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Chloe Lanthier-Brandner still going to extremes

From Cirque de Soleil to the Marathon of Sands, athlete doesn’t slow down Chloe Lanthier-Brandner can always surprise you. As one of the world’s premier endurance athletes, there’s no challenge that she won’t meet head on.

From Cirque de Soleil to the Marathon of Sands, athlete doesn’t slow down

Chloe Lanthier-Brandner can always surprise you.

As one of the world’s premier endurance athletes, there’s no challenge that she won’t meet head on. She’s completed the 300-kilometre Marathon of Sands across the northern Sahara desert twice. She’s raced the Iditabike Extreme event in Alaska four times. She’s competed in the Eco-Challenge twice and was one of the original solo superstars of the 24 Hours of Adrenalin mountain bike series.

As a professional coach and physical trainer, she has also helped motivate numerous athletes to reach new levels in sport and endurance. She runs camps in Whistler, Steamboat Springs, Colorado and in Califon, New Jersey, and leads workshops and clinics all over. Her list of achievements, credentials and results would run over several pages.

But she can still surprise you.

Since her marriage two years ago to another elite endurance athlete, Lanthier-Brandner has been spending more time running outdoor training schools in the U.S., and working with athletes in her studio in the mountains outside New York City. Most recently she has been spending time working with contortionists from the Cirque de Soleil troop out of Vancouver, improving their flexibility, strength and overall fitness.

Now she is back at her home in Pemberton, working for Advanced Physiotherapy in Whistler, and plans to spend a long time here getting reacquainted with the mountains, working with athletes, training for events, competing in select races, and developing her own clinics and outdoor school programs.

"I’m really looking forward to being back in the community full time," said Lanthier-Brandner. "There’s really nothing like it. I’ve been fortunate to go to a lot of places in the world, beautiful places with mountains like these ones, but I always feel most at home here.

"The people are so outdoorsy and so active, and they’ve always been very supportive of me and my racing. Their love for the mountains inspires me."

The question she gets asked most often now that she’s back in the fold is ‘what have you been up to?’ It takes a while for Lanthier-Brandner to answer.

In between camps and studio work with the world’s top contortionists, Lanthier-Brandner has mainly been focussing on her running, with a few long-distance bike events mixed in for good measure.

Last summer she competed in La Ruta de los Conquistadores, a three-day, 300 mile mountain bike race across Costa Rica.

This summer she earned a silver medal and two bronze medals competing in Europe in a high altitude ultra trail running series.

She was second in the Le Grand Raid du Mercantour, a 100 km race which included more than 21,000 feet of climbing. She was third in the 80 km Tour du Mont-Blanc traversing from France to Italy with climbs of 14,000 feet. She was also third in the La Plagne 6000, a 65 km ultra race with more than 24,000 feet of vertical.

"In Europe, in the mountains, the temperature was in the 40s (Celsius), and the conditions were so brutal. You were always on the verge of exhaustion and dehydration, and when you factor in the distance and the altitude it was quite something," said Lanthier-Brandner.

In the one race where it wasn’t too hot to run, the competitors had to run through a snowstorm and a thunderstorm at about 4,000 feet.

"You just have to endure it, at which point it’s all mental. You have strategies, and you try to keep drinking constantly, and trying to eat more, but it’s really all mental. Your body is going to hurt, you’re going to be tired. There will be times where you feel good, and you have to take advantage of that, but you also have to know that it’s not going to last. It’s a constant battle with demons," she said.

The battle with demons is part of the appeal of endurance events in remote and challenging environments for Lanthier-Brandner, who is fond of saying that when you think that you’re at the point where you can’t go on, "you’re still only at 50 per cent of your potential."

While she won’t be doing much running this winter, she plans to participate in the Randonnee Rally alpine ski touring series, which stops in Whistler on Jan. 10. There is also a chance she will return to Alaska for the Iditabike, although the event has been cancelled the past two years because of the warm weather conditions.

She also plans to host various workshops and clinics for athletes, and to continue her education. She is already a NCCP Level 3 Coach, a BCRPA Level 4 Trainer, and a technical writer who writes guides and course outlines for coaches, trainers, physical therapists, massage therapists and chiropractors, and offers a variety of certification courses.

Additionally, she will be training for next summer’s competitions, including the ultra trail running series in Europe. She and her husband are also waiting to hear if they qualified for the 10-day TransAlps mountain bike race in July. If she doesn’t qualify, she’s considering another appearance at the Marathon of Sands.

"My goal this year and next is to see how well I can do next season with my running. I was sort of half-assed this summer, with not a lot of training. It went well, better than I thought it would, so I thought I would make it my focus for a little while," said Lanthier-Brandner.

"After racing everything I could over the past 10 years, I feel I’m the fittest I’ve ever been. It feels really good to push it, and to realize that I can enter a long race and make it to the end.

"Every time you finish something like an ultra running race or the Marathon of Sands, it changes you. I don’t race to win, although I like to compete, but I like to challenge myself and see what I can do. It’s great to see that I can win sometimes, but what I really enjoy is the process – the training, and then the racing, going on when you don’t think you can go any more. You have to believe in yourself that you can finish."

Working with athletes and physical trainers gives Lanthier-Brandner the same feeling of accomplishment, she says.

"What I do is my hobby," she said. "I work with people, I’m outside a lot of the time.

"My work feels like my free time."