The 2010 edition of the Haney to Harrison Road Relay and Ultra Run was the last of its kind, starting in Maple Ridge Saturday morning and finishing 100 km later in Harrison Hot Springs. Next year the organizers at B.C. Athletics have announced plans to move the race to Whistler.
For the most part the H2H route follows the Dewdney Trunk Road, winding up, down and around the Fraser Valley. For relay runners the sections range from 8 km to 15 km.
This year there were 198 teams in the relay, with up to eight members per team. As well, there were 21 runners going the full 100 km distance; 20 made it to the finish line.
One of those finishers was Squamish's Margreet Dietz, an experienced marathon and Ironman racer who has stepped up to both trail running and ultra races this year.
She started off with the 50-mile/80-km STORMY in Squamish on Aug. 8, where she placed 20th out of 43 starters and first in the women's 40 to 49 category. It was there that she heard about the Haney to Harrison ultra and decided to go for it.
She finished last weekend's race in 10 hours, 29 minutes and 17 seconds, fifth overall, second among women and first in her age group. Not bad considering her goal was just to get to the finish line.
"It's interesting how people get into running," said Dietz on Monday. "It literally starts with doing a run to lose a couple of pounds, and then you do your first 10-kilometre race, then your first marathon. One day you're meeting people who are doing something a little different, something that may seem crazy at first but later you start to think maybe it's not that impossible after all.
"That's the cool thing about ultra runs. If, at the end of the day, you prepare reasonably well you can finish the distance."
As well as an athlete, Dietz is a journalist and author who has written several non-fiction books about running - Running Shoes Are a Girl's Best Friend , Powered from Within: Stories About Running and Triathlon and A Work In Progress: Exercises in Writing . She's also written a book of poetry. She's currently working on a book about ultra-running, inspired by her own experiences, and keeps a blog at www.margreetdietz.com.
Dietz has completed 13 marathons and five Ironman races. While she's competitive in marathons, and her goal is to get closer to a three-hour mark, she decided heading into this year that she would take a break of sorts and sample other types of running. That's when she signed up for the STORMY.
"The main question I had before (the H2H) was about switching back to road from trails," she said. "I found I really enjoyed trail running. I knew I would continue to do most of my running on the trails after that ultra, so my question was whether my legs could take the pounding of 100 km of running on the road. In the end it was a bit more than I prepared for, but it was OK."
Other than some stiffness and some painful blisters on her pinky toes, she says she's in good condition overall after the run. From her Ironman experiences she knew that the biggest challenge would be on the mental side of things, but in the end she says she was over-prepared.
"Mentally, I expected it to be extremely challenging and went in there with that mindset, which is why it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might have been," she said.
Dietz did have a few strategies. For one, she made sure she started slow and spent the first few legs talking to another participant while running. For another, by talking to experienced trail runners she's learned to walk the hills to conserve energy. Pace was extremely important as well, something she says Ironman helped her with.
All ultra runners also had to have support from start to finish. In Dietz's case it was her partner Tim Moore. Moore, a nine-time Ironman athlete who understands ultra events, supplied her with food, water and other support from beginning to end.
Dietz said she would definitely consider doing another ultra. She's interested in the possibility of doing an off-road race and will wait to see what the H2H race will look like next year in Whistler.
"I've been looking at some calendars," she said. "I think I might go back to marathons and do the Vancouver marathon in May. I'd like to do the 50 (mile STORMY) again, and I'll see what happens with the run in Whistler. Other than that I haven't given it much thought other than the fact that I'd like to do that again. I haven't decided yet after this weekend after finishing 100 kilometres whether that makes 100 miles more or less appealing."
The other Sea to Sky Runner in the H2H ultra this year was Tyler Petrusic, who placed third in Men's Under 40 in 11:48:23.
Amazingly, this is Petrusic's first year of running. He completed his first marathon in Victoria in October, which he finished in just under 3:40.
Petrusic says he originally got into running as a way to stay in shape for ski touring, as he works as an ACMG certified ski guide through the winter months.
"I needed something to stay in shape over the summer and running seemed like a good idea," he said. "Plus, I find that I really enjoy it."
An ultra distance may seem like a long way to go in your first season, but Petrusic made sure he got into running the right way.
"I'm a bit of a meticulous planner, and I wanted to get my running form dialed," he said. "A lot of it I just did by feel. If I was feeling tired I would rest or pull back, and if I was feeling good I would go. It sounds simple, but it worked.
"It's all about the running technique as well. I think there is a real technique to running, just like there is a technique to skiing - you can't just do it and expect to get really good at it, you have to do it right for everything to work."
Petrusic enjoys trail running as well as the road but says he wanted to learn proper road technique before making the shift.
For training, he would run the Pemberton Meadows Road occasionally, and did the entire round trip from his house twice - a distance of 60 km. As well, he spent some time in the Rockies guiding this summer. He brought his shoes with him so he could fit in a run after a day of hiking with cadets.
"Ski touring definitely helped. I think for these kinds of runs you just need a lot of time on your feet. It doesn't have to be running, it can be hiking - anything with lots of movement where you're used to being active for long periods of time," he said. "If you're going for one hour runs every day it's maintenance, but if you can do 10 or 13 hours on your feet then you've got a really good base to work from."
Despite this preparation, Petrusic said his legs felt flat for the first part of the race.
"The low point for me was the first 40 to 45 kilometres," he said. "I was not doing very well. My heart, my lungs, my head - everything was good, but my legs were really tight and I couldn't get warm. Around 55 km to 65 km in I just hit my stride and everything started gelling and I started to feel good. I'm not sure why it took that long, but it just seemed to work that way - the further I went the better my legs felt."
His primary goal was just to finish. His secondary goal was to beat the 12 hour cutoff. Finishing on the podium was unexpected, he said, but he enjoyed the experience.
Petrusic says he is weighing his options for ultra runs next year. One day he'd also like to do a 100-mile ultra (160 km), which he says would likely be a trail run. He's looked into the full-length STORMY in Squamish and the Leadville Trail 100 Mile race in Colorado.
"The Leadville really appeals to the mountain guide in me, just because it's at elevation and there's a lot of ups and downs, gains and loss," he said.
There were a few other Whistler runners taking part in the Haney to Harrison relay.
Joren and Morgan Titus ran the seventh and eighth legs for the Beaver Buzz Racing Team, both winning their legs. Their team placed second overall with a total time of 5:52:28 over eight stages, nine minutes back of the Adidas Running Room Elite.
Duncan Munro, Andrew Mitchell and Tami Mitchell also raced for a team, Undulating My A**. They placed 83rd overall and 18th in Open Mixed.
