a “Run Club” every Tuesday and Thursday to keep the momentum going. The kids are even asking about what local 5km races there are and which ones I do. I love where this is going and I can’t wait to see what happens.

Apr13

Lethbridge 10 Mile Road Race-Race Recap!

Posted on April 13, 2014 by mscurlgurl78

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April 12th, 2014, marked the 41st annual Lethbridge 10 Mile Road Race. I ran this event last year for the first time, (you can find that recap here) and really enjoyed it. Last year, this event marked the first time I ever placed in my age group-2nd place! For the first time since high school, I had actually felt like an athlete! Going into the race this year, I knew I wanted to beat last years time (1:23:14) and also attempt to still place in my age group.

I had also been quietly promoting this event at school to students, as they do a 4 mile event also. Runners Soul awards a school participation award and a high school challenge trophy. Four of my cross country athletes registered for the event! I met with them before my 9:00 am start time to chat and get them fired up to run in the ridiculously gross weather. Their event began at 9:20, so I told them we would meet up afterwards during awards.

The wind was cold, the snow flurries were blowing, the air was crisp–for me, it was perfect running weather! It could have been worse! Pouring rain, sweltering heat or as cold as it was a few weekends ago during my Run For L’Arche in Calgary…those would have all been worse. I left the start line with a burst of energy and determination-here goes nothing!

The course is out-and-back, taking the 10 milers down Scenic Drive to Lynx Trail, which leads you down into the river bottom. Runners would wind through the river bottom adjacent to the Old Man River, and eventually turn around once you near the High Level Bridge. The course was the exact same as last year, so I knew what I was getting myself into. As I proceeded onto Scenic Drive, I met up with fellow Marathon Club member Bob H. I have ran with him at club before—he really books it during training runs with his daughter in the jogging stroller!—and also most recently saw him at the Coaldale 5km. He ran a 1:22 last year and told me he also wanted to beat that time. I figured following him while I could would be a good pacing strategy for me! I made sure I always ran on the inside “lane” when we were side by side, because as I have said before, my 5’3″ stature doesn’t always provide the best stride length. I need to hug the curve when possible!

After the first three miles, I had ran a 6:50, 7:39 and 7:31. I was booking it, and Bob even mentioned the crazy idea that I could get a 1:15:00! I was thinking that as we descended into the river bottom, and for a moment got discouraged as a handful of people plowed past me. I am very hesitant going down this hill, as I know how steep it is. It is over half a mile downhill, and if I were to go too fast my legs would be feeling it and hurting once I hit level ground. When I made it to the bottom of the hill, I made a conscious effort to lengthen my stride and make up ground. I was able to catch mostly everyone that passed me on that downhill. I then set my focus forward to make it to the turnaround.

At the 5 mile turnaround, I felt great about my position and pace. I was able to see at that moment I was actually the 2nd place female runner! I knew I needed to keep my pace down in the valley, and really give it on the hill back up to Scenic. Before hitting Whoop-Up Drive, I saw my fellow teacher and her husband running to the turnaround. It was a great energy boost to see Amie and Morgan! When I reached the 6 mile mark, and the hill climb was my next obstacle, I had ran a 7:01, 7:23, and 7:24.

Hill training is a necessary evil. I don’t like it, I don’t think anyone really does, but man does it pay off. I have done this hill so many times before on training runs and races that I knew what beast I would be tackling. At the midway point where it flattens out a bit I even picked up my pace the best I could. I kept my head up and made it up that hill with a slight smile on my face, as I knew that now I was back on Scenic Drive and the last three miles would feel easy compared to that incline. My seventh mile clocked in at 8:52.

Even though the hardest climb was done, the last three miles had to still be tackled with gusto. I didn’t want to lose my pace, so I kept my head forward and focused on that goal. I ran mile 8 and 9 at 7:43 and 7:24. The 7:24 was a huge confidence boost because I was able to get back near to my most consistent pace times. During the last mile I knew I wanted to hold my position, but also knew I could get that glorious 1:15:00! I used everything I had left as I wound through the College grounds to the finish line, running my last mile in a time of 7:03! I finished the race not only beating my time from last year, but clocking in at a 1:14:49! I was shaking with adrenaline as the volunteer took my timing chip off my ankle-I was overjoyed!

Two of my students were on the side of the finish line stretch, and I heard them cheering when I came down, so I went over to see how their race went. They both agreed it went well, but they hadn’t seen the results yet. When we headed inside, we ran into one of the other kids, who felt really great about his race. After finding the results for the four mile, it was awesome to see that all four of the kids did fantastic! The youngest girl in our group, Morghan, had improved her time since cross country season by a lot! Bacho has been running a lot on her own after school since cross country season and also had done the Moonlight Run, so she was quite pleased with her time too! Both Kristin and Tyler, cross country athletes who went to Provincials with our team in October, earned age group awards! Kristin placed 2nd in 16-19 females and Tyler also earned a 2nd in the male 16-19 category! The young man who captured first in his group was actually a cross country athlete at the College, and he came over after Tyler’s race to congratulate him, and was surprised Tyler was only in grade 10.

We found Amie just before the 4 mile awards, and sat as a school for the presentations. It was inspiring to see all the young kids out there doing the 4 mile event! The youngest age category was 10 and under, and there were 21 kids in total! Looking at the results, the number of kids participating that were 19 and under totaled 41! Kids made up 28% of the four mile event field! Awesome!

The part of the awards that almost had me cry (honestly…I’m emotional) was when Shawn from Runners Soul announced the high school team challenge winners. They had started this award back in 2011, and every year the trophy went with Medicine Hat High School. He made this clear in his presentation of the awards and then made it very clear that it was staying here in Lethbridge this year! Winston Churchill High School had claimed the title! The crowds’ support of our WCHS kids was incredible, and it made me extremely proud to be a “northside” teacher.

The 10 mile awards followed. I accepted my 1st place medal for my 20-29 age group, and then anxiously awaited my overall award. I had never placed overall before this! At Moonlight Run this year I narrowly missed out an overall award, finishing 4th out of all females. I finished 2/65 in my gender today, and earned $150 as my prize money. Not going to lie, and I am not ashamed to admit it, but I cashed that cheque at Scotiabank so embarrassingly fast after the event. I also called my husband to inform him I was making us dinner reservations at Miro Bistro that night and the dinner was on me!

Today the sun is out, the snow is melted, and it is above freezing. There is no wind. The weather is perfect for a Sunday afternoon in April. To the average person in Lethbridge, yesterday may have looked like a terrible, rotten, no-good, very bad day. But I think it was pretty much perfect-I’d give it an 11 out of 10.

Mar9

Moonlight Run 10km Race Recap-What a Night for a Race!

Posted on March 9, 2014 by mscurlgurl78

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Last night was the 27th annual Moonlight Run 6km and 10km. This is the largest race in Lethbridge, Alberta, and is held every year in March. Approximately 2500 runners stormed the streets of downtown Lethbridge and headed down into the dark river bottom. It didn’t matter which event you participated in, because you could not avoid the crazy hill back up to 3rd Avenue. I had written about my goals for this race in my last post, so now I will briefly recap the event and let you know if I achieved what I set out to get!

The weather the past two weeks has been, in lack of a better phrase, “bat shit crazy.” It has been at polar vortex levels, with icy, sandy snow blowing, and really what looked to be no end in sight. When I went down to do the course one more time on Wednesday, I went to check out all the icy spots. TONS of black ice, and this would become exponentially more dangerous as it got darker out. I knew everyone would have to be going a lot slower in the curves of huge trail system in Indian Battle Park.

But then a weird thing happened…we got above freezing on Friday! I don’t know the exact stats, but since Friday afternoon when that Chinook wind blew through, we have been steadily above freezing and everything has melted. Looking out my back window right now, I see no snow, and it is currently 52 degrees Fahrenheit. This balmy breakthrough helped “break the ice”, yet then turned the course into a Spartan Race. (More on that in a bit.)

My husband Dan and I got down to the race start at CASA early, and I was able to say hi to some of my students who were volunteering. The music department has students volunteer every year at Moonlight, so I saw tons of familiar faces. I even found time to snap a photo with the one and only Susie Staples before the race! She is our music instructor at WCHS and was responsible for getting all the student volunteers!

Race started at 8:00 pm for the 10 km and 8:15 pm for the 6 km. There were 539 runners in the 10 km this evening (this is the number I am getting from the official results). The 6km had three times the number of participants, with 1646! I positioned myself about two rows back from the front and was ready to go. The fun thing, for me at least, at this race is that they sing the national anthems for both the United States and Canada. I believe this is because of participants coming in from Montana for the race. No other race would take the time to care about something like that, so I find it very cool!

A cannon started us off immediately following “Oh Canada.” Stampede! Dan tried to get a shot of me flying by…really you can kind of make me out as the purple blur in the right corner of the photo. We turned onto 3rd Avenue and started our slow descent. There is a natural downhill as you head west on 3rd Avenue and this natural downhill turns into a steep drop as you hit Wendy’s hill. I was booking it! The roads were clear and visibility was great for this first straightaway so I figured I’d take advantage of it. I saw fellow colleague Amie S. with her dog Roscoe at the beginning of the downhill stretch–she was there to cheer on her husband Morgan! Her “GO ANDREA!” got me smiling! Halfway down the hill the Lethbridge Firefighter’s Pipe & Drum Band was pumping out some fanatic music. I soon hit mile 1 at record time-6:21.39. Wowsa.

When I approached what I would consider a 120 degree clockwise turn in the river bottom, my vision and depth perception almost went blank. Even though I had my headlamp on, the sudden change from being on a road lit with street lamps to now being on a trail with nothing was huge. I stumbled and slowed a tad, but regained my composure. We headed towards the newly refurbished Helen Schuler Nature Centre, and an aboriginal drumming group was helping keep the tempo. Heading towards the Highway 3 overpass was when everyone first encountered what I would end up calling “ice puddles.” It was the lesser of two evils, because these puddles were black ice on Wednesday…but this is where my experience in Spartan Races helped me. Well…not really. But I can say that since I have ran through mud and crap and water before in those races, I decided to just commit to running straight through these ocean of icebergs. I first tried going around the puddle and off the trail, but that was pure deep mud and a mix of iced up snow, which was more dangerous. Wet feet and calves it would have to be.

My second mile clocked in at 7:05.02. I was happy with my second mile because I knew it would be tough after the sharp turnaround to keep mile 3 near this pace. After the turnaround runners had to share the already narrow path with the 10km runners who were heading towards Highway 3. Most oncoming runners were good at sharing the path; I only encountered one pairing of people coming towards me that seemed to think they could take up the whole width. We were guided off the path near the nature centre and met disgusting mud. I am glad I got through this before a bunch of people, because I’m sure it just got more mucked up later on. As we turned parallel to the train bridge, I hit mile 3 at 7:25.79.

The stretch between mile 3 and 4 was honestly the toughest for me. No, not the hill! But this portion of trail. The fact that it was dark wasn’t even the main issue…it was the fact it was now around 8:30 pm and every 100 metres or so you would hit an ice bath. These slowed you down even if you tried to just pummel on through. I’m glad I was familiar with these trails because I could prepare myself for areas I thought would be iffy. This race also further supports why I don’t listen to music when racing—if I had had headphones on and music blasting, you wouldn’t be able to use all your senses to grasp what was happening around you. There was a gentleman in front of me most of this stretch that I could see due to his reflective shirt and my headlamp—I was able to see when he hit stretches of puddles and this got me prepared for every icy submersion I hit. Mile 4 was what I consider my “slowest” clocking in at 7:57.07.

Mile 5 was more of the same, but less puddles. The trail opened up after the turn around near the water treatment plant. Street lamps were now back on the gravel road and I could start to get my stride back. I finished the 5th mile at 7:51.49. And this is when we hit what separated the men from the boys……

The hill. If you aren’t from Lethbridge, the pictures from my last blog post don’t do this hill justice. And the fact that the 10km runners had to run on the trail parallel to the actual road made it even more challenging. The pitches on this trail were insane. But I knew I could tackle this—I’d done this hill twice and in the past year I have done more hill training than my previous 9 years of running! I knew I had a woman close behind me before this hill, because I could hear her breathing throughout the whole trail system, but once we hit that hill, I made a gap. I also managed to pass three men one right after another as we started our initial ascent. Sure, my pace nosedived at this point, but I went as fast as I could up this hill. I caught up to a guy around my age at one of the steepest switchbacks. These switchbacks added a new challenge versus just running straight up the road! There were even more spots to have to slow down as you did these quick turns. Back to the guy, though…we didn’t speak other than me saying “good job!” as I met up next to him. I think the fact that a girl his age had caught up to him lit a fire under his ass, because we kept up together the duration of the trail. It was good motivation for me, and I’m sure I helped him indirectly get up that hill….who wants to be beaten by a girl?!?

Mile 6 was my slowest paced mile—-I knew it would be with that hill. It was a 9:14.68. But I am so proud of how I tackled it. I did not walk, I did not let anyone pass me, and I gained some ground. The 10km and 6km runners joined forces as we head down 3rd Avenue back to CASA. It was now hard telling who was who in the race, as all runners mingled. I kept my head forward and pushed on through the the finish. As I turned towards the finish the announcers were able to read my number and announce “….another female 10km finisher was coming in…Andrea Lammers-Pottage of Lethbridge….she’s close to top 3 in females!” I finished with an official chip time of 47:27 flat. Not too shabby considering the conditions! I immediately felt overjoyed with my time! Dan got some not-so-flattering pictures of me coming back to earth, and we headed off to find some results.

I was so excited to see the results beginning to be posted….I placed 2nd in the females 25-29 category! I had achieved my goal of top 3 in my division! The big surprise was that I actually got 4th out of 304 women! And of the 539 total racers in the 10km, I placed 45th! Below is a snapshot of my results and a link to the official results on racepro.ca!

Race Results for the 10km at Moonlight Run 2014

The awards started at 9:30 pm, beginning with the 6km event. They took quite a long time, but Erin from Runners Soul kept it moving as fast as possible. With age divisions being 5 years apart, and placings going 5 deep, you couldn’t move much faster! Dan joked later on that we waited twice as long for the awards than it took me to run my event. The 10km awards began sometime after 10 pm. The wait for my 2nd place medal was well worth it! It is beautiful! Honestly, this is probably one of my favorite medals. Not just because of the fact that I achieved my goal in order to earn it, but it captures the essence of Lethbridge so well!

Well. Another Moonlight Run is in the books. It was my most successful Moonlight to date and I can’t wait until next year. The race went off without a hitch! The fact that the weather Gods decided to help us out on Friday was huge! Now I want to look if there are any nearby 10 km races this spring in an hour radius, because I am determined to break 45 minutes! With every race comes a new goal! Thanks for reading my long entry! Happy Sunday everyone!

Below is the link to the main page of results for all events at the 2014 Moonlight Run! All categories are broken down in both the 6km and 10km
2014 Moonlight Run Results from Racepro.ca

Je Me Souviens-To Infinity & Beyond!

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Tag Archives: winston churchill

Run for the Pumpkin 4km-Recap

Lethbridge 10 Mile Road Race-Race Recap!

Moonlight Run 10km Race Recap-What a Night for a Race!

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