Rachel and I met for one last training hoorah before Lost Soul on Sunday. As usual it was those first five minutes of my drive that I wanted to text Rachel to say “screw it.” But after about 15 minutes the coffee kicked in and I was excited to meet my friend.
The parking lot was not as full as it usually is on a weekend. Only a handful of mountain bikers were readying for the day. The skies looked like they would open up at any minute. No doubt that kept the masses away.
We set off in the usual direction along the logging road. This is the most boring bit of the trail up Moose Mountain. It’s about 4.5K. We often see cyclists but few hikers or runners. I think most people drive the mountain road up to the Moose trailhead because it cuts off about 9K in distance.
So here we are on the trail when we notice an unusual pair of footprints with only four toes. Speaking in a calm voice and scanning the trees for movement, I immediately try to decipher the footprints. I knew they didn’t belong to a bear because there weren’t any claw marks. We followed the prints to see where they led – into the trees or down the trail? They seemed to be running or walking down the path.
Rachel immediately freaked out. (This is a woman who had only just saw a beaver for the first time about four months ago.) Was it a Sasquatch or Bigfoot? A human footprint was next to the prints. Was it a dog? A cow? Were they watching us and waiting to pounce? Since the prints were headed in the direction that we had just come from, we figured we were out of harm’s way.
As we were taking pictures, another runner came upon us. We asked him about the footprints.The runner must have thought we were nuts. Then it hit me – they were left behind by a barefoot runner! We reasoned the barefoot runner was running on his forefeet because we noticed other prints with five toes.
Mystery solved
Cows greeted us on the drive to West Bragg Creek and along the trail. There have been a lot of bears in the area this year. We lucked out with no bear sightings. This mother cow (left) did not seem amused when we took our pictures.
It was really great catching up with Rachel. I have been so busy with work, moving and holiday that I haven’t had time to stress out about Lost Soul. Rachel seems to be doing enough for both of us. Ha!
I wasn’t really feeling 30K so we capped it off at 21K (on my Garmin). That was enough. While it was cold and gloomy, there was beauty in the day. Rachel and I had been meeting in Bragg Creek since last winter. We ran through rain, snow and sunshine as we chatted excitedly about training, life and races. My how time flies. Now we are less than a week before our big race …
Hmm….. we reached the parking lot to see this …. So I guess we were not that far off in thinking Bigfoot was watching us from the trees?
Weird tracks and Bigfoot would have been my first though too! My next thought was maybe one of those Vibram runners…
Good luck to both you and Rachel in Lost Soul, from a distance I am actually quite excited for you all and am greatly looking forward to re-caps! How many other runners do you know will be running it?
That’s funny! You sure ran in a lot of weather! The temps are starting to dip on the east…not quiet ready for it.