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.

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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.

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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.

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The Yukon Ultra was recently held this month in the Yukon Territory. It was the coldest official running race ever recorded. Unsurprisingly the field of athletes in different races of 26, 100 and 300 miles was decimated in the Arctic wilderness. Charlie Norton was one of the lucky ones. Here’s his story… (written by Charlie Norton and published in the UK Telegraph)

Survival course - 2 days
During our pre-race course we had to spend two hours proving we could survive out in the open at -35deg C and light a stove and fire. This was a frightening eye-opener. It’s easy to panic when your hands go numb and I was jumping around like a grasshopper trying to stay warm. Decision-making is crucial and I burnt my fingers getting too near my stove.Much to my horror one poor competitor got sickeningly severe frostbite on his fingers in the space of half an hour and was out of the race before it even started. As we were told: “It’s worth being afraid of the cold.”And I was. The next day saw temperatures on part of the race course hit -60 and there was a last-minute decision to change the race or it would be too dangerous. For me, as a 100-mile racer, this meant going back and forth down the marathon course four times and not following more of the route of the famous Yukon Quest husky dog race. We were told the bears were hibernating but one hungry one had appeared last year and eaten supplies at a checkpoint.

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By Kate Lapides, a great article from Trail Runner online. It includes recaps of the most famous ultra-running feats of 2007 including Canada’s Ray Zahab who ran Canada’s Akshayuk Pass, East Coast and West Coast Trails all in a row.

Ultrarunners cover legendary journeys at unprecedented paces. In addition to Sue Johnston’s John Muir Trail (JMT) record-setting run, several other records were established on trails around the world in 2007. Two of these were international never-been-done-before link-ups, and two were domestic trail records.

Official logs of such records, even on established trails, are difficult to come by. Trail foundations such as the Pacific Crest Trail Association (www.pcta.org) and the Ice Age Parks and Trail Foundation (www.iceagetrail.org) keep registries of thru-hikers, but do not attempt to verify their “record” times. More often, their veracity relies an honor system based upon regional and national distance-hiking and ultrarunning communities. News about these ventures and the style in which they were completed ripple through this extended community, garnering general credibility-or not.

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