Held in Fanshawe Conservation Area in London. Hosted by the London Pacers. I've wanted to do this race for almost two years now and i finally was able to make it out. Friday afternoon I headed to London. I stayed at my sisters place which was conveniently 15 mins away from the race. We drove down the night before to pick up my kit and check out the area a little. Along with my race kit was a Vulture Bait, Play Dirty Run Trails tech t shirt (early reg.) and I won "Awesome door prize # 71" - A tub of powdered electrolytes! My brother-in-law wanted to register too but the race was full. He started talking to one of the volunteers and said he wanted to run just to keep me company but they were full. The man told him if he didn't take too much food and no medal at the finish that he could run it. So he registered. They even gave him a race kit! Very nice.
Saturday......The weather was made to order
. We lined up at the start area and the crowd just started moving, no gun or horn, just someone saying GO! A little bottlenecky at the start but soon spread out. A single loop 25k and double for 50kers. My plan going into this was to use it as a training run, take it easy and enjoy my day- I had 7 hours to complete it. Nice LSD, run/walk, and lots of pictures. What a beautiful course! It goes around Fanshawe Lake, so you have the lake on one side and a golf course on the other for some time. Rowing club, dam, fall colours, BEAUTIFUL! I don't have a lot of trail experience so I'm not sure on how technical it was. Roots, rocks, sharp turns, mud and a creek crossing but no huge hills to speak of. You just don't dare trip in some areas because you'll fall down a drop off into the lake. The aid stations were as amazing as the volunteers at them. We would eat, chit chat and of course photo-op and then be on our way. 5 stations en route in all
. Near the end we caught up to the guy running barefoot. I believe he was doing the 50k.
I honestly thought I would be around the 4:30 time when I started but even with the easy pace, stopping/sightseeing, walking, we managed to cross with a 3:18 finish. I was shocked. I felt great! Still do! Did some stretching and went inside to...eat more! What a spread after! Bread, hot pasta, soup, meatballs, 2 different salads, cookies, squares, 2 kinds of cake mmmmmm.
While we were sitting there the same man that we were talking to the night before came up to my brother-in-law and told him he could go get a medal, there were some extra. Bonus!
We were on our way out and asked if we'd like a message...no waiting....'sign me up!'
In a nutshell... Well organized, friendly volunteers, beautiful course, awesome weather, great food, great food, great food. I will definitely be doing this race again!!
Oh, and I only have one war wound where a stick tried to impale my leg when it got stuck under my chip timer lol
www.vulturebaitrace.comApril :)
