While many of us in Quesnel were worried about spending more than a few minutes outside in the smoky air last weekend, a group of nine local women made the drive to Tumbler Ridge to run up the side of a mountain.
The 20th annual Emperor’s Challenge took place on Babcock Mountain this past Saturday morning (Aug. 11).
Organizers opened up the contest to 1,100 challengers to celebrate the anniversary, and broke their website in the process.
By all accounts it is known as a technically challenging trail run with spectacular views on all sides.
Runners jogged for 11 kilometres to the summit, a 700-metre elevation gain that can wreak havoc on one’s cardiovascular system when just walking at a leisurely pace, before turning around and trotting back down.
The Quesnel contingent arrived on Friday to smoky skies but agreed among themselves to run the race anyway.
Most of the party camped nearby, with a few getting a hotel in town to pamper themselves before the next day’s torture.
Mother Nature decided to throw the contestants a bone, and everyone awoke to clear blue skies.
“It was stunning the whole way,” says Candace Miller, the owner of Reason2Run and a co-ordinator of the local running group.
As arresting as some of the views were, the uneven terrain had runners keeping an eye on their feet for the most part. Miller says there were sections near the summit where there were gaps between rocks that runners had to leap across.
Thankfully, due to some common sense and plenty of training leading up to the event, none of their party was injured.
Even though everyone was racing, Miller and Reason2Run employee Mackenzie Lowe decided to stop at the peak for a quick pic.
“We were at the top so we had to make sure we took a look around,” Miller says.
“You spend so much time looking down [at your feet] that is is easy to miss what’s going on around you.
“The people who finished the race in an hour and a half probably didn’t see many of the views,” she says with a laugh.
It was Lowe’s first trail half marathon and only her second half marathon altogether. Her first was this February.
While she enjoyed the race thoroughly, Lowe found the downhill section the most difficult.
“Just because of how much you worked coming up, the downhill was tough,” she says.
“You definitely started to feel it in the last two or three kilometres.”
She was the youngest of the Quesnel party at 22 years old, while Lynne McFetridge, aged 67, was the oldest.
McFetridge had one of the most impressive results of the group, finishing in second in the Super Masters Women age group with an incredibly quick time of 03:04:43.
Gold medals were awarded to racers who managed to finish the race in under two hours. Those who finished in under three hours won a silver medal and those who managed to cross the line before the cut off of four and a half hours were given a bronze.
The quickest from Quesnel was Veronica McIlvenna, with a time of 2:47:19.
Miller says everyone fared better than expected.
“One of our girls, Gretchen [Wittig], was really concerned about the race,” she says.
“I mean, we all wonder if we’re ready, but Gretchen figured that she’d be near the end of the pack.”
The group was hoping she was going to be able to finish under the four an a half hour cut off, so that she would be able to get a bronze medal.
When trail running anywhere, they always wait for the last person to finish, so everyone was gathered at the line in expectation.
“Because there were a lot of spouses on this trip, there were a lot of supporters at the end, so when we saw Gretchen was coming, we were all emotional.
“Her poor husband took pictures of everyone at the end as they came in, but ended up missing her because he was too excited.”
“She predicted she would finish around four and a half hours, but she managed to do it in under four, so she was a real inspiration.
“We’re stronger than we think.”
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