Notes from Squamish & All Over

Seventeen VFAC’ers made the trek to the Squamish 10K on Sunday. After all, it was a sunny long weekend, and Squamish is halfway to (and from) Whistler. But the race itself was more than worthwhile as we had the top 2 finishers for the 2nd Timex race in a row, the 3rd overall woman, 2 PB’s, and several age group medallists (or should that be muggists?). Simon Driver pushed the early pace with Graeme Wilson and early Timex Series leader Oliver Utting (Graeme has now clinched it!) in tow, before Utting tried to break away at 7k. However, Simon soon responded, pulling Graeme with him, and they gradually pulled away to comfortably take the top 2 spots. Simon finished in 32:26, 4 seconds up on Graeme and 26 seconds ahead of Utting. Jeff Lopes continued his great comeback from knee surgery, just missing his PB with a 35:08, good for 8th overall, and 3rd 25-29. Guy Smith won the 50-54 in 37:04, and pulled Chris Brandt (37:05) and Brian Devereux (37:09) to their umpteenth PB’s this year. Bob Wade placed 2nd 45-49, while Marty Glendinning ran 39:51 in his 1st race with VFAC. Rita Ivanauskas was 3rd female overall (behind Kristine Rody’s 36:16) and 1st master in a close to PB 38:13. Laura De Munain won the F35-39 in 40:04, Fiona Jenkins was 2nd F25-29, Kirsty Siemens was 2nd F40-44, Adele Wilson was 2nd F50-54, Bonnie Kramer was 3rd F35-39, and Sharon Emslie was 2nd F45-49. Also recently, several members have been relatively anonymously racking up some impressive results. At the ITU World Long Distance (double Olympic) Championships in Lorient, France, July 15, Michelle Ball placed a very respectable 9th out of 20 in the F35-39, ~ 20 minutes behind the winner in 4:59:48. Kapil Anand won the 1500M at the July 10th Hershey Harrier All-Comers Meet in a 4:17PB, before Ynuk Bosse set the club record at the same meet Aug 7, with a winning 4:09. Also on the track, Nicola Everton won the Women’s 800M in 2:27 at the Canadian Masters Championships in New Brunswick Aug 22, despite having torn her plantar fascia shortly before the finish. At the Canadian Trail Mountain Running Championships in Canmore, July 28th, Simon Driver, Katrina Driver (1st Canadian female), and Shaun Stephens-Whale (junior male) all again qualified for the World Championships in Switzerland, Sept 15th. Finally, new member Paige Gardiner placed 4th overall female amongst some very impressive competition at the Sri Chimnoy Triathlon in Victoria Aug 5th, with a 2:18:04 behind winner Cheryl Murphy’s 2:11:39. Sorry if there’s anyone I missed, but at least it shows maybe you can run AND hide after all.