Bagel Chase 2014 - Day 1 & 2

The 2014 Bagel Chase is off to a great start! With the first two days being on a weekend, all the runners had a chance to get in some long days of running laps over the Burrard Bridge. Although there were teams ready to go when the course opened at 6am on Saturday, we didn't start till after 7am.

We did 5 laps before 11am, then we had to go do a short hike (an easy 7 km) on the North Shore with people from my work. On the way home we stopped at Kintec in North Vancouver and tried on shoes as we figured we would want a change of shoes for the following day's endeavor. After that we headed back to Siegal's Bagels to do 3 more laps of the course, bringing our first day total to 8 laps, 40km.

It was really great to see some of the teams had dressed up and were having a lot of fun! And everyone was really supportive and high-fiving each other as they passed! Despite the festivities there were some very strong runners looking to set the bar fairly high for number of laps per day or for the week. The single day total for the first day was set at 12 laps by Craig Slagel, a local ultrarunner, though there were a few others who did 9 and 10 laps.

A great day to be running the 2014 Bagel Chase along English Bay!

We planned Sunday to be our longest day, and had the back of our car filled with food and clothes, as well as our second pairs of shoes! However, we weren't sure how it was going to go as Jenna's hip flexor was quite sore during Saturday's laps. Nonetheless, we started at 7:30am and ran a few laps with Adrienne, one of our teammates and an accomplished triathlete and ultrarunner. When she left to go study we continued on our own and managed to complete 8 laps before we stopped for lunch. Lunch consisted of quesadillas cooked on our little one burner stove beside our car, and it tasted sooo good!

After refueling and changing shoes/clothes we were back out for more! Not long after lunch we were joined by Heather, another member of our team and we run-walked a few laps with her. Just as she was leaving Tom from our team dropped by and joined for a few more laps. After lap 13 we had to stop for a pizza feast as were extremely calorie deficient by that point even though we had our packs and had been eating continuously the whole day!

A beautiful sunset from the Burrard Bridge during this year's Bagel Chase

Tom left after our 14th lap and we were back on our own, or so we thought. Turns out Adrienne came back to meet us and deliver cake and brownies! What an amazing team we have!!! That really helped us power through our last two laps.

All in all, a great weekend! The weather for the Bagel Chase stayed quite reasonable. It was sunny for parts, windy and a little cold for others, but it didn't rain (or snow) on us! Our one day total for Sunday was 16 laps, the most yet. Let's just hope no one has the week off!
Now we're a little sore... so if anyone wants to join us for a couple walking laps tonight we might need the extra push to get us around the course!

 -UltraChris