December 26, 2009
Sean Chester and Sylvan Smyth
Sean three-peated as the fastest Boxing Day 10 Mile finisher in 55:38, narrowly missing Rob Harmsworth's course record of 55:12 set in 1999. For Sean, he is steadily climbing the ladder to a 54 minute performance and a new shot at the course record next year. His times have improved on Boxing Day from 57:58 in 2007 to 56:50 in 2008 to 55:38 in 2009. Sylvan, on the other hand, showed good form by nailing himself with a 20-minute penalty for violating his own early-start rules. This plummeted his position from 2nd overall to 22nd overall of the 41 finishers today. The 20-minute penalty was a landmark record for this race, surpassing the previous 14 minute and 30 second penalty slapped on Dr. A. for "sandbagging" in 2001. Dr. A. was relegated from 19th position to 44th position as a result of his disrespect for the Boxing Day rules. Furthermore, he was sent directly home and banned from the awards ceremony at the Prairie Inn Neighbourhood Pub. The only person finishing behind Dr. A. after his penalty was an 85 year-old race walker. It is reported that she is still out on the course somewhere, eight years later. Today's top five times were all posted by Harriers with Sean Chester first, 55:38, Keith Mills second, 1:01:24, Walter Cantwell third, 1:03:40, Gary Duncan fourth, 1:04:20, and Simon Pearson fifth in 1:04:47. The top five women were also Harriers including Claire Morgan first, 1:08:24, Julie Van Veelen second, 1:14:38, Wendy Davies third, 1:18:37, Charlene Waldner fourth, 1:18:52, and Kirsten Arensen fifth in 1:19:22. Under the staggered-start handicapping system, the top female today was Andrea Sims, with a 1:23:39 running time, and the top male was Mike Adam, 1:22:31 running time. Andrea finished at 11:28:39 a.m. and Mike finished at 11:32:31 a.m. The final runner crossed the line at 11:54:44 a.m. resulting in all 41 runners finishing within a 26-minute time span. Thanks to Sylvan for handicapping the runners and organizing a great event and to Marcia for providing much of the home-baked baking. There were 24 Harriers in the race. An additional 8 Harriers and 7 Harrier dogs enjoyed a beautiful, sunny Boxing Day hike to the summit of Mt. Newton while the race was in progress then joined the gang for lunch afterward at the PI Pub.
December 22, 2009
Nick Walker
Nick won his second consecutive beer mile on Oak Bay Track tonight at the 6th annual Dave Smart Beer Mile with a personal best time of 5 minutes, 47 seconds powered by Grandville Island Winter Ale from the bottle. It was Nick's second win (2009, 2008) after placing second in 2007 to Jim Finlayson, who set a world record of 5:09 for the beer mile, also powered by Grandville Island Winter Ale. Nick's times have improved from 7:49 in 2006 to 5:57 in 2007 to 6:18 in 2008 to 5:47 tonight. It is obvious that his running speed has remained consistent but his beer-drinking speed has improved immensely. Second runner in the Dave Smart Beer Mile was Justin Bland in 6:18 drinking Keepers Stout from the can while Mike Vine took third in 6:23 aided by 1516 Lager from the bottle. There were 66 finishers staggering around Oak Bay Track tonight while 57 Harriers were cheering them on after completing a successful Christmas Lights Run through Oak Bay. This is the second highest turnout for a TNW in the 8-year history of Tuesday Night Workouts. The only event that surpassed the Christmas Lights Run tonight was the "Ask Simon Night" at CHRC where 100 Harriers and families showed up for an entertaining question and answer session with Simon Whitfield, his wife Jen and baby Pippa. Simon also joined the TNW regulars for a 4 x 1 mile workout on the upper trails of Cedar Hill Golf Course.
December 12, 2009
Eric Findlay, Melanie McQuaid, Gord Christie and Louise Proulx
Eric and Mel were crowned as the senior champions and Gord and Louise were crowned as the master champions today at the 6th annual Stewart Mountain 10 Mile Cross Country Challenge at Thetis Lake Park. It was the third and final race of a 3-race package including the Thetis Lake 20K Relay, the Gunner Shaw 10K Classic and the Stewart Mountain 10 Mile Challenge. There were 162 registrations for SM today, 146 started and 143 finished. Louise won in a complete cake walk. She beat PIH team mate, Wendy Davies, by 8 minutes to win the F50 title of 12 athletes in that division and topped twenty more F40 women by over 5 minutes. It was clearly the race of her life. She was 47th overall of 143 finishers and 7th of 47 female finishers. Eric, Mel and Gord had a much tougher job of claiming their titles today. Eric edged team mate Nick Walker to win the race outright by a mere 3 seconds, 1:06:14 to 1:06:17. Gord won the masters championship over Bruce Martell by just 19 seconds, 1:09:55 to 1:10:14. Mel won the women's championship over Jessalyn O'Donnell by 43 seconds, 1:17:25 to 1:18:08. They were well ahead of the bronze medalist, Lysanne Lavigne, by over 2 1/2 minutes. There were some other remarkable age class performances with Harriers' Garth Campbell nipping the indestructible Gary Duncan by 12 seconds, 1:14:20 to 1:14:34, in the M50 division. They ended up 13th and 14th overall. The top junior runners, under 20, were Logan Roots, 1:11:38, and Alana McMullen in 1:26:16. There were 68 Harriers involved with the event, 28 were running and 40 were volunteering.
December 6, 2009
Phil Nicholls
Phil won his M50 age division today by running 2:41:19 at the 27th annual California International Marathon from Folsom to the State Capital, Sacramento. This time represents the fastest marathon performance by a Canadian 50-year old recorded this year. Phil was 56th overall of the 5,845 finishers and was more than three minutes ahead of his M50 rival, North Vancouver's Dave Stephens, who hit the line in 2:44:36. Harriers' Cheryl Murphy was fourth master female in 2:53:03, 133rd overall, Matthias Schoeck finished 342nd in 3:04:04, Buddy Bhandar was 415th in 3:07:58, Randy Duncan was 1,138th in 3:29:03 and new member, Suzanne Mandy, was 1,311th in 3:31:12. The race was won by Tesfaye Bekele in 2:13:42 and the top female was Buzunesh Deba in 2:32:17; she was 27th overall.
December 5, 2009
Nixon Kiprotich, Garfield Saunders, Joanne Rosen and Marcia Stromsmoe
Nixon was the race champion and Garfield (M70), 46:23, Jo (F50), 43:45, and Marcia (F60), 50:56, set age class course records today at the 26th annual Gunner Shaw 10K Memorial Cross Country race at Jericho Park in Vancouver. Nixon's winning time was 32:06, a mere 23 seconds off Gary Barber's course record of 31:43 set in the Victoria Commonwealth Games year of 1994. Five of the top six finishers overall were Harriers including Nixon, 1st in 32:06, Nick Best, 2nd in 32:19, Sean Chester, 3rd in 32:41, Willy Langat, 4th in 32:51, and Shane Ruljancich, 6th in 34:30. Claire Morgan was the top female Harrier for the second consecutive weekend, finishing third in the women's division and first in her F30 age category in 40:53. There were 212 finishers at the Vancouver Gunner Shaw race, held under brilliant, sunny skies with cool and frosty conditions. It was only 2 degrees, with solid ice on the large puddle, so runners were routed around it instead of over the puddle for safety reasons. A total of 25 Harriers participated with 9 winning gold medals in their age class, 4 collecting silver and 3 more took bronze at the awards ceremony dominated by PIH.
December 5, 2009
Lucy Smith, Cheryl Murphy, Kyla Coates, Jon Brown, Scott Simpson, Richard Mosley and Herb Phillips
Prairie Inn Harriers Racing Team needed a one-ton truck to haul their awards home from Vancouver as an unparalleled seven club members received major acknowledgments at the BC Athletics Annual Awards Banquet held in Richmond tonight. Lucy was selected as the 2009 Master Female Road Runner of the Year, Cheryl was selected the Senior Female Road Runner of the Year and Kyla was selected the Junior Female Road Runner of the Year. Our men shone, too, with both Jon and Scott being named Senior Male Road Runners of the Year, Richard achieving Senior Male Cross Country Runner of the Year and the ageless Herb collecting Master Male Road Runner of the Year.
November 29, 2009
Kirsten Arensen
Kirsten had an amazing Ironman triathlon performance on the Mexican island of Cozumel. She finished in 11:31:17 and finished 3rd out of 60 in the F3539 age group to qualify for the 2010 Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona next October. Kirsten had previously run Ironman Canada in 2008 and finished in 12:17:04. She knocked over 45 minutes off her PB in Cozumel and PB'd in all 3 disciplines. Her swim time dropped from 1:19:53 to 1:09:59, her bike from 6:24:10 to 6:15:07 and her marathon a massive 25 minutes from 4:22:07 to 3:57:10. She also knocked almost two minutes off her transition times, down from 10:55 to 9:01.
November 29, 2009
Keith Mills and Claire Morgan
Repeating their first-place performances of June 21 in the Do it for Dad 8K Prostate Run at Royal Roads, Claire and Keith came away as race champions again today at the Oak Bay Firefighters Merrython 8K at Henderson Recreation Centre. For Claire, it was back-to-back gold medals on the weekend as she also won the F30 division of the Gunner Shaw 10K Classic yesterday. She placed 5th overall at the Merrython and 51st overall at Gunner Shaw. Keith clearly outdistanced the rest of the 175 finishers at the Merrython, down from 225 last year, to take the title and relegate two-time winner, Gary Duncan, to second place today. Gary was the top male master and Sandy Mullen was the top female master. Julie Van Veelen was runner-up to Claire in the women's race.
November 29, 2009
Joan McGrath
At the age of 48, Joan was the top master, 11th female overall of 7,310 finishers (4,266 women and 3,044 men) in the Amica Insurance Seattle Half Marathon today. Her time was 1:28:15. She dominated the master ranks by beating the second place female, Mary Kay Benz, by an outstanding 7 minutes and 5 seconds. The male champion was Alex Crabill in 1:08:56 and the female champion was Kristi Houck in 1:22:03.
November 28, 2009
Richard Mosley and Lucy Smith
Richard and Lucy were the top Harriers at the Canadian Cross Country Championships in Guelph today to power Team BC to a first-place finish in the provincial team competition. The Senior Men's 10K race was won by Simon Bairu, of the Queen City Striders, in 28:49. Richard finished 9th in 30:46. His PIHRT team mates were Simon Whitfield, 10th in 30:55, Jim Finlayson, 17th in 31:15.0, Steve Osaduik, 18th in 31:15.5, Dylan Gant, 28th in 31:29, Kyle Jones, 29th in 31:31, and Kris Swanson, 36th in 32:07. There were 92 finishers in the Senior Men's 10K race. Speed River Track and Field Club took top team honours with 39 points. Prairie Inn Harriers Racing Team was second with 54 points and London Runner Distance Club claimed third with 126 points. There were eight club teams featuring excellent runners from University of Toronto, 4th team, Edmonton Thunder, 5th team, Physi-Kult Kingston, 6th team, Toronto Olympic Club, 7th team, and Ontario Athletics, 8th team. Lucy, running in the Senior Women's 7K race at the age of 42 rather than the master's 6K race, placed 11th overall of 53 finishers in 24:56. The senior women's winner was Kendra Schaaf, of the Queen City Striders, in 23:21. Over 600 athletes competed in various junior, senior and master races at the National Cross Country Championships in Guelph.
November 28, 2009
Jason Loutitt, Steve Bachop and Joanne Rosen
Outstanding performances were achieved in both the men’s and women’s fields today at the 25th annual Gunner Shaw Cross Country Classic as Jason Loutitt and Lauren Groves completely destroyed their opponents and came away as clear race champions. Jason was challenged for the first half of the race by Kenyans Nixon Kiprotich and Willy Langat before demonstrating his excellent climbing and rough-trail running power, of which he is the both Canadian Mountain Racing Champion and the Canadian Snow Shoe Racing Champion for 2009. At the end it was a clean 1-2-3 sweep for the Harriers with Jason finishing in 31:41, Shawn Nelson running to a brilliant second place in 32:34 and Nixon Kiprotich hanging on for third in 32:50. The top masters, in a strong and deep field, were Steve Bachop, 34:33, and Joanne Rosen, who at the age of 50, beat all the 40-year-olds in 44:18. It was another Harriers masters sweep at Gunner Shaw with Paddy McCluskey taking second in 36:02 and Gord Christie claiming third in 36:53. On the women's side, Shannon Coutts was second in 44:49 and Louise Proulx placed second to Joanne on the F50 division in 45:58. Lions Gate Road Runners brought 22 runners from Vancouver to compete for the Inter-Club Challenge with the Harriers. Prairie Inn took the championship trophies by winning all three divisions, Senior Men, Master Men and Senior/Master Women.
November 28, 2009
Eliza Christie, Juliette Christie and Gord Christie
The Christie family all achieved podium performances on the same day in two different provinces with both Gord and Eliza taking gold at the Gunner Shaw 10K Cross Country Classic in Victoria and Juliette claiming bronze at the Canadian Cross Country Championships in Guelph, Ontario. Gord won the Master M45 division in 36:53 while Eliza won the Junior, under-20 division, in 44:59. There were 434 finishers at Gunner Shaw. Juliette was 5th master overall and third in the F45 division with a time of 32:10. There were 167 finishers in the master's 8K race in Guelph won by Bruce Raymer, of Toronto, in 26:03, and Elizabeth Primrose, also of Toronto, in 30:21.
November 22, 2009
Philippe Janicki
One of our talented junior runners took a silver medal today in the Beginner Men's Division of the Vancouver Island Cyclocross Championships at Shawnigan Lake, the sixth and final race of the Cross the Rock Series. Philippe placed second to Liam Farrar, 34:23 to 36:16. Cyclocross is a mix between mountain biking and cross country running where bikes have to be carried up stairs and steep hills. The courses feature lots of slop, goo and mud. There were 101 riders in six divisions at the Island Championships including world-class Olympians such as Allison Sydor, who placed second in the Expert Women's Division. Harriers' Steve Bachop placed fifth in the Expert Men's Division, despite having bike problems for his sixth straight race. He was presented with the "Most Mechanicals of the Year Award" following the race. Simon Pearson nailed a seventh place in the Beginner Men's Division out of 13 finishers. The BC Cyclocross Championships take place Sunday, November 29 at Mahon Park in North Vancouver.
November 21, 2009
David Jackson, Nixon Kiprotich and Melanie McQuaid
David and Mel were crowned 2009 champions and Nixon was runner-up at the fourth annual Bear Mountain 10K today, perhaps one of the toughest 10K courses on Vancouver Island. The race is run on concrete cart pathways around the Jack Nicklaus-designed world-class Bear Mountain golf course in the Highlands. It has three challenging hills called, "Papa Bear, Momma Bear and Baby Bear", but basically there is not a flat spot anywhere on the course! The top three men were all Harriers, David Jackson, 34:34, Nixon Kiprotich, 34:36, and Shawn Nelson, 35:47. They earned $325, $200 and $100 in prize money for their efforts. The top three women were Melanie McQuaid, 41:17, Sarah Baker, 41:41, and Devon Mihalyi, 42:02. They also earned $325, $200 and $100. There were 377 finishers, including 25 Harriers. The race has shown a nice progression in number of finishers from 208 in the first year, to 251 in the second, to 305 in the third to 377 today. Congrats to Mark Nelson and Nick Walker for putting this event on the map and securing great prizes and entertaining talent for the post race party.
November 15, 2009
Amy Schneeberg, Gord Christie and Simon Pearson
New member, Amy, was second female at the New Balance Fall Classic Half Marathon today in Vancouver with a time of 1:22:55; she was 13th overall of 930 finishers. The top female was 12th overall, Anne-Marie Madden, in 1:21:08. Drew Nicholson, of Surrey, won the race in 1:13:41. Gord placed 4th overall, first master, in 17:41 and Simon placed 6th overall, first M30, in 17:44 in the accompanying 5K which had 258 finishers. Dallas Raudebaugh, 16:32, and Julia Howard, 17:12, were the 5K winners. Another 885 ran the 10K for a total of 2,073 finishers for all three distances. Brian Torrance, 33:29, and Natasha Wodak, 35:47, won the 10K Fall Classic.
November 11, 2009
Shane Ruljancich, Wendy Davies and Louise Proulx
Shane won the Solo Division at the 13th annual Harriers Thetis Lake 20K Relay today with a blistering time of 1:10:27, finishing sixth overall of 141 four-person teams. There were an additional 8 Solo runners to bring the total to 149 teams; the race is limited to 150 teams and sold out three days in advance. Shane ran Lap 1 and Lap 4 with identical times of 17:32. Wendy and Louise, running as a two-person Harriers team, completely destroyed the Veteran Women's course record lowering it by 8 minutes and 18 seconds against a previous four-person team. The PIH Vintage Veterans finished 57th of the 149 teams in 1:28:25. The race winner was a Senior Men's team, NTC French Connection, in 1:01:34, while the NTC Rookies were the top women's team in 1:16:49. The first Senior Mixed team was the PIH Pokey Parents, featuring Meghan Day and Paddy McCluskey, in 1:10:12; they were fifth overall.
November 11, 2009
Norm Tinkham
Norm, our Maple Ridge Harrier, led the field from start to finish at the Remembrance Day Stanley Park Masters 8K Cross Country Race today in Vancouver to finish ahead of 85 others with a time of 26:24. Second place went to Warren McCulloch, of Coquitlam, in 27:58 while Abbotsford's Paul Reimer placed third in 28:15. The top three master women were Darcie Montgomery, 29:26, Jeanie Bezdan, 31:31, and Maureen De St. Croix in 33:18.
November 1, 2009
Claire Morgan, Jeff Hunt and Gary Duncan
Today, at the Shawnigan-Kinsol Half Marathon, Claire and Jeff were the top Harriers and Gary won the M50 division, only one day after he competed in the BC Cross Country Championships and anchored the PIH team to a gold medal performance in Vancouver. Jeff was fourth overall at Shawnigan Lake in 1:24:17, Gary was fifth in 1:24:47 and Claire was eleventh and first female in 1:30:08. She was over 2 minutes ahead of runner-up and top master, Harriers' Angela Plamondon, who finished in 1:32:27. There were 222 finishers. The race was won by Hugh Trenchard in 1:17:51.
October 31, 2009
Jon Brown, Steve Osaduik, Jim Finlayson and Richard Mosley
Jon, Steve, Jim and Richard finished 1-2-3-4 today at the BC Cross Country Championships at Jericho Park in an extremely deep and talented 10K field, finishing in 29:50, 30:34, 30:39 and 30:45. Kyle Jones finished 7th overall in 31:16 to anchor the PIHRT senior men's team to a gold medal performance and all five were named to Team BC to compete in the Canadian Cross Country Championships in Guelph, ON, on October 28. Harriers' Norm Tinkham, won the master men's 8K race and Juliette Christie placed third in the master women's 6K event. Both were also named to Team BC, as was Lucy Smith in the senior women's 6K race. The Harriers master men's team of Norm Tinkham, Mike Moon, Gary Duncan and David Hoskins won the gold medal, while the Harriers master women's team of Juliette Christie, Cindy Rhodes, Wendy Davies and Louise Proulx took the silver. The Harriers senior women's team, comprised of Lucy Smith, Kerry Spearing, Amy Schneeberg and Jessica Sedlock, also won a silver medal at the BCXCs today.
October 25, 2009
Scott Simpson and Amy Schneeberg
Scott won Vancouver's 39th annual James Cunningham Seawall 5.9 Mile race today in 28:55 and notched his name in the record books as establishing the second fastest time ever to Ryan Hayden, who won it in 2005 in 28:20. Amy was the second female overall to Kristina Rody; their times were 32:57 and 34:52, good for 11th and 25th overall of the 947 finishers. New members, Nixon Kiprotich and Willy Langat, placed third and fifth in 30:04 and 31:16.
October 18, 2009
Roger Plamondon and Angela Plamondon
Roger and Angela were the only two Harriers out of 119 finishers in the Miracle Beach 10K Road Race today, staged between Courtenay and Campbell River. Roger finished fifth overall, second master, in 38:13 and Angela was second female, first master, in 43:15. The race was won by Mark Cryderman in 32:53 and the top female was Gillian Clayton in 42:52. She was 16th overall. There were an additional 39 finishers in an accompanying 5K race won by Greg Versluis in 22:28.
October 18, 2009
Gary Duncan
Chalk up another masterful double for Gary today as he finished second overall, top master, in both the Salmon Run 5K at Goldstream Park and the Peninsula XC Classic 5.14K at Centennial Park in Central Saanich. His times were 18:06 at the Salmon Run and 20:26 at the Peninsula Classic. Nick Walker won the 8th annual Salmon Run in 16:52 of over 100 runners. The Peninsula XC was won by Sean Chester running 6.37K in 22:14. There was a disappointing low turnout at Centennial Park for the Peninsula XC race as only 4 adults and 27 children participated in 9 age divisions.
October 17, 2009
Richard Mosley
Richard missed a podium performance by a mere second today at the Oasis Zoo 10K in Toronto in the Canadian Road Race Championships. He finished in 29:59 and ahead of him were two Guelph runners, Eric Gillis, 29:58, and Reid Coolsaet, 25:55. Simon Bairu, currently residing in Portland, won the event in 29:45. The top female was Malindi Elmore, from Edmonton, in 33:38. There were 1,935 finishers.
October 11, 2009
Sandi Heal
For the Royal Victoria Marathon, Half Marathon, 8K Road Race and 1.2K Kids Run, Sandi entered and verified a record number of 12,502 registrations and was rewarded by seeing a record number of 10,376 finishers. Besides coordinating the very popular RVM Expo, she did another beautiful job of singing the national anthem prior to the feature race. Victoria's Got Talent!
October 11, 2009
Jon Brown, Jim Finlayson and Kris Swanson
Jon, Jim and Kris led the record parade of 4,608 finishers to the line to finish 1-2-3 in the Royal Victoria Half Marathon with times of 1:04:57, 1:07:58 and 1:09:11. Nick Best also had a 2-minute personal best performance by finishing sixth in 1:10:16. Marilyn Arsenault set both a course record and a Canadian F40 record with a brilliant 1:15:39 to place 16th overall. She won the women's race by a staggering six minutes over last year's defending champion, Lindsay McLaren, from Calgary. There were 2,968 female finishers and 1,640 male finishers in the half marathon.
October 11, 2009
Garth Campbell, Melanie McQuaid and John Cliff
Garth won the M50 Division, Melanie was second in the F35 Division and Select Team material by claiming the fifth female position and John finished second overall in the age-graded rankings for the Royal Victoria 8K Road Race today. John won the M65 Division by over 4 minutes over Burnaby's Jake Madderom. The race was won by Matt Clout in 24:52 and the fop female was Rachel Ruus, of Richmond, in 28:32. There were 2,159 finishers in the 8K Road Race, a record.
October 11, 2009
Cheryl Murphy, Steve Osaduik, Herb Phillips and Jonathan Withey
Steve and Cheryl were the top Harriers, Herb was second age-graded athlete behind the overall race winner, Hilary Cheruiyot, from Kenya, while Jonathan nailed a personal best time of 2:34:24 to crack the top-10 at the 30th annual Royal Victoria Marathon today, a Provincial Championship event sanctioned by BC Athletics. Steve ran second overall in 2:22:43, passing four runners in the second half of the race, and was declared BC Marathon Champion. He was denied his fourth consecutive RVM title by Cheruiyot, who finished in 2:19:26, only the fourth man to break 2:20 at RVM in 30 years of competitions. Cheryl claimed her second consecutive victory at Victoria in 2:44:01 and was crowned BC Marathon Champion. Herb finished in 3:05:54 to easily win the M65 Division, but when the age-graded tables were applied to his performance, his time rocketed up to 2:21:52 for an 89.41% age-grade ranking. There were 3,287 registered for the Royal Victoria Marathon and 2,755 finished.
September 27, 2009
David Jackson and Jason Loutitt
David and Jason finished 14th and 15th overall at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon today in 2:24:04 and 2:28:13. The race was won by Kenneth Mungara, of Kenya, in 2:08:32. The top female was Ethiopia's Amane Gobena in 2:28:31.
September 20, 2009
Steve Osaduik, Richard Mosley and Jim Finlayson
Steve, Richard and Jim placed 1-2-3 for a clean Harriers sweep at the Lands End 10K today in perhaps one of the fastest events ever recorded in the history of road races on Vancouver Island. Their times were 29:19, 29:32 and 30:37. Steve notched a place in the record books by establishing the third fastest time ever run on Vancouver Island roads for 10K. Only Graeme Fell (29:00) and Phil Ellis (29:07) rank ahead of him in the last 50 years. Steve overtook legends Jon Brown, Dave Campbell, Paul Williams, Gary Barber, Paul McCloy, Bruce Deacon, Chris Weber and Steve Boyd with his stellar effort today to become only the 11th athlete to go sub-30 on the roads on Vancouver Island. Marilyn Arsenault won the women's race with an outstanding P.B. of 34:36 closely followed by a brilliant 3-minute personal best effort by Harriers' Keith Mills in 34:40. Other Harriers winning their age categories at the Lands End 10K were Paul O'Callaghan (M45), David Hoskins (M60), Chloe Hegland (F15), Juliette Christie (F45) and Martha McNeeley (F55). There were 121 finishers in the race, up 31 from last year.
September 20, 2009
Phil Nicholls and Cheryl Murphy
Phil was third overall, first M50, and Cheryl was top female for the second consecutive year, fifth overall of 142 finishers, at the 14th annual Lands End Half Marathon today at Sandown Raceway in Sidney. The event was won by Kenyan Nixon Kiprotich in 1:12:18. Cheryl ran 1:20:06 and Phil ran 1:18:16. PIH's Hicham Elamiri took second place in 1:17:27 to top the M40 division. Nine Harriers won their age categories including Cheryl Murphy (F35), Mike Lord (M35), Hicham Elamiri (M40), Jill Hawe (F40), Nancy Baxendale (F45), Phil Nicholls (M50), Alan Cook (M55), Rob Grant (M60) and Peggy Sherwood (F65). There were 142 finishers in the half marathon, down 47 runners from last years mark of 189.
September 20, 2009
Jon Brown
Jon ran 1:05:40 today; he was the top Canadian at the Great North Half Marathon Run in the United Kingdom. It is the largest half marathon in the world with over 54,000 runners. The race was won by Kenya's Martin Lel in 59:32.
September 19, 2009
Shane Ruljancich and Sonja Yli-Kahila
Shane won the rugged trail 5 Peaks Buntzen Lake Half Marathon in Vancouver today in 2:18:01, an amazing 18 minutes and 24 seconds margin of victory over Burnaby's Paul Shewchuck, who finished second in 2:36:35. Sonja was the fourth female finisher, second in her age division, in 3:13:21.
September 19, 2009
Jeff Hunt
Jeff finished second overall in 4:47:55 at the Great Lake Walk today, a 56K event around Lake Cowichan. Rob Fontaine, of Campbell River, won the race in 4:40:16. Harriers' Rob Smith was 7th in 5:45:58 and Elaine Galbraith was 24th in 6:58:34. There were 405 registrations, 48 did not finish, 53 did not start, leaving 304 finishers in the ultrawalk and ultrarun.
September 13, 2009
Shawn Nelson, Mark Nelson and Chloe Hegland
After 11 consecutive wins at the Metchosin Days 5K, Mark was finally relegated to second place today by his younger brother, Shawn, 23, who won in 15:45. Mark's time was 16:11 and Harrier Lowell Rockcliffe took third in 18:07. Mark's winning time last year was 16:28 and Shawn ran 16:46. Both of the Nelson boys bettered the previous Metchosin course record. Chloe was 15th overall of 117 finishers, down 12 from 129 last year, with a time of 21:35. At 12 years old, she topped the F13-19 division and was third female overall. Care Wakely was first female in 18:37 and Jeanette Carlson placed second in 21:30. Both Shawn and Chloe are gearing up for the Royal Victoria Half Marathon and Royal Victoria 8K Road Race in four weeks.
September 13, 2009
Roger Plamondon and Angela Plamondon
Our husband and wife Harriers team of Roger and Angela finished 5th and 13th overall of the 165 finishers at the Nanaimo Harbour City Half Marathon today. Roger was 1st M40 in 1:26:06 and Angela was 1st F40 in 1:33:41. Nanaimo's Simon-Pierre Landry won the race in 1:17:06 and Rebecca Reid, of Vancouver, was the top female in 1:31:10. There were an additional 205 finishers in the accompanying 10K event won by Mark Cryderman, from Campbell River, in 33:59, and Nanaimo's Erin Burrett was the top female, and 7th overall, in 39:05. The 370 finishers in both races was down 44 from last years total of 414.
September 13, 2009
Nick Walker and Emily McMilin
Nick and Emily were the top Harriers at the Olympic Distance Subaru Sooke International Triathlon today (1.5K swim, 40K bike and 10K run). Nick finished second overall in 2:26:30, just 3 minutes, 40 seconds behind winner Leif Baradoy, from Calgary. The top female, Sara Gross, of Victoria, placed third overall in 2:28:20. New member, Emily McMilin, was the second place female, 14th overall of 74 finishers in 2:51:34. There were 110 finishers in the accompanying Sprint Division won by Christopher Sundby, 1:14:48, and Leslie Hartford, 1:23:05. Another 97 finished the feature event, the Half Ironman Division, won by Kelly Guest with a new course record of 4:12:15. The top female in the Half Iron was Vancouver's Christine Fletcher in 4:39:27. The total number of finishers in all three events was 281 this year compared to 161 last year where there was no an Olympic Distance event, only a Sprint and Half Iron Division.
September 13, 2009
Gary Duncan
Over 600 people gathered at Mile 0 for the 29th annual Terry Fox 5K/10K Run, one of three races in Greater Victoria and 127 races across the province. Over $14,000 was raised for cancer research at the Mile 0 location. Gary was first to finish both the 5K and 10K courses; Chris Callendar was second in the 5K and Rob Grant and Camie Bentham were both in the top-5 overall in both the 5K and 10K races.
September 13, 2009
Bob Reid
Bob organized a team of eight Harrier cyclists to partake in the Saanich Peninsula Hospital Foundation 3rd Annual Blackberry Ramble today. Not only did Bob complete his first ever 100 km bike ride, he bettered that distance by adding another 6 kilometres to the total, while bringing in 7 other Harrier cyclists behind him in 3 hours, 37 minutes. Bob and 4 other team members had cycled a preview of the southern 50K of the course through a bitter cold torrential downpour the Sunday before, in preparation for today's event. It was stated that he was delirious at times during that ride, where he thought he saw blue skies while it poured like cat and dogs on the team. As well, he was instrumental in raising just over $1,000 from team members on behalf of the Harriers. Today's event raised over $35,000 with the donations received from 98 riders. Other team members were Bob Janicki, Louise Proulx, Shannon Coutts, Mike Arensen, Wendy Davies, Gerry Etcheverry and Barry Lycett.
August 30, 2009
Cara Obee
Cara had an outstanding debut in Penticton today at Subaru Ironman Canadian Championships finishing 542nd overall of 2,381 finishers; 2,602 started the triathlon and 221 did not finish. Her time of 11:34:55 placed her 22nd of 129 in the F30 division. Cara's splits for the race included a 3.8K swim in 1:08, a 180K bike ride in 6:06 and 42.2K run in 4:07. Also doing their first Ironman and performing very well were Mike Arensen, 11:46, and Cathy Noel, 14:15. Other Harriers at Penticton included Cheryl Murphy, 9th female in 10:12, Monique Larche-Moore, 11:11, Mark Ritchie, 11:31, Kent Butler, 12:05, Audrey Stibbe, 12:53, and Paul Christopher, 16:04.
August 28, 2009
Adam Campbell
Ultrarunners Adam Campbell, of Victoria and partner Aaron Heidt of Vernon (Team Two Joes), just completed the grueling 6 day - 113 mile (181.86 km) Trans Rockies Run from Buena Vista to Beaver Creek, Colorado. The field of over 150 teams of two, raced along tracks, rough trails and forestry roads with up to 25,000 feet of elevation gain. The challenging course took them to altitudes of over 12,500 ft. After a rocky first day, the pair rebounded to win Stage 2 despite battling blisters and Aaron falling, losing a tooth, needing stitches, and an emergency root canal. They were second in Stages 3 and 4 (Stage 4 - a mere 28 seconds off the lead). In the challenging 5th day they covered 23.4 miles with a 4407 foot climb from Red Cliff to Vail and again finished second and moved into third overall. There was no let up for them on the 6th and final stage - 21.2 miles and more than 4,600 feet of climbing which they WON by a commanding 6 minutes retaining their podium with a third place overall.
August 23, 2009
Simon Whitfield and Kyle Jones
Simon Whitfield and Lauren Groves proved they are the best of the best when it comes to Canadian triathletes. Whitfield and Groves, both of Victoria, won the men's and women's divisions of the Canadian Elite Triathlon Championships and ITU Pan American Premium Cup today in Kelowna. Simon trailed Andrew McCartney by 40 seconds coming out of the water, but our 2008 Beijing Olympics silver medalist overcame that during the bike portion and cruised to victory with another strong effort in the run. Kyle Jones wound up second, 18 seconds behind Simon in a brilliant finish where he out-leaned Paul Tichelaar to take silver in a photo finish, both timed at 1:53:50. Simon's winning time was 1:53:32. Their splits were were exceedingly close with Whitfield - 1.5K swim, 18:30, 40K bike, 1:21:53 and 10K run, 31:15, Jones - swim, 18:33, bike 1:21:52, and run 31:34 and Tichelaar - swim, 19:00, bike, 1:21:51, and run, 31:34. On the women's side, Groves came out of the water first but needed a strong sprint at the end of the run to hold off runner-up Kathy Tremblay. Their times were 2:05:00 and 2:05:07.
August 22, 2009
Carolyn Goluza, Shawn Nelson and Sean Chester
Shawn, 5:28, and Sean, 5:43, were the first two finishers of the 47 kilometre, rugged Juan de Fuca trail featuring many muddy and scrambly patches. Both shattered the previous course record of 6:15, in fact Shawn lowered his 2008 record by an outstanding 47 minutes. Rounding out the top four finishers, also faster than last year's record, were Shane Ruljancich, 5:51, and group organizer, Jeff Hunt in 6:01. Carolyn Goluza lowered her own 8:30 women's course record by an amazing 1:40 with a fine time of 6 hours, 50 minutes. Matt Patriquin, 7:10, Bob Wall, 7:35, Jeremy Watts, 7:35, and Gary Duncan, 7:35, followed with strong performances. Hats off the Sonja Yli-Kahila and Julie Van Veelen who ran together for the entire 47K and completed the longest training run of their lives in a very respectable 8:42. There were 21 runners from Victoria, Vancouver and Campbell River and 16 completed the entire 47 kilometres from China Beach to Botanical Beach while 3 others opted for the shorter 27K run to Sombrio Beach and 2 runners ran 18K from China Beach to Bear Beach and back.
August 18, 2009
Jeff Phillips
Victoria’s Alison Hooper and Harriers Jeff Phillips put their names in the history books as the first-ever winners of the men’s and women’s triathlon events staged at a Canada Summer Games, and stepped onto the top of the podium in Summerside, P.E.I. today. Hooper, who was racing in just her sixth triathlon, battled through high waves and windy conditions on Summerside’s waterfront to enter the transition into the bike with the lead pack of six athletes after the 750-metre swim in the morning. With the aid of her teammates, Kyla Coates and Christine Ridenour, the trio of B.C. athletes kicked the pace into another gear on the 20-kilometre bike, setting up a strong five-kilometre run for Hooper who marched to the gold medal with a time of 58 minutes 15 seconds. As the winds dwindled off the south shores of P.E.I. at the conclusion of the women’s race, the nation’s top-28 male athletes – 20 years of age and under – hit the pontoon for their Canada Games debut.A group of eight athletes, representing a variety of provinces, quickly separated themselves from the field after the 750-metre swim and hammered the pace on the 20-kilometre bike. Storming out of the transition into the three-loop run along the waterfront, Jeff wasted no time making his break from the pack in the first lap of the run en route to posting a gold medal time of 53:59.“I am really happy because I’ve been preparing for this race for a year now,” said the 20-year-old Phillips, who also won the Teck Western Junior Championship earlier this summer. “I was going for gold today and I’m thrilled it worked out.”
August 16, 2009
Mark Ritchie and Alexandra Coates
Mark cracked the top ten overall, finishing 9th in 38:25 at the CFB Esquimalt 10K today in sunny Esquimalt. He narrowly missed winning the master's title by 25 seconds as Felipe Edora finished just ahead of him in 38:00. While Alexandra's twin sister, Kyla, was winning a triathlon bronze medal at the Canada Games in P.E.I., Alex was capturing a silver medal at Esquimalt in 39:13; she was the top junior and second female overall, 14 seconds behind the winner, Cathy Cullen, from Winnipeg. Victoria's Ryan McKenzie won the race with a blistering 31:25. Austin Horn was second in 33:08 and Aaron Thomas took third in 34:02. There were 161 finishers at the CFB Esquimalt 10K. Nice to see Rhonda Callender making a comeback to capture third female in 42:01 and Big Bob Sackett running sweep in 1:13:55.
August 15, 2009
Jim Finlayson and Jonathan Withey
Jim placed fifth overall behind four Kenyans in 1:08:18 and Jonathan was eighth overall of 1,324 finishers, with a personal best time of 1:12:50, at the Intact Edmonton Half Marathon today. It was the most popular event of the three distances offered over the weekend. The top three runners were Mohamed Trafeh, 1:02:51, Kibet Rutto, 1:02:56, and Kip Kangogo in 1:04:52. Willy Kimosop was fourth in 1:05:26. The top three women in the half were Alemtsehay Misganaw, 1:17:19, Lisa Harvey, 1:21:26 and Brandi Pozniak, 1:23:47. The winners of the accompanying Edmonton Marathon were Hilary Cheruiyot in 2:23:37 and Karine Betts in 3:09:05. There were 403 marathon finishers and another 596 in the 10K race won by Paul Tichelaar in 31:47 and Chantell Widney in 35:47.
August 14, 2009
Keith Mills, Lucy Smith and Richard Mosley
Keith and Lucy finished 1-2 in the second heat and Richard finished second to Cam Levins in the feature elite race at the second Black Press 5000 tonight at Oak Bay Track under cool and gusty conditions. The top three of 14 finishers in Heat 1 were Jessica Sedlock, 18:42.8, Joey Pietraroia, 18:50.3, and Shannon Thomson, 18:50.4. The top three of 11 in Heat 2 were Keith Mills, 16:29.2, Lucy Smith, 16:30.0, and Marilyn Arsenault, 16:34.8. The top three of 12 in Heat 3 were Cam Levins, 14:09.0, Richard Mosley, 14:19.9, and Sean Chester, 15:16.4. Jon Brown paced Lucy and Marilyn with consistant 80-second laps for 12 laps and Keith, Kirk McNally, Simon Pearson and Natasha Wodak hung on for the ride before Keith unleashed a vicious finishing kick in the last 100 metres to snatch the victory by 0.8 seconds. He blistered his final lap in 69 seconds after running the first 11.5 laps averaging 80 seconds per lap. Sophie Hegland improved her P.B. 5000m time from 25:29 to 23:57 and Harriers Simon Pearson, 16:55, and Kirk McNally, 16:45, also recorded personal bests. Gord Christie was top master in 17:27. There were a total of 37 finishers in three evenly-balanced races.
August 9, 2009
Herb Phillips
Herb probably won the M60 age division by 10 minutes or more, but in a unique race where there are only two categories - men (all ages) and women (all ages), he placed 12th overall of 188 finishers in the 31st annual Delta Half Marathon at Richmond today. Herb's time was 1:26:21. The race winner was Simon-Pierre Landry, of Nanaimo, in 1:10:59, while the top female, Karen Ruckman, of Burnaby, was 15th overall in 1:27:25. There were an additional 58 finishers in the accompanying Delta 5K race won by Coquitlam's Kevin Friesen in 16:05. Kevin is a former training partner of Steve Osaduik when they both lived in Nanaimo. The team of PIH Duke and Freeze (Oasduik and Friesen) still holds the Thetis Lake 20K Relay course record of a blistering 59:20 set in 2004. Steve ran two sub-15 minute 5K laps and so did Kevin.
August 8, 2009
Jason Loutitt and Shannon Coutts
Jason was crowned Series Senior Champion by winning his fourth Gutbuster race at Mt. Washington today in 33:43 while Shannon was crowned Series Masters Champion by winning her fourth race in 47:32. The trail ascent was extended from 3 kilometres last year to 8 kilometres this year and attracted 73 finishers, 7 more than last year, in a grueling mountain climb. Second place went to Shelby Drope, of Westwood Running Club, in 35:58, while Race Director, Mark Nelson of Frontrunners Westshore, took third in 36:51. The top three women were Care Wakely, 43:03, Grace Howard, 46:36, and Andrea Lee, 47:17. Andrew Pape-Salmon had another strong performance finishing 6th overall, top master, in 37:41. The five-race package wrapped up with Harriers Andrew Pape-Salmon (M40), Gary Duncan (M50), Claire Morgan (F30) winning their age categories along with race champions Jason Loutitt (M30) and Shannon Coutts (F40). All five won a pair of running shoes for their Gutbuster efforts starting at Mt. Tzouhalem on May 17 and finishing at Mt. Washington on August 9. In between they ran races at Mt. Benson (Colliery Dam), Royal Roads and Mt. Douglas.
August 3, 2009
Sandi Heal and Dee Ogden
Sandi was fourth female overall, second in her F30 age division, in 27:37, and Dee was eighth female overall, first master in the F40 division, in 29:03, at the Nautical Days 4-miler today in downtown Comox. In what has become a tradition, blue skies and sunshine bathed 117 runners from as far away as Calgary as they competed in the 40th Annual Nautical Days 4 Mile Foot Race on BC Day, one of the oldest long-standing road races in the province. In what is also fast becoming a tradition Cam Levins, of Black Creek, led the way with another first place finish of 19:59, over a strong men's field. In the women’s division, Annie Gornall ran a fast time to win the women’s title in 26:04. Many first time entrants came out to join the old guard and race the challenging hilly and hot course that started at the Comox Town Hall and ended four miles later in front of the Lorne Hotel on Comox Avenue. One of the day’s highlights was CVRR's Steve Royer completing his 30th consecutive running of this race, one he has won 11 times in the past. Comox Valley Road Runners President, Jim Smiley, presented Royer with a plaque commemorating this incredible feat. Overall male winner was Cameron Levins in 19:59 followed by Craig Odermatt, of Victoria, in a time of 20:41 and third place was picked up by Mark Cryderman, from Campbell River, in 20:45. Annie Gornall of Comox was the top female athlete with a fast time of 26:04 followed not far behind by Grace Howard in 26:21 and third place went to Kathy Rung in 27:11.
August 2, 2009
Paul O'Callaghan and Julie Van Veelen
Paul and Julie were not only the top Harriers today, they were first male and female overall at the Self Transcendence Duathlon at Elk Lake with winning times of 2:10:14 and 2:20:53. Second place went to Kevin McFadzen, of Lethbridge, in 2:10:49 while Mike Chandler, took third in 2:10:58. Second female was Marisa Norona, of Calgary, in 2:29:20, and Burnaby's Monika Owczarek was third in 2:32:43. The duathlon features a 5K run, 40K bike and a 10K run. Mike Ellis (M70) and Daphne Panter (F60) won their age divisions while the husband and wife team of Mark Colegrave and Christine Penny both took second place in their M60 and F50 age divisions. In the accompanying triathlon, 1.5K swim, 40K bike and 10K run, the winners were both Victorians, Ben Cotter was first to hit the tape in 2:00:24, and an amazing performance was witnessed by Kerry Spearing who placed second overall of the record 294 finishers in 2:04:41. She won the women's race by 13 minutes, 23 seconds. Harriers Lowell Rockcliffe (M20), Bill Scriven (M65), Rintje Raap (M70), new member Emily McMilin (F30), Lucy Smith (F40) and Laura Leno (F50) all won their age categories. There was a record number of over 500 finishers in the triathlon, duathlon, two relays and three youth divisions. The race, formerly called the Sri Chinmoy Triathlon, celebrated its 30th anniversary on Sunday to accompany the Prairie Inn Pioneer 8K and Royal Victoria Marathon which also had their inaugural events staged in 1980.
July 26, 2009
Jason Loutitt, Sarah Paters, Shannon Coutts and Jeff Hunt
Jason and Sarah were the top Harriers, Shannon won her third consecutive masters title and Jeff successfully completed the double today at the seventh annual Mount Douglas Gutbuster. Jason completely ran away from the field smashing James Richardson's course record, set last year, by four minutes and three seconds. Jason won the 11K mountain race in 41:46. It was his second victory at Mt. Doug as he also won in 2005 in 53:01. Second place today went to a much improved Shawn Nelson in 45:56, while Michael Liedtke took third in 46:04. Sarah topped the F30 division in 56:17; she was third female overall behind Care Wakley, 54:36, and Kate Scallion, who finished second in 55:43. After nailing a solid 8K road race of 31:39 in Esquimalt starting at 9:00 am, Jeff raced to Mt. Doug Park at 10:00 am and narrowly missed winning the Gutbuster 6K Short Course by a mere 8 seconds. Jeff Crowe was first in 26:55 while Jeff was second in 27:03. Shannon won the F40 division in 1:00:27 and just needs to place well at the final race at Mt. Washington to be crowned as the Masters Series Champion. There were 61 finishers in the 11K course today and 56 in the 6K course for a total of 117. Last year Mt. Doug attracted 97 in the long course and 68 in the short course for a total of 165 finishers.
July 26, 2009
Ian Hallam, Chloe Hegland and Hicham Elamiri
Ian was the race champion in 27:08 while Hicham took second overall, and top master, in 28:27, and Jared Ludlow-Carroll placed third in 28:31 at the fifth annual Zone 91.3 Esquimalt 8K hosted by Peninsula Runners. The top three women were Marilyn Arsenault, 28:39, Melissa Ross, 30:22, and Trish Roney, 31:21. There were 240 finishers, up 42 from last years total of 198. Running her very first race in a new red Harriers singlet, 12-year-old Chloe, finished fifth of 125 women in the race to win the 19-and-under division in 33:59. Chloe is also an accomplished soccer player and holds the Guinness Book of World Records for 339 touches of a soccer ball in ONE minute without it hitting the ground, that's 5.65 touches per second. Simply outstanding! Keith Mills had a solid performance to place fifth overall in 29:22 while Julie Van Veelen was sixth female and won the F30 division at Esquimalt in 34:43. It was nice to see Harrier Carolyn Murray pushing Sean Marlowe in his "Red Racing Chair" in 47:24. They also competed in the Bazan Bay 5K in March. Harriers Maurice Tarrant won the M70 division and Mark Colegrave won the M60 division.
July 21, 2009
Sean Chester
Now that he has graduated from UVic, new PIH member, Sean, knocked nine seconds off his personal best time by winning a 1,500 metre race in Vancouver tonight with a new P.R. of 4:01. He is off to Burnaby next week to attempt to improve his best time at a 3,000 metre event. Sean will also play a key role in anchoring our PIHRT Senior Men's team to a good performance at the BC Cross Country Championships in Stanley Park this October.
July 19, 2009
Herb Phillips and Sandy Anderson
Herb won the M65 division in 1,500 metres, 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres with times of 5:20, 19:21 and 40:02 at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Kamloops today. Sandy collected eight gold medals and one silver in the F65 division. She placed first in the Shot Put, Hurdles, Weight Throw, High Jump, Pole Vault, Discus, Hammer Throw and Pentathlon and finished second in the Javelin.
July 12, 2009
Jason Loutitt, Nick Walker and Shane Ruljancich
Jason, Nick and Shane were 1-2-3 today at the Royal Roads Gutbuster, Race #3 in the Island GB Series. Their times were 54:24, 59:27 and 1:00:38. The top three women were Care Wakely, 1:10:50, Jessalyn O'Donnell, 1:10:55, and Patricia Roney, 1:11:05; they finished 14th, 15th and 16th overall. There were 88 finishers in the long course and 71 finishers in the short course, down 69 from last years total of 228. There were 19 Harriers in the long course and 7 in the short course. Seven Harriers won their age divisions including Ben Kingstone (M16), Nick Walker (M20), Jason Loutitt (M30), Andrew Pape-Salmon (M40), Gary Duncan (M50), Claire Morgan (F30) and Shannon Coutts (F40). Two more Harriers won their age class in the short course, Kevin Spahn (M30) and Brandon Willson (M15). Shelby Drope won the short course in 30:25 and the top female was Katie Nelson in 42:23. The long course was extended about two kilometres this year to measure about 13.6K. Most runners took about 9 to 10 minutes longer to finish than in 2008 as a result of a more difficult course.
July 12, 2009
Hillerie Denning and Laura Leno
Hillerie and Laura both won their F50 age divisions today at two different triathlons in B.C. Hillerie topped nine runners to finish in 1:28:22, 85th of 259 finishers in the Vancouver International Triathlon - Sprint Division (500M swim, 26K bike and 5K run). Laura also topped nine F50 runners to finish in 5:52:20, 133rd of 338 finishers in the Osoyoos Desert Half Iron Triathlon (2K swim, 90K bike and 21.1K run). The Osoyoos Half Iron winner was Tom Evans in 4:01:51 and the top female was Heather Wurtele in 4:36:40. Audry Stibbe finished third in the F45 division at Osoyoos in 6:05:13, a tremendous improvement of 45 minutes over her time of last year including lowering her swim by 13 minutes, her bike portion by 15 minutes and her run time improved by 17 minutes. The Vancouver Half Iron winner was Jordan Raap, of New York, in 3:53:13, with Victorians Stephen Kilshaw and Jasper Blake taking second and third in 3:59:48 and 4:02:04. The female Half Iron winner in Vancouver was Magali Tisseyre, from Quebec, in 4:14:34. There were 229 finishers in the Vancouver Half Iron and another 259 in the Sprint Division won by Facundo Chernikoff in 1:07:13. The top female in the Sprint was Linsey Corbin in 1:11:55. Harrier Cheryl Murphy finished fifth in the Vancouver Half Iron today in 4:38:56. She won the event last year in 4:37:41 mounting a thrilling finish to erase a 10-minute deficit starting the run and she beat race favourite, Rachel Kiers, by 5 seconds.
July 5, 2009
Mike Janes, Mark Ritchie, Sandy Mullen and Julie Van Veelen
Mike was the second elite finisher, and third overall in 57:26, at the sixth annual Triathlon of Compassion in Esquimalt this morning. The race was won by Travis Chater in 54:42 and the top female was Laura Fluit in 1:01:29. Mark was 2nd in the M40 division in 1:05:08 and Sandy was 2nd in the F45 division in 1:09:50. Julie won the F30 division at the Cowichan Challenge Triathlon in Chemainus in 2:10:47 today. She was 4th female overall. Byron Trajan won the Cowichan Challenge in 1:54:44 and the top female was Suzanne Chandler, 3rd overall, in 1:57:47. There were 184 finishers at the Triathlon of Compassion including 10 relay teams and 200 finishers at the Cowichan Challenge including 9 relay teams and 83 finishers in the shorter Sprint Division.
July 1, 2009
Richard Mosley and Steve Osaduik
The Zegna Yaletown Grand Prix brought a new event to the streets of Vancouver on Canada Day. Run in conjunction with a BC Cup Cycling Event, the event featured 5-lap men’s and women’s races. The sunny weather drew large enthusiastic crowds who lined the approximately 800m course.The well matched women’s field covered the first lap in 2:52. By the end of the second circuit Martina Wan, Amy Kirkham and Meaghan McCollum had opened a gap on the rest of the field. Over the third lap McCollum started to drop off the pace, while Kirkham and Wan ran stride for stride into the final circuit, running close to 3 minutes for each lap. Kirkham opened up in the final 800m, to run out a clear winner in 14:45, with Wan second (14:56), and McCollum third (15:11). The men’s race was equally enthralling. The opening lap was completed in 2:22, with three runners – Richard Mosley, Steve Osaduik, and Peter Holmes - forming a lead pack. Holmes was dropped over the second lap. And with two laps to go, Mosley started to pull away from Osaduik. Meanwhile Tom Michie was starting to challenge Holmes for third. Mosley continued to extend his lead, running out a comfortable winner in 12:08, to Osaduik’s 12:22. Michie finished strong to take third in 12:57.
July 1, 2009
Chloe Hegland, Juliette Christie and Kevin Searle
Chloe, 12, Juliette, 47, and Kevin, 48, had stellar performances at the 22nd annual Sidney Days 5K today, a certified course identical to the Bazan Bay 5K hosted in early March. Chloe won the under-15 division in 19:44 by beating 17 other girls, many of which are 3 years older than her. Juliette was top master and ran considerably faster (50 seconds) than her Twilight Shuffle 5K two weeks ago by recording a 18:47 at Sidney Days. She was 1st of 26 in the F40-49 division. Kevin registered his fourth personal best time in his last five races with an outstanding 16:37; he was 9th overall of 272 finishers and second master to Mark Knoop who finished 3rd overall in 16:12. The top two men in the race were Sean Chester, 15:36, and Trevor O'Brien, 16:00. The top two women were Paula Findlay, 17:19, and Kyla Coates, 17:58. There were 272 finishers in the 5K race and 32 in the 2K race for a total of 304, about double the number of participants that Sidney Days has experienced in previous years. The race proved to be a race timer's nightmare as 68 were pre-registered and another 250 registered on race day! The awards ceremony was delayed by 45 minutes due to key-in delays caused by the huge walk-up field today. Katie Bateman did a terrific job in producing the results and awards listings considering the enormous amount of D-O-R data entry that she had to do. Congratulations to technical Race Director, Chris Lott, for staging a very successful and popular summer event.
June 28, 2009
David Jackson and Claire Morgan
David and Claire were the top Harriers at the Scotiabank Half Marathon today, a race starting at UBC and finishing in Stanley Park. David finished seventh overall in 1:08:13 and was the first runner from British Columbia. Kenyans swept top six positions with Kip Kangogo winning in 1:03:35 and Lioudmila Kortchaguina winning the women's division in 1:16:10. There were 3,620 finishers, 2,025 women and 1,595 men. Claire was sixth of 355 in the F30 division in 1:30:53. Other Harriers that ran well included Keith Mills, 9th of 218 in the M25 division in 1:20:22, Sandi Heal, 12th of 367 in the F35 division in 1:38:17 and Lisa Cantwell, 44th of 207 in the F45 division in 1:58:16. The race attracted runners from eight provinces and 20 countries, including almost 200 American runners. The Scotiabank Group Charity Challenge also broke its fundraising goal, raising an impressive $312,000 — and counting — for 15 local charities.
June 28, 2009
David Hoskins, Garfield Saunders and Richard Lee
David, Garfield and Richard showed a strong Harriers presence by dominating their masters age categories at the Scotiabank Half Marathon in Vancouver today. Richard won the M45 division in 1:17:40; he was 7 minutes and 37 seconds ahead of Davey Gin of Surrey. There were 188 finishers in the M45 division. David, 1:25:38, topped 72 runners with an 8 minute victory over Vancouver's Paul Zablosky in the M60 division. Garfield led 14 M70 finishers with a time of 1:38:02 to beat Ron Waterlow, of Vancouver, by 4 minutes and 52 seconds. Both David and Garfield continued to lower their half marathon times in 2009. David ran 1:27:33 at Comox, 1:27:30 at Oak Bay and 1:25:38 today at Scotiabank. Garfield ran 1:40:46 at Comox, 1:39:47 at Oak Bay and 1:38:02 at Scotiabank.
June 27, 2009
Simon Whitfield
Simon’s renowned sprint finish was featured today in Des Moines, Iowa at the Hy-Vee ITU Triathlon Elite Cup. In what seemed like a replay from the Beijing Olympic Games, four men came into the finish straight together side by side: Whitfield, Germany’s Jan Frodeno, who was the man to nip Whitfield in Beijing for the gold medal, Australia’s Brad Kahlefeldt and New Zealand’s Kris Gemmell. Unlike Beijing however, Simon would cross the line first with an elated roar from over 8,000 spectators, one second ahead of his chasers in a time of 1 hour 49 minutes and 43 seconds, claiming triathlon’s top payday. After a photo finish review, the third of the season, it was determined Australia’s Brad Kahlefeldt just nipped the tall German at the line for second with Frodeno in third, both in 1:49:44. Gemmell finished fourth in 1:49:45.“That was some payback for last year, in a sporting sense,” said Simon at the finish. “I wanted to get one over on Jan [Frodeno] after last year's Olympic Games. I always want to win the races the other guys want to win. First thing I'm doing is buying this amazing toy house for my daughter Pippa. She's been running round the front yard at home and really inspired me." Simon collected $200,000 USD for his win today in an event that offered $1,000,000 in prize money paying 75 deep in both the men's and women's divisions with 75th place earning $1,000. Victorian Brent McMahon finished seventh overall and collected $10,000 and Vancouver's Lauren Groves was third female and picked up $25,000 today at the Hy-Vee Triathlon ITU Elite Cup.
June 27, 2009
Jason Loutitt
Jason ran a personal best time of 2:24:37 today at the inaugural Rock 'N Roll Seattle Marathon to finish sixth overall. He was the top Canadian in the field and ran the sixth fastest marathon time by a Canadian so far this year. The race winners were Kenyan Peter Omae in 2:18:17 and Michele Suszek in 2:38:37. There were 5,618 finishers in the marathon, 2,551 men and 3,067 women. Kenyan Elija Nyabuti won the accompanying Rock 'N Roll Seattle Half Marathon in 1:05:14; the top female was Berhane Adere, from Ethiopia, in 1:11:19. There were 15,610 finishers in the half marathon including Harriers Cathy Noel, in 2:01:34, and Louise Hodgson-Jones, in 1:53:44. The women outnumbered the men by a sizable margin, 11,389 to 4,221 in the half.
June 21, 2009
Claire Morgan and Keith Mills
Claire, 37:30, and Keith, 34:06, were the overall winners of the Safeway Father's Day Walk/Run for Prostate Cancer today at Royal Roads. For their efforts, they received a $100 gift card from Safeway. Claire was 10th overall of 323 finishers and the second place female was Rebekah Johnson in 38:22. The event raised over $75,000 for prostate cancer research including one individual who alone raised more than $5,000. There was a record turnout of 600 participants at Royal Roads with 277 in the 3K walk and 323 in the 8K run. Second place went to another Harrier, Roger Plamondon, top master in 34:10. Roger is currently living in Chemainus after accepting a transfer of his RCMP post from Sooke to Ladysmith. The race, formerly called 'Do it for Dad', featured a challenging course, an extensive food table, 25 excellent draw prizes and a very fast and efficient awards program following the race.
June 21, 2009
Cheryl Murphy, Lucy Smith, Paddy McCluskey and Mike Janes
Cheryl and Lucy finished first and second, Paddy was top master and Mike was second overall in the Sprint Division of the New Balance Half Ironman Triathlon at Elk Lake today. The Half Iron Division included a 1.9K swim, 87K bike and 20K run while the Sprint Division was a .5K swim, 20K bike and 5K run. Jasper Blake won the Half in 3:54:39 and Jairus Straight won the Sprint in 1:01:33. Mike's time was 1:02:36 and the top Sprint female was Lysanne Lavigne in 1:08:20. Cheryl and Lucy were close in the swim (31:21 to 31:27) but Cheryl opened up an 8-minute lead on the bike (2:37:00 to 2:45:01). Lucy made back over 2 minutes on the run (1:22:49 to 1:25:06) but at the end Cheryl prevailed 4:36:18 to 4:42:14; they were 40th and 49th overall of the the 444 finishers including 274 men and 170 women. Paddy finished an incredible 5th overall with only four 'Elite' men ahead of him. His splits were 26:19, 2:25:14 and 1:12:59. Considering his slow T1 transition of over 3 minutes, he started his ride in 70th position and proceeded to pass 65 competitors on the bike and on the run. He ran his second 10K faster than his first 10K, 37:02 before cranking it up to 35:58. There were 126 individuals and 6 Relay Teams in the Sprint and 444 individuals and 44 Relay Teams in the Half for a total of over 600 competitors.
June 20, 2009
Shane Ruljancich and Joanne Rosen
Jo and Shane were the overall female and male champions leading a record field of 338 finishers home at the 6th annual Kusam Klimb, a 13.8 mile extreme mountain race today near Sayward. There were 165 men and 173 women in a race that climbs 5,000 feet and is billed, "Are You Tough Enough?". Shane out-distanced the rest of the competitors with his endurance and speed recording a winning time of 2:26:51; it was his third consecutive victory at Kusam. This was 9:32 ahead of second place finisher, Rob Fontaine, from Campbell River. Cumberland's Clive Powsey placed third in 2:42:31. Jo also dominated the race by finishing in 2:53:25, 11th overall and a new women's course record. Second place went to Jen Segger, of home town Sayward, in 2:57:33 and Tara Pollock, from Cobble Hill, took third in 2:58:14. At 49 years and 9 months old, Jo is the third female Harrier to set a Kusam Klimb course record; Claire Morgan set one of 3:05:41 in 2004 and Carolyn Guluza topped it in 2007 with 2:56:21. Honourable mention goes to Sonja Yli-Kahila who ran 3:35:16 today, 12 minutes faster than last year and an unthinkable 55 minutes faster than her Kusam race in 2007. Garth Campbell ran a gutsy fourth overall, in 2:44:39, after falling and dislocating a shoulder with 2.5K to go. Off to the hospital in an ambulance after hobbling to the finish line, Garth was out to the TNW at Mt. Doug. training hard 3 days later! While preparing for the Leadville 100 Mile Ultramarathon at altitude, Randy Duncan finished 41st overall in 3:22:08. Not satisfied that he'd run far enough, Randy tackled the course for a second time covering 27.6 miles and climbing 10,000 feet in 7:18:00. He managed to pass 59 people who were only doing one lap while he was doing two. Remarkable.
June 16, 2009
Richard Mosley and Lucy Smith
Richard and Lucy were the top Harriers at the 25th annual Legion Twilight Shuffle 5K tonight, a BC Championship Road Race sanctioned by BC Athletics in Chemainus. The race attracted 600 registrations and 557 finishers, up 18 from last year. Richard finished 3rd overall, in 14:56, and Lucy finished 12th overall in 16:49, a new Canadian F40 record, and a course record by 17 seconds. The winner was Ryan McKenzie with a new course record of 14:23, lowering David Jackson's mark set in 2008 by 46 seconds. Second place went to Cam Levins, of Black Creek, with a time of 14:53. Second in the women's division went to last year's champion, Cheryl Murphy, in 17:22, and Burnaby's Kristina Rody took third in 17:53. There were 33 Harriers amongst the finishers and 17 of them won major awards within their age divisions at the provincial championships. They included Richard Mosley (3rd), Kevin Searle (1st), Paul O'Callaghan (2nd), Gord Christie (3rd), Gary Duncan (1st), David Hoskins (1st), Herb Phillips (1st), Garfield Saunders (1st), Maurice Tarrant (1st), Lucy Smith (1st), Cheryl Murphy (1st), Nancy Baxendale (1st), Juliette Christie (2nd), Angela Plamondon (2nd), Marcia Stromsmoe (2nd), Julie Van Veelen (3rd) and Joanne Rosen (3rd). Special thanks goes to Harriers Gary Duncan who measured and certified the race course and to Randy Jones and Mike Emerson who put out all the cones, signs and barricades and located the route marshals.
June 14, 2009
Melanie McQuaid
Melanie kept her streak alive in the XTERRA Championship Series by claiming victories #4 and #5 of the professional circuit at the Northwest Cup on June 7 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and the Atlantic Cup in Richmond, Virginia, today. The five consecutive wins qualifies her for the USA Championships in Ogden/Snowbasin, Utah, then she's off to the World XTERRA Championships in Maui, Hawaii. She won the Northwest Cup in 2:51:10, one minute and 40 seconds ahead of runner-up Danielle Kabush. Her time at the Atlantic Cup in Richmond was 2:13:01. Second place went to Shonny Vanlandingham in 2:14:32. The final three races of the 8-race Series are the South Central Cup in Little Rock, Arkansas, on June 20, the Northeast Cup in Warren, Vermont on July 12 and the Mountain Cup in Beaver Creek, Colorado, on July 18. For her efforts Melanie is on the cover of Triathlon magazine - July edition.
June 14, 2009
Matthais Schoeck
Matthias finished third overall at the 10th annual Edge to Edge Marathon today with a time of 3 hours, 4 minutes and 55 seconds. The race started in Tofino and ended in Ucuelet and was won by Campbell River's Chris Barth in 2:48:24. Second place went to Victoria's Jean-Francois Gagnon in 3:04:21. The top female was Andrea Tokaric, of Victoria, in 3:31:00. She was 14th overall of the 122 marathon finishers. Ken Bedley won the accompanying E2E Half Marathon in 1:25:38 and the top female in the half was Samantha Dubinsky in 1:32:53. The top Marathon Relay team was Smokin' Cigars, from Vancouver, in 2:53:02. The event attracted 122 in the marathon, 266 in the half marathon and 305 in the marathon relay for a total of 693 runners.
June 13, 2009
Gary Duncan
Gary finished second overall in 40:01 at the third annual For the Love of Africa 10K at Beaver Lake Park this morning after completing his one hour run at Prior Lake one hour earlier. First to finish was Filipe Eldora in 39:03 and Tony Elwell placed third in 43:29. The top female in the 10K run was Valri Cunningham in 55:45 and the top female 10K walker was Ruth McCowan in 1:28:18. The top 10K male walker was 86-year old George Coultas in 1:26:24. The event is organized by Harrier Karen Hughes with many volunteers from the Thursday Morning Group. For the Love of Africa had 106 finishers today and raised over $3,000 for the charitable society.
June 12, 2009
Scott Simpson, Joan McGrath and Herb Phillips
Scott finished second overall to Ryan McKenzie, 14:23 to 14:27, Joan was the top master and second female overall, while Herb won the M60 division at the North Shore Credit Union Longest Day 5K at UBC tonight. There were 314 finishers. Joan finished 34th overall in 18:11; she was 56 seconds ahead of the next master Janette Purdham. Herb finished in 19:10 beating 21 others in his age class; John Caruso, of Richmond, was second M60 in 20:37. Husband and wife team of Gord and Juliette Christie finished 5th and 4th in their age divisions in 17:28 and 19:26. The second-place finish vaulted Scott to first overall in the Timex BC Series with 14 of the 15 races now completed. The final Timex BC race is the Kelowna Midsummer 8K on July 15. The Series champion wins $1,000 and is selected to Team BC at the 2009 Timex National Road Running Series Finale in Ottawa.
June 7, 2009
Nick Best, Shane Ruljancich and Sonja Yli-Kahilia
Shane was first overall, Nick was second overall and Sonja was third in her age class at two different Half Marathons in Port Angeles and Bellingham today. Nick ran the North Olympic Discovery Half Marathon in 1:13:34, following his P.B. of 1:12:37 at the Oak Bay Kool Half Marathon two weeks earlier. Harsha Thirumurthy, of Carrboro, NC, won the North Olympic Discovery Half in 1:11:38. There were 807 finishers in the half marathon and 307 finishers in the full marathon won by Ian Fraser, of Port Townsend, in 2:36:02. The races starts in Sequim and finishes in Port Angeles. Shane's victory came on a hilly, trail half marathon hosted by Bellingham Running Club. His winning time was 1:32:32. Second place went to Jacob Stout in 1:34:04 and Graham Thomas placed third in 1:41:11. The top female at the North Face Endurance Challenge Half Marathon was Tatiana Lenssen in 1:52:15. Sonja finished as 5th female overall in 2:03:56; she was third in the F30 division and 51st of the 186 half marathon finishers. There were 62 finishers in an accompanying 50 mile race, 106 in the 50K and 175 in the 10K for a total of 529 finishers in all 4 events.
June 6, 2009
Myke LaBelle, Jeff Hunt and Elaine Galbraith
Myke finished first overall in 5 hours, 13 minutes, Jeff was fourth in 5:55 and Elaine was fifth female, 20th overall, of the 194 finishers in 7:50, at the 32nd annual 63.5K (40 Miles up and down) Great Walk from Gold River to Thasis today. The top female was Cathy Livsey, from Courtenay, in 6:12. The event raised over $33,000 for charity. The glory days of the Great Walk were in 2001 where the event attracted 1,104 registrations, 964 starters and 806 finishers. Previous Harriers winners include The Jackal, 5:47 in 2004, and Dr. A., 5:04 in 1991. The course record was set by announcer extraordinaire, Steve King, 4:30 in 1984. This record was tied in 2001 by Steve Royer, of Courtenay, but still stands today, 25 years later.
May 31, 2009
Jon Brown and Scott Simpson
Jon won the Alberta Jeep Dealers Half Marathon and Scott finished third behind Kenyans Kip Kangogo and Willy Kimosop at the LA Weight Loss 10K today in Calgary. Jon's winning time was 1:06:21, a convincing 5 minutes and 15 seconds ahead of second place finisher Philip Samuel, of Kenya, who hit the line in 1:11:36. The top female in the half marathon was Lioudmila Kortchaguina, 7th overall of the 2,837 finishers, in 1:17:42. Kangogo's time was 30:09, followed by Kimosop in 30:24 and Simpson in 30:47. The top female in the 10K was TC10K winner, Kathy Butler, in 34:34. There were 1,853 finishers in the 10K.
May 31, 2009
Eric Findlay, Sarah Peters and Andrew Pape-Salmon
Eric and Sarah were the top Harriers and Andrew was the third master at the Colliery Dam Half Marathon Gutbuster, Race #2 in the 5-race Series. A new venue, formerly the event started and finished at Westwood Lake, brought out two new champions but unfortunately the attendance dropped by 51 runners over last year's total of 237. The winners were Josh Henderson in 1:41:03 and Care Wakely in 1:55:44, both of Frontrunners Westshore. Eric was second in 1:44:10 and Sarah was second female, 18th overall, in 1:57:00. Andrew followed up Mt. Tzouhalem with his second strong GB performance in Nanaimo by finishing 8th overall in 1:52:09. Gary Duncan also cracked the top-ten in 1:52:55 to win the M50 division. There were 77 finishers in the long course and 109 in the short course.
May 31, 2009
David Jackson and Joan McGrath
David and Joan were the top Harriers at the Running Room Shaughnessy 8K in Vancouver today under very hot racing conditions. David was second overall in 25:12, exactly one minute behind winner Ryan McKenzie, from Victoria, who broke the tape in 24:12. Harriers' Ryan Day took third in 25:50 one week after finishing third at the Oak Bay KOOL Half Marathon. Joan was the top master and third female overall in 30:02. The women's champion was Richmond's Rachel Ruus in 29:15 while Anne-Marie Madden, from Vancouver, placed second in 29:56. There were 324 finishers at Shaughnessy, up 6 from last year's total of 318. Ten Harriers were in the race and all ten reached the podium with Ryan Day (M25), Joan McGrath (F45), David Hoskins (M60), Herb Phillips (M65), Garfield Saunders (M70) and Maurice Tarrant (M75) all taking gold medals, David Jackson (M30) and John Woodall (M75) won silver medals and Sandi Heal (F35) and Dee Ogden (F40) took bronze medals.
May 24, 2009
Melanie McQuaid
In a short space of three weeks, Melanie notched her third consecutive victory on the Pro Circuit at the XTERRA Southeast Cup in Pelham, Alabama today. She finished 13th overall of the 138 finishers with a time of 2:24:15. Second place female was Leslie Paterson, of San Diego, in 226:33. Conrad Stoltz also made it three in a row by claiming the men's championship in 2:04:26.
May 24, 2009
Julie Van Veelen
In her very first Half Ironman, Julie won her age division and finished 65th overall with a time of 5:33:14 today at the Subaru Shawnigan Lake International Triathlon. The distances were 1.9K swim, 88K bike and 21.1K run. Julie has been running P.B.s in most of her road races and this was her first breakthrough at a multi-sport event. Stephen Kilshaw won the Half Ironman in 4:03:43 and the top female, third overall, was Lisa Mensink, in 4:31:06. There were 115 finishers in the Half Iron, 105 in the Olympic Distance and 67 in the Sprint Distance. Kelly Guest won the Olympic Distance in 2:03:01 and Lowell Rockcliffe won the Sprint Distance in 1:03:52. Paddy McCluskey and Mike Janes both had great performances in the Olympic Distance placing fifth and sixth overall in 2:18:11 and 2:22:59.
May 24, 2009
Jim Finlayson and Cheryl Murphy
Jim and Cheryl were the 2009 champions today; it was their fourth victory in five years of the Oak Bay KOOL Half Marathon. Jim's winning time was 1:09:07 and Cheryl's was 1:21:19. She was 11th overall out of the record 619 finishers, up 75 from last year. The top four runners were all Harriers with Jim first, Jason Loutitt second in 1:09:52, Ryan Day third in 1:11;53 and Nick Best fourth, with a 1.5 minute P.B. of 1:12:37. Second female was Natasha Wodak, of Port Moody, in 1:22:26, and Victoria's Catrin Jones took third in 1:24:43. Besides, Jim, Ryan, Nick and Cheryl, Angela Plamondon (F40), Nancy Baxendale (F45), Daphne Panter (F60), David Hoskins (M60) and Garfield Saunders (M70) all won their age divisions. There were 74 relay teams in the Asics Ekiden Relay accompanying the half marathon.
May 23, 2009
Lucy Smith, Mark Bomba and Walter Cantwell
Lucy and Mark were the top Harriers at the Ottawa 10K today while Walter, 1:18:36, was top Harrier, third master and 10th overall of 9,107 finishers, in the Ottawa Half Marathon. Mark was second master behind Steve Boyd, 31:11 for Steve and 31:47 for Mark; they were 23rd and 25th overall of 8,346 finishers. Lucy was top master in 35:11, 8th female and 62nd overall. The 10K was won by Kenyans Deriba Merga in 27:23, and Teyba Erkesso in 31:50. The Half Marathon winners were Steve McNabb, 1:13:12, and Marie Danais, 1:22:29. There were 37,000 registrations in the six Ottawa Race Weekend events and 31,880 finishers. This included 3,578 in the marathon, 9,107 in the half marathon, 8,346 in the 10K, 7,239 in the 5K, 2,269 in the 2K and 1,341 in the kid's run.
May 17, 2009
Melanie McQuaid
It was the Mel-Rad show at XTERRA's second world cup stop as Melanie McQuaid, who turned 36 today, celebrated her birthday by taking the off-road triathlon's Midwest Cup victory alongside reigning world champ Conrad Stoltz at Fort Custer State Park just outside of Battle Creek, Michigan. The dominant male and female duo followed up on their first victory in Lake Las Vegas Sunday, May 3 with another convincing win at Battle Creek. The athletes now head south to Shelby County, Alabama for the XTERRA Southeast Cup Saturday May 23. They are then Nashville-bound where they'll join pro Craig Evans teaching a number of tri clinics this week (as well as sampling the honky tonks and pulled pork). South Africa's Stolz won the men's race in 2:03:16, followed by Victoria's Mike Vine in 2:04:13 and Josiah Middaugh, from Vail, CO, placed third in 2:04:27. Melanie's winning time was 2:20:26. Second female finisher was Bucher Renasa in 2:23:23 while Christine Jeffery took third in 2:24:21.
May 17, 2009
Jon Brown
Jon continued his success in racing in the United Kingdom by placing 11th overall in the Great Bupa Manchester 10K run today in 29:38. The winner was Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, currently the world-record marathon holder, with a time of 27:39. Ali Mabrouk El Zaidi, of Libia, was second in 28:13 and Kenyan Sergiy Lebid was third in 28:36. Phil Nicholls, from Great Britain, was eighth in 29:21.
May 17, 2009
Jason Terauchi-Loutitt and Sarah Peters
Jason and Sarah were the top male and female at the Mt. Tzouhalem 12.3K Gutbuster today, near Duncan, Race #1 in the 5-Race Series. Jason topped the men's field with a new course record of 55:50, second place went to Frontrunners' Kelly Guest in 56:44 while Harriers' Shane Ruljancich claimed third in 1:01:21. Sarah's winning time was 1:10:42; she was 17th overall of the 101 finishers in the long course. Second female and top master was team mate, Jo Rosen, who won the F50 division in 1:11:45 and third place went to Frontrunners' Care Wakely in 1:13:04. Other Harriers who had great races at Mt. Tzouhalem were Gary Duncan, winning the M50 division in 1:08:21, Andrew Pape-Salmon, top master and 7th overall in 1:05:35, Shannon Coutts, winning the F40 division in 1:20:18 and Louise Proulx, second to Jo in the F50 division in 1:24:22. There were 15 Harriers in the long course and another 7 in the 6K short course won by Harriers' Bertrand Bozek in 41:31. A total of 154 runners finished GB#1, down 8 from last years total of 162; 101 were in the long course and were 53 in the short course today.
May 16, 2009
Shane Ruljancich and Joanne Rosen
Shane and Jo were the winners today in the 72nd annual Victoria Highland Games Kilted Mile at Topaz Park and each collected $100 prize money for their victory. Harriers took the top five positions overall in the men's race with Lowell Rockcliffe taking second ($75), Walter Cantwell third ($50), Keith Mills fourth and Gary Duncan fifth. PIH also claimed the top four positions in the women's division with Julie van Veelen placing second ($75), Sandi Heal third ($50) and Sonja Yli-Kahilia fourth. There were 24 finishers in the Kilted Mile, 7 more than last year. 11 of the 24 were Harriers, 5 more club members than last year. The 'Best Dressed' kilted miler was Sean Angus who was awarded a bottle of Scotch. The event featured 15-year age divisions and all participants received a Kilted Mile t-shirt.
May 15, 2009
Lucy Smith, Scott Simpson and Kyle Jones
Lucy won the Black Press 5,000 metre women's High Performance race and Scott and Kyle were second and third in the men's High Performance race in 14:21 and 14:37 at Oak Bay Track tonight. Lucy's winning time of 16:57 narrowly missed a BC master's record by 2 seconds and a Canadian master's record by only 16 seconds. Second place in the elite women's race went to Marilyn Arsenault in 17:29 while Lisa Mensink took third in 17:54. The men's High Performance winner was Ryan McKenzie in 14:02, running a negative split by 18 seconds. Sophie Hegland won the All-Comers women's race in 25:29 and Darren Skuja won the All-Comers men's race in 17:58. Harriers Christine Thate and Mark Ritchie both placed second in the All-Comers event. There were 16 starters and 15 finishers in the High Performance division and 7 starters and 7 finishers in the All-Comers division.
May 10, 2009
Walter Cantwell and Keith Mills
Walter, 41, and Keith, 27, finished first and second in the 11th annual Sound and Silence 10K today on the Lochside Trail starting and finishing at the Green Barn on Tom Michell's Farm. The top five finishers overall were all Prairie Inn Harriers with Walter winning in 35:48, Keith second in 37:50, Craig Payne third in 38:09, Gary Duncan fourth in 38:20 and Chris Kelsall fifth in 39:09. The top female was Jeanette Carlson in 46:17 and the top 10K racewalker was Harriers Kathleen Kane in 1:09:28. There were 146 finishers in the 10K run/walk division, 115 runners and 31 walkers; this was up 35 from last years total of 111 finishers. There were an additional 44 in the 5K walking division won by Diane Webber in 32:45.
May 10, 2009
Mike Janes
Mike was the overall winner in the 2009 Sooke Spring Sprint Triathlon today with a time of 1:06:34. This is a huge improvement over his 13th place finish last year in 1:11:33. His splits were 10:50 for the swim, 34:41 for the bike and 21:03 for the run to win the race by 54 seconds over Richard Knowlton who finished in 1:07:28. Kirill Solovyev, 18, took third in 1:07:28 as well. Other Harriers that did well at the SSST were Bertrand Bozak, 11th overall and first master in 1:11:06, Mark Ritchie and Adam Lawrence in 1:16:29 and 1:16:35, Cara Obee in 1:21:48, Mike Ellis in 1:40:46 and Rintje Raap in 1:41:33. There were 185 finishers, 163 in the age class division and 22 in the elite divisions. This is an increase of 63 over last year's finishing total of 122.
May 3, 2009
Jon Brown
Jon continued his road racing excellence in the United Kingdom today by placing a very respectable fifth overall in 29:56 at the Bupa Great Edinburgh 10K Run in Scotland. There were 10,000 registrations and 7,840 finishers. The race was won by Kenyan Micah Kogo in 28:13. Second place went to team mate Bernard Kipyego in 28:27 and Spaniard Chema Martinez took third in 29:33. The top female was Deena Kastor, from the United States, in 32:38. The final runner finished in 2:01:02.
May 3, 2009
Dave Jackson, Jim Finlayson and Cheryl Murphy
Dave and Jim finished third and fourth behind two Kenyans and Cheryl was third female, 24th overall out of 5,942 finishers today at the BMO Vancouver Half Marathon. Sun Run and TC10K winner, Willy Kimosop, continued with his winning ways by making it three consecutive BC victories in three consecutive weekends with a time of 1:05:03. Countryman Kip Kangogo was second in 1:05:12 and Dave finished third in 1:08:43 followed by Jim in 1:09:32. The women's winner was trans-planted Russian Lioudmila Kortchaguina, of Thornhill, ON, in 1:17:11. Burnaby's Kristina Rody took second in 1:18:12 and Cheryl was third in 1:19:30. Times were relatively slow in the 8K race (28:50, 31:37) compared to Vancouver Island race times posted at RVM (23:56, 28:38) and Pioneer (23:35, 28:01). The winner of the BMO Vancouver 8K was Marc-Jason Locquiao in 28:50. The top female, Amanda Stone, was second overall of the 650 finishers, in 31:37.
May 3, 2009
Adam Campbell, Joan McGrath and Kevin Searle
Adam was second overall in 2:33:33, Kevin was second master and seventh overall in 2:40:22 and Joan was third female and top master in 2:56:00 at the BMO Vancouver Marathon today. The race was won by Calgary's Benard Onsare in 2:28:26 and the top female was Mary Akor, of Hawthorne, CA, in 2:46:24. There were 3,116 finishers in the marathon, 5,942 in the half marathon, 650 in the 8K and 1,164 in the Kid's Run for a total of 10,872 finishers in the four races.
May 2, 2009
Walter Cantwell and Darren Froese
Running his first ultramarathon ever, Walter topped the field of 19 finishers by winning the 50K Division of the 22nd annual Island Runner Elk/Beaver Ultras today in 3:38:03. He was 14 minutes and 15 seconds ahead of second place finisher, John Edwards, of Ladysmith, who hit the line in 3:52:18. About one minute later Victoria's Scott Crinson finished third in 3:53:23. Harriers' Matthias Schoeck and Jeff Hunt finished fourth and fifth in the 50K in 3:55:30 and 4:10:55. Darren fought a brave tooth-and-nail battle for the entire 8 hours in the 100K Division with North Vancouver's Hassan Lotfi-Pour and it all came down to the final lap at Elk/Beaver. Lotfi-Pour pulled away about 92K and never looked back winning in 7:50:47. Darren settled for silver in 7:57:18 and Andy Bachmann, of Pitt Meadows, claimed the bronze in 8:57:17. Denise McHale, from Whitehorse, won the 50 Mile Division in 6:41:15, Martin Lingnau won the 26.2 Mile Division in 3:51:31 and Martha McNeely won the 25 Mile Ultrawalk in 5:01:49. All three of these were new course records.
May 2, 2009
Steve Osaduik
In preparation for the Ottawa Marathon at the end of this month, Steve made his second trip to Standford, California, to test his skills in a tune-up 10,000 metre track race at the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational. He ran yet another personal best time of 29:12 to place 15th of 28 finishers in his heat. 26 of the 28 finishers ran sub-30 minutes; the race was won by Charlie Serrano in 28:39. A further 6 runners did not finish including Steve's team mate, Richard Mosley. After completing 18 laps and running with the leaders, Richard stepped on the inner track railing and sprained his ankle forcing him to withdraw with 7 laps remaining. He was on pace for a 28:45 when the accident happened.
May 2, 2009
Melanie McQuaid
Melanie opened her defense as three-time XTERRA World Champion with a bang today by winning the Leows Western Regional Championship event at Lake Las Vegas, Nevada. She finished 15th overall in the Pro men's and women's race with a time of 2 hours, 42 minutes and 9 seconds. Second female was Shonny Vanlandingham, from Durango, CO, in 2:42:24, while Scotland's Leslie Patterson took third in 2:42:32 in an extremely close women's race. The male Pro winner was South Africa's Conrad Stoltz in 2:16:06. Second place went to Josiah Middaugh, of Vail, CO, in 2:16:38 and another South African, Dan Hugo placed third in 2:21:12. XTERRA is an off-road triathlon involving a swim, mountain bike ride, followed by a mountain trail run often in extreme wilderness areas. There were 36 finishers in the Pro race and a further 197 in the Age Class race. Next up for Melanie is the Midwest Cup in Fort Custer, Michigan. You can follow Mel's progress on her entertaining website www.racergirl.com.
April 26, 2009
Scott Simpson, Lucy Smith and Sandi Heal
Scott and Lucy were the top Harriers and Sandi sang a beautiful rendition of the national anthem today to start the 20th annual Times Colonist 10K under sunny skies and ideal, cool, running conditions. Scott finished fourth overall in 30:38; he was second Canadian. Lucy was third female overall and top master in 34:35 and Sandi finished 21st of 746 in the F35 division in 44:33 after her excellent 'Oh Canada' opening. The race was won by Kenyan, 22-year old, Willy Kimosop in 29:29; he also won the Sun Run last Sunday in 29:04. Second place went to another Kenyan, Kip Kangogo, in 30:13 and Victoria's Ryan McKenzie took third, top Canadian, in 30:21. Great Britain's Kathy Butler won the women's race in 34:01 while last year's TC10K champion, Lisa Harvey of Calgary, placed second in 34:28. There were 12,600 registrations (11,975 in the 10K and 625 in the 1.2K Kids Run), 9,978 started the 10K and 9,933 finished; only 45 did not finish. These are all record totals for the event.
April 26, 2009
Maurice Tarrant, Garfield Saunders, John Cliff and David Hoskins
When it comes to the older age categories, no other club in Canada can match the high performance depth of the Harriers masters with Maurice winning the M75 division in 45:50, Garfield winning the M70 in 44:21, John winning the M65 in 41:57 and David winning the M60 division in 38:44 (P.B.) at the 20th annual TC10K today. Of the 9,933 finishers, Maurice scored the highest age-graded performance of them all by achieving 93.2%; this translates to a 28:49 10K, his best race of over 250 races since he moved to Canada and joined PIH 25 years ago. David was age-graded at 87.7% (30:37), John attained 84.0% (31:58) and Garfield scored 82.7% (32:28). Paddy McCluskey also won the M40 division, Lucy Smith won the F40 division and Nancy Baxendale won the F45 division capping off seven Harriers gold medals in masters age categories. The final TC10K walker finished in 2:44:29; this was less than half the time compared to the final walker in the Sun Run who finished in 5:35:15.
April 19, 2009
Steve Osaduik and Jon Brown
While most Harriers were competing at the Sooke River 10K or the Sun Run today, two high performance Harriers traveled to Montreal to run in the Canadian Half Marathon Championships. The race is a selection event for the 2009 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships to be held in Birmingham, England on October 11, the same day as the 30th annual Royal Victoria Marathon. Steve Osaduik placed fifth overall in 1:05:52 and Jon Brown finished sixth in 1:06:43 putting them in the mix for selection to Team Canada at the Worlds. The top three finishers were Kenyans and Ethiopians including Asamenew Yeshanew, 1:03:55, Matthew Loiselle, 1:04:09, and Josephat Ongeri, 1:05:05. The first Canadian was fourth overall, Andrew Smith in 1:05:07, followed by Steve and Jon. The female winner was Tara Quinn-Smith, from Toronto, in 1:12:08. She was 19th overall of the 1,855 finishers in the Canadian Championship race.
April 19, 2009
Richard Mosley, Scott Simpson, Mark Bomba and Lucy Smith
Richard and Scott were the top Harriers placing fourth and fifth overall out of 42,635 finishers in 29:41 and 30:08 while Mark and Lucy were the top masters at the Sun Run today. Mark finished seventh overall in 30:39 while Lucy was sixth female in 34:33. She simply dominated the masters' race by beating Vancouver's Helen Ritchie by a staggering 4 minutes, 17 seconds and topping 2,210 finishers in the F40 division. Honourable mention goes to Norm Tinkham and Kevin Searle who had outstanding efforts in the M45 division by finishing third and fourth in 32:31 and 33:39. It was a 41 second P.B. for Kevin over his time in the Sun Run last year. The race was won by Kenyan Willy Kimosop in 29:04 and the top female was Ethiopian Abebu Gelan in 34:04. The Sun Run boasted 55,858 registrations including 2,600 kids in the mini Sun Run which were not timed. There were 43,197 starters and 42,635 finishers; 23,877 finishers were women and 18,711 were men. There were 10,064 runners that did not start and 562 that did not finish. Surprisingly, there were 3 finishers in the M90 division with the first one clocking a 1:05:28 and last one finishing in 1:27:39. There were 4 finishers in the F90 division with the first one running 1:32:24 and last one finishing in 2:16:51. The final 42,635th finisher crossed the line in 5 hours, 35 minutes and 15 seconds. She was 5:06:11 behind the winner's time of 29:04.
April 19, 2009
Garfield Saunders, Doug Alward, Joan McGrath and Cheryl Murphy
Garfield (M70), Doug (M50), Joan (F45) and Cheryl (F35) all won their age divisions in the Sun Run 10K today. Garfield hit the tape in 44:40 to lead 114 finishers in the M70 division; second place went to Gunther Bauer, of Port Coquitlam, in 45:13. Doug's time was 34:34 to beat second place M50 finisher, Dave Stephens of North Vancouver, by 41 seconds. Joan was second master overall to Lucy Smith with a brilliant 37:16 performance, almost 4 minutes better than second place F45 finisher Sandra Yaworski, from Calgary, in 40:02. Cheryl was fifth female overall at the 25th annual Sun Run with a time of 34:29. She was 7 seconds ahead of Calgary's Lisa Harvey, last year's TC10K winner, in a very competitive F35 division which featured 2,366 finishers.
April 19, 2009
Dave Jackson, Nancy Baxendale and Eric Findlay
Dave and Nancy were the overall winners at the Sooke River 10K today in 31:45 and 38:04, the final Race #8 in the Frontrunners Island Race Series. Although Eric was racing the Sun Run today in 31:53, he was honoured by being named as the Island Series Male Champion in a narrow one point victory over Campbell River's Mark Cryderman, 825.2 points to 824.2 points based on the best 5 scores of the 8 races. For Dave, it was his first race of the year after a 4-month layoff following an impressive P.B. 1:05 half marathon and a good 10K race in Great Britain. His margin of victory at Sooke was 2 minutes, 49 seconds over second place finisher and top master, Hugh Trenchard. Nancy needed a pickup truck to take home her hardware from Sooke River to Shawnigan Lake! She won the Top Overall Female, Top Master, Top F45 at the race and won Overall Series Female Championship, Series Top Master, and Series F45 Winner of Adidas shoes; she also won the BBBs, a draw prize at the race and a draw prize at the Series awards. There were 506 registrations at Sooke River, 354 finishers, one less than last year's total of 355. Harriers cleaned up as category winners with Dave Jackson (M30), Mark Nelson (M25), Gary Duncan (M50), Nancy Baxendale (F45), David Hoskins (M60), Joanne Rosen (F50), John Cliff (M65), Charlene Waldner (F40), Maurice Tarrant (M75), Marcia Stromsmoe (F60), Robyn Noel (F15), Maree Kennell (F65), and Jim Sargent (M85) all topping their age divisions.
April 10, 2009
Joanne Rosen and Gary Duncan
Jo and Gary were both top Harriers, top masters and Jo was the top female overall at the third annual Gavin Fletcher Memorial 10K+ Run at Westwood Lake, Nanaimo, today which is Good Friday. The event, hosted by Nanaimo Runners of Compassion, uses many of the trails on Mt. Benson that are used for the Westwood Lake Gutbuster, Race #2 in the GB Series scheduled for May 31. The Gavin Fletcher Memorial 10K was won by Nanaimo's Shelby Drope with his team mate from Westwood Running Club, Byron Trajan, taking third. Gary was 4th overall and Jo was 10th. New Harrier Kevin Spahn was 6th finisher and Jo won the main draw prize, a pair of running shoes. Yeah!
April 5, 2009
Eric Findlay, Nancy Baxendale, David Hoskins and Kevin Spahn
Eric and Nancy were the top Harriers and received the BBBs while David continued his outstanding improvement in the Frontrunners Island Race Series today at Merville 15K, Race #7 of the eight-race series. Eric finished third overall in 52:26. The winner was the Race Director from the host club River Runners, Mark Cryderman, in 49:39. Royd Burkart placed second in 51:29 and was top master. The top female was Victoria's Catrin Jones, 18th overall in 58:01. Nancy was second female, top master, and 20th overall in 58:20, while Melissa Ross, from Parksville, took third place in 59:35. David enjoyed his highest points total in 22 Series races completed to date with a score of 689 points, good for second in the M60 division. Brian Connon was first M60 in 1:00:30 and David finished in 1:00:41. New Harrier, Kevin Spahn, has run all seven races this year and and achieved his highest points score, 656, while securing his first-ever podium finish. Kevin took the bronze medal in the M30 division; his previous best in that division was 9th at Hatley Castle. He improved his overall position to 52nd today at Merville compared to 122nd at the Comox Half Marathon two weeks ago. There were 349 finishers at Merville, including 30 Harriers. This is an increase of 55 over last years total of 294.
April 4, 2009
Jon Brown
Harriers' Jon Brown and Kenyan Lucy Njeri battled cold, blustery conditions as well as the legendary hills of High Park to record convincing victories in the 31st edition of Harry’s Spring Run-Off 8K this morning in Toronto. Both led from start to finish to break the tape in 24:11 and 29:49, respectively. Toronto's Taylor Milne placed second in 24:25 while the only other BC runner, Ryan McKenzie, from Victoria, took third in 24:37. Jon now has bragging rights by beating all runners in the west by winning Harry's 8K Spring Run-Off in Stanley Park, Vancouver, on March 8 then beating all the runners in the east one month later at the other Harry's 8K Spring Run-Off at High Park, Toronto. Chilly temperatures of 2° and west winds gusting to 60 km/hour didn’t deter the champions, nor the sell-out crowd of 2,500 in the 8K, and another sell-out field of 2,000 in the 5K that followed. The race signaled "Opening Day for Running" and the start of the 20th Anniversary season of the Canada Running Series. The event raised $320,000 in pledges which was donated to Princess Margaret Hospital for prostate cancer research. Jon's winning time at Harry's 8K in Vancouver was 23:58, thirteen seconds faster than his Harry's 8K victory in Toronto today. Ironically, his fastest 8K of the year came at Prairie Inn Pioneer 8K where he didn't win, instead he placed second to Richard Mosley 23:35 to 23:38. In workmanlike fashion, Jon returned to Victoria Saturday night and was at Thetis Lake Park at 9:00 am on Sunday morning for a rolling trail workout with Marilyn Arsenault. His next challenge will be the Canadian Half Marathon Championships in Montreal on April 19.
March 28, 2009
Cheryl Murphy and Norm Tinkham
Cheryl was the top female and Norm was the top master at the recently renamed Dave Reed Spring Classic 5K at Stanley Park today. The event, hosted by Vancouver Falcons Athletic Club, attracted 226 finishers, 140 men and 86 women. It is Race #2 in the Lower Mainland Series and Race #8 in the Timex BC Series. Victorian Ryan MacKenzie won the Dave Reed Spring Classic in 14:47, Jerry Ziak placed second in 15:15, Jay MacDonald took third in 15:40 and Norm was fourth overall in 15:59. He won the master's division by 1:14. Cheryl was 11th overall in 17:06. The second female was Kristina Rody, from Whistler, in 17:27, while Vancouver's Anne-Marie Madden placed third in 18:08. LGRR's Jim Swadling, 63, won the age-graded $300 prize with a 91% effort of 17:56. He topped his age division by 4:13 and finished 25th of 226. Cheryl is on tear in 2009 with 6 victories including wins at Cobble Hill 10K, Cedar 12K, First Half Half Marathon, Hatley Castle 8K, St Patrick's Day 5K and today at the Dave Reed 5K Spring Classic. Her non-fragile racing schedule also boasts second place finishes at Pioneer 8K and Harry's 8K Spring Runoff and a respectable 8th place finish at the Rock 'n Roll Arizona Marathon. With 9 races in 11 weeks she is definitely on a rock 'n roll.
March 27, 2009
Steve Osaduik
Steve had a brilliant 10,000 metre performance at the Stanford University Invitational Track Meet tonight by running a personal best time of 29:15.27 and lowering his P.R. by an astonishing 42 seconds in a star-studded field. His previous best of 29:57.53 was set on June 5, 2006 in Abbotsford at the Canadian 10,000 Metre Championships, a race won by PIH team mate, Scott Simpson in 29:51. Mark Bomba and Jerry Ziak also ran 29:51 but Scott took the win. The Stanford Meet, just south of San Francisco, featured two heats encompassing 65 of the top track runners in North America. Steve finished 15th of 29 and Harriers team mate, Richard Mosley, took 21st with a very respectable 29:36.52. They were two of three Canadians invited to the event as the remaining 62 runners were all top-level athletes from United States, Finland and Kenya. Heat 1 had 28 starters and 22 finishers and was won by Georgetown's Dan Nunn in 28:24. Canadian Dylan Wykes ran a P.B. of 28:58 as 16 of the 22 finishers broke 29 minutes and the remainder were all under 30 minutes. Dylan was 15th. Heat 2 had 37 starters and 29 finishers and it was won by Tibor Vegh in 28:52. There were 4 sub-29 performances and 28 of the 29 were sub-30 finishers including Steve and Richard. These 10K races will pave the way for great times at future events for Steve at the Canadian Half Marathon Championships in Montreal on April 19 and at the Ottawa Marathon on May 24. Richard will go on to compete in the Sun Run on April 19, the Payton Jordon 10,000 on May 2 and the Oregon Twilight 5,000 in Eugene on May 9. Both hope to do the Nationals 10,000/5,000 later in the year. In the mean time Richard will be altitude training with Eric Gilles and Dylan Wykes and other high performance athletes in Flagstaff, Arizona, for the next 3 weeks. Steve returned to Langley to start his long distance training in preparation for a sub-2:15 attempt at Ottawa in 8 weeks.
March 24, 2009
Simon Whitfield
Simon was named as Senior Male Athlete of the Year at the 43rd annual Sport BC awards ceremony at the River Rock Show Theatre in Richmond tonight. His remarkable, electrifying comeback to achieve a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics highlighted a very successful and rewarding year in triathloning. Simon beat out fellow-Victorian Ryan Cochrane, 19, bronze-medalist 1,500 metre swimmer, and fourth place shot-putter at Beijing, Dylan Armstrong, from Kamloops. Carol Huynh, with a gold medal in wrestling, was named BC Senior Female athlete of the Year. Baseball player, Justin Morneau, of New Westminster, was selected as BC Professional Athlete of the Year.
March 22, 2009
Randy Duncan
Randy completed two ultramarathons on back-to-back weekends in California and in Washington. Starting with the Coyote Two Moons 100K trail race in Los Padres National Forest, Ojai, CA, he placed 10th overall of 40 finishers with a time of 15:59. The race started at 1:00 pm and he finished at 5:00 am. The Coyote Two Moons winner was Kevin Sullivan in 11:20 and the top female, third overall, was Meredith Terranova in 14:07. The final runners were Andy and Marie Boyd in 23:58. One week later, on tired legs, Randy traveled to Bellingham, WA, and finished the 17th annual Cuckanut 50K Mountain Trail Run in 6:13:54. He was 163rd of 265 finishers. The Chuckanut winner was Aaron Heidt in 3:53:59 and the top female was Vancouver's Ellie Greenwood, 17th overall, in 4:34:23.
March 22, 2009
Jonathan Withey, Nancy Baxendale, David Hoskins and Mike Janes
Jonathan and Nancy were the top Harriers while David and Mike showed a remarkable improvement at the Comox Half Marathon today, Race #6 of 8 in the Frontrunners Island Series and Race #7 of 15 in the Timex BC Road Running Series. There was a record of 547 finishers at Comox, eclipsing the previous high of 525 set in 2003. Last year they had 498 finishers. Jonathan was a regular at the TNWs before he moved to Edmonton in 2004 after running five races in the Island Series that year. Today, he not only won the Comox Half Marathon outright with a personal best time of 1:11:48, but he lowered his 2004 Comox time by 5 minutes, 38 seconds. It was his second trip back to Vancouver Island including another personal best at the 2008 Royal Victoria Marathon in 2:35:00. He was 5th of 2,043 finishers at RVM. Nancy was second female at Comox, top master, in 1:23:39. First female finished was Sara Gross, 22nd overall, in 1:22:04. David scored 686, his highest points total of 21 races to date, and came the closest that he has ever come to catching Brian Connon in the M60 division. David's time of 1:27:33 was a 4:48 improvement over last year and only 41 seconds behind Brian's gold medal performance of 1:26:52. Mike placed 24th overall, first in the M20 division, with a personal best time of 1:22:06. This was a stunning improvement of 6 minutes, 26 seconds over his time at Comox last year and enabled him to achieve is highest-ever points total of 732, up 11 points from his best race at the 2009 Cedar 12K. Sonja Yli-Kahilia ran a personal best lowering her Royal Victoria Half Marathon time of 1:44:12 to 1:38:24 at Comox today, as did Brent Chan dropping his RVM Half time from 1:43:25 to 1:39:03 at Comox.
March 14, 2009
Scott Simpson, Eric Findlay and Cheryl Murphy
Scott was the race champion in 14:42, Eric was fifth overall in 15:15 and Cheryl was top female, 24th overall, of 792 finishers, at the 4th annual BMO St. Patrick's Day 5K at Brockton Oval in Stanley Park today. This was Scott's fourth consecutive victory in five weeks including wins at Cedar 12K, Hatley Castle 8K and Bazan Bay 5K. The St. Pat's race is the first of ten in the inaugural Lower Mainland Road Race Series. Race #2 is the Dave Reed Spring Classic 5K on March 28, also at Stanley Park starting from Lumberman's Arch. Other Victorians placing in the top ten at the St. Patrick's Day 5K were Kris Swanson, 2nd in 15:05, and Sean Chester, 10th in 15:53. Only two age categories were available, 01-39 and 40-99. Joan McGrath was 2nd master in 18:51, Paul O'Callaghan, 4th master in 16:49, Phil Nicholls, 6th master in 17:37, and Herb Phillips, 68 years old, was 14th master in 19:19. The event raised $8,000 in support of Canadian Diabetes.
March 14, 2009
John Catterall and Dan Fraser
While running with the regular group at Thetis Lake this morning, Kristine Coleman twisted her ankle badly near Western Speedway and was unable to continue running, in fact she had difficulty even walking. Two good Samaritans came to the rescue in Dan and John. After Bob explained the easiest and safest way to get to the Waterslides on Millstream Road, Dan helped Kristine walk out of the forested trails where she could be picked up in a vehicle, while John ran back to the parking lot at Thetis and took his car to get her. He not only did that, but John drove Kristine to the hospital, waited for the x-rays, drove her home, then arranged for another friend to drive with him back to Thetis Lake to bring Kristine's car to her house. Later in the day she reported that it was not a break, just a bad sprain, and the swelling is down and she is getting around a little bit now. Good news, thanks to John and Dan!
March 8, 2009
Scott Simpson, Simon Whitfield, Hicham Elamiri and Nancy Baxendale
Scott and Simon were first and second overall with a new course record of 14:37 and Hicham and Nancy were the top masters in 16:37 and 18:08 at the Bazan Bay 5K today, Race #5 in the Frontrunners Island Race Series. Harriers' Kyle Jones took third overall in 14:49. Although their times were identical, Scott out-leaned Simon to take the victory by 1/10th of a second. Both runners lowered Dave Milne's course record of 14:43 by six seconds. The top female was Lauren Groves, 30th overall in 17:02. Other Harriers winning their age divisions included Jeff Phillips (M20), Aaron Thomas (M19), Kevin Searle (M45), Kyla Coates (F19), Jen MacLean (F30), Brian Connon (M60), Herb Phillips (M65), Angela Plamondon (F40), Garfield Saunders (M70), Maurice Tarrant (M75), Marcia Stromsmoe (F60), Maree Kennell (F65) and Jim Sargent (M85) with an new Canadian Record of 36:16. Eighty-two finishers were Harriers. There were 799 registrations and 610 finishers at Bazan Bay today, down 24 from last year's total of 634 and down a huge amount from their record year in 2007 of 1,146 finishers, the highest number in an Island Series race ever in 28 years.
March 8, 2009
Mike Janes and Hillerie Denning
Mike placed second overall, first of fourteen M20, out of 130 finishers at the UBC Short Course Triathlon and Hillerie placed 22nd overall, first of six F50, out of 90 finishers at the accompanying UBC Duathlon today. Mike had the second fastest swim, 6:40, second fastest bike, 22:33, and the third fastest run, 17:05, to finish in 46:53. Roger Thompson won the UBC Short Course Triathlon in 42:03. Hillerie ranked 25th on the first run, 19:34, 23rd on the bike, 43:57, and 20th on the second run, 20:33, to finish in 1:24:02. The UBC Duathlon winner was Nathan Killam in 1:06:17 and the top female was Melina Kurtakis in 1:22:34.
March 8, 2009
Jon Brown, Steve Osaduik, Richard Mosley and Mark Bomba
Jon, Steve and Richard finished first, second and third overall today in 23:58, 24:10 and 24:15 and Mark was the top master, tenth overall in 26:00, at the third annual Harry's 8K Spring Run-off in Stanley Park. There were 973 finishers. The top female was Calgary's Lisa Harvey in 28:02, two seconds ahead of Harriers' Cheryl Murphy. Kristina Rody, from Whistler, took third in 28:21. Other Harriers running well at Harry's and winning their age divisions were Norm Tinkham (M45) and Doug Alward (M50) while Nancy Tinari (F45) and Phil Nicholls (M45) finished second. Joan McGrath (F45) placed third. The event had more than 1,200 participants that raised over $140,000 which was donated to the Prostate Centre at Vancouver General Hospital.
March 8, 2009
Farisha Arensen, Deb Hopkins and Simon Pearson
Farisha, Deb and Simon recorded their highest points ever and showed an enormous improvement in points, pace, position and time at Bazan Bay 5K. At 11 years old, Farisha ran 21:27 today compared to 26:50 last year for a 5:23 improvement. Her points climbed from 555 to 695 and her overall position jumped from 381st to 185th out of 610 finishers. Deb surpassed Farisha's big step forward in time by finishing in 28:56 today compared to 35:36 last year for a 6:40 improvement over 5 kilometres. Her points rose from 419 in 2008 to a career-high of 515 in 2009. Simon showed a consistent rise to fame as he has run the Bazan Bay 5K for five consecutive years and his times have plummeted as follows, 24:44, 20:00, 20:24, 17:36 to today's 17:02. Besides lowering his time by an unthinkable 7 minutes and 42 seconds, his points rocketed up from 526 to a Series-high of 764 (+238), his pace per mile improved from 7:58 to a Series-best of 5:29 (-2:29) and he saw his overall position leap from 379th in 2005 to 31st in 2009.
March 1, 2009
Claire Morgan and Wendy Davies
Being a non-Series weekend, Claire and Wendy initiated Harriers group runs on Hartland Dump and Mount Doug trails. Claire led nine runners for 1 hour, 40 minutes on all the Hartland single-track trails while Wendy called out to the Harriers dogs and got Molly, Bebe, Pardi and Sami to join her for a pleasant 55 minute loop of Mt. Doug finishing on the G Trail.
February 22, 2009
Megan Huzzey and Linda Campbell
Megan won the 10K Open Women's Division in 52:10 and Linda placed second in the 5K Master Women's Division in 33:55 at RaceWalk Victoria on the Galloping Goose this morning. There were 27 participants in 8 race-walking age class divisions, each covering a different distance. PIHRW Race Director, Helen Jaques, was pleased with the competition as athletes came from London, ON, Calgary, Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Surrey, Ladysmith, Nanaimo, Brentwood, Sidney and Victoria. Kelsey Vermilyea, 8:28, and Spencer Gaby, 8:12 won the Juvenile 1500m division while Bev Larssen, 29:20, won the open women's 5K race. The master's 5K winners were Sherry Watts, 30:57, and Don Brown in 36:02. The master's 10K winners were Jeannie Harms in 56:37 and Dave Keenan in 56:48.
February 22, 2009
Keith Mills and Shane Ruljancich
Keith and Shane showed enormous improvements in their overall position at Hatley Castle 8K today compared to their Prairie Inn Pioneer 8K race six weeks earlier. Keith catapulted up an amazing 89 places by rocking the Hatley course with a personal best time of 30:12, placing 17th overall, his highest position in 5 Series races. He was 106th in 31:31 at Pioneer which is a much flatter and easier course. Shane attained his highest-ever Series finish at Hatley by boasting a 4th overall in 27:56. Of 21 Series races to date, over 4 years, Shane has only one other 4th place finish which was at Sooke River in 2007 where he ran 35:20. He was 2 minutes and 1 second faster at Hatley Castle today than his first attempt at the race in 2006. He moved up from 25th OA at Pioneer on January 11 to 4th OA at Hatley today.
February 22, 2009
Cheryl Murphy, Melanie McQuaid, Scott Simpson and Eric Findlay
Cheryl and Melanie finished 1-2 in the women's field in 29:55 and 31:10 and Scott and Eric were 1-2 in the men's race in 25:19 and 26:27 at the Hatley Castle 8K in the grounds of Royal Roads today, Race #4 in the Frontrunners Island Series. There were 445 finishers at Hatley Castle, up 60 from last year's total of 385. Scott and Cheryl improved their chances to be crowned Champions as the 2009 Series reached its midway point with 4 races completed and 4 races remaining. Eric moved into the silver medal position, first in his age class, with another solid performance at Hatley. He has won the race for the past two years.
February 15, 2009
Roger Plamondon, Angela Plamondon and Justin Thorne
Roger was 6th master, 16th overall, in 1:29:45, while wife Angela, 1:33:29, was top master, 2nd female and 22nd overall, at the Historic Half Marathon in Fort Langley today. There were 697 finishers in the half marathon and another 243 in an accompanying 10K. The Historic Half winners were Drew Nicholson, from Surrey, in 1:16:32, and Mission's Darhykai Strandrick in 1:27:19. Justin showed an outstanding improvement of 7 minutes, 57 seconds in recording a personal best of 1:34:46 and finishing 28th overall of 697. Relatively new to running, Justin ran his first half, the Royal Victoria Half Marathon, four months ago in 1:42:43.
February 15, 2009
Richard Mosley, Steve Osaduik and Cheryl Murphy
Richard and Steve were 1-2 in 1:05:42 and 1:07:31 and Cheryl was the top female, 28th overall, in 1:16:05 at the 21st annual First Half Half Marathon in Vancouver today. There were 2,030 finishers, 1,117 women and 913 men. Mark Bomba, 7th in 1:10:39, and Nancy Tinari, 59th in 1:21:32, were the top masters. Other Harriers winning their age divisions at the First Half Half were Norm Tinkham M45 in 1:11:52, Doug Alward M50 in 1:17:46 and Herb Phillips M65 in 1:26:02. Joan McGrath was 3rd F45 in 1:24:08 and Garfield Saunders was 2nd M70 in 1:41:21.
February 8, 2009
Scott Simpson and Cheryl Murphy
Scott and Cheryl were the male and female winners at the Cedar 12K today, Race #3 in the Frontrunners Island Series, hosted by Bastion Running Club. They won the coveted BBBs for their efforts of 37:40 and 43:06. Cheryl was 12th overall of the 429 finishers at Cedar, up 48 from last year's total of 381. She dominated the women's field by finishing 4 minutes, 28 seconds ahead of the second place female, Bastion's Erin Burrett, who ran a P.R. of 47:34. Scott's margin of victory over team mate, Eric Findlay, was 1:24 as Eric ran 39:04 to take the silver medal. It was Scott's highest points total of the 6 Series races he has done to date and was his second overall win, including Bazan Bay, coupled with three second place finishes. He lowered Paddy McCluskey's M30 course record by 19 seconds and ran the fourth fastest time of 37:40 at Cedar. Steve Osaduik ran 37:23 in 2004 and 37:37 in 2002 while Jim Finlayson ran 37:30 in 2000.
February 8, 2009
Mike Janes, Simon Pearson and Sonja Yli-Kahila
Mike took a giant step forward at Cedar today recording 721 points, his highest points total in 8 Series races last year and this year. He improved his time from 50:09 last year to 45:44 today. His overall Cedar position improved from 52nd of 381 in 2008 to 26th of 429 in 2009. Simon and Sonja were also the most improved runners. Simon ran 45:03 today, compared to 48:25 last year and 52:27 the year before. That is a 7:24 improvement on the 12 kilometre Cedar course! His points sky-rocketed to an all-time high of 732 today compared to 681 in 2008 and 629 in 2007. He improved his overall position from 107th to 22nd. Sonja equally sliced a huge 4 minutes and 28 seconds off her time of last year by nailing a 53:08 today compared to a 57:36 last year. Her 699 points was the highest of 9 Series races completed so far and her F30 placing of 5th out of 17 in her age category was also a personal best performance. She was 20th female of 183 in the race.
January 31, 2009
Jon Brown and Cheryl Murphy
Jon and Cheryl headlined a group of PIHRT winners as they were named 2008 Senior Road Runners of the Year by BC Athletics at their annual Awards Banquet in Richmond tonight, a ceremony which honours all the top runners in the province. The Harriers collected nine major awards including Jeff Phillips and Kyla Coates - Junior Road Runners of the Year, Steve Osaduik - Senior Cross Country Runner of the Year, Sandy Anderson - Master Track and Field Athlete of the Year, Herb Phillips - Master Road Runner of the Year, Norm Tinkham - Master Cross Country Runner of the Year and Bob Reid - Executive of the Year Award. Second-claim Harrier, Nancy Tinari, collected both the Master Road Runner of the Year and Master Cross Country Runner of the Year. Other Victorians winning awards included Justine Johnson and Dylan Haight - Youth Runners of the Year, Alice Kubek - Ralph Coats Long Standing Service Award, Keith Newell - Wall of Honour, Athletics Canada, National Officials Committee Award and Peter Lawless - High Performance Coach.
January 25, 2009
Todd Howard, Jeff Phillips, Cheryl Murphy and Lucy Smith
Todd and Jeff finished first and second on the men's side and Cheryl and Lucy finished first and second on the women's side at the second annual Cobble Hill 10K today, Race #2 in the Frontrunners Island Race Series. Todd won in 31:53 and moved up 5 positions from Pioneer, where he finished sixth in 24:54, while Jeff surged up 10 big spots in the standings, from eleventh at Pioneer in 25:47 to second at Cobble Hill in 32:03, both personal best performances. Cheryl reversed the roles in hitting the line in 35:37 compared to Lucy's 35:51. In the Pioneer 8K it was Lucy breaking the tape in 28:01 with Cheryl following in 28:05. Hats off to Cheryl's non-fragile machine-like racing schedule of completing three races on three consecutive Sundays featuring a 2:48:09 eighth place performance at P.F. Chang's Rock 'n Roll Arizona Marathon in Phoenix, sandwiched between silver and gold medals at Pioneer and Cobble Hill. There were 491 finishers at Cobble Hill, including 87 Harriers comprising almost 20% of the field. Besides Cheryl Murphy, Kyla Coates, Carolyn Murray, Joanne Rosen, Jeff Phillips, Phil Nicholls and John Cliff all set new age class course records today.
January 18, 2009
Sylvan Smyth
While attending a Race Timing Conference in Florida, Sylvan jumped into two races at St. Pete, near Pasadena, a 5K and a 10K, on the same day one hour apart, and won the combined "Duo" M35 award. Here is his non-fragile report: "Dr. Spin has told me how good the races down here in the southern U.S. are. He was correct. Entry fee was a bit steep this morning - $45 - but it got me two races in one - a 5K at 7:30 a.m. and a 10K at 8:30 a.m. I've barely run at all in the past few months but wanted to give it a go. Did a horrendous 19:11 for 5K but won the M3539 age group by 3 minutes. Haha! Won a great print in an 8 1/2 by 11 frame with a brass-like first place age group stick-on plate. Totally bonked and ran 44 minutes for the 10K, only 8th in age group, but won the M35 "Duo" for fastest combined time in both races and scooped a great pair of quality sport sunglasses with interchangeable lenses. Pathetic for the times I ran, but great prizes. And they had free massage and beer (Michelob Ultra) after the race. I grabbed a quick massage between the two races and eight beers after the 10K. The race was hosted by the hotel we're staying at. Convenient."
January 16, 2009
34 PIH Annual Award Winners
Check the side bar over there <<<<< under "Annual Awards" for a complete list of names, accomplishments and photographs.
January 11, 2009
Richard Mosley, Jon Brown, Lucy Smith and Cheryl Murphy
Richard, Jon, Lucy and Cheryl finished 1-2 overall, for both men and women, at the 30th annual Prairie Inn Pioneer 8K in Central Saanich today. Jon and Richard ran shoulder-to-shoulder for almost the entire 8 kilometres before Richard's final kick in the final 50 metres opened a slight gap to win 23:35 to 23:38. Both ran negative splits after hitting the 4K mark dead even in 11:51. It was the most exciting Pioneer 8K race in the 30-year history of the event for both men and women. Four-time Pioneer Champion, Steve Osaduik, took third place, in 24:17, making it a PIH 1-2-3 sweep at the front end. There were 630 finishers, including 101 Harriers, in the race. Lucy and Cheryl battled tooth-and-nail from start to finish with Lucy taking the crown in 28:01 and Cheryl following 4 seconds behind in 28:05; they were only 3 seconds apart at halfway split. Calgary's Lisa Harvey placed third in 28:32. The race, sanctioned by BC Athletics, was designated as the BC 8K Road Race Championships and drew a large component of runners from the Lower Mainland and two prominent Calgary legends, Paul McCloy, 8th in the 1987 World Cross Country Championships in Warsaw, and his wife, Lisa Harvey, 2008 TC10K winner. BC Athletics presented Junior, Senior and Master championship medals to all competitive BCA members which numbered 50 in the race, 26 of those were Prairie Inn Harriers. To celebrate the 30th anniversary, $5,000 in prize money was distributed to the top 4 male and female runners, both in the open and masters divisions. PIH also presented a cheque for $10,000 to the Heart and Stroke Foundation in memory of Dave Reed, a popular club member who passed away 2 months ago. Dave was last year's Pioneer M50 winner.
January 11, 2009
Mark Bomba and Lucy Smith
Mark and Lucy were the top 40+ masters at the 30th annual Prairie Inn Pioneer 8K today in 25:42 and 28:01. Mark was 11th overall, of the 630 finishers, and Lucy was 37th in an extremely deep and competitive field. They were both crowned BC Champions. Other Harriers masters that won their age categories included Norm Tinkham M45, Doug Alward M50, Nancy Tinari F50, Joan McGrath F45, Herb Phillips M65, Garfield Saunders M70, Maurice Tarrant M75 and Maree Kennell F65.
January 1, 2009
Garfield Saunders and Hillerie Denning
Garfield and Hillerie were the closest to their predicted times at the 12th annual Harriers Memorial Run/Walk at Beaver Lake today in snowy, slippery conditions. Garfield was 35 seconds off his predicted time and Hillerie missed hers by 2:31. There were 60 runners and walkers participating. Collectively, they donated $1,820 which will be added to the proceeds from the Thetis Lake Relay and the Gunner Shaw XC to reach PIH's fund-raising goal of $10,000 which will be given to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC and the Yukon in memory of Dave Reed.
