FRONTRUNNERS GutBuster 004
Victoria, BC - Mt. Douglas
SUNDAY, July 6th, 2008
Start: 10:00am

There are two course options:

SHORT COURSE - A 6km run up to the top of Mt. Douglas (200m) for an amazing view over Victoria. Filled with great flowing single-track trails that is ideal for both runners and hikers.

LONG COURSE - 11km that features three summits to the top of Mt. Douglas. Each time will leave your breathless by both the views and the workout! You’re going to to LOVE this course!

and there are…

FOUR EASY WAYS TO REGISTER:
1. Register online
2. Download registration and mail it in
3. Drop off your entry at Frontrunners in Victoria, Nanaimo or Langford (must be dropped off by Thursday before race day).
4. Come early on Race Day

But this late in the game your only option is to get down there early tomorrow.

A great article from the New York Times , published June 11th…

Olympic marathon runners are no less obsessed about shoes than the gal pals in “Sex and the City.”

Later this month, Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor of the United States plan to begin testing the latest design from the distance-running equivalent of Manolo Blahnik . Their shoemaker is a Japanese master craftsman whose soles are renowned not for space-age gels or air bladders but for the gripping properties of rice husks.

The husks, which are ground and imbedded in the rubber soles of racing flats, are designed to absorb water and to provide up to 10 percent better traction along the 26.2-mile marathon course at the Beijing Olympics in August.

Marathon running does not exactly produce the same kind of skidding as Nascar racing. Still, the Beijing course could become slippery from rain, slick with humidity, slithery at water stops and misting stations, and glassy along a four-mile stretch of stones that have a feel similar to marble.

And no elite marathoner will soon forget the 2006 Chicago Marathon, where Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya — a favorite in Beijing — slipped as he crossed the finish line in first place, hit his head and sustained a concussion.

Continue reading…

The Canadian Press, June 9th 2008

Colin Jenkins is on the Olympic men’s triathlon team because he’s willing to sacrifice his dreams of a medal to get teammate Simon Whitfield on the podium in Beijing.

Whitfield, the Olympic gold medallist in 2000, Edmonton’s Paul Tichelaar and Jenkins, from Hamilton, Ont., were named to the men’s team Monday by Triathlon Canada.

Jenkins was appointed to the team ahead of Victoria’s Brent McMahon, who is ranked higher than Jenkins internationally, because Triathlon Canada says Whitfield’s chances of winning a medal improve with a teammate whose sole purpose is to draft for Whitfield on the 40-kilometre bike leg of the race.

"We’re putting a team together that’s about medal contention and at the end of the day, that pressure falls on me," Whitfield said Monday from Vancouver in a conference call.

"We set this team up and I have to go perform."

(more…)

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Simon Whitfield of Kingston, Ont., Paul Tichelaar of Edmonton and Colin Jenkins of Hamilton, Ont., have been named to the Canadian men’s triathlon team for the Olympic Games.

Triathlon Canada made the announcement this morning following the 2008 world championship in Vancouver on Sunday.

Whitfield, an Olympic gold medallist in 2000, will compete in his third Olympics, while Tichelaar and Jenkins will make their Games debut in Beijing.

Whitfield, 33, qualified by finishing in the top eight at both a World Cup and a world championship. Tichelaar and Jenkins were nominated to the team by Triathlon Canada’s high performance committee.

The women’s triathlon team will be named within the next two weeks.

The Olympic triathlons will be held Aug. 18 and 19.

Following is the latest editorial by Chris Kelsall and originally published on the Flotrack website .

Is American marathon runner John Little of Flagstaff, Arizona completely off his rocker? Is he delusional and possibly suffering from a bout of post marathon illusory psychosis? He just may be! He also may be fully and completely correct with his assertion that Canadian Olympic marathon standards are set too high by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Athletics Canada (AC). Of course John has nothing to lose by saying so when he talks to the Canadian press about his feelings on the subject.

(more…)

The following article is written by Guy Dauncey and originally appears in the June issue of EcoNews .

Two wheels on the road, the summer air in your face - it’s a wonderful way to travel! When we look at the urgent need to eliminate our carbon emissions, plus the end of cheap oil and the benefits of being healthy and fit, cycling has to be one of the most important transport initiatives we should be investing in.

Coaches, transit, light rail, electric vehicles, ride-sharing, walking – these are all part of the answer.

But cycling should have a special place on the list, because it brings so many benefits. In Copenhagen, where 36% of the population commutes to work by bike, cycling has become such a style that they have invented a verb, “Copenhagenize”, to capture what’s happening. (www.copenhagenize.com)

And just look at the economics of it. They know from their health statistics that physically active people live five years longer and have four fewer years of lengthy illness than those who are non-active.

They know that cycling for four hours a week – 10 km a day, a typical Copenhagen bike ride – makes a person physically active.

Continue reading on the EcoNews website …

A recent article written by Jack Christie in Vancouver’s Georgia Straight talks about the reopening of the Kettle Valley Railway Trail near Kelowna after forest fires in 2003 destroyed 12 wooden trestle bridges. This is something all British Columbians should do at least once. Here is the beginning of the article.

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The trestles are back! The trestles are back! Phoenixlike, 12 wooden trestle bridges on the Myra Canyon section of the Kettle Valley Railway Trail near Kelowna have reappeared after vaporizing in flames during 2003’s forest fires. At the time, the loss seemed irreplaceable. Five years and $13.5 million in provincial and federal grants later, the Myra Canyon Trestle Restoration Society (www.myratrestles.com/) plans to unveil the new bridges on June 22.

Continue reading…

Jeff Bell, Times Colonist
Published: Monday, May 26, 2008

Donald Peterson won’t have to worry about keeping the rest of his team organized at this year’s 24 Hour Relay.

He is the team.

The 39-year-old running machine will be lining up for Saturday’s relay as the sole member of See Donald Run. It will be the first time a one-person entry has taken on the overnight event in Victoria.

"We did have a team of three people last year," said Pam Prewett, event manager for the Easter Seals 24 Hour Relay for the Kids. She said the lone-wolf approach has been done a few times at Vancouver’s 24 Hour Relay, and Victoria’s relay staff is looking forward to seeing Peterson take up the challenge.

(more…)

CBC News

The first Canadian man and woman to surge across the finish line of the Ottawa marathon this past weekend won’t be going to the Olympics in Beijing in August even though they both met international Olympic standards.

Gitah Macharia came 14th overall at the ING Ottawa marathon Sunday with a time of 2:16:55 and Tara Quinn-Smith came fourth in her category with a time of 2:33:58.

Quinn-Smith beat the women’s international A standard of 2:37:00 by more than three minutes and the B standard of 2:42 by more than eight during her first-ever marathon race.

However, she did not meet Athletics Canada’s tougher A and B women’s standards of 2:29:08 and 2:31:00 respectively.

(more…)

Globeandmail.com introduces Olympic triathlon champion Simon Whitfield as a regular Right to Play blogger leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer. In addition to being one of the top triathletes in the world, the Victoria native is also an Athlete Ambassador for the international humanitarian organization Right To Play. Headquartered in Toronto, Right To Play uses sport and play programs to improve health, build life skills and foster peace for children and communities in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. In their roles as Right To Play Athlete Ambassadors, Simon and dozens of other top Canadian athletes inspire children, are role models for healthy lifestyle choices and help raise awareness and funding for Right To Play projects

Here’s his first entry:

A blog for globeandmail.com by a guy who runs around in his swimsuit for a living . . .

Katherine Monk, Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, May 12, 2008

They may be purest metaphor for human accomplishment, but movies about running and the art of the pushing one’s body to the extreme can be downright dreary — if not ridiculous.

The problem isn’t the marathon idea, but the lack of externalized drama until the race itself. The real dynamics are internal, as the runner is inevitably forced to face internal demons of commitment, strength, desire and will.

Finding the face of that drama is difficult to accomplish without resorting to cheesy dialogue that may involve a line like this one from Without Limits, Robert Towne’s 1998 film about Olympic hopeful Steve Prefontaine: "the real purpose of running isn’t to win a race. It’s to test the limits of the human heart."’

Films that have been most successful at conveying the personal magnitude of a marathon generally weave that struggle onto a larger, epic frame that allows the theme of personal sacrifice to be meaningful to the audience.

(more…)

Runners attempt to be first to cross 58-kilometre route

Carolyn Heiman, Times Colonist
Published: Sunday, May 11, 2008

Build a trail and they will run.

And so three keeners set out yesterday wanting to be the first ever to run the 43 kilometre North Coast Trail on the northern tip of the Island, formally opened yesterday by the province.

The new trail links with the existing Cape Scott trail, forming a 58-kilometre stretch west from Port Hardy.

(more…)

Gina Kolata , a fitness and lifestyle writer for the New York Times , has just posted her latest article under her Personal Best column. Its called "For Peak Performance, 3 Is Not Better Than 1".

When Jenny Higgins started doing triathlons, she discovered something peculiar. She had been on her high school cross country and swim teams and her college swim team. But in 2003 she started running, swimming and cycling, and tried to excel in all three at once.

“I noticed that in the pool, my legs felt very heavy,” she said. “I was dragging my legs more than I used to and it hurt my swimming.”

Other times, she would swim fluidly but feel lifeless when she ran or cycled. After five years as a multisport athlete, Ms. Higgins, now a 32-year-old postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University, said the push-me-pull-you feeling has not gone away. It made Ms. Higgins wonder something that may be on the minds of the nation’s more than 100,000 triathletes, too: Is it even possible to peak in more than one sport at once?

Click here to continue reading this article .

Another great Flotrack article written by Christopher Kelsall

Zach Whitmarsh toils on the Jack Wallace Memorial, Oak Bay High School track. Marley, his dog canters back and forth from the infield to the start area and back, taking splits.

“What breed mix is Marley?”

Zach writes: ”Marley is a pound dog. As far as we can tell he is a Shepherd-Collie cross. There may also be a bit of Burmese in him, he’s a big-pawed dawg and he’d probably weigh another 20 pounds if he didn’t get in the 50 miles per-week he’s gotten used to.”

Meanwhile some local, longer distance ectomorphs gut out a low-key invitational race, looking smooth in their attempt at sub 30 for 10, 000m (others drop at halfway or at 3,000 - they are here just to check fitness), they appear fluent, until Zach starts his sprint workout.

Whitmarsh re-defines the everyday runner’s paradigm of what is fluid motion.

(more…)

Some of us define a holiday as time spent supine. But adrenalin addicts live to work up a sweat while checking out the scenery. Denise Balkissoon talks to marathoners across the country about their favourite destination races - where the trails offer more than just that runner’s high

Denise Balkissoon
Special to The Globe and Mail
April 19, 2008 at 12:56 PM EDT

THE LONDON MARATHON

The runner Tania Jones, a Richmond Hill, Ont., mom who won the 2002 Canadian championship for marathon running.

The run An April marathon that winds its way over cobblestone streets from Blackheath to Buckingham Palace.

The rush Running past history. And the spectators. “You start the race at 8 a.m. and there are already people in front of the pubs, holding their pints and cheering you on.”

Off the track Jones spent a week in Harlow to get acclimatized before the race. “I trained on tiny roads in real English countryside, running right by Windsor Castle.”

Lace up Apply for one of 36,000 spots by August at london-marathon.co.uk.

(more…)

National Triathlon Team member Colin Jenkins has just posted the second installment of his Road to Beijing series on the Slowtwitch website. Click here to read it.

Written by Katherine Monk and published Thursday April 17th in the Vancouver Sun

hey may be purest metaphor for human accomplishment, but movies about running and the art of the pushing one’s body to the extreme can be downright dreary - if not ridiculous. The problem isn’t the marathon idea, but the lack of externalized drama until the race itself. The real dynamics are internal, as the runner is inevitably forced to face internal demons of commitment, strength, desire and will.

Finding the face of that drama is difficult to accomplish without resorting to cheesy dialogue that may involve a line like this one from Without Limits, Robert Towne’s 1998 film about Olympic hopeful Steve Prefontaine: “the real purpose of running isn’t to win a race. It’s to test to the limits of the human heart.”

(more…)

Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, April 11, 2008

TRIATHLON — The longest-running World Cup in International Triathlon Union history will be staged Sunday in Ishigaki, Japan.

A tough course in hot humid conditions will offer athletes a similar setting to the Olympic venue in Beijing. Olympic gold medallist Simon Whitfield of Victoria kicks off his 2008 season at the event.

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008 

A great article by Chris Kelsall on the man who is one of Victoria’s running community staples.

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Should you be tasked in choosing an individual who, in toto, represents the running doctrine of greater Victoria, past, present and future, you would choose Bob Reid.

Bob is a cog and a catalyst to the sport of running in Victoria, yet he stands tall amongst the most dedicated of volunteers.

Whether being front and center raising thousands of dollars to purchase green space land for people to enjoy uninterrupted forested lands, assist elite athletes to make their all important qualifying race overseas or doling out bee sting ointment to a weekend warrior, out at the lakes, Bob Reid is the exemplar.

“It’ll be difficult to put into words how much he has done for the running community, I don’t think you can do it in the space provided.” offers one club member.

(more…)

The Gear Junkie has just posted an article on the 10 weirdest footraces around the world. One of which is very similar to Vancouver’s very own Mud n’ Bud, held every September .

The full article can be read here.