It's Official - I am a Fat Ass!

Well I finally did it. After years of procrastinating i finally became a Fat Ass. Yup, i joined the club. I know, many of you have secretly called me a fat ass for years but now it's official. Club Fat Ass is a grassroots sports club that host trailrunning and other active lifestyle events for fellow members. Once a member, all of the events are free to join. I have been thinking about joining for a while now, and thought this would be a good way to meet some fellow runners and get some good training in while during trips to the city.

On Saturday, Nov 14th, i took part in the Sweet Go Deep trailrun in Deep Cove. It was a 20km race over some pretty technical terrain. I met up with about 14 other club fat ass members in the parking lot in deep cove, and after some introductions and group photo we were off. Being a grassroots event, there were no trail markings of any kind, just a description you could print out of the course. I realized quite quickly that this would be more challenging than i thought. We began with a steep climb up some steps then what some people were calling the seymour grind. The lead group of 4 runners quickly disappeared in front of me, so at the first intersection i had to take out my directions. Luckily fellow runner Jonathan Weresch was nearby. He quickly helped me with some route directions for the next little bit and we were off. The route followed the Baden powell trail for the most part, home of the infamous Knee Knacker run. It was my first time trail running on the north shore, it has some great terrain, but there is one small problem, it has alot of climbing. My GPS told me i climbed a total of 13000 ft in under 12 miles, and it sure felt like it, but i think that is way off as GPS elevation accuracy really sucks. After about 4km in we stopped to check a map on the trailhead. Jonathan and i both agreed that we we map people and not instruction people, as we were having a hard time following the route instructions. but he had done the race before so he knew where to go. He pointed it out on the map and it all made sense. As we climbed the next hill he slowly pulled away from me, but i figured i was good. unfortunately i apparently can't tell the difference between a right and and left, as i went the wrong way at the next intersection. i went down old buck instead of up. Unfortunately the route descriptions seemed to still make sense as i was on the right trail just going the wrong way. After another mile it started to snow/hail. and at this point i realized i was no longer on the right path. i knew i could find my way back along the route, and with the snow coming down, i thought about turning back, but i found a trail marker for the Old Mushroom Parking area, which i recognized as being part of the course, so i kept going. I was almost up to the My Seymour Parkway road/ picnic area when i ran into Jonathan again. Turns out i was climb the trail the the race went down. i probably missed about 1km of the total route.

I stuck with Jonathan for the rest of the way as we made our way past Mystery falls, then down a Mountain Bike trail called Dirty Diapers. This got pretty slippery, and very technical. At this point we were joined by Philip Waters, and the three of us made our way through the rest of the course. At each trail intersection we had to stop and try to figure out which way to go. If i had one recommendation to the event organizer, it would be to try to include a map of the route. I know this is not very easy, but with more and more people with GPS running computers, maps should be a bit easier to create. I will post mine below, but it will of course show the wrong way. Anyways after a long climb back up to the trail i went took the wrong turn unto, we were on our way back. It was mostly all downhill for the last 6km so i was able to pick up the pace for a few miles.



Kinda interesting but a bit disturbing story on the way back to the finish. I had to take a pit stop at an outhouse, as i was leaving and started to head back down the trail i came across another Fat Ass. Only this one was not a runner. Right in the middle of the trail was a woman squatting with her pants down and her naked butt staring right at me. In fairness it wasn't really a fat ass, but she could have at least done it a few steps off the trail. or perhaps used the outhouse that was 100 ft away. Oh well!

As i came back into Deep Cove the trail started to get a bit more crowded with a lot of hikers etc. i took a side detour to the lookout and realized how high we had climbed. I crossed the finish line in 3 hours 25mins with a total Distance of 11.9 miles. After the race i joined a few other CFA runners for the apres party at Mosquito Grill in North Vancouver. The restaurant provide some free Beer and draw prizes were handed out. I received a free subscription to Trail Running Magazine!

So event though i got lost, i still had a great time and would like to thank the event host Cheryl, for waiting at the finish for us. Sibylle for the great draw prizes and Jonathan for his help out on the trails. Can't wait for my next event coming up on New Years Day where i will try my first 50km Ultra run.