Bell Island Blast 10 miler

Sunday past I did the Bell Island Blast . . . a tough 10 mile race on Bell Island . . . which is hills. All hills. Actually, never ending hills. It seemed to me that there were some road/geography things at play which made it mostly uphills. Either way I spent the better part of the race wondering why we couldn't do the race from end to start. Seems like it would have been much easier!!

It was the inaugural race. That was fun. It didn't take me long to look around at the ferry line up and realize that inaugural race meant that most of these people are fast. The running crowd. Much more experienced than I was. A fellow runner took this picture of me in the line up. He told me to put on my war face.



It was a few hours before hurricane Bill, so humidity was through the roof. That was worrisome. None the less once we were at the start line location I was feeling pretty good. I was hydrated and fed and had new tunes on my mp3 player. After watching the faster runner warm up I never saw them again until the reception. I lined up at the end of the pack which is where I knew I'd finish. This picture was about 5 seconds after the gun. I was full on running, which means a blurry picture!



About 1/4 mile in we hit the first hill. I remember thinking that it wasn't so bad. Then we hit another hill that was much worse. it was at about mile 2 when I thought this may be much more difficult than I thought. It was just past a big hill when we turned a corner and saw another, even bigger hill. Now the holga and it's wide angle lens is not the best for capturing this type of thing. You'll just have to trust me that there were a lot of groans by a lot of folks right about here. You'll also notice that the pack is really spreading out now.



It was at that point where I realized that I was sweating like a pig and to get through this race I'd need to just run. Concentrate. Forget the camera. Save the camera for a flat course or save it for next year when I have more experience running. Something. Anything.

So I kept running. Soon the sun came out and made the hot humidity even hotter. The hills kept coming. I kept going. Eventually I came to the finish line, which was of course at the top of a hill. I was 101/102, and I don't feel bad about that because I was just at the end, not far back, from the pack. It was a tough tough course. I was comforted by the fact that the after race chatter seemed to indicate that everyone thought it was tough, even the experienced ones. They mostly added about 15 or so minutes from the 10 mile race a month ago that was an easy course. I only added 3 minutes. This means that all my hard work and hill training is paying off. I"m still slow, but I'm stronger than I was and that is good.

Here is a photo from their website. It's me coming into the finish.



A few last frames. First is the dock from the ferry.



And last but not least . . we were treated to show of dolphins in the bay on the way back! Literally hundreds. It was pretty cool!!



SO all in all . . . it was a great experience. I have decided to do another race in three weeks. This time a flat 10K. It should seem like a breeze so that I can take many many pictures next time!!