Orcas Island 25 km Trail Race

February 6, 2010

This was not only a race, but it was a whole weekend event, filled with sunshine, laughter, good food, and most important of all a great group of runners. The idea for heading over to Orcas Island to run a trail race arose many months previous, and the grand master organizer Sara Pape-Salmon began making preparations for the trip and rounding together a crew of interested runners. It sounded like it would be a good time, so I signed up for the 25 km race (there was also a 50 km race). We decided to rent a house and spend the entire weekend.

Due to logistics, we had to spend almost an entire day driving and ferry-ing to the Island. This meant an early morning rise for Shane and I on Friday. There is a ferry route between Vancouver Island (Sidney) and Orcas Island (via Anacortes), but unfortunately, it was not running in the winter, due to low traffic. As a result, we had to go along a convoluted route - across to Tsawwassen (Vancouver), down through Bellingham to Anacortes and then take another ferry to Orcas Island.

Time spent in travel: Almost 3 hours in ferries, about 3 hours driving, around 1 hour 15 min in ferry line-ups, and close to 1 hour waiting to get through US Customs (paperwork and lines were involved when one in our group tried to cross into the US, who was neither a Canadian nor US citizen). Luckily, it was great company and the conversation flowed easily -- plus we had challenging puzzles, super exciting loops through Bellingham, a fantastic healthy grocery store and stories about dating to entertain us along the way.

We arrived at Orcas Island in the early evening, ate some dinner, chatted some and prepared for the race the next day. I was absolutely exhausted. I had come down with a minor cold the day before, and although I didn't feel very sick, it had completely eaten up my energy. I only hoped that it wouldn't end up affecting me too much in the race the next day. As a result I headed to bed before 9pm!

Saturday morning, and I felt pretty good -- I had been able to get a decent rest, although I was still somewhat apprehensive about the race.

This is the most casual race I have ever been to. There's no proper timing (timers simply record your time as you cross the finish line), no awards, and a very laid-back atmosphere. The 50km racers headed off 15 minutes before us - three of our group were in that race (Jeff Hunt, Carolyn Goluza and Carlos Castillo).

Orcas 25 km Course Map

Orcas 25 km Profile

Next, it was our turn. Shane, Andrew Pape-Salmon, Sara, John Caterall, Jeremy Watts, Kathleen Birney and myself lined up for the start. There was some brief comments by the race director and then with barely a countdown we were off! The first 5 km or so were spent on a singletrack trail that had slight undulations up and down as we weaved around to Mountain Lake. Then the climb began. I knew that I would do a lot of hiking on the climbs. I wasn't feeling horrible, but my energy was definitely somewhat depleted, and I tried to simply stay steady and keep my pace going forward. A few people passed me as the climb started, but I wasn't too concerned. I hadn't gone into this race to set any kind of record and I wasn't expecting a high placing. I simply wanted to go out and enjoy the run, which definitely took the pressure off. The trail was beautiful, and while the forest was dense, the view wasn't very special - it looked very brown, not lush and green, as I would have expected during this time of year.

The climb was hard and went on for some time, but I was actually surprised to see the top as soon as I did. I reached the top in 1 hour 5 minutes. Near the top I jockeyed for position with another female runner and a male runner. On the sections that headed downhill, I was able to pass these two, but as the trail turned up again, they outclimbed me.

At the peak, the view was absolutely outstanding! It was a beautiful clear day, and we could see mountain ranges in the distance and the town below. Absolutely fantastic. I even slowed my pace somewhat to take it all in.

Next, we were in for some massive downhill. During this section, I was able to pass both the male and the female again. As I passed the male runner, he said "Ahhh, to be young again", I replied "Yes, but you'll pass me back on the uphill", and I fully expected that he would. This section had a lot of zig-zags, and I had to check my speed at each turn, as the trail turned 180 degrees down in the opposite direction. The trail was nicely maintained, but I found this amount of zig-zags really broke up my rhythm.

The next climb then began, and I was feeling better as the race went on. This climb was about 170 meters. It went by mostly in a blur - near the top, I was surprised to see John Caterall in front of me, as he's a stronger runner than I am. Soon after passing him, we reached the top. However, as I was running up to the intersection, the woman in front of me was yelling 'there's no ribbon' -- 'which way do we go?' The rest of the course had been well marked, with yellow ribbon and signs marking our way. Later, we learned that someone had torn down the ribbon at this intersection. About 5 of us milled around for a bit - there was sign to the left that pointed to some cold springs, and a sign to the right that pointed to Cascade Lake. One man of the group started to head down to the left, and I was pretty certain that this was the correct direction.

Prior to the race, Shane had been studying the map pretty intently, as he mentioned that it's always a good idea to have at least some sort of concept of where the race goes. Thankfully, I had followed his lead, and had a pretty good look at the map. I knew that after the two climbs, there was a steep descent that headed down to a lake. So, we decided to trudge down towards Cascade Lake and hoped that this was the right way. The path was steep, and there was no ribbons for quite some time. As we descended I decided that if this wasn't the correct way, I wasn't going back up -- I didn't have the energy to hike back up. But, this would not be required, as about half way down, we saw some yellow ribbons! Good, now we could continue along in confidence.

Soon after this point, I passed the female who had led up the climb. I got my downhill legs going and began to really hammer it down the hill. My legs took a lot of pounding, but I had fun going fast downhill.

Finally, the ground levelled out and I knew that I was almost done. I crossed a street and headed out around for the last ~5 km around the lake. Contrasting to the first 5 km, the loop around the lake was actually relatively flat. It was a beautiful loop, with only a few slight uphills. I ran this section entirely by myself and I had no idea where I was in relation to those in front or behind me. Soon, I began to hear the fiinish line -- now I really knew I was close. There was a small section on the road, and then one final uphill section -- finally down on the grass to the finish line. Time: 2:20:55. I was extremely happy with this time and with how I had performed, despite coming into the race a bit sick.

I later learned that I came in as the 3rd female overall -- wow - this was fantastic! I definitely hadn't expected this, but was elated with the news. Many of the other racers from our group also had outstanding races. Shane came in first (after the leader took a wrong turn), Andrew came in 6th overall, Jeremy had a pretty good race, Sara and Kathleen enjoyed their first 25 km races and came in sooner than expected, and John had a decent performance. In the 50 km, Jeff unfortunately ended up having to drop out as he was not feeling well, but Carlos and Carolyn had pretty good races. After the race, there was not only regular post-race munchies, there was also wonderfully tasty vegan soups with all sorts of toppings. Bonus points for that!

Enjoying a laugh after the race.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend -- and could only have been made better if the ferry between Sidney and the San Juan Islands had been running. But at least the company for the travels made it enjoyable. Overall a fun course, to which I would definitely return!