Haney 2 Harrison Ultra Race Report (Part 2)

It was mile 40 about 60 kilometers with another 40 to go. My hands were cold and wet. I was so achy and I felt like I was walking way too much. My wife had been keeping a closer eye on me. I slowed to a walk again I felt dejected as I approached the van. In my heart I was ready to quit.

“You can’t quit!” She very quietly said to me.

The look, in her beautiful green eyes, was both empathetic and dogmatic. I knew she was right. It was just pain. What is it that Lance Armstrong said “Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.”

I don’t advocate the use of NSAIDs (non steroidal anti-inflammatories) for distance running. I know the pitfalls and dangers i.e. masking pain and covering up serious injury yadda, yadda, yadda. Not to mention all the talk about damaging your liver and kidneys. BUT . . . It was 40 miles into it I had another 22 miles to go. I popped a couple of Advil and two Tylenol. I changed my gloves and put my fleece vest back on. I dropped all the excess weight I was carrying: Water bottle, camera, even some food.

As I approached the end of Nicomen Island Trunk Road my steps became lighter. My gait improved. I was able to run again. I start flying by the power poles that 10 minutes ago were like Sirens from Homer’s Odyssey begging me to stop. A smile grows on my face. The checkpoint for the end of Leg 5 is about 100 meter down Athey Road. So for about 100 meters you see people in various stages of their relay either starting, finishing, or warming up. Running the gauntlet to the checkpoint it is here I see Orange. We exchange ‘fives’, he was going out I was still going into the checkpoint. I’m encouraged my spirit picks up.

Running into Deroche you cross the bridge over the slough and take a hard right across the tracks. The train tracks! The bellowing sound of the oncoming train whistle fills the air. Why do they call it a train whistle anyway? I guess some throw back from the steam era but today’s whistle is a deafening horn, more baritone than soprano. In the distance I see Orange he’s been ‘trained’ having to wait while the 200 or so railcars cross the road. I almost catch him when the guard rail goes up freeing the dozen or so cars and Orange to the road ahead.

The road out of Deroche climbs ever so slightly. I was here that I passed Orange. He had taken a break on the opposite side of the road where his support car was. I wouldn’t say I had a killer instinct or a Type A personality but after I passed Orange I kind of picked it up. Just a bit. On the stretch of road between Durieu and the Sasquatch Inn I took very few breaks.

Now the great thing about trail ultras is you can pee just about anywhere. Some people go slightly off trail and some people just drop ‘em where they are. On a road ultra you usually wait for a driveway or a bush or some sort of privacy. At this point of the race, although my pace had improved it didn’t improve enough that relay runners weren’t still passing me. It’s one of my pet peeves about Relay/Ultra combined events you always look worse than the fresh set of legs passing you. So on this particular stretch of road there was no privacy and I had to go.

As I approached the checkpoint I saw a wall of port a potty’s. I did a quick check over my shoulder and could no longer see Orange. I thought how cool and somehow perfect. I slowed down but on the other side was a huge line up of relay runners waiting to use them. “ Shit!” I murmured and with a deep sigh I headed back for the course.

“ Hey! Do you want to go first?” A young racer called to me. “We don’t mind!” another one said.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you” My gratitude was immense. I was floored by their act of goodwill. I quickly used the facility, still no Orange, went through the checkpoint and head out for ‘the Hill’.

The seventh leg of the race crosses the Harrison River passes Historic Kilby and then winds its way up Mt Woodside. It sounds more daunting than it actually is but the hill is two miles long so it is more of an energy sapper than a quad crusher. It had been raining all day long a slow steady rain never letting up and if you can believe it on the flat approaching ‘the Hill’ it actually rained harder. It rained so hard the bouncing rain from the road was reducing visibility. To my right I saw a black Volkswagen pull over, it was another support car.

“You look great, keep it up!” the guy in the car yelled.

I did a quick wave thanking him for the encouraging words and looked around to see who this car was supporting. In the blur that was now the road behind me was a fast approaching figure . . . Orange, he gave me a big wave as if to say ‘I’m still here’. I thought, as you do when you are out there for 8 hours, that this was kind of like a suspense horror movie. Just when you think it is over some hand suddenly emerges scaring the bejeezus out of you or in my case, a guy in an orange jacket. Just when I thought I wouldn’t see Orange again there he was. I waved back.

I loaded up with potatoes and gels and set off. I have to hand it to my wife, my support crew (always), it was extremely ugly weather. Getting out of the van a person would be drenched in less than a minute. And yet every twenty minutes like clock work she would be there with potatoes, Gatorade, and gels and sometimes a camera cheering me on. I know in the days prior she would tell me “you are never doing this again”. But on this day, I could see the enthusiasm despite the rain, I could hear the pride in her voice and the sincerity of her cheer. I love my wife!

As I head into the last checkpoint I saw my wife up ahead just before the turn. In another van with her was my mother-in-law who brought out my four children. It was a busy section of road so I couldn’t stop long. I could hear their muffled cheers from the backseat.

“We’ll see you at the finish!”, my support crew in an instant turned back into a mom. I had at least an hour to go and trying to occupy and keep my four kids dry for the next hour had taken top priority, both in my mind and hers.

As I came out of the last checkpoint the unthinkable happened . . .Yes, you guessed it. My shoelace came undone. On any other run on any other day kneeling down and re-tying my laces would be no problem but at kilometer 97 of a 100 kilometer run in the cold pouring rain. . . .”Houston, we have a problem!”


I crouched down as best I could and I took off my gloves and set them down in the shallowest puddle on the road. My fingers were nearly numb. My concentration was gone but I completed the task like a machine. So when they came undone and I had to do it two more times in the next 300 ft I had the routine down. As I rounded the corner on to Harrison hot Springs the black Volkswagen pulled up. I smiled and shouted “Where is he?”

“Not far behind!”

By this point I didn’t care, sort of, I couldn’t run any faster than I was going now. I was still being passed by relay runners. I started reflecting on the long journey. Not just the last 100 kilometers but the last 4 months the long sought after dream. Fruition! In the final, hundred or so meters of the race I was overwhelmed with emotion. As I crossed the little footbridge and down the last 20 feet to the finish I heard the announcer, Steve King call my name. What he said I’m not so sure. I crossed the line in 11:37, a PR for the distance (first time too). I started crying as I crossed the line. My wife was there to greet me. She was crying too. She said,” Stop crying ya big baby.”

Congratulatory handshakes were everywhere. People I hardly knew. Other ultrarunners who passed me at some point during the race. As much as I wanted to see Orange come in I was so close to hypothermia I couldn’t stick around any longer. We bundled up the kids and went home. You draw motivation from wherever you can in ultramarathons. At different times it is different things. Sometimes it was Orange creeping up on me and sometimes it was the encouraging voice of my wife and friends. Ultras are deep soul searching journeys. They rip you apart only to see what you are made of and how you are going to build yourself back up . . .if at all. It’s for this reason I love ultras there is no other experience like it.

Haney 2 Harrison Ultra Race Report (Part 1)

“Three, four, five six . . . okay good. Walk!” I slow to a lumbering walk, a death march. The rain was beating down. My thin “weather-proof” grey nylon jacket was now saturated black with the day’s rain. My fleece gloves were doing their best to keep what heat remained in my waterlogged hands. It was 12:30 and I was 65 km into a 100 km ultra. I had been running for 6 1/2 hours and by all accounts I had another 5 hours to go. I was getting colder from all the walking but I couldn’t maintain a run because my hips were hurting from being so cold. This bitter Catch 22 was sending me spiraling to my demise. I was relegated to counting power poles. I would run six and walk one, then run seven and walk one. “Okay run!” I would yell at myself hoping my body would listen. “One, two, three . . .” Five more hours?!

The day had started early enough. The alarm on my wristwatch was set for 2:15. All the planning, pre-planning and training would come to a head at 4 am, the start time for the 13th running of the Haney to Harrison Ultra Marathon. The H2H is a 100 km road ultra passing through some of the most picturesque scenery in the Fraser Valley. I had been thinking about doing this race for as long as I’d been thinking of ultramarathons. For years a route map has been tacked to my running wall. I call it my running wall because its where I hang my marathon plaques and finishers medals as well as the coat rack for all my running gear to dry out. This was my room with a door to the outside. It made a convenient point of egress for my escape to the running world. Every time I laced them up I would have to look at the route map of the Haney to Harrison Ultramarathon. Today I was going to finally run it.

At 3 am even on the best days my brain is kind of foggy. Sandy James, my early morning race crew and I set off for the start. It’s a twenty minute drive from my house so after laying out all my gear the night before you would think I would have my act together. No such luck. As we pulled up to where the start was I realized I had left the Mandatory Runner Information Waiver and Crew Information Sheet. They had extra copies of the Crew Sheet but I had to write my name on the bottom of someone else’s waiver

3:50 am- we all listened very carefully to the Race Director (RD) Ron Adams giving us the pre-race talk. By this point most of us had been standing around in the rain for the better part of a half an hour. We were cold. The wind just started to pick up but would occasionally blow away the rain so there was some relief.

The gun went off at about 4:02 on my watch. I had been so involved in filming the start scene that I had almost forgot to turn on my Garmin. I was trying to save power on my GPS because I knew it only had a battery life of 11 hours. Luckily the synching of the satellites only took a few seconds because we were off. Everyone seemed to be going so fast, I knew right away that this was not my pace. I watched as the whole field went by me right from the start. This year’s race was the national 100K championship so I also knew the field would be faster than usual. By the first set of turns the leaders were nowhere to be seen. But I wasn’t last I could hear voices behind me and the blinking red lights of the runners ahead of me were not the far in the distance.

For the first part of the race we ran around the city streets of Maple Ridge winding away through some arterial roads and eventually heading back on to Dewdney Trunk Road. The turns were well marked and there was always a volunteer. Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers! I couldn’t imagine standing out in the dark, cold and just pointing the right direction to go. Volunteers make a great race.

By the time I made it on to Dewdney Trunk Road my pace was set and I was running comfortably. The wind and rain had let up for now and I was actually overheating with the amount of clothes I had on. By the time I met Sandy James at checkpoint 1, I had to take off my fleece vest which was underneath my Hi-Vis vest and windbreaker. I rolled into the first checkpoint in 56 minutes. There was still a bunch of us fairly close together but for the next stretch of road between Garibaldi High School and Stave Falls we would most certainly stretch out. The road is very straight and a bit hilly and still with another 1 ½ hours before sunrise there wasn’t much to look at except the distant glow of red blinking lights from runners who past me.

Running into Stave Falls always brings me home. Our first house is in Stave Falls, our first and second child were born while we were living here. I volunteered at the firehall up here. Such fond memories I’ve run these streets many times. I told Sandy to meet me at the firehall which I guess all the runners behind me were doing because there was quite a few cars in the parking lot. As I approached the hall I could see Sandy standing next to someone. I thought to myself that Sandy makes friends so easily. It turned out to be Bob Gray, my old friend from Station 2. At 6 o’clock in the morning he was doing some work. Always the jovial character he gave me a big bear hug as we chatted for a few moments. Sandy re-filled my water bottles for the first time, I was carrying two and had drained the first one long ago but to save weight I refrained from refilling it ‘til now and I was off again.

The next few checkpoints and the one after went off without a hitch. By this point Sandy and I were working like a well oiled machine. We leap frogged each other though these sections of the course. We would meet up about every 15 or 20 minutes, it seemed he would be sitting there in his big black truck and ask me if I needed anything, then he would hang back for a few minutes and pass me on the road and do a double check. The cycle would repeat throughout the morning. At Hatzic Prairie right in front of Sandy’s parent’s place we would switch crews. Sandy had his daughter’s soccer game to attend and my wife Jen would be taking over at that point.

For years this course has run by the house of Dick James who lives on the prairie on Sylvester Road. And for years it would piss him off that support cars would park on his front lawn. His house is strategically located as one of the last houses before the highway and at the halfway point of the race. There’s a warning in race guide “Watch for fast moving gravel trucks” Dick James’s own a gravel truck company. Not to say that it was Dick who was driving but I think all the tire tracks left by support crews on his lawn were kind of annoying. This year would be different because this year my crew would be his son Sandy and my new crew, being my wife would be parked in his driveway. As I rounded the bend I was passed by the first relay runner and then the second. As they faded into the distance the image was replaced by smaller figures on the horizon running towards me. The rain had started to come down again and by now but the distinct voices of my children gave me an immediate boost of energy which was starting to fade. And there in the driveway was my beautiful wife, my three boys, Sandy’s wife Ilja, their daughter Julia and none other than, Dick James.

“You look terrific!” the shouts all said. The shot of adrenaline from seeing my family and neighbors had masked the reality that I was starting to fade. Off in the near distance was that imaginary 10 foot stonewall that every marathoner knows at mile 20 and every ultramarathoner sees several times. I was at the 50K mark.

As I came out of the checkpoint at Dewdney Elementary School my hips started to ache. It had been raining for the last hour. It was at that point I started to count the power poles.

ONE . . .TWO . . THREE . . . FOUR . . . FIVE . . .SIX and walk.

Then I was passed by the orange guy not a relay runner but an ultrarunner like me. As he passed, Orange guy gave me an encouraging pat on the back like Tarzan Brown and John Kelly on Heartbreak Hill. (You can see him in the background in the picture, right) I wasn’t sure if I was discouraged or encouraged by his gesture. It’s odd what you notice about what people are wearing at 55 kilometers into a 100 kilometer race. The previous two lead relay runners were wearing singlets and shorts in the cold pouring rain. Orange guy was wearing a bright orange rain jacket that had the Boston Athletic Association logo on the back. I’m guessing orange guy or Orange as I would call him had run the Boston Marathon. I’ve always wanted to run the Boston Marathon. Qualifying is the biggest challenge of course. I thought to myself now that I’m 45 the qualifying standard changes to 3:30, my PR is 3:31 . . . hmmm. Orange starts to fade in to the distance, his stride, his gait were light and effortless. I’m discouraged!

ONE . . .TWO . . THREE . . . FOUR . . . FIVE . . .SIX and walk.

Other relay runners are starting to pass me now. One group in their support car are all wearing mullet wigs. They get out of their cars and they all have these long haired wigs, some blond and some black haired like a group of Waynes and Garths from Wayne’s World. Are these guys drunk or just incredibly psyched? They cheer me on like there is no one else on the road or because there is no one else on the road. Their runner passes me and down the road they go.

ONE . . .TWO . . THREE . . . FOUR . . . FIVE . . .SIX and walk.

Around the Lake Give R Take 30K

The road to ultra distance is not paved it’s not even road. My first trail race was almost two weeks ago. My goal has always been to run an ultra. I’ve done 5K’s, 10K’s, and marathons so I thought to myself the next logical step is the ultramarathon. Although I’ve never done a trail race of any distance I knew that jumping right into the ultra distance with only road experience would be pure folly. For the longest time I was debating whether or not to do the North Face Endurance 50 which was down in Seattle but I talked myself into a 30K as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

Around the Lake Give R Take 30 is a 30 kilometer trail race that circumnavigates Cultus Lake in Chilliwack. It is probably considered a small race with an entry limit of 150 including relay runners but of course what do I know my last marathon I ran with 5000 runners. In preparation for the race I ran my favorite loop which includes a steep section up to the monastery out in Heritage Park. All the while during training I thought to myself the trails in the race couldn’t be this steep. So I gained solace in knowing I was training on trails that were burlier than the actual trails of the race.

Cultus Lake is beautiful, nestled between the city limits of Chilliwack and Abbotsford in the shadow of Vedder Mountain. Cultus Lake is a small little community of older ornate houses and some newer design homes that should probably grace the cover of Architectural Digest. My race morning started like any other morning I picked up my number at registration, pinned it to my shirt and eyed the ‘competition’. Right then and there I was intimidated by the ‘ultra’ race shirts and the ‘sponsored’ runners. Pretty much everyone had on a race shirts worthy of their entrance into this race. And me with my plain navy blue adidas long sleeve with no sponsors or logos I felt outclassed.

I lined up mid pack and when the race started I settled into a slightly more than comfortable pace. The first mile or so is all flat of the local roads so as to thin out the crowds heading to the trail head. I came to the trail head with modest pack of runners. Our first true test was shortly after we hit the forest. It was a steep grade I would estimate 22% or more up Vedder Mountain. It went up and up. Some were shuffling; most were walking as we occasionally broke into a few strides from the few flat spots of relief. My knees got a good massaging from the amount pushing my hands did on them from the steepness of the grade. This must have been a few kilometer worth of up hill I remember from the topo that the top of the incline and the first aid station was at 6km.

I made the first aid station at 38:08. I filled my water bottle that I had pre-filled with one scoop of Gatorade and put it in my belt. I knew the race was going to have an electrolyte drink but I had never heard of it so I didn’t take chances and I brought my Gatorade. I was glad I did too because I grabbed a cup of what they were serving and it was awful. I drank about half and washed down the taste with water.

The next section was mostly downhill. On the uphill I was passed by several people mostly because it was unnerving to hear heavy breathing a few steps behind with no one in front of you. So I let them pass and became the heavy breather in the back. I was expecting this after the first five minutes of uphill because I knew my pace was too fast. But the downhill I thought I could pick up some speed. I mean how hard could it be. I was going a fairly good clip down a fire road, looking around me I saw no one. For a brief moment I thought I was lost because I didn’t see any trail markings. Then it was almost like I was standing still because three runners past me fast. They showed up out of no where and were soon no where to be seen.

The next aid station was at the beginning of the road section. I filled my water bottle and switched it out for Gatorade. The road section is a gradual downhill through the area they call Columbia Valley. Once again beautiful rural landscape I was actually a little relieved from the mental break the mundane road running provided me. No roots, ruts or stumps to worry about just the road. I was caught by yet another runner after the first turn, a local who had run the course before. I took as much beta as I could but the fast pace on the roads took there toll on her and she faded.

The aid station at the end of the road section was appropriately placed before another steep incline. This was the exchange point for the relay racers. I had completed the first ‘half’ in 1:27:53. I felt sorry for the people running the second leg as the grade was steep from the get go. This trail and for the rest of the race was steep but they were horse trails so they didn’t have the deep ruts grooved into them like the counterpart dirt bike trails on the first half. It was easier to shuffle your feet upward here. I was impressed by some runners who seemed to maintain their shuffle the entire ascent. I wondered if the mid packer could shuffle up the hills what were the lead runners doing.

I caught up to a couple of runners and ran with them for most of the rest of the race. The one girl had trained on this last section so was able to give me some good beta on the last section. The first hill after the exchange was steep but short the next hill was even tougher and longer. I pretty much walk/shuffled the entire hill because there were no flat sections. The last downhill was long. By this point in the race my calves were starting to get knots in them. My twenty-twenty hindsight tells me I didn’t drink enough. I was now on my third bottle of fluid and was about 2½ hours into it. I normally drink a bottle every 45 minutes so I was down about a bottle and I sure felt it.

The road came as welcome relief my quads were thrashed. I would guess that my finishing pace must have been 12 minute miles on completely flat roads. The last three kilometers followed the beach to the finish line. Normally I would think this is a scenic beautiful way to finish the race but all I could think was where the finish line was.

I finished the race in 3:08 which is a great time I think for a first trail race. The people at the finish were really friendly and the spread of food was phenomenal. I stuck around to see if I could pick up some draw prizes which were also really good. They gave out shoes, water bottles, massages, pedicures, and even a case of beer. All told this race gets two thumbs up and I will definitely be back next year.

Race Report

Race Report

It’s been over a week since my race. Pre-race jitters aside I made it to the start line unscathed. I hooked up with an old friend of mine who said he hadn’t been able to run in the last two weeks due to a knee flair up. I paced with him the first half mile so we could chat a bit. Then I wished him a good race and off I went.

The Spring Ahead Half Marathon is a two loop course with the first loop 1.1 km longer than the second. This way they can integrate a 10K race on the same course.

I settled in to a fairly decent 7:35 minute pace which I kept for the duration. The loop has an out and back blip near the middle of the loop where slower runners can watch the lead runners’ race past you in the opposite direction. I’m not sure if I should have been inspired by their speed or demoralized. I chose to be inspired.

Because I had run the first little bit with my injured friend most of the field was ahead of us from the start. This was a tactic I later came to appreciate as I picked off runners one by one. By about the 10 mile mark I had past as many runners as I could see. Without any motivating runners ahead I started to slow a bit until I heard the fast approaching 10K runners.

The 10K race had started about an hour after the half start. The speed demons came up fast on me. I didn’t want to let too many of them pass so I picked up my pace as much as I could. When the first two runners passed me I recognized the leader as an old running partner. I quickly gave him the inspirational ‘Way to go!’ and ‘Time to kick!’. It was after all about a mile from the finish. With that Mike took off like a bolt and out ran the guy aping him by about a minute. Wow!

My race now became ‘don’t let anymore 10K guys pass you’. This may sound good but doing the math I was averaging 7:30ish and they were closer to 6:45 or less. But I only had a mile to go. Runner 3 passed then number 4. Okay let’s get serious. Number 5 came up with a familiar ‘Hey!.

It was my friend Brent. The first thing he said to me was “I’ve got nothing left”. Yeah right. I tried keeping up with him because now it was less than half a mile left but my legs couldn’t go with him. I literally had nothing left in the tank.

I finished the half marathon in 1:40:09 which was beat my last year’s time by 5 minutes. My PR at this distance is 1:37 but that was from 1991, so does that still count? I think I did awesome and am pretty satisfied with my performance.

My next effort I still looking for I saw a race in Kelowna a 50K called Scorched Sole. How cool is that? Well here’s hoping to make it happen.

Race Jitters

What is it about races that give you the jitters? For most us we’ll never win the race or even our age group. Maybe it’s the fact that we train and train through rain, snow, sleet. We are out there when the postman isn’t. We’re out the door at absurd hours of the morning when our rational thinking mind tells us we should be sleeping. We sacrifice lots to gain so little. Or is it little? These small victories, our ‘personal best’ bring out the Walter Mitty in all of us. In our mind we hear every cheer and the winners who finish miles ahead of you don’t really exist. Your race is the 50 feet in front and fifty feet behind some where around two miles to go.

You see I don’t believe in Type ‘A’ personalities. I believe every runner has something deep inside wanting to be their best that day. Whether your name is Gebreselassie or Smith you know that you have trained the hardest your schedule and life permits. Now you put it all out there for the world to see.

You expose yourself and whatever weaknesses you have. You against the clock for the ‘PB’. Superman has no weakness. There is no kryptonite today.

Yeah that’s it . . .jitters? what jitters? . .Bring it!