Two course records fell on a scorching Saturday in Whistler as an unprecedented 258 runners hit the trails on the 20th anniversary of Run Comfy Numb.
Joshua Potvin wrapped up the men’s 25-kilometre event in two hours, five minutes and 40 seconds, beating Philippe Brunet’s 2022 time by 1:40 despite taking a wrong turn in the final stretch.
Potvin was the class of his field, but runner-up Patrick Haunschmidt (2:25:03), and third-place Jeffrey Russell (2:25:09) made it a podium sweep for North Vancouver.
“It’s a tough course, really tough, but beautiful, holy smokes, calves cramped up there a bit, but just so technical,” said Potvin in a press release. “I think that [Comfy Numb] is one of the most technical courses I’ve run. I think it's harder than North Vancouver’s trails, not a lot of elevation, but a lot of winding. It’s beautiful.”
Remarks race director Kristian Manietta: “It’s a cross country mountain bike course, but it’s so much better to run. I’m stoked on how the day went. The feedback we received from the runners and our volunteers were simply awesome.”
Squamolian Fiona Minty won the women’s 25k in 2:48:56, closely followed by Corri Longridge of Vancouver (2:49:48) and Janell Traynor of Victoria (2:49:55).
“Start to finish was a blast,” commented Minty after just her second trail race. “These events are the ones where people like myself who are new to the sport feel the magic of what trail running is all about.”
Stretching it out
Another relative newcomer to the sport, Matt Luongo, led the 50k from pillar to post (4:33:31) to make Port Moody proud. Vancouver’s Patrick Chui earned silver (4:50:13) and men’s bronze went to Jeremy Douglas (4:52.06).
Yet it was Claire Dewar of Pemberton who turned the most heads, outrunning most of the men en route to a new ladies’ course record (4:48:41) as a last-minute entrant.
Dewar wasn’t the only woman to best the former benchmark of 5:36:05 set by Megan Komori Kennedy in 2022.
Second place-female Kelly Young of Squamish reached the line in 5:05:52 and longtime Whistlerite Angela Shoniker clocked in at 5:22:34. Shoniker’s run was all the more impressive as it came on the back of a third overall in last weekend’s Whistler Half Marathon at age 49.
Full results are available at https://runcomfynumb.com/results/.
