By Greg Balchin
The weather was perfect for our first of the Vancouver Island Trail Series runs of the year. No rain, mostly dry trails, and a cool air temperature.
The Royal Roads long course is an 11k, 300m climb, and the short course is a 7k, 100m climb.
There are lots of twists and turns, and lots of fast, downhill sections, that are punctuated with short sharp climbs.
Anyone who has run in the woods at Royal Roads, knows how deceptive the trails are in there . They are wide, and relatively flat, which to the uninitiated, causes one to run them like a road race. On a road run, most tripping hazards can be easily circumnavigated, and runners adopt a more relaxed , energy conserving running style. One’s feet follow an imaginary line on the ground, toes point downwards, and stay fairly close to the ground.
Trail running however, requires a different style of running. Varying, rough terrain requires runners to move with their toes up, and turned out slightly to minimize tripping and rolled ankles . The knees are bent a little more to absorb impacts with the uneven ground.
Trail running is like playing high speed hop scotch!
Royal Roads has hundreds of tree roots and root burls interspersed along its trails. Any one of these barely visible protuberances can cause a stubbed toe, or worse a rolled or broke ankle.
Everyone I know has done at least one summersault in there at some point running those trails!
Technically, it's an easy run as trail runs go, but because it's a fast course, with sharp turns, and lots of little speed bumps, one must be both focused and nimble.
The course was well marked, and had lots of volunteers cheering us on and telling where to turn. It's such a fun run that I always wish that I had more gas in the tank, especially on the final part of the run up Charlies' Trail. You exit the trail at the greenhouses, facing the finish line out of breath, with heavy legs, and no time to recover. You swing your arms and legs like mad, and hope you can catch at least one of the runners in front of you, who are also doing the same thing!.
It's at that exact moment , you wish you had done a little more homework prior to this exam! (That's my life in a nut shell).
The food was great after the run. Lots of candy for the kids, who also had a fun run.
There were some nice prizes handed out. I got a really nice Black Diamond rechargeable headlight from Front Runners! Pauline scored a bag of oranges and a cantaloupe.
No ribbons or medals were awarded for some reason. I told Pauline I'd make one for her.
Here's a link to the trail route:
https://www.islandtrailseries.ca/races/victoria-royal-roads/
And the race results:
Long course:
https://startlinetiming.com/en/races/2023/vitrsroyal/event/LONG/page
Short course:
https://startlinetiming.com/en/races/2023/vitrsroyal/event/SHORT