Elk/Beaver Lake, British Columbia

This Memorial Day weekend wasn't spent the usual way, lounging on the beach in South Jersey or swimming across lakes in the Adirondacks, instead we spent it out on the far west coast of Canada. My husband's parents live in Victoria, BC which I've only visited during the cool, rainy week around Christmas. Visiting in late May was a treat, the weather was beautiful -cold at night, 70's during the day and the city was in full Spring bloom. I've never seen such enormous and colorful rhododendrons. Wow.
On Saturday morning, the day of my usual long run, I woke up at about 5:30am ready to go. Of course most people don't get out of the house quite that early to take the dog for a walk so I bounced around for 3 hours waiting to go run. The time change made the days seem really, really long out there. My stomach would tell me it was lunch time, but my watch said 9:00. Oops.

Finally, we reached Elk/Beaver Lake where the family was going to take Finn, the old but loyal dog, for a walk while I ran the 10K loop. I was as excited as the dog to get out of the car and be unleashed. The trails around both lakes were well-groomed, wide and completely covered by archways of leafy green trees. It was beautiful and green and the sun reflecting on the lakes made them shimmer. I was in trail heaven. Until I got lost, but even that little 1.5 mile detour was along a pretty residential road shaded by tons of trees. I was following the km markers along the path when suddenly I couldn't find the next one. When I finally turned around and backtracked to where I lost the trail, I looked for a sign and confirmed that there was none. Oh well. I ran into a pair of guys running with their black standard Poodle and ran behind them for a while before passing the dog (she tried not to let me pass, it was funny) and joining them. As you would expect with Canadians they were friendly and helpful and had funny little accents. I told them I'd gotten lost and they said "It's impossible to get lost here". When I told them where I got lost they said "oh, except for that spot, oops". I stayed with them for the rest of the run until we hit the parking lots and we went separate ways. I love running (really athletics in general) because it's so easy to make quick friends and have easy conversation with total strangers. There's that instant "we're in this together" bond. Anyhow, the 10K loop turned into about 8+ miles which was great for me.. I could have run another loop if I'd had the time.

So if you ever find yourself out in Victoria, BC be sure to check out Elk/Beaver Lake - the most Canadian name they could come up with.
Here's the map of the trail and then the map of where I ran. Oops.

posted from Bloggeroid