Fort Langley 10K race report

Submitted by Sarah Diamond @Voxpax2 

What do you say when you have accomplished something you never thought might be possible? “Horse poop and Wedgies.”

Now I know what you might be thinking: How does she come up with that? Well it’s all in the experience of running that perhaps someone out there might understand, or perhaps I am just that unique.

This was my first 10k official run ever. I had just attempted a 12 miler the day before for training and was wondering if I had overdone it just before a run. I had my doubts, but nope, this in some way was the best thing that could have happened. It gave me the idea of the length, and of course a 10k was half of the distance and so the run seemed that more easy to do.

The run was held at Fort Langley BC Canada, which is an old fort the settlers used in the 1800’s and prior. They have live actors that demonstrate the different activities that occurred at the fort. You may have seen the video of the pan of the fort (my apologies for it may be upside down) and that was our starting point for the run.

They called up the 10k runners and into the shoot I went. I was nervous, wondering if I could even survive this, would I make the distance. I didn’t much care about the time, I just wanted to be able to actually do this. We were off!

The path started of in the back streets of some nearby homes, and then soon hit the highway. If you are ever able to come out to this section of BC, it is beautiful farm land area, and it’s nice to smell air and not the city smog once in a while. Many people have horses and use the roads as trails due to the lack of traffic in this area. Needless to say they can leave some pretty big piles of “you know what” on the ground, easily avoidable due to their size. :)

At one point nearing the halfway mark I saw the water station, but so far in my little 5K’s experience when you hit a water station, that can usually mean  a turn around point so I got all excited to know I had reached half way. It turned out not to be... just a water station and one big hill after it. So I took my time going up the hill while runners where speeding down it. One lady seeing my face at the water station said “Oh it was a right nasty trick of them wasn't it, and that hill is brutal, but don’t worry the half point is just at the top and part way down.”

And in reaching the top point I saw the turn around sign, and for a moment I stood there staring at it. I don’t know really why I stood so long, perhaps it was the beauty of seeing the sign knowing I had even made it this far in the run, or perhaps it was knowing I was officially half way done and over all I didn’t feel too tired. I was also trying to catch my breath for the asthma was kicking in but I was able to control it with my inhaler. Another lady reaching me (I think she was walking the half) saw me standing there and asked “Are you trying to decide?”  I laughed, “No I’m just enjoying the moment that I have reached half of my goal.” She smiled and nodded and kept going on down the hill on to her half way point of the half.

I slowly walked around the sign, enjoying every moment of it, and I feel like it has been engrained in my memory. Every step and every breath. I began the decent back down the hill like I had seen all the runners ahead of me do.

I was half way back when I realized something wasn't right. Up till now in my short running experience, I have never had a wedgie while running. Even during my training day before I didn’t have this, and suddenly I found myself wondering what was the running protocol for such a situation. Now most of you experts out there are now probably laughing at such thinking, but we know we have all been there at one point or another, and I guess mine came up.  I have read about all the anti this and anti that of shorts and underwear, chafing and glides, etc, but until now, never needed them. I didn’t take into account that with all this running I’m seeing my body change to be more defined and of course that leads to cloths getting bigger and not sitting where they normally would, which lead to my current predicament.

So while running I was trying to figure out what the most discreet way of removing the problem, when I came up with a solution. I waited for the runners ahead of me to get way ahead so that their backs were to me, then I tried to run fast enough that I was far enough ahead of the runners behind me. Then I turned around and faced the oncoming runners (who were behind me) that way I could see how far away they were, and proceeded to discreetly and quickly solve the problem. This is when I heard a loud SQUISH and my left foot sunk into something very very ... ewwwwwww! Yep you got it, in trying to solve my problem, I had just stepped into one of the biggest piles of Horse Poo on the road.

How does one recover from not one uncomfortable moment, but two?? I was so distracted by the poo I forgot about my current situation, and decided at that point, I had better just finish the run. I couldn't help but laugh... Only I can get myself into these types of situations.

I made it back to the fort with a little more experience under my belt and a little more on my shoe.

This has been I think for me the most emotional run yet, and I must admit, I broke down and cried I was so happy I had completed the run. I never in my dreams thought this might be possible, and I must give full credit to the Creator and team of #run3rd that encouraged me that this might be possible and now is a reality.

THANK YOU!