Usual race report warnings apply: report as long as the race, graphic Canadian weather content...

After having run in nasty, -15 to -30°C temperatures and bouts of fresh snow in recent weeks, the Nose Hill XC on February 7th was going to be a breeze. A Chinook wind had blown warm weather over the Rocky Mountains and snow was melting everywhere in the 4°C sunshine. More than a 100 runners gathered in a small community hall at the base of Nose Hill Park. We cheerfully outfitted our feet with spikes or other grippy aids and headed out 1 km or so to the race start.

Nose Hill Park is a big prairie plateau in North Calgary. One of the joys of running on it is that you feel like you are on top of the world. Our race began and ended at the bottom of a hill on the East side. The course took us straight up and west, and then we ran across the plateau to the south and west, facing directly into the strong southwest wind. I'm usually not such a big stickler on direction details, but the wind we faced on this race was very strong, and affected my race quite a bit.

As we struggled up the first big hill, Nancy fell into step beside me, and I made noises of disgust as the grade and the headwind stole my breath away. Nancy shouted cheerfully above the wind, "Remember 12 mile Coulee!" (see previous race report) and put my effort into perspective. All right, this wasn't that cold, after all. An impressive view of the Rockies and the city below drew my attention away from my tearing eyes and gasping lungs.

After running up on top of the world with Yolanda for a while I stopped to tie my shoelace, and then descended quite cheerfully down, down, down a long, luscious trail. I tried not to think of how hard it was going to be climbing up, up, up again, but all too soon I was looking WAY up at a long line of runners strung out like charms on a necklace reaching up to the sky.

I trudged up after them and set my mind to finding words to describe the snow pack I was muddling through. Do you ever bake cookies? Most cookie recipes begin like this: Take some soft butter and mix in lots of white sugar, and you'll have a mixture the consistency of fluffy, wet sand. Now take about a ton of this stuff, mix it up in God's great mixer and spread it over the plateau-sized cake of Nose Hill Park. It will be about a couple of inches thick, with crunchy bits of ice and long, wind-flattened wild grasses peeking through. Don't smooth it flat over the plateau cake - leave some nice, ankle deep drifts to muddle through here and there. Stick some wire surveyors flags into the snow to mark the course, and set up a huge fan strong enough to bend all the flags flat. The hardworking volunteers were having the darndest time keeping flags visible on the course, and had to keep replacing them.

When I had recovered from the climb I was pleasantly rewarded with a long, flat plain to traverse with the wind at my back. The grainy butter snow shifted under each step and absorbed the energy of my steps. I found myself actually seeking out the hard, icy bits for my Yaktraks to dig into and spring off from. I shouted a thankful hello to a parka-clad volunteer who yelled back "Welcome to Saskatchewan!" as he watched me run away for the next 10 minutes. As I followed the path across the plain, the wind loudly whistled through various holes in my head. I ran past more dedicated volunteers and Alan Lam's camera.

One of Karen's friends: Nancy Coffin

I ran for what seemed like forever. No walking here, I'd done enough of that on the monster hills. I had some serious time to make up if I wanted to finish this one in less than an hour (my goal for all XCs this year). I hopped up over one last little ridge and realized I was only a minute or two from the descent to the finish line, and checked my watch - 1:00! Oh well, damn the watch, where's that last, crazy downhill? By this time the butter had blown out of the sugary snow and I could hear the hiss of it blowing through small shrubs and grasses.

At last I spotted the clock WAY down the hill, and let out my best yodel of courage before focusing all of my attention on an efficient descent. Stay over my feet, stay relaxed, go fast! What fun! Pumped with adrenaline, I stayed with my Penguin buddies to cheer in the rest, who weren't far behind. We then hiked back to the hall for our well-earned soup and desserts.