Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Whistler athletes prepare for Ironman Canada

10 athletes sign up for toughest race
1434ironman
Mass Effect More than 3,000 athletes, including 10 Whistler participants, will take to the water on Sunday at Ironman Canada. Photo by David McColm.

On Sunday, Aug. 26 a total of 10 Whistler athletes will be taking part in Ironman Canada, the national Ironman championships and a qualifier for the world championships in October.

It’s a diverse group heading to Penticton this year, a mix of veterans, first timers, and athletes that have raced before but have sat out the last few years.

The course includes a 3.8 km swim on Lake Okanagan, a 180 km bike that loops from Penticton to Osoyoos to Keremos, and back to Penticton, and a 42.2 km out-and-back run course between Penticton and Okanagan Falls. More than 3,000 athletes will enter the lake at 7 a.m., and the run course closes at midnight. Athletes can take anywhere from eight and a half hours to 17 hours to finish the race.

The weather is expected to climb into the low 30s, but the air quality may pose a challenge as wildfires burn over the border in Washington.

One of the newcomers this year is Whistler Mountain Ski Club coach Ollie Blake. After heading to Penticton last year as a spectator, he decided to sign up the following day.

“I was just there watching and I thought, I might as well,” he said.

Blake, 31, will be heading into Sunday’s Ironman as inexperienced as they come. Although he has a lot of experience running short-distance races at a hard pace, he has just one marathon and a few duathalons under his belt. He has been training for the past year, however, and has got a lot of good advice from members of the Masters Swim Club and brother Jasper Blake — the 2007 Ironman Canada winner.

“I’m as ready as I’m going to be,” he said. “Swimming is probably the weakest of all the events but it’s a short part of the day so that should be okay.

“Basically I’m going to go out and see how it goes. I really don’t know what to expect. Everyone just said to expect a long day of pain, and that’s what I’m going to go and experience for myself.”

If racing Ironman without first competing in a half-iron or even an Olympic distance triathlon seems ambitious, Blake has also signed up for the pro category.

“It’s more of a smaller field to start with and you get to start a little earlier, which I thought was a good thing. And looking at the times of the some of the slower pros, I thought that at least in a couple of disciplines I can go at that pace. This is me jumping in with both feet.”

Woo Chan Jeong will also be competing in his first Ironman on Sunday, with a little more experience after competing in a half iron and the Squamish Triathlon this year. He hopes to break 12 hours, but says a lot will depend on his foot.

“I have not been training,” he said. “I hoped to train a lot… but I have two kids to play with, and I’ve injured my right foot two times.

“I’m a little bit nervous, but I’m more excited that I’ll be an Ironman soon. I can already imagine that I’m out there running and biking with lots of people cheering, and I’m excited. I want to race tomorrow.”

Jeong, 38, says he has dreamed of participating in Ironman since he was a kid, but was never able to commit until this year. Like Blake he went to Penticton to watch last year, where he decided to sign up the next day.

He has joined the Whistler Triathlon Club for the odd lake swim and bike ride, but has done most of his training — when his foot was well enough — on his own.

Bob Deeks, 46, is another first-timer for Ironman, although he is no stranger to triathlons, and is coming into Sunday with three half iron races to his credit.

“I thought about doing Ironman last year, but I wanted to see how the early part of the season went before I signed up and as the year went on I was too busy and too late to prepare properly for it,” he said. “This is the 25 th anniversary, which seems like a good year to do it. I’ve watched this race five times now, and eventually after watching it over and over again you really have to get in there and do it for yourself or watch something else.”

Deeks’s goal is to qualify for the world championships in Hawaii, although he says that will be difficult given the size of his age category and the number of veterans racing this year.

Still, he says his training has gone well this year and anything can happen.

“There was a significant change in how many hours I was out there training after I signed up, I basically spent all of my vacation time since the end of the winter in training,” he said. “I feel pretty good. I’ve been injury-free all summer, and my training has gone really well. I’ve made it out to Penticton five times now, and I’ve ridden the bike route five times, so I feel prepared coming in.”

Deeks also prefers to race in warmer weather, and the forecast appears to be co-operating for the weekend.

John and Grace Blok are both Ironman veterans. This will be John’s sixth Ironman, and his third in the past three years. Grace will be racing her third Ironman, and her second consecutive race.

John missed qualifying for the worlds last year by just one spot, and is hoping to qualify this year. Realistically, however, he has much more modest expectations.

“I was going to school on weekends through the spring and the weather this summer has kept me off my bike somewhat,” he said. “I do have three half irons behind me this year, but my expectations are low.”

John says he has been doing more running this year, and feels that part of his race will be stronger than in past years.

“When it comes down to it, it’s really about the run,” he said. “If you can have a good run at the end of the day, then you’re going to have a good race. You hope all your events will go well, but I know that I feel better on the run if I force myself to take it a little slower on the bike.”

After three years, John is looking forward to taking at least one year off and getting back on his mountain bike. He hopes to get back into events like the Test of Metal, and is looking into racing Xterra off-road triathlons next season.

In the summer of 2006 John placed highly enough in the Victoria Half Iron to qualify for the Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in France this summer. He took part in the event, placing 40 th in the world for his age category.

He is also qualified for the 2008 championships in Holland, and is entertaining the idea of competing in that race as well.

As for Grace, her only goal is to finish the race and to come into the run feeling well enough to jog the course.

“I had a great summer, but it didn’t include a lot of training,” she said. “I’ve been spending time with family, I’ve been on vacation, I wasn’t feeling well in May or June… I just couldn’t commit the time this year.

“I’m definitely nervous. There are still expectations for myself and from others, and while I don’t expect things to go that well there’s still part of me that hopes it will.

“Whatever happens, it’s like Brandi (Higgins) said — it’s just a long training day with a valet service and catering. And having said that I’m reminded how fortunate I am to be doing any of this.”

Grace referred to a member of the Whistler triathlon community who recently underwent bypass surgery to fix an inherited heart condition.

Grace will also take a break after this year, and is looking forward to taking part in a lot of smaller running events and getting back on her mountain bike.

“I’m still going to do things, but I’ll be happy to do something else that’s not as big as Ironman,” she said. “It will be a fun day for the first seven or eight hours, and after that it starts to go downhill.”

Other Whistler athletes taking part this year include Murray Coates, 66, Christine Cogger, 32, Joe Hertz, 33, Mark Lyttle, 40, and Greg Sandkuhl, 62. From Squamish, the list includes Julie Miller, 32, Mae Palm, 67, and Daniel Stiner, 56.

They will be accompanied by dozens of friends and family members, but if you can’t be there in person it will be possible to get live updates and video through www.ironman.com .