I was up with the birds on a beautiful Vancouver morning (which you have to take advantage of), packed my camel pack, gels and scrogan (trail mix for you non-Kiwis) and headed over to the Nth Shore to hit the trails. It was meant be a group training run I was joining, but somewhere it went wrong and I couldn’t find them. For a lot of you, that probably does not come as a surprise.

Anyway, I had made the effort to get up there, so on my lonesome I headed off on the Baden Powell trail from Lynn Valley to Deep Cove, about a 12km section of the trail. This also happens to be the last 1/4 of the Kneeknacker, a trail race I am running on July 12th (see links for details).

So far the trail running experience has been a learning curve and today was no exception. 12km doesn’t sound that long, especially on the road and I thought it was going to be a bit of a walk in the park. Throw in some pretty technical sections and killer climbs, 12km got the heart rate up.

Along with the challenge to make sure I was on the right track, the thought of bears was always in the back of my mind. I kept having visions of coming around a corner to meet a bear who was quite hungry after being in hibernation all winter (just like the thoughts you get when you are swimming in the ocean). After all that it wasn’t the bears that got me, it was my sense of direction. I was on the downhill leg into Deep Cove and came to a crossroad and  I went the wrong way. The track eventually ended and next thing I was on the waters edge with a lack of options in where i could go. It was back up to the top of the hill or tackle some rock climbing. After a bit of a Cam moment, I composed myself and using some of my amateur rock climbing skills, clambered my way back to civilisation. After an a apology to Tanya for the stress i caused her, I boarded the 211 bus back to Vancouver.