By Jason Pirie - Canmore
Sep 12 2007
Despite being a four-time Canadian Mountain Running Team member, a past National Ski Team athlete (1995-97), and experiencing a handful of World Cup cross-country ski events, Phil Villeneuve of Canmore has been seeking an adventure like no other.
And now he's found it.
Villeneuve, 33, a founder and team director of the X-C.com cross-country ski program, will participate in the inaugural Gore-Tex TransRockies Run that takes place Sept. 16-20 through the Colorado Rockies.
The endurance running event, which is based upon the TransRockies Challenge mountain bike race, is a multi-day adventure where teams of two will cover a span of over 175 kilometres (approximately a marathon per day).
Villeneuve has decided to team up with Vancouver-based ultra-marathon runner Dom Repta, who possesses a wealth of long distance event experience, including participating in the 2003 Marathon des Sables (seven-day run across the Sahara desert), the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run, the Mohican 100 Miler, the Stormy 50 Miler, and Ironman Florida.
"Dom's experience in these reputable long distance races will be a big asset in helping set the pace in the TransRockies Run," Villeneuve said. "Our strategy will be for me to set the early pace and Dom to take over as we hit the latter part of the week.
Although I have no doubt that my endurance will last, I'm worried about the impact of daily back-to-back abuse. Having each other to pace off of will certainly help enormously."
With the majority of the TransRockies Run stages occurring between 2,000 and 3,000 metres of elevation, which is much higher than Canmore's elevation of 1,325m, Villeneuve believes it will be helpful for he and his partner Dom to learn a bit more about each other's running style and speed.
"This is very important, because we need to be working together the entire week," he said. "Ideally, it would have been nice to run together prior to this, but we weren't able to coordinate our schedules."
The race, with a course consisting of a mix of single and double-track trails, forest roads, gravel roads and pavement, will run from Beaver Creek (Vail, CO) to Aspen.
Despite the challenge of the route remaining a secret up until the start of the race, Villeneuve said he has been eagerly waiting for this all summer.
"As an elite nordic skier, trail running was always a very high component of my training, but the demands of a skier are such that we could never compete in trail races, aside from the odd event here and there," Villeneuve said. "After a few years of taking a back seat to the racing world, I decided to refocus on running and got intrigued by the long distance trail running events. And when I heard about the TransRockies Run, I immediately wanted to take part and started training specifically for this event."
And training is exactly how Villeneuve has been spending a majority of his summer. He has been following a training plan that incorporates three-to-four days of back-to-back distances, and that range between three-to-six hours.
"Typically, I try to get as much altitude and elevation gain as possible in every run," he said. "In between these loading cycles, I simply try to let my body recover by running shorter distances. Through the summer I've tried to maintain a high level of intensity by competing in a few races."
Up until this point, Villeneuve has competed in the Canmore Challenge, the 5 Peaks series and, back in June, he participated in the 42-kilometre PowderFace 42 event, which was his first experience competing in a trail marathon.
"It was a really good event and allowed me to get a good picture of what one day at TransRockies would be like," he said. "I was totally, physically destroyed after this race due to the heat, distance and descents. It was a very humbling experience. However, using this knowledge, I was able to adjust my plan accordingly to accommodate for these stresses over the course of the TransRockies Run.
"My body was so damaged after doing the PowderFace 42 that I immediately adjusted my plan. The more I ran those distances, the more my body became accustomed to dealing with the muscular stresses, to the point where I can now run three-to-four trail marathons, one after another. That said, you always end up pushing yourself more in a race situation, so I do expect my body to break down after the third or fourth stage regardless of how prepared I think I am."
