As April rolled into May, the day-to-day routine of living through a pandemic had become somewhat normalized. I was working from home during the week, which allowed a little more flexibility as to when I was able to run from Monday to Friday. And while all of the typical road races that I would run in the spring had been cancelled, I was signed up for three virtual races, which helped give me a little extra motivation in my training.
The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee (GVRAT) was created by Lazurus Lake, the organizer of the Barkley Marathons. I've mentioned before that Barkley was my first introduction to the sport of trail running, and so the idea of running an event being put off by Laz was immediately appealing to me. This event required participants to cover 1,022 km between May 1 and August 31, and we were required to enter our distances daily to the website, where we could track our progress across the state of Tennessee.
Concurrent to this event, the Paradise Running Club was hosting the Virtual-7o9(00k) Challenge, which involved running 904.5 km between May 11 and September 13, to cover the distance from Port Aux Basques to St. John's. As the total distance was less and the dates more or less overlapped, completion of this event was guaranteed if I completed the GVRAT. It was still fun to be able to track my progress across the province, and this event came with the added benefit of automated tracking.
The third virtual event I entered was the Limitless Vertical Challenge, hosted by Aravaipa Running. This took place over the week of May 25-31 and I'll discuss this one in a little more detail later in this post.
While the virtual events helped boost my motivation somewhat, there was another added bonus around this time. As more information became known about the spread of the virus, it became clear that exercising outside with friends posed little to no risk, as long as proper distancing was maintained. This allowed me to began doing a few runs around Signal Hill during the week with some of my running buddies, and also to get out and start experiencing the beauty of the East Coast Trail.
Before I started running with others, I took a trip to Blackhead Road for a run on the ECT section leading down to Freshwater Bay, and on to Fort Amherst. I had never done this route before, but I assumed that in early-May it would be passable for running. Well, I turned out to be VERY wrong about that one!
The entire trail leading down to Freshwater Bay was either buried under a foot or two of snow or was a river of water about a foot deep. On subsequent runs on this trail, it took me about 14 minutes to reach the barachois; on this run, it took me over 28 minutes, and I was soaked to the bone by the time I got there. On the bright side, I did get to see a Christmas tree as I headed towards the climb on the way to Fort Amherst.
Christmas in May at Freshwater Bay!
Unfortunately, the Christmas tree ended up being about the only good thing on that run. After tackling the snowy ascent to the top of the Southside Hills, I was met with an impassable stream of water. I would learn on later runs that this area normally has a small water crossing, but the only way across on this particular day would've been to swim.
After descending the hill, I headed back towards the trailhead and turned off onto an alternate trail leading towards Leamy's Brook. While this detour led me to a beautiful bridge crossing, I lost any semblance of a clear trail shortly thereafter and was once again forced to retreat. I battled the climb back to where I parked my car, and after an hour and forty minutes of frustration, I was left to spend 90 minutes running out and back on Blackhead Road to finish my day of training. Suffice it to say, my first journey to the East Coast Trail for 2020 was anything but successful!
Thankfully, my month of training was much more enjoyable from there. Over the next couple of weeks, I got out for 7 or 8 runs on Signal Hill with some of my running friends, as well as a couple of solo efforts. I hit one long run with just over 1,450 meters (4,750 feet) of elevation gain, which was a new personal best. And I got in two more trips to the ECT, both with my training partners. One which introduced me to what would become my favourite ECT trail, and the second checked off a longstanding goal of mine.
On May 17 I headed to Pouch Cove to run the Stiles Cove Path with Ginny, Julie Dwyer, and Dan Meades. I had zero familiarity with this trail, and I'm pretty sure this was the first time I'd ever driven to Pouch Cove. On this day, we ran in about 8 km and turned back, so I only saw about half the trail. But the amazing views provided by the coves along the way hooked me, and by the end of the morning I had fallen in love with this trail and would return to run all or part of it numerous times over the remainder of the year.
One of the beautiful coves on Stiles Cove Path
The following weekend saw us take a trip to Bay Bulls for a run/hike into the Spout. My parents are both from Bay Bulls, and I've been told countless times how the Spout is one hike on the ECT that can't be missed. I headed out early on Sunday morning with Ginny and Julie, for a planned 22 km day, that I expected to take about 4 hours. Ultimately, a combination of a wrong turn and a casual pace led to 23.85 km and just under 6 hours on the trail.
None of that took away from the remarkable views we experienced along the way, and the Spout itself definitely lived up to the hype. I got a beautiful video of a rainbow forming in the spray, and walked away generally amazed with the natural wonder of it all. (There is also the matter of me running most of the 11 km out carrying the jaw bone of a moose, but I think that's one of those "you had to be there" stories!)
A picturesque sea stack on the way to the Spout
I guess you could say the Spout is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
Even though the trip to the Spout ended up taking longer than expected, there was no rest to be had in the following week. That's because that Monday marked the beginning of my third virtual race, the Limitless Vertical Challenge. The concept of this race was simple: climb as much elevation as you could between May 25-31. There were 6 levels to aim for, with the top level being equivalent to summitting Mount Everest from sea level, twice! My coach and I settled on level 4, which was equivalent to summitting Mount Whitney from sea level, for a total of 14, 505 feet (4,421 metres) of elevation.
This was unlike any challenge I had ever undertaken, and it was really more of a hiking challenge than a running one. After spending some time on Google Maps, I identified a pole line off of the Gushue Highway just a few minutes from my house that provided a steep grade and guaranteed maximum elevation with the minimum distance covered. I spent 3 hours combined on Monday and Tuesday doing repeats here (a total of 64) and chalked up just over 1,550 metres (5,100 feet) of elevation, about 35% of my weekly goal. I also discovered that climbing on a pole line in the spring without pants or long socks likely isn't the best idea, as my legs got tore up by various thorns along the way.
As I headed into day 3 of the challenge, I was feeling good physically and was confident I would reach level 4 by Sunday. Unfortunately at this point life decided to jump up and give me a bit of a kick in the teeth.
You may have noticed that I haven't spoken about my mental health at all during this post, and that's because May was actually a really good month in that area. As I mentioned at the start of this post, I had settled into a pandemic routine that was working for me. I had two more sessions with my psychologist and felt that we were making progress. And getting to run and experience the ECT with my friends was a welcome change after the isolation of March and April.
Then, on May 27, just as I was preparing to head out for day 3 of the Limitless Challenge, I got news that shook up my world: I found out that I was losing my job.
The news came with some initial confusion, as one of my supervisors was under the impression that I was finishing that Friday, May 29. I was able to confirm that this was incorrect, and that I'd actually be finishing up on June 12.
I'm going to leave my in-depth reaction to this news until the next post, but for now I'll say that it was both difficult and confusing. I wasn't in love with my job, and I was definitely in a position where a change was probably for the best. At the same time, I wasn't really prepared to look for a job in the middle of a pandemic, and having been steadily employed for my entire 14-year career, suddenly not having a job was a shock to the system.
So, with that information swimming through my head, I set off for Signal Hill to pile up some more elevation. Day 3 saw another 600 metres (1,970 feet) of elevation and pushed me almost to the halfway point of my goal. On day 4, I travelled to Fort Amherst for my first trip up the trail there. I climbed to the top and got an amazing view of Signal Hill, and then I returned to the bottom and did 15 stair repeats, for a daily total of about 625 metres (2,050 feet) of elevation.
Day 5 was another new ECT experience, as I met up with Dan for a run on Sugarloaf Path. We met up in Quidi Vidi, and ran about 5 km out on the trail and then turned back. I made the mistake of pausing my watch for a picture and forgetting to restart it, which cost me about 20 metres of elevation, but I still walked away with about 570 metres (1,870 feet) of elevation for the day. That put my weekly total at 3,354 metres (11,004 feet), which left 1067 metres (3,500 feet) of elevation to cover over the weekend.
I took a rest day on Saturday and then headed back to Blackhead Road to tackle the Freshwater Bay/Fort Amherst trail for a second time. Thankfully, all of the snow and water I had encountered on my previous trip had disappeared, and I was left with a beautiful run.
After covering the trail from Blackhead Road to Fort Amherst, I did some quick math and realized that a return trip would leave me about 400 metres (1,300 feet) shy of my goal. To prevent the need for any hill repeats at the end of my run, I completed 13 stair repeats at Fort Amherst before heading back. Luckily, my math was spot on, and I made it back to the car with a daily total of 1,078 metres (3,535 feet), putting me over my goal for the week with 11 metres to spare!
I've always loved Signal Hill; I never knew that
the best view of it came from the other side
The completion of the Limitless Challenge was quite meaningful to me, both because of the mental grind it required and because it showed me that I could handle the climbing necessary to complete the Steep 100k race. It was nice to walk away from May with that under my belt, and I headed into the final three months of preparation feeling confident with where I stood.
This was in stark contrast to where things stood elsewhere in my life, as the looming spectre of unemployment started weighing heavier on my mind once the challenge was complete. I will state up front that I was fortunate not to have any immediate financial stresses due to this change in my work status; that does not mean that it didn't take a toll on me emotionally.
I'm going to leave that thread to pick up in the next post, as well as the continued preparation for the Steep 100k. I continue to be grateful to anyone who is taking the time to read these posts and pass along their comments. Thanks once again, and until next time, take care.
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