Vancouver's Stanley Park is a mess. Since Stanley Park is the start/finish of the Vancouver New Years Day Fat Ass 50K run and Freeze Your Fat Ass swim, I had to make some changes to the start of the run course this year.
The run is and it's just about full
Out of courtesy to those who have signed up in advance and will want to start on time, there will be no registration at the start. If you or your friends were planning to kick off 2007 with this little resolution run (it's a 50K, but you're welcome to run from 1K to 100K) and haven't signed up yet, please be sure to register soon so you're not disappointed:
www.clubfatass.com/events/VancouverNewYear/registration
!!Course Changes for 2007!!
The run will start at Brockton Oval in Stanley Park as normal. We will run down to the water then *right* onto the seawall, around the eastern side of Stanley Park, take the tunnel under the causeway then go right around the north side of Lost Lagoon to the pool at Second Beach. The distance will be very close to 50K. Bring along the new GPS Santa brought you and let's see how close it is!
Ean Jackson
Host of the Vancouver New Years Day Fat Ass 50K Run and Freeze Your Fat Ass Swim
PS How much of a mess is Stanley Park? It's truly heartbreaking. Here are a few photos that give you an idea of the extent of the damage:
My adventure and photos of running the FA 50 leg of the Stanley Park trails at Christmas
Vancouver Sun
National Post
Comments
Course Change
I just spoke to Ron Adams about the condition of Stanley Park. It looks like we will be able to keep the same start at the Brockton Oval track as the road and parking are open on the east side. Phew!
I would like to keep as much of the current course as possible. Ideally, we will be able to keep the existing route from Second Beach pool to the turnaround and back. That means we will need to find 6.3K from the start at Brockton oval to Second Beach pool.
My gut feel is that we can do this with a few loops of the cinder track and a run around the eastern seawall. If anyone with a GPS could run this section and give me a distance measurement, I'd be very grateful.
UBC Trails are open and perfect...
Hi Ean,
I was out and about today so I measured the new suggested route with GPS for you. I went from the official start of the FA-50 (fire hydrant) North out of the parking lot, turning right on the open portion of the seawall and heading clockwise around Brockton Point, past the 9 o'clock gun, past the RVYC and the Rowing Club, through the tunnel under Georgia, then turned hard right and onto the gravel trail around Lost Lagoon, then straight out through the mini tunnel to the "fire truck" by the field just south of Second Beach Pool area... this was 4.7 km.
I kept going out to the seawall again and headed around the corner (on your normal route now) towards English Bay beach where the big summer fireworks are held and the washrooms there were 5.7 km from the start. This may be a little shy on your mileage you hoped for, but as mentioned, the last few years we have consistenly measured the full route as 52-53 km, so loosing a k or so each direction will not be a huge worry I don't think. We will all know when we get to the turn around and if we are NOT at 25 km at this point we can add on a little on the way back.
(Note: If you keep the original route under the Burrard Bridge and onto the path past the Coast Guard station and around the Planitarium point both ways this will add back in some mileage)
The GOOD NEWS IS the UBC portion of your CFA route is fully open and all good to go. I checked the entire route from Spanish Banks where the aid station has been the last few years up and along Admiralty trail through to Salish, then up to 4th-10th-16th etc and right across and down to 41st at the normal turn around and this entire section is all good to go. There has been some big blowdowns but they have all been cleared. At the worst there will be some small branches and greenery still on the trails, but this is no problem... the trails are all good and ready to go for us.
So, for anyone else wondering (like I was) if there was going to be issues with trail closures at UBC part of the course, worry no more. Get your runnies out... :)
Seeya Monday folks !
Pete (I'm not yet a runner, I'm still a cyclist) Stace-Smith
Distance
Vancouver NY Day 50K Distance
Hi Tim,
Many thanks for the thoughts. Although I've measured the "traditional" course many times with a bike and Nike Tailwind pedometers, a couple of people have recently run it with GPS devices. While there is some margin for error due to the tree canopy in Stanley Park (ha, ha) and the Pacific Spirit Park, the GPS distances were consistently long by up to 2,000 meters. I've shaved off a bit by cutting out the section under Burrard Bridge, but my gut feel is that we still have about 1K to play with. At the risk of having this year's "detour" route be a bit short of 50K, I feel it would be best to keep the changes very simple to follow. I believe the best detour is to do the east seawall then the north side of Lost Lagoon to pick up with the existing route at Second Beach pool.
Are you sure about the UBC part of the course??
Great to hear the CFA New Years Day event will still proceed despite the recent destruction in Stanley Park. We were just talking about this a night or two ago and had decided if it was cancelled we were going to go out and try to run a 50 k'er anyway. We were just going to get creative with our route to avoid the closed trail spots. Yours still sounds more fun!
Question... you are mentioning a change in route for the Stanley Park start/finish, but are you sure all the trails on your route out at UBC in Pacific Spirit Park are still open? I thought there was some trail damage and closures out there too? If you need someone to check that part of the route out, I can see if I can scoot out and pre-ride or pre-run those parts? Let me know. Actually, maybe someone already has done this if you have not mentioned any closures.
Regarding your new route. That is great that we can still park and start finish there. I'll bet that by heading north straight out of the parking lot, onto the seawall and turning right, around Brockton Point, staying on the seawall past the rowing club then cutting through to 2nd or 3rd beach around the right side of Lost Lagoon before getting onto your original route would be pretty close to the correct distance anyway. If I recal the last few years we have measured the posted route with GPS's and have always been in the 52-53km range, so if this Brockton route is a little shorter it will probably still be OK. I doubt we need to do any laps of the cinder track first or at the end...
Pete (I'm not yet a runner, I'm still a cyclist) Stace-Smith
Pacific Spirit Park Section - NY Day FA50
Hey Pete,
Nice to hear from you! I thought you'd given up on running altogether.
The route you've outlined will be the one we go with. Bring your GPS as I agree, it'll be darned close to 50K.
Bring lots of vitamin "I" and a rain jacket.
Given up running?? Heck no...
Given up running?? Heck no, in fact I have probably run more this year than ever before. All my riding friends have figured I have given up riding! I kicked off the '06 year with your event, then hit the San Diego Marathon late Jan, the first half in Feb, helped my wife teach a half marathon course through the spring till our work "event season" kicked in big time... but started up in earnest again in August, ran the Kelowna Half in Oct., the H2H in Nov. and the Honolulu marathon in Dec. Looking forward to the FA-50 again. I have to redeam myself from last year's bonking disaster.
Heading out for a quick mountainbike ride this afternoon, so I will try to check the UBC portion of the FA-50 route. Looks like there is about 15 runners coming in from Coquitlam again, oh what fun!
Seeya all soon!
Pete (seems I'm not a runner or a cyclist) Stace-Smith
UBC as good as it has ever been