![XTC 2007 Starter Photo XTC 2007 Starter Photo](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1220/537691661_ee6fc284f9.jpg?v=0)
9 June 2007 - 50km, 25km Up and Roll Your Own Starters
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
Last Name |
First Name |
City/Town |
Event |
Points
|
Time |
Ruff |
Rob |
Surrey |
50K |
2 |
6:21 |
Ean |
Jackson |
North Vancouver |
50k |
3 |
6:41 |
Skrivanos |
Pano |
North Vancouver |
50K |
2 |
7:09 |
Lee |
Baldwin |
Burnaby |
35K |
2 |
5:20 |
MacKay |
Doug |
North Vancouver |
32K - Roll your Own |
2+1 |
4:23 |
Mott |
desmond |
n.vancouver |
25K Up |
2 |
3:10 |
Angus |
McLellan |
Vancouver |
25K Up |
1 |
? |
Daoust |
Dan |
Coquitlam |
25K Down |
2 |
3:25 |
Gallant |
Rhonda |
Port Moody |
25K Down |
2 |
3:25 |
Madsen |
Sonja |
Port Coquitlam |
25K Down |
2 |
3:25 |
Stace-Smith |
Peter |
Coquitlam |
25K Down |
2 |
3:25 |
Ulriksen |
Todd |
Maple Ridge |
25K Down |
1 |
3:25 |
Van Gaalen |
Peter |
Coquitlam |
25K Down |
2 |
3:25 |
Barry |
Patricia |
Vancouver |
15K - Roll your Own |
2+1 |
2:17 |
Sibylle |
Tinsel |
North Vancouver |
15K - Roll your Own |
2+1 |
2:17 |
Suomi |
Lorraine |
North Vancouver |
15K - Roll your Own |
1+1 |
2:17 |
Jensen |
Karl |
North Vancouver |
3K - Walking Wounded |
1 |
0:30 |
John |
McGrath |
North Vancouver |
crew |
1 |
|
Sawchuk |
Darren |
Maple Ridge |
25K Down |
-1 |
DNS |
Comments
I know what you mean
Craig Moore
Highlights from the 25 km "down" group...
A small group of the Coquitlam contingent of CFA decided to "road trip" it over to West/North Van for the XTC event. Despite the weather forcast it was well worth the efforts.
As we had never done this XTC event before and none of us were not really up for the 50 km full course, we decided to go for the "down" option on the 25km course and run back to the start/finish line. We dropped a car at the Griffen Community Center and headed over to the start up on Cypress Bowl. After a short delay to go find a parking meter machine that could take plastic (seems all of us had left our wallets and change in the dropped vehicle) and finding out my digi camera battery was pooched (sorry, no pics from our group) we were off.
Ean's instructions were great but we had to follow them closely as this was an area and trail network that none of us had ever been. The weather held out for the most part and just sprinkled on us through the first half of the run. If you have not run sections of the Trans Canada Trail over in West Van, get over there to do it. There was some beautiful sections of soft singletrack trail winding in and out of the woods as we followed a power/tele lines basically horizontally across the mountainside heading east. Slowing (from our already slow nice and easy pace) to check out some rad waterfalls and to really enjoy the windy trail with both up and down staircases through the woods! Awesome!!
After cutting across a few roads we dropped out into the Cleveland Dam park area, again a place I have never been even after living in Vancouver all my life. There was some fabulous HUGE 500 year old fir trees still standing overlooking the fishermen trying their luck in the Capilano River. I know I have to scoot back up there just to walk around that area again. After getting us all hyped up on this beautiful loop section was really pretty, Ean subjected us to what he called "a miserable climb" up Cap road all the way to Grouse Mountain parking area. We all agreed with his assesment... :) Back to the task at hand.....
From there the XTC route was a creative eastbound network of trails and access roads over to Mosquito Creek and beyond. Luckily most of our crew had NOT completely read the instructions for after we scrambled up a mean nasty creekbed climb, then decended WAY DOWN following a power line I gave them the "good news/bad news". Good news was that although we had reached the turn around for an out-n-back section, we had to turn around and go back UP what we had just come down. A few of them were not too stoked with that plan. In reality though, the REALLY good news was that we were now on the last leg back to the Rec Center and our vehicle, AND that we were not trying to slog back up that same climb at km 42 or so as the full course athletes would be in a few hours...
The return trek to Mosquito Creek and out to Skyline Drive was all event free, and when I could finally tell the crew that from that point to the end was all down hill, we started dreaming of coffee or beer and food and pace seemed to pick up once again! I think these guys were all "smelling the barn" I knew we were dropping elevation quickly when my ears were popping the whole way down.
Considering I had talked them into joining me on this run just a few nights before over a beer congrats go out to Rhonda, Sonia, Dan, Peter, and Todd. We all finished strong and pleased with the run and our 3:25 finish times. Hey guys, thanks for joining me for this adventure. Time to grab a quick shower, change and shuttle out to grab our truck before heading for food and bevies!
Also congratulations to the full 50 k finishers, man I gotta send props to you cats as I certainly wouldn't have been to keen on heading out a rough nasty dead end turn around knowing full well I would have to come back up it that far into the event. Way to go guys!
So, from the Coquilam Fat Asses thanks for a great course Ean.
Pete (I'm not yet a runner, I'm still a cyclist) Stace-Smith
Gotta Love the Dogleg
Thanks for the Update, Pete!
Thanks for the nice report on what happened to the "down" runners. This must have been a record number of starters for that direction of the course. I have to admit, that I would have loved to see you guys, but for child minding logistics I had to be back after 2.5 h and did a custom course up to the end of that miserable dogleg and another little loop under the powerline west and return. Blame Ean on that dogleg...you got my permission. Twisted ;-) What you guys probably did not realize is that to access that dogleg the course implemented some other mean twists, sending you on a 1km loop only to end up only at almost the same trail head (right, Baldwin)...
Anyway, I have to admit the course is growing on me and I missed the canyon section on the way up to the quarry yesterday.
BTW, Pete, the nightrun on Aug 18th loops through the Capilano Canyon and past those ancient Douglas Firs...worth another roadtrip?