Seaton Soaker 15k trailr run

It’s a lovely early spring Saturday, high 13 degree, sunny, crystal clear blue sky, and a very light sweet breeze. You cannot ask for a better day for a spring outdoor running/hiking.

My two colleagues, Gosha and Joanne, signed up for this race at my recommendation. Their condition was that we would walk instead of run. So I would walk with the two girls and my husband Feng would run and wait for me at the finish line. He was totally Okay with that. He is super.

The two of them are always cheerful and arrive early at our walks. We had done several trail walks together. And they were very early today too, and you could tell that Gosha was a bit excited. She said she woke up at 4:00 and then 5:00. This was the first time that they met Feng. Gosha was of course very comfortable and natural with meeting new people. I’m happy to see that Joanne was easy with meeting Feng too.

They had 15k, 25k, 50k and 12k relay today. The trail was a total natural and very narrow dirt trail with lots of hills and spring muddy areas, and some exposed tree roots. It must take lots of courage to run a marathon on this kind of trail, but it must also have much more fun to run on a trail than on the street. I would 10 times more prefer to run on trails than on street.

So Feng set off to run, and we started our strolling.

There was only one lady behind us the whole time, so we were the second, third and forth to last in our 15k run group. We did not mind at all. The weather was perfect. The trail was lovely and woody with lots of trilliums and other spring wild flowers blooming, and birds happily chirping all the way along. It was very enjoyable, no matter you walk or run.

We met him half way, our way out, his way back. We were really slow. it looks dry and flat here, but the trail was pretty muddy and hilly, with some super muddy spots where you get them inside your shoes, yikes.

river crossing. you cross twice, and four times if you do 50km. the water wasn't as cold as expected and the crossing wasn't a big fuss after all. Our shoes were wet and muddy, I was lazy and tried to dry them up later and then shake the mud off, but they smelled so bad, and I had to wash all of them hard. 

I was very hungry by the time we reached the 7.5k turning point. They had set up a food station there. But the jam sandwiches they promised on their website were so tinny, a quarter of a regular piece of bread, I had to grab two and some other baked goods. I felt bad because I felt they were there more for the serious 50k runners than us 15k strollers. I don’t know why I felt that way. We paid for the registration so we were entitled to get fed.

Anyway, we walked, and talked and laughed as always, and tried to learn new plants and flowers along the way, and stepped to the side to let the runners pass. It’s funny that Joanne got annoyed by the runners shouting to us “good jobs, ladies” or “almost there” on their way back. I didn’t mind. It was exactly the same route out and back. We started stepping aside for the returning runners to pass shortly after we were on our way, and had to do that there after. We met Feng half way to the turning point. It meant that we were about 4k out when he did about 10k. We were really slow. But so what? We enjoyed the day just as much as they did, run or walk.

We finished! Yeah!! Oops, no, this pic is actually before we set off, but anyway we finished after all and the pics look identical. we three always pose the same way, not creative at all.

They offered pizza and homemade chili, yogurt, chocolate milk and bananas. But again the food didn’t seem a lot there and you felt intimidated to have more than one serving of anything. This was a small race event with only 500 racers and the food stations were on small scales too.

My two walking partners enjoyed this walk very much, much thanks to the weather, and we already decided to come back and do a 25k full trail hike on our own as soon as the trail dries up.