Running warm up/down 40:00 [1]
slept:7.0 shoes: Hurricanes
Warm up and cool down for Edmonton cross-country race series at Harleek park
Running race 20:00 [5] 5.0 km (4:00 / km)
shoes: Hurricanes
First of Frank's Races in Edmonton at Hawrelak Park. Big turnout, even bigger looking considering the Edmonton Thunder were having a practice and I ran into my friend Brad Young who's moved west as well.
I started what I felt was slow enough, and was probably slow for an inshape Nev, but the fact that I couldn't remember my last road/cross race was not a good sign. As my friend Toivo says: racing hurts. Which is why Toivo's a rockclimber now. Pretty demanding course, some serious climbs on an out and back style route. Very very glad I didn't spike it up. Not a good time and I felt awful for much of the race. But, glad I did it to get me back into intensity.
The race series looks amazing. It's in it's 25th year, they charge $2 per race and it's chip-timed. It has a big following, lots of Masters and high school runners, mixture of some serious types and Running Room types, not sure where I fit in.
But, the only downside was that I saw Edmonton Orienteering having an event at the same area at the same time. Does that make any sense at all? First EOOC put on an event on the UofA campus during Frosh week when it's at the busiest, now an event here when the types of athlete's the sport should be trying to recruit are already racing.
If Frank's races have been around 25 years and they are doing very well, perhaps it would make sense to put your evening events on a different night and try to attract some of the runners?