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The 200-mile marathon man
Berry fest a sweet treat this weekend
Kevin Laird
News staff
Travis Paterson
News staff
Rob Smith hit the 100mile mark and began to throw up. At 105 miles, blisters covered his feet and were so painful it felt like someone was hammering a nail through them. But the Gordon Head ultra-marathoner kept motivated – even positive – as he thought about the remaining 95 miles he needed to endure the gruelling 200-mile Pigtails Challenge last May in Renton, Wash. His tenacity paid off as he won the race in 52 hours and 32 minutes, beating his personal best from a year ago by 5.5 hours. Not bad for a 56 year old. “I really don’t know what drove me other than the challenge,” Smith, an ambulance paramedic, said over coffee at a downtown Victoria Starbucks. “It’s a challenge out there and beyond where most people look and never go. There’s a lot of satisfaction in knowing I can do it.” The Pigtails Challenge is run around Lake Young Watershed, which is a rolling loop with 900 feet of elevation gain. Each loop is 9.4 miles. Runners race one direction and then run the opposite way. It’s difficult to tell, or remember, whether, you’ve lapped a runner or who
Daniel Kuhlmann was the favourite to take it again. Smith’s big season of running hasn’t ended just yet. He’s still planning to run a handful of 50 and 100 mile races before the end of the year. And he has plans, some day, to run the 310-mile length of Vancouver Island through a series of trails. “I really don’t see that I’m doing anything special,” he said. “I understand what my limits are, but it’s that ability to be able to get as much as I can out of myself and not giving in.”
Get your summer strawberry fix tomorrow as Beaver Lake Park hosts the traditional serving of strawberries and ice cream along with plenty of kid-friendly activities. Thousands are expected to attend Strawberry Festival, which finds its roots in the many agricultural communities that make up modern day Saanich. The serving of strawberries and ice cream has been moved earlier to 1 p.m. this year, and will run until 3. Tickets are 50 cents per serving, available from the start of the Strawberry Festival at 11 a.m., with a cap of 3,500 sales. “Servings have been close to selling out the past two years so be sure to buy tickets early,” said Saanich special events coordinator Rob Phillips. Music starts at 11 a.m.. with Russell in the Bushes playing classic rock, followed by The Sutcliffes at 12:15 p.m. and the Commodore Big Band at 1:45 p.m. And don’t miss the pie eating contest at 1:45 p.m. The festival’s kid zone will include a miniature train this year, as well as pony rides, a bouncy castle and other interactive features. Find overflow parking at Saanich Commonwealth Place with a shuttle bus service between Beaver Lake Park from noon to 4 p.m.
klaird@blackpress.ca
reporter@saanichnews.com
Glenn Tachiyama Photography
Gordon Head resident Rob Smith competes in the Chuckanut 50 km near Bellingham, Wash. The 56-year-old achieved the near-impossible feat of completing and winning the 200-mile Pigtails Challenge in May. remains ahead of you. The races are determined by attrition: “People who were ahead of me at the start were dropping out and I didn’t even know it. I just concentrated on running my own race. There was no sense trying to run faster. Trying to pay attention where everyone else was would just be distracting,” Smith said. The first day was a “real mental battle,” but Smith had run the race before and knew night would soon descend and bring its own set of challenges. “I knew all I needed to
do was focus on the here and now. You just have to survive the night and see what’s there in the morning. You always feel better the next morning,” he said. When dawn broke, Smith learned just two runners had leads on him. His first 100-mile split was 25 minutes faster than the previous year, and he was now in a position to win. In the end, his strategy worked. Smith doesn’t consider himself a lifelong runner. He didn’t even run his first marathon – a mere 26.2 miles – until 1986.
He said the most he’d run regularly before then was about three miles, but was lucky to have a job as a logger that kept him in top shape. He fell in love with ultramarathoning when he and a buddy took on the Great Walk between Gold River and Tahsis in 1995. He was hooked. Since then, he has competed in two 200-mile races, thirteen 100-mile races and numerous other smaller ultra-marathons. Heading into this year’s Pigtails race, Smith had no grand ambition to finish first. His goal was to finish. After all, last year’s winner
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