Sand, Sidewalks, and Trails – Running Lakeshore Drive

Tip: go early to beat the tourists.

Tourists swarm the beaches of Lake Okanagan from the late morning into the evening. So to get the best running experience, go early, or pick a cold day.

I was running along the beach by 9:00 on a weekday and it was very quiet. I started at one end of the beach, running along the beach side pathway, along the pier, past the out door patios of the hotels, along the marina, and past the tennis courts to the natural treed area along the waterfront behind. On the way back I ran through some of the residential area and then along the beach again to get back to the start.

The city has done a great job with the waterfront, keeping it accessible and clean, and open to all types of users.

I turned around at the 5 k mark making this a 10k run with absolutely no vertical and absolutely no wind.

Trail Feature – Channel Parkway Penticton

It’s tough to get a photo of the the Channel Parkway in Penticton without any people in it. It is a very popular running and biking route.

The route is as flat as can be. It is about 5km each way between Okanagan Lake and Skaha Lake. There really is no good loop. It is best to run it out and back since anything else would be down city streets.

You can start at the SS Sicamous which is a steamer ship turned museum. Parking would be along the beach front. Then turn around at the beach front on Skaha Lake.

Most of the route used to be a rail bed. It is paved for bicycles with a graveled pathway immediately beside.

When the weather is hot there is a ton of tourists floating down the channel. You pass a golf course, log house building company, rodeo grounds, and the airport runway. And of course since this is a tourist town there is opportunity on both ends and in the middle to refresh yourself with drinks, ice cream, or water.

You definitely won’t be alone on this route, despite what my pictures show.

Easy Does It

It has been 14 days since my race and I am still taking it easy. Those around me don’t think I am taking it easy but it is all relative. We are on a family vacation and I am still running nearly every day and going on long bike rides. We played golf and tennis and went swimming on the beach. In our family of 4, half of us appreciate the extra time on a vacation when you can do this sort of thing. The other 50% are sleeping as long as possible and devouring books. Either way we are rejuvenating.

The back of both my knees still feel stretched and ache when I walk a long ways but when I run it is okay. Biking is okay since my legs don’t fully extend.

We only have one more full day so we are currently in the planning / negotiating stage of how to fill that day. I of course want to keep going hard. The rest of the family, not so much.

The next 2 weeks will be packed full of busyness with school starting, me leaving for 2 weeks for work, and catch up from vacation. So running priorities will be altered from the optimum.

Trail Feature – Campbell Mtn Penticton

I had to search a little for running trails around Penticton but I found some good ones. I was looking for something between the flatter old rail beds, and the extreme downhill mountain biking trails.

Campbell Mountain overlooks Penticton from the east side. I drove just past the compost land fill and found a pullout with 3 other cars. There is a forest service road with a gate leading up the mountain. I started up this road but quickly found the trails that headed in the same direction. Some of the trails were more extreme than others and only a few were runnable in the uphill direction.

The top of the mountain was 3 km along these trails. I kept the road within a few hundred meters so I wouldn’t get lost. It wouldn’t be that hard to get lost or head in the wrong direction, especially when getting back to the car, unless you can keep an eye on the road.

Beautiful trails. Very quiet on a weekday morning. There was one other runner and 2 vehicles of bikers. Otherwise it was very quiet.

I met a coyote but unfortunately otherwise no animals. And the view was rather smoky today (and all week).

6 km return to the cell towers and back. 200m vertical.

I need more time around here to discover a few more of these trails.

Trail Feature – KVR Penticton

I love exploring new running routes, especially trails. Yesterday while visiting the in-laws, I ran along an old rail bed turned into a trail.

This section was on the west side of the city on the old Kettle Valley Railway running toward Summerland. The rail got ripped out maybe 20 years ago and it is now a favorite trail for locals. It is wide enough to run in groups and remote enough that you rarely meet anyone else. The are definitely cougars, rattlesnakes, cacti, poison ivy and deer in the area. But I didn’t see anything of concern on my run.

This section had quite loose sand for much of it so it made my calves really work for it.

Usually you can see the lake, sail boats and beach from this vantage point but this last week has been very smoky from the nearby wild fires.

There is a lot of rock in the area and I imagine how much work it must have been to cut the rail road through here 150 years ago. I would love to have been one of the chief engineers building a railroad way back when. Hard work but very rewarding, I imagine.

One of the nice things about this type of trail is that the slope is very predictable. Exactly 2% slope for many kilometres. I ran 11km, so it is easy to figure out my elevation gain.

The old railway continues on the other side of the valley too. On the other side, the trail is better maintained for bikes. There are trail markers and many more tourists. You can bike for 100’s of kms. The first 30 km have been graveled and are quite pleasant for biking or running, as y pass the many vineyards. The more remote parts aren’t quite as good though.

For the west trail that I went on, you can access the rail trail from near Docs Driving Range and go up the hill about 1 km to the first bridge. The road goes over the trail at this point for easy access.

For the east trail that I have biked on previously, you can access that from near downtown by the marina.

My week here isn’t over yet so you might hear more of my adventures of exploration. Stay tuned.

Not the Usual Horizontal Movement at a Faster Pace

This last week has been my recovery week and so my running regime has been tempered a lot.

My race was on Saturday and I seriously did not run again until Friday. Very odd, I know. I had energy after a couple days but my left leg was complaining and I was moving quite a bit slower even while walking. I went on a short bike ride Saturday and then ran again on Sunday. Monday I rode my bike. I went on some family walks over the week too.

The other problem with running this week and next is that we are visiting and holidaying for 2 weeks. Regular schedules are much harder to follow even if I have more time to burn.

Maybe the most significant challenge with exercise this week is the smoke from wildfires. It is incredibly thick and it is rare to see anyone outside exercising. I imagine it feels like smoking while doing a 10k. I guess I wouldn’t know what that feels like but I have a better appreciation for those that don’t have full lung capacity and have burning throats. I am sure glad to not have any asthma. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the smoke is going to dissipate this week.

Of course I can’t go to the beach without running while there. I realized again what it takes to run in sand. It does a number on your calves. Good thing I am starting with strong calves from all my hill climbing this summer. It was probably less than one km.

Even in the middle of this beachy tourist town I did find some vegetation to run past (but it only took 3 seconds to get past). I miss the trails of the mountains already. I might have to go exploring a little further out around here to get my fix.

So for now we are mostly biking. We did some tennis and frisbee golf so we are not being inactive. It is a bit of a relief not to have to run so much as I have over the last few months.

Sideshow Bob – Trail Running in the City

Some of the seldom-travelled trails in the city are definitely worth trying out. I ran these trails on the banks of the Bow River in Bowmont Park in Calgary with my kids last night and thoroughly enjoyed them.

We saw some beavers, ate lots of saskatoons, heard rustling in the trees (deer and squirrels, I hope), huffed and puffed on the steep uphills, and awed at the river at sunset. We didn’t have to get out to the mountains to experiene the amazingness of creation.

I don’t think I have ever seen the name “Sideshow Bob” on any map or trail head anywhere, but I’ve heard it among the trail runners in the area. Even the mountain bikers like this trail, although seldom is anyone on the trail at all.

We even got a sunset over the Bow River as we were finishing up.