Deer still scare me, a lot, a whole lot!

I only have a few different trail areas that I run.
-Knox Mountain (up and down gives a total elevation gain of 1580 ft, and is about a 11 km run total)
-Trails at Glenmore Mountain (only about 5.5 km long, a couple long hills, but mostly slow rolling hills)
-Myra Bellevue Park (my favourite place to be these days). So many trails, can go up and down different trails without touching the same place for a good 4 hours. Lots of elevation gain to be had here.

Even though I really enjoy the trails I run,, I am constantly seeking out more new (to me) trails. Earlier this week I went to Okanagan Mountain Park for the first time. It is a 25 minute drive so I probably won't go there very often. But it is a nice challenging run. Virtually every tree in the park was burnt down in the fire back in 2003. And it seems not many people hit the trails, either that or I just naturally gravitate to the less tread upon trails. In lots of areas of the park the trails are very narrow with very overgrown bushes, trees, and grass along the sides making it hard to watch my footing. Also, there is plenty of areas with large, loose boulders which make it a nice challenge to run on.


Here is a view of one of the wider trails. It really is like heaven running in trails like this. In many of the places the trails no longer were dirt trails, but merely a line in the grass that you could barely tell was less grown in than the grass on the side of it. I guess I need to do my part to maintain the trails by running on em more to make sure they don't grow over.

Some of the loose rock there is to run on. Not very stable.

The view of Okanagan Lake from one of the scenic lookouts on Wildhorse Canyon Trail. So wonderful; I often lose track of time staring at the scenery at moments like these. When I look back at the gps of my runs and see sections where I didn't move for five minutes or so, those are my Zen moments. I love it.

I run into so many deer on Knox and at Myra Bellevue Park, almost every single run in fact. Of course I never remember to take my camera with me there. I saw this doe running down the lookout point. She stared at me forever, I kept getting closer and she just kept staring. I was about twenty feet away when I took this picture. It chased me, it was a little scary.

There is still a little bit of run off in some sections of the park. I was staring at the lake when I came to this; and promptly fell on my ass and covered in mud. Rolling in the mud is so fun.

I was running along a trail that was had really over grown grass on each side and I stepped on this fawn! It started doing what I can only presume would be the fawn equivalent to screaming as loud as it can for its mother. Just the most awful noise I have ever heard. I was scared shitless; all I could think was "where's the mother, I bet the mother is the doe I had a run in with earlier, oh shit leave, run, get out before the doe gets back" but of course I stopped to take a couple pictures first! Then I got the hell out of dodge as fast as I could. The fact the fawn was clearly scared of me was no comfort with the thought of the doe coming to the rescue.

I'll probably be running the trails again soon, but like I said not very often as it takes so long to get there.

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I was thinking about running the High Rim Trail next time I get a couple days off in a row. If I get dropped off in Vernon it's a 50 km run to Hwy 33 near Rutland, the only problem is that the end of the trail is another 30 km away from home in Kelowna. Hope I get a chance to do this before the 26th, if not it'll be my last massive run before the Death Race.

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I fixed my road bike yesterday, so naturally I went for a nice ride. A nice 53 km in 1:50. I didn't push too hard but I could still feel it in my quads pretty good. Maybe wasn't a good idea to do that the day before a planned long run.

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Today I went running in Myra Bellevue Park. I wanted to do about six and a half hours of trails, I would've had to leave early to get that in as I had to be somewhere by 4 pm. I slept in and didn't hit the trails until 9 am, so I only got 5 and a quarter hours in for 44 km. Did a loop along the Fairlane trail and then to lost lake and back to my car, then a loop up Pink Hwy and back down to my car, up lost lake and down Fairlane back to my car and then a short loop halfway out Fairlane trail and up to Lost Lake. Total elevation gain of 6447 ft (which I'm beginning to question as I've been told by someone else that the garmin 305 doesn't accurately measure elevation change). This was a very hard run on my quads during the run, and I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow. Around the 2 hour 45 minute point I was coming down big drop trail, which is a rather rocky trails with lots of overgrown bush which makes seeing where I need to step difficult; I saw a deer and was staring at it, all the while being an idiot failing to notice the turn coming in the trail. I stubbed my big toe on a massive boulder, tripped and slammed right into a tree, right into my chest. Ow! Forgetting to watch my feet... bad.

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"Give up hope once and for all. That way your expectations won't drive you crazy and you'll appreciate what you have now."

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Keep on running

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Nazzer