Hallow's Eve Race Report

The graph to the right is Scott McMillan's Heart Rate from last Sunday's Hallow's Eve 1/2 Marathon with the elevation profile underneath. Looks nasty doesn't it?

The race, from a management perspective, was a lot of fun and a huge success. From an athlete's perspective, it was a real treat to finally be able to take part in an event that I've developed. I suffered, but I beat the dude in the afro wig and polyster shirt and that's the important thing!

If you're interested, check out the race reports from the following guys:

Scott McMillan
Brad Cunningham
Kim Steed

2008 Canadian Mountain Running Championships - Course Preview

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.

Seven Summits Race Kicked My Ass

While on a sales trip through the Kootenays, I decided to take part in the inaugural Seven Summits Trail Run held in Rossland, BC on September 1st.

I'll publish a detailed report of this epic event soon...

Gary Reed Wins 800m Silver at World Champs

Gary Reed (Victoria, BC) won the silver medal last Sunday at the World Track and Field Championships (Osaka, Japan).

Reed's medal performance was significant in that it was the first medal earned by a Canadian male in a distant event since 1964 (Tokyo Olympics).

Although Gary was only .01 seconds behind Alfred Yego (Kenya), he showed tremendous sportsmanship and an amazing attitude in his obvious happiness over winning the silver medal (rather than "losing" the gold).

Congratulations Gary!

RACE REPORT

Pikes Peak - One Hell of a Climb

The Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon events took place this weekend in Manitou, Colorado. Starting at an elevation of 6,345 feet, runners in the ascent race climbed nearly 8,000 feet in just over 13 miles. The Ascent Race takes place on the Saturday. On the Sunday, a full marathon distance is offered - 8,000 feet up, then turn around and finish with 8,000 feet of descent.

For the masochistic at heart, you can do the double. 39 miles, 16,000 feet of up and 8,000 feet of down. You'd definitely earn a couple of beers after that.

So, how many people do you think the race organizers are able to lure out to this crazy suffer-fest? Over 1,600!!!

And to think I thought Mark Shorter was doing well to get 39 people out for his Seymour Hill Run...

Gary Robbins is a nut...

When a long weekend rolls around, most of us "normal people" take the opportunity to sleep in, relax, maybe have a beer or two, but Gary Robbins is not "normal."

Apparently with nothing to do on the BC Day long weekend, Robbins set out to do what no one else (that we know of) has done before...attempt to run the entire West Coast Trail and Juan De Fuca Trail in one go. That's 130km of extremely rugged West Coast trail...and he wanted to do it in under 24 hours.

Well, Gary not only completed the run, he did it in under 24 hours. Congratulations Gary!

For all the details on his epic journey, including video from the run and a slideshow, click here

Scott Jurek's thoughts on Dean Karnazes

Dean Karnazes, the self-anointed "Ultra-marathon man" has been getting plenty of heat lately from the core running community for his recent grandstanding. When Karnazes first caught our attention, most wrote him off as an opportunistic novely act. The uproar over Karnazes reached the boiling point earlier this year when Outside Magazine anointed him "America's Greatest Runner" and put him on the cover of their magazine. The problem wasn't that the magazine made the claim, but that Karnazes, a mediocre runner at best, did nothing to refute or modestly deflect that claim (to put his ability in proper perspective, at last year's Whidbey Island Marathon, Karnazes finished over an hour behind me...and I ran 3:35. Nothing wrong with finishing a marathon in 4:30, but it certainly doesn't validate the title of "America's Greatest Runner.")

On sites like www.letsrun.com, discussions on Karnazes end up in writing him off and saying, in effect, that he would get his butt handed to him by the likes of Matt Carpenter, Pam Reed, and Scott Jurek, all ultrarunners of considerable achievement.

For the lay runner, Scott Jurek is the runner most people think of when you talk about ultramarathoning greatness. 7 Western States 100mile wins in a row; 2 Badwater wins and course record (just broken); a win at the Spartathlon ultra in Greece, arguably the oldest, toughest, and most famous ultra in the world. If there is a runner out there who could justifiably lay claim to the title of "ultramarathon man" it would be Jurek. In addition to his considerable achievements, Jurek has consistently maintained a humble and grounded persona, seemingly shunning the spotlight.

Since many runners hold Scott Jurek up as the "anti-Dean" it should come as no surprise that Scott Jurek's recent comments on Karnazes has generated plenty of interest.

Here's the transcript, courtesy of Scott Dunlop and his blog (runtrails.blogspot.com), of the recent podcast:

"It's good we get attention for the sport, but sometimes I wonder what kind of attention is good for the sport. At times I think that some of the Dean attention can hurt athletes like myself and other individuals performing well. There are athletes like us doing all kinds of amazing things and somebody else is walking around and actually accepting these titles and awards. You wouldn't see that in any other sport. I can't think of a sport where this happens - maybe once in a while somebody a bit lower on the elite status might pop up there for doing something extraordinary."

The rest of the podcast can be viewed here