2 Week Retracing of Not Too Weak Racing

Whew, another slew of top two results. Last weekend, Simon and Katrina Driver started things off with Katrina winning (55:00) and Simon (49:03) 2nd to Morgan Titus by only 18 seconds in the Buntzen Lake 5 Peaks Trail Race. More importantly it earned them valuable points towards re-qualifying for the World Mountain Running Championships in Switzerland. Shaun Stephens-Whale placed 7th overall in 54:03 in winning the juniors, to also make a big step to towards re-qualifying for the World’s Junior Division. Chris Downie was 8th in an identical time, Chris Drozda next in 54:51, and Katrina 10th overall out of 192 finishers. The next day at the Timex Series Sandcastle 10K in White Rock, Graeme Wilson and new member Emma Hann reversed the order, with Graeme running solo most of the way to win in 32:27, while Emma was 2nd in 37:06, only 42 seconds behind winner Tina Connelly. Ernest Hawker was 8th overall in 35:53, and Bob Wade was 10th overall and 2nd M45-49, missing his PB by only 6 seconds in 36:35. Guy Smith won the M50-54 in 36:56, Kapil Anand continued his PB ways with a 37:35 to win the M20-24, Fiona Jenkins won the F25-29 in 40:19, Laura De Munain was 3rd F35-39 in 40:27, Adele Wilson was 2nd F50-54 in 42:27, and Sharon Emslie 2nd F45-49 in 45:44. Funny, all I saw was downhills, but I am assured that all non driveable sections of the course are straight uphill. Seriously, these were good times on a deceivingly tough course! But that’s only half the story for last weekend (I think it took me a week to get all these results down). Also on the Saturday was the Ambleside Masters Mile, where again we had a 2nd. Nicola Everton timed her sprint just a tad early, her 5:05 only 2 seconds short of always late charging Nancy Tinari’s 5:03. Dave Reed was 6th overall in 4:35 (to Rob Lonergan’s winning and near record 4:19). Kim Jow ran a very solid 5:27, Kirsty Siemens finished 4th overall woman in 5:33, while Rhys Howard ran 5:49 to place 39th out of the 114 finishers. To be ever the brutally honest coach, the course is probably ~10-12 seconds fast with the net downhill, but, again, all very good times regardless. Finally on Sunday, in blistering 38 degree heat at the Oliver Half Ironman, Paul Krochak was 2nd heading into the run against a weaker runner, but went 2 miles off course before jogging in to a 15th 4:43:35 finish. Joel Werner finished in a very creditable 5:03:07 to place 50th overall out of the 679 finishers. Dave Palma finished in 5:13:38, while Sue Werner kept both on their toes (in their clip-ons??) finishing right behind in 5:16:24 to place 14th overall female. This past weekend was relatively quiet by comparison, as the Harry Jerome Track Meet and the ITU World Cup Triathlon heated up the local scene (see winner Simon Whitfield on the podium in Flickr, if you haven’t seen it ubiquitously already). None-the-less, we recorded yet another 2nd overall finisher. In the Seek the Peak Race, Grouse Grind rookie Graeme Wilson prudently held back to watch how old pro Colin Dignum does it, and finished only 1:16 behind him and ahead of the other 245 mountain runners in 1:26:31…..and he just did this to get out of a tempo run!! Full results for all of these races are available at Race Headquarters