2013 - Year 11 - XTC

8 June 2013 - 7 Starters

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Results:  Please send us your times.
 

2012 - Year 10 - XTC Results

9 June 2012 - 14 Starters

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Results:  Please send us your times.
 

2011 - Year 9 - XTC Results

11 June 2011 - 12 Starters/12 Finishers
  

An enthusiastic group of fat asses assembled at the Griffin rec center parking lot just before 8:00 this morning. It immediately struck me that we indeed are a special breed of runner.  Mike, who seems normal enough at first glance, was wearing Hoka platform runners. Katie, at the other end of the shoe scale, had on a pair of new Vibram 5 finger foot-gloves. Several of my running companions asked me where the 5 KG brass pig was that I took with me on a 25K leg of the course last year.  Katie was wearing her party dress. We must have been quite a sight for the patrons of the rec center weight room!

After an obligatory photo session with 3 different cameras, we set off on a steep climb up Mosquito Creek to the power line trail. Runners soon broke up into pace groups. The section I call the Dog Leg elicited several slurs against my name (see the video), but thankfully, there were no broken legs. Given the cool "la Nina" spring, the salmonberries that normally line the trail in abundance were notably absent. Our run was altogether uneventful until we neared Capilano Road near the Grouse Mountain parking lot.

That's about when I saw the first big, hairy, black ass to my immediate left.  

That's about when I saw the cubby bear sitting on a fence at just about my head-height.  

Why is it that the last bit of trail before the Cypress picnic area seemed longer this year?  When we arrived at our destination, our group was welcomed by Des who greeted us with, "What took you guys so long?"

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Results:

2010 - Year 8 - XTC Results

12 June 2010 - 26 Starters/26 Finishers
 

After weeks and weeks of rain and cool temperatures, those who showed up for the 8th annual XTC were treated to blue skies and pleasant temperatures. Given the Cypress Picnic area (25K turnaround) was closed for renos, several participants opted to run out and back from Cleveland Dam. Most, however opted for the 50K. Many thanks, Des, for stashing water for everyone at the turnaround.

Our discussion turned to how the teapot came to be next to the trail? Then there was the red chair. How and why was it sitting next to the trail? When we arrived at the slippery bridge, a group of returning runners had opted to wade through the creek rather than risk sliding into it! Thanks to Guy, Killaine and I got a ride back at 25K and was able to get in a bit of yardwork as the 50K runners enjoyed their run home.

Post Event Survey - Please take a moment to give us your feedback here.  You can find Scott's blog post on his XTC run here.

Results:

2009 - Year 7 - XTC Results

13 June 2009 - 18 Starters/18 Finishers

Everyone was in great spirits as we counted down to the start at Griffin Gym in North Vancouver... start of the 25K up and 50K events. Several folks immediately jumped in my car and we rushed toward the Cypress Mountain start of the 25K "down" event. "Stop!", came the cry, "Garage sale!!" So, we stopped to check it out. As the 4 of us headed back to the car with a 1-liter beer mug (25-cents) and a kite ($2), I swore I saw the golden piggy wink at me. "Hey guys... our new mascot!" And so it came to be that Club Fat Ass acquired the golden porker ($4)!

The Skyline Trail section of the XTC follows a ramrod straight telephone line across the side of Cypress Mountain. The trail itself is anything but ramrod straight, however, as it zigs and zags into the forest and dips down into about a dozen canyons. Each canyon has a waterfall and a refreshingly cool breeze. One of these days I am going to go for a dip in Brother's Creek...

PS  Have any post race comment?  Please post them below.

Photos: A slideshow of photos can be found here (coming soon). Photos added to the Flickr CFA group and tagged with XTC2009 XTC and ClubFatAssEvents will automatically be added to this slideshow.

Report: Coming soon

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Results

2008 - Year 6 - XTC Results

A slideshow of photos can be found here.Photos added to the Flickr CFA group and tagged with XTC2008 will automatically be added to this slideshow. If anybody has a start photo, please send to me and I'll post here.

My race report?  Well, I didn't run far due to an injury, so I missed most of the action.  what I can report on, however, is that it was a great day for a run with friends... at least those who took pity on my sorry, fat ass and ran with me at the back of the pack.

There was the requisite whining about the "dogleg" section by Run Rik and a handful of others.  Nobody crossed a bear because it had been so cold of late that they all slept in.  The bushes under the telephone lines on the Canyon Crawl section, which normally almost overgrow the trail, were not a problem at all as they were stunted.

Everyone who ran the section near the Cypress picnic area got muddy shoes as some sort of tractor had been through recently and tore up the undergrowth.  Penny fell and got a boo-boo on her knee... I hope she heals in time to knacker it again during the Knee Knacker 50K next month.

A special "Congrats!" to Jonathan who ran his first ultra at the XTC.  Thanks to Kintec, Trail Runner magazine and the Mosquito Creek Grill for the prizes and rehydration libations.  

2007 - Year 5 - XTC Results

The weatherman lied.  True, he promised some precipitation in the early afternoon.  The first drops fell, however, as the shutter closed on the starter photo. 

It's a well known fact that I am not crazy about running in the rain.  The prospect of running for 6 hours in the rain, I admit, did not excite me.  The weatherman has been wrong in the past, I thought.  Maybe this will blow over and the sun will come out in an hour or so?  Funny how none of the other runners seemed much to care.

The "Up" and "Roll Your Own" starters quickly broke into pace groups as we settled into our respective rhythms in the Mosquito Creek leg of the XTC.  I found myself running with Pano, a talented runner who was attempting his first ultra today.  We barely noticed the steep uphill or the increasing intensity of the rain as we chatted about heart rate training and what makes ultras different from shorter races. 

At the tip of the Dogleg section, our conversation changed to how miserable the narrow, rocky creek bed was to run.  Worse today, the bushes that encroached on the trail were saturated with water.  Passing through them released big gobs of spray that soaked the passerby and filled their shoes with water.  Ah, but it builds, character, I thought as I clenched my teeth, sucked it up and thought of Rick Arikado (who loves this section of trail more than any other) and Mark Fearman (who would have enjoyed it were he not in Sydney, Australia today.)  What a difference a week makes.  Why this time last Saturday it was 30C, dry as a bone and sunny for the Vancouver 100...and today I was already regretting that I didn't pack gloves and my winter gear!

Pano and I managed to briefly catch Doug and Angus at the Cleveland Dam fountain.  We had barely started into the Capilano Loop section of the XTC when we ran into the "Down" runners (those who started at the upper end of the 25K route.)  Perfect timimg!  Pano and I warned of wet bushes ahead.  Pete Stace-Smith and the Coquitlam crew smiled knowingly as they cautioned us that a similar fate awaited us in the Canyon Crawl section.  We exchanged high 5's and continued in our respective directions.

The boys in the black CFA t-shirts eluded us on the big climb from Capilano Canyon up the side of Cypress Mountain, but we managed to catch Angus as he began to run out of gas (gotta work on that 2 1/2 hour low, brother Angus!) and Doug, who figured it was time to head home for the hot tub.  By now, water had accumulated to the point where the trail appeared to be but a series of slippery islands in a sea of mud.  Then we received the present the "Down" runners had promised:  a 300m stretch of trail that had grown in with chest high ferns and bushes, each one saturated with water!

The wind picked up.  It was foggy and the rain was coming in on a 45-degree angle.  We reached the turnaround as Rob Ruff headed back down the trail.  John McGrath, who was happy as a clam in his warm truck, beckoned us to join Desmond in the back seat and call it a day at 25K.  I saw Pete's distinctive Norco truck and justified in my mind that I would also save him a trip up the mountain if I drove his truck back to the Griffin Gym start.  Alas, I didn't have his key.  Pano handed me a spare t-shirt and a bruised apricot as he slugged back a can of boost.  We soldiered on.

Oddly enough, since the conditions couldn't get much worse, we started to notice the amazing fragrance of the bushes we slogged thorough and how the trail was lined with fat, juicy orange and red salmonberries.  Pano and I paused briefly to marvel at the 500-year old Grandpa Capilano and watch a group of kayakers negotiate a crazy section of white water in the canyon.  Before we knew it, we were back at the Cleveland Dam water fountain.  We could almost smell the barn.

Ah... but we were not yet at the barn!  The slog up Nancy Green Way and across the base of Grouse Mountain took the stuffing out of Pano.  I was starting to freeze.  With 10K of the Dogleg and straight shot down to the start remaining, I reluctantly left Pano to walk it in.  (He finished.  He then went home to bed.)

I was late for the finisher party.  One cool lager led to another as we traded war stories.  The girls doing the "Up" course managed to pick up a bunch of trash and avoided the worst of the rain.  Unfortunately, Pete's camera was out of juice, so there is no starter photo for the "Down" group. 

Thanks to Trail Runner Magazine and North Shore Athletics, just about everyone at the party got a recognition award of some kind.  Thanks to the Mosquito Creek Grill, all participants and crew were treated to a cool one.   Congrats to Pano for completing his fist ultra, Rob Ruff for winning his first ultra and congrats to all who challenged the course and the weather in the 2007 XTC!

Ean Jackson
Host of the XTC

Click on an image for a slideshow of all photos of the event.

Photo left: Documentary evidence that Lorraine earned bonus points for collecting trash

Photo right: Des and Angus heading for the Tower of Power on the infamous Dogleg section

 
Results
17 Starters / 17 Finishers

2006 - Year 4 - XTC Results

Thinking back over the past 4 runnings of the Vancouver Skyline XTC, I tried to come up with some thoughts about what was special or unique about this year.  It didn't monsoon, nor was it hot and dry.  None of the participants got hopelessly lost.  Nobody got hurt.  There were no bear sightings or earthquakes.  Everything went well and everyone had a good run... what more could we ask for?

For the first time in the history of the XTC, we started exactly on time.  The 20-odd runners aiming to run the "up" route soon broke into pace groups and started to peel layers on the challenging, but runnable Mosquito Creek section. 

The nice thing about this event and this course is that there is little competitive stress and the course can be easily adjusted on the fly to accommodate a hangover, hard training week or for that matter, lack of training.  While the main pack headed off on the infamous Dogleg section, a small group made an executive decision to shorten their run from 25K to 18K.  Meanwhile, Desmond from Richmond lost his course description and also unintentionally deviated from the main route, while Rick Arikado kept to the course but cursed his old nemesis, the Dogleg.

The solitude of the trails was interrupted on the Grouse View section of the run.  As the Fat Asses ran downhill to Cleveland Dam, the last of the Seek the Peak runners were soldiering uphill.  There were high 5s and shouts of encouragement as running friends briefly crossed paths.

Once through the winding trails of the Capilano Canyon and on to the TransCanada Trail, the map route is a straight shot of only 8K.  Easy, right?  Not!  While the map is accurate, the trail climbs and descends dozens of canyons and crosses innumerable little creeks with slippery little bridges as it contours around Cypress Mountain.  (Check out the maps and trail profiles with thanks to Rick and Tim.)

Ah, the solitude of the trail.  As Tim Weins charged down the trail in the lead, he enthusiastically wished a, "Great day, eh?" to a pair of hikers he approached from behind.  The first almost had a coronary from fright and the second a coronary from laughing at her friend.  With Desmond Mott close behind, Tim continued to storm toward the 25K turnaround.

While the majority of XTC runners progressed uphill, my kids and I were doing the "down" course.  There had been a lot of brush cleaning done under the telephone lines recently, so we were spared having to wade through the chest-high salmonberry bushes as in previous years.  We passed the time calling out "soaker!" every time one of us stepped in a creek, spongy moss or mud hole.
Feeling his legs after completing the Vancouver 100 only a week earlier, Bill Dagg begged a few stale chocolate Easter eggs off my kids. They worked a miracle and, rejuvenated, he continued to chase Elke down the trail toward the 25K endpoint.  While most of us regrouped and headed home to clean up, Desmond Mott ran back to the start and a place in the record books as the only person to complete the 50K "up and down" version of the XTC this year.Thanks to the Mosquito Creek Grill, North Shore Athletics, KINeSYS and Trail Runner magazine, everyone who came to the finisher party enjoyed a free beer and went home with a draw prize.
Congrats to everyone who participated in and supported the XTC this year!

Ean Jackson
Host of the Vancouver Skyline XTC

ready, set, go!

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2005 - Year 3

2005 - Fourth Vancouver Skyline XTC

Those who have run the XTC several times will look back at 2005 as being the year of the "big rain". Environment Canada called for a sunny morning with 30% chance of showers in the afternoon, however we had barely hit the trail when the first big drops fell. By the time we had reached the top of Mosquito Creek, the rain was falling so hard you could barely see the person in front of you!

The field of 17 runners soon broke up into 3 main packs: The elite field led by the Repta brothers, Terry Lewis, Jim Mandelli, Andy Nichol and Mark Pedlow, the Lepard family and those who thought they didn't need course instructions.

At the lead, Jim went ass-over-teakettle on a slippery log and wacked his knee. Wader decided to fall off a bridge and into a rushing creek. The salmonberry bushes along the Trans-Canada Trail were full of ripe berries, but also hadn't yet been trimmed since last summer, so the lead boys had the opportunity to hone their bushwhacking skills.

Kristine kept up with the boys until the steep climb up Cypress Mountain. While only a few minutes back from the lead pack at the junction with the Hollyburn Chute, she zigged instead of zagged and ended up running past her Mom who was participating in a 5-Peaks race.

Congrats to Wade Repta and Desmond Mott who both completed the full 50K...and to Tim Lepard who won the prize for picking up the most trash along the Trans-Canada Trail.

As we settled down on the outdoor patio to enjoy a cool pint and some nachos at the post-run get-together, the sun came out. Many thanks to Kelly and Krystal at the Mosquito Creek Grill and congrats to all who participated. See you in 2006!

Ean Jackson
Host of the XTC

17 starters
17 finishers

The XTC was first held in 2003 as an alternative training run for those who didn't get into the Diez Vista 50K. It was moved from an early spring date to an early summer date to accommodate a gap in the local ultramarathon race schedule.

Please follow the links below for results from previous years.

2004 - Year 2

9 starters, 9 finishers

2003 - Year 1 - June

14 June 2003 - The First 'Official' Running:
Front: Ean Jackson, Scott Riddell; Back: Jim Hatch, Rick Arikado, Sean Finucane, Wendy Montgomery, Brian Bjornson, Rich Rawling

Based on feedback from earlier in the year, the second Saturday of June was chosen as an annual date that addressed a hole in the competitive running agenda in British Columbia. The XTC also became affiliated with Club Fat Ass.

8 starters, 8 finishers

2003 - Year 1 - April

12 April 2003 - The First Running

The inaugural Vancouver Skyline XTC was held on 12 April 2003. Participation was by invitation only to make sure any bugs were worked out of the course and the pre- and post-event venues. Our post-event survey revealed that the course was runable, but a bit tougher than anticipated.

17 starters, 17 finishers