One of my longstanding goals has been to host the World Mountain Running Trophy on the North Shore one day. A large step in that direction was taken when the Canadian Mountain Running Association recently asked if I would develop and host next year's National Championship Race and begin working with them on putting together a bid for the 2011 World Championships.
After saying yes, and thank you for the opportunity, I pulled out my map collection and started identifying routes that would not only meet the qualifying criteria (12km in length; 1200m in elevation gain), but would also be spectacularly challenging. In short, I was looking to put together another Seek the Peak (an event I developed while working up at Grouse Mountain).
In addition to identifying routes that would be challenging and fun, I also had to keep in mind a number of other variables key to the hosting of a successful event: risk management issues; permission from the various landowners; access to route for volunteers and spectators; user-friendly start / finish venues; etc.
After running a number of route options by a number of local trail runners and testing out each of the potential routes, I settled on the Mount Seymour Trail System as the venue.
After quite a few "exploratory" runs, I've come up with what I truly feel will be a spectacularly challenging course, one that is unique and will undoubtedly be fun (but maybe a little painful!) to run.
This race, which will forever be known as the Peak Challenge, will follow this route: Course Description
Last Saturday, Kim Steed and I tackled the course. Check out Kim's blog for some great pictures and a report on the run.
