Deer Lodge Dash Social Run & Potluck
When: February 24 between 8 am and 4 pm - If you want to start running at 8, you can arrive as early as 7:30 am to get ready.
Where: Deer Lodge Place - Winnipeg
Join us for a super special edition of our STS group runs, the Deer Lodge Dash (and potluck), hosted by MATR members Joanna and Aaron!
Joanna and Aaron would like to invite you out to their home and surrounding trails on Feb 24 for the Deer Lodge Dash. It's a perfect way to get in a longer distance training run in the winter and enjoy a beautiful part of our city. It will be based out of our home on Deer Lodge Place, across the Assiniboine River from Assiniboine Park.
The Idea
This is an informal get-together to encourage some mileage in a beautiful part of the city during a beautiful time of the year. We have done this a few times by ourselves during the pandemic when events were canceled but would love for others to join us!
This unofficial course will be open from 8:00 AM to 4:00 pm, but come at any time during the day. Run as many laps as you feel like completing at any pace you're feeling. The doors to the house will be open starting at 7:30 am. We will have coffee, hot chocolate, water, and a limited amount of snacks available for you at the front entrance of the house. There is enough room to bring a small bag of gear and nutrition inside for you to access in between laps, and a washroom that is shoes-on accessible!
We will host a potluck dinner following the end of the race, so please stick around (or come back) to join us for this.
Route
The route will be approximately 7 km. It will start at our front door and go down onto the adjacent bed of Truro Creek in Bruce Park, out onto the Assiniboine River, and then follow the north shoreline of the river eastward past the local community skating trails.
At St. James bridge the route will go up onto the road that passes under the Route 90 overpass and along Wolseley Ave West to the bike trail that leads to Omand's Park.
After a short loop along the bluff in Omand's Park, you'll cross the pedestrian bridge at the rail line and head east along Wellington Ave for a short sidewalk run until you can access the single track trails on the south shore of the Assiniboine River.
Once you arrive at the Assiniboine Park footbridge, you will cross the river on the ice underneath the bridge, and back to Truro Creek in Bruce Park where you can access the house. We will flag the route the night before and provide a .gpx file so that it is easy to follow.
The course follows a route that is reliably frozen over, and we have been running on it since Christmas. Note that many sections of the river are not completely frozen or have thin ice, so do not stray off the course where the flagging is. As a general rule of thumb, you should never tread off of a well-beaten track on the river.
Details
Where: 40 Deer Lodge Place.
Parking: On the street or in the Bruce Park parking lot about halfway between the house and Portage Ave.
Bring: Running gear and nutrition that you can leave in the house. We'll have hot drinks and some snacks. Bring a potluck dish for afterwards if you want to stay.
Group Run
We’ll kick off the day with a group run starting at 8 am for 2-3 loops. Come for a loop or two with us or stay for the full 8 hrs (8-4pm) and take advantage of the generosity of Aaron and Joanna. If you’re doing a loop with us in the morning, consider coming back for the potluck at 4pm. Bring a dish to share!
Make Your Weekend MATR this weekend by joining us for all or part of the Deer Lodge Dash, along the Assiniboine River on Saturday, then meet us again on Sunday, to tour Assiniboine Forest with our friends from SQUADWYG.
As this is an urban event, we won’t have a carpool option.
Hot Tip: Have a change of clothes and shoes for social time after you run. You can get chilled quickly in damp running clothes, particularly in cooler temperatures.