Ultra Computer Geek

Well, if you can't train or race quite as much as you'd like to, the next best thing is to be a computer geek and follow along online while everyone else is racing.

I honestly can't believe how much time we spent online over the weekend checking out races. From early Saturday morning throughout the day I was following along with all the updates from Western States 100. The race certainly didn't disappoint as Geoff Roes, Anton Krupicka and Killian Jornet waged an epic battle with Geoff finally coming out on top, smashing Scott Jurek's old course record by 29mins in a time of 15:07. Krupicka held on for second, also under Jurek's old CR in 15:13, with Jornet hanging on to third. Tracy Garneau of BC ran an awesome race and won the women's race in a time of 19:01.

Tracy led a strong contingent of Canadians at WS100. In the men's race, Gary Robbins had a stellar 6th place finish, while Glen Redpath also nailed it in finishing a few minutes behind Gary in 7th and was the top master. In the women's race, Nicola Gildersleeve also ran well to finish 11th. A very exciting time for Canadian's in the wonderful world of ultra running. A special mention should be given to Bryon from iRunFar.com for providing exceptional coverage of WS100 before, during and after. You can check out all the great articles and interviews here.

In other ultra news over the weekend, Phil Villeneuve broke the course record at the Ultimate XC 56km race in Quebec, but I haven't seen full results yet. Phil's race was that much more impressive knowing that he is just coming back from a nasty achilles injury. This speaks well for Phil's final preps leading into the Canadian Death Race in 5 weeks time. CDR is going to be an amazing race with Phil, Gary Robbins and Adam Hill all registered. Tracy Garneau is also running CDR.

A little closer to home, it was also fun to hear about SHA runners David and Kim who ran very well on Saturday. David ran a 6km trail race Saturday morning with Strider the Pup, then ran the Perth Kilt Run on Saturday night with Kim. Crazy man! Kim looked to have the performance of the day though with a very strong 38:04, finishing 2nd in her age group. The interesting thing about the Kilt Run was that this was a World Record Attempt to set the record for largest race in the World of runners wearing Kilts. This was succeeded as 1400 runners took part. I was a little surprised as I assumed that these were running kilts that everyone was wearing, but no they were in fact traditional wool kilts. This certainly makes the times that much more impressive.

Training Summary (June 21-27):

Upon having my achilles bark a little louder at me from favouring my knee over the past month, I have decide to take a noticeable drop in mileage for a little while to try and get things under control. Both my knee and achilles are feeling better each day, but I'm hoping that a trip to a new physio today might yield some more answers and put me in a place where I can safely start increasing again soon.

Total # of hours last week – 5:30

Total # of hours this year – 283:55

Streak – 7,489 days of running in a row

Training Details of the Week

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And now in honor of the Queen's visit to Canada this week, I'd like to share my favourite version of God Save the Queen...