runwithdogs
11-30-2009, 12:21 AM
Last Saturday night the kidlets had a sleepover at Grandmas, and Hubby and I got up really early on Sunday to head over to Lake Manchester for the trail runs. It was a really cold morning at the start, much colder than here closer to the coast. There was a 4k, 8k, 21k and 33.3k option. Given that I was so particular about the 0.3k, guess which one we decided to tackle? Yeah, the long one.
The run had some narrow trials but was mostly along forestry gravel roads, and there were some darned big hills. There were 10 creek crossings along the route, and we managed to cross all but one unscathed. There was just no way to cross that one other than walk through, and the water was icy! It was so pretty!
The view from the top was lovely. [/URL]
If you can see the left hand side of Lake Manchester, that’s where we started. It was a long way back to the start!
Checkpoints had drinks, jelly babies, jelly beans, fruit and cake, which were very much appreciated. As were the friendly smiles of the folk manning the checkpoint
Here I am looking like I know what I’m doing!
[URL="http://runwithdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/lakemanchesterme.jpg"] (http://runwithdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/lakemanchesterview.jpg)
It took us 5 hours and 15 minutes to do the 33.3km. We walked the uphills, and ran the flats and downhills I actually felt quite cruisy up until the last 2km or so. Then I started to walk some of the flats too . I pulled up really comfortably yesterday, and I was expecting to feel sorer today, but nothing – calves are fine, quads are fine, shins are fine. What’s really neat is that the Lake Manchester trails appear to be open to dogs on a lead. We’ll check it out and might take our four legged running buddies out there for a run sometime.
The run had some narrow trials but was mostly along forestry gravel roads, and there were some darned big hills. There were 10 creek crossings along the route, and we managed to cross all but one unscathed. There was just no way to cross that one other than walk through, and the water was icy! It was so pretty!
The view from the top was lovely. [/URL]
If you can see the left hand side of Lake Manchester, that’s where we started. It was a long way back to the start!
Checkpoints had drinks, jelly babies, jelly beans, fruit and cake, which were very much appreciated. As were the friendly smiles of the folk manning the checkpoint
Here I am looking like I know what I’m doing!
[URL="http://runwithdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/lakemanchesterme.jpg"] (http://runwithdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/lakemanchesterview.jpg)
It took us 5 hours and 15 minutes to do the 33.3km. We walked the uphills, and ran the flats and downhills I actually felt quite cruisy up until the last 2km or so. Then I started to walk some of the flats too . I pulled up really comfortably yesterday, and I was expecting to feel sorer today, but nothing – calves are fine, quads are fine, shins are fine. What’s really neat is that the Lake Manchester trails appear to be open to dogs on a lead. We’ll check it out and might take our four legged running buddies out there for a run sometime.