Your Success Stories:
Las Vegas Rock'n Roll Event
Congratulations to all of the Peace Region participants in
the Las Vegas Rock'n Roll Event. Great race to all of you.
12Ks of Christmas 2011
The event was fun for everyone. Thank you to the organizers and all who participated.
Frank and Lola Wright - We highly recommend The Victoria Marathon/Half Marathon or 8 km race be added to your race list. It is a beautiful setting, well organized and available to walkers and runners - there is something for everyone. We were excited to have our daughter, her boyfriend and son who are all in university join us and take part too. It started with a an idea for a goal to work toward over the summer and before we were done our group had grown to 11. We collectively covered our 88 km some choosing to run and others choosing to walk. We rewarded ourselves with a pub crawl that afternoon. Nothing like great food, great friends and a visit with Katherine Switzer (the first woman to run the Boston marathon) at the Bard and Banker to complete a wonderful event. Wow, Grande Prairie has some great connections - thank you Leonard Scharbach for organizing the social part of the day. After the longweekend was over and the students headed back to school we enjoyed the entire week on Vancouver Island with three other couples.
The picture of Frank and I has a story of its own. Frank takes a bit of ribbing from the guys about his man tights. Little did they know Frank's tights would become chick magnets. One morning while we were out walking this good looking young lady comes up to Frank and says "are those CWX's" and he said "matter of fact they are". She wanted to know if he liked them because she was considering getting a pair. So you just never know what will happen when you are wearing CWX gear.
Lola's 8 km goal was to be under 60:00 and her time was 58:21 Frank's walk time 1:11:03 and his goal for next year is to have a more motivated university contingent on his team. His partners were some 6 minutes behind him and didn't quite get the motivation to be speedy at 7 am in the morning.
Hi friends,
My name is Jodi Bloomer, I'm Grande Prairie born and raised and I love to run ultra-marathons. I got hooked on ultra's when I was 16 years old at Grande Cache's Great Canadian Death Race. I ran legs 2 and 3 on a team with my family and instantly fell in love with exploring the great wilderness on my own two feet. I loved pushing myself physically and mentally and I loved meeting incredible people and hearing about other incredible races. Thankfully, that was just the beginning for me.
At 17 years old, my Dad and I ran 250km in Chile's Atacama Desert. It was a self-supported stage race with a company called Racing the Planet. Most 250km stage races are comprised of four 30-50km stages followed by an 80-100km stage that you are given 36 hours to complete and a final 10-20km day. Being self-supporting, competitors are required to carry 7 days worth of food, mandatory medical supplies, clothing and a sleeping bag; my back pack weighed 23 pounds. I learned alot at that race. The following year, my Dad and I traveled to the Gobi Desert in China to run the same style of race with Racing the Planet. It was a blazing, record-breaking high of 50 degrees Celcius on stage 4. The front runners shoes partially melted as there was a 15km paved section which he ran in the hottest part of the day.
In 2005, I earned a full-athletic scholarship to the University of Rhode Island for rowing and consequently took some time off ultra's. I could only stay away for a few years before joining Team Saadiyat Island for an adventure race in the United Emirates Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge. We ran, hiked, biked, kayaked, swam and climbed around 450km in a week long stage race that attracts the best adventure racers on the planet. Not having kayaked in my life, I took a three day crash course in North Vancouver's Deep cove and practiced my stoke sitting on a bench with a broom stick. It was a wonderful experience to get out there and paddle in the sea with my team and watch the professionals fly across the water. My most memorable experience of ADAC was being part of the peloton on the last day. I was dehydrating and seriously lacking energy after several hours of slow early morning running and climbing. I had 3 hours of sleep and an upset stomach. We had a 20km bike section and a 4km run which wasn't much compared to all that we had done but it was a bit daunting with the state I was in. I was so grateful when we learned that the biking section was a paced start down the mountain (for safety reasons) that meant we had a chance to get in the peleton and stay there. As we got off the mountain road, the pace started to pick up, we were on the tail end of the peleton and at risk of falling off the back. Our team captain yelled at us to get in closer, as soon as we did the feeling was incredible. I knew I was pedaling but I didn't feel like I was doing any work. There were a few individuals moving around erratically and not having rode in a peleton before I was a bit afraid of a crash, but after a few minutes I got used to it and learned to read others movements. The energy of the group was fantastic, we all moved as one, when we turned a corner, the teams in the front signaled us in the back to avoid a crash, if we had to slow down, they signalled us again. Those in the front alternatively led the pack, allowing everyone else to ride on all the work they were doing. It was amazing! I've never felt anything like it before. Although our team didn't place overly well due to injury, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of a team and participating in a multi-sport event. It was also a great experience to race with such a high level of athletes.
A decision I made in December 2010 has drastically changed my ultra-running career and my life. A fellow competitor at Racing the Planet's Atacama Crossing contacted me out of the blue to run an Expedition with him from Turkey to China. We would run approximately 10 000km across the ancient Silk Road trading route over 5 months. Each day, we would average 70km and run up to 12 hours a day. Initially, I thought he was kidding, he is a professional runner...I'm not! He was not kidding and after flying me to Taiwan for an interview and to test my running ability, we all decided it was a great fit! For the next two months I trained hard on World Gym's treadmills and tied up lose ends so I could move to Taiwan to train with my team mate and work on other aspects of the project. There were four of us, two men from China and my friend from Taiwan who would run the entire distance with an amazing support crew of about 15. It was an incredible experience in many ways, I met incredible people, learned a little Mandarin, ran the length of Taiwan (approx.400km in 7 days) and really improved my running, physically and mentally. After an intense 3 months in Taiwan, the team and crew moved to but circumstances beyond my control were such that I was not able to fulfill my Expedition dream...not this time. :)
So, now I'm in Urumqi, China (northwest China) about to board the bus to the great Gobi desert where I will run a similar course as I did with my Dad when I was 18 years old. This time Dad's not here with me physically but he certainly is in my heart, my mind and I've been lucky enough to speak to him and my Mom on skype every day since being here. I'm very excited to be one of 150 competitors to see areas of this desert locals don't even know exist. I'm representing the company that I was running for in Taiwan, The Home Expedition. I'm so lucky to have such support family and friends across the World, namely Claire Richter, Liz Smith (an amazing diver in the UK) and Ray Zahab (check out www.rayzahab.com or good impossible to possible to see some incredible running projects he has done and is doing). If you are interested in following the race, seeing pictures and finding out how I'm doing (bib number 12) check out www.racingtheplanet.com and select Gobi March for regular updates and great pictures. Stay tuned for more of my racing adventures and add me to facebook jodi bloomer to see more pictures. Thanks Lisa for carrying such wonderful gear (craft running shorts and hammer products!).
Happy running!
Jodi Bloomer
From Krista Mitchell - Running a Marathon is no easy task.
However the sights, sounds and support from the residents of Victoria
makes the Victoria Marathon that much easier to push through the pain. It is a beautiful and scenic route through the streets of
Victoria and Oak Bay. If I was to recommend a 43km race to anyone, it would definitely be Victoria.
Crossing the finish line at 3:34:10 seconds was good enough for 16th place.
| Results: |
| 16th out of 175 runners in my age group |
| Placed 80th for women out of 1220 |
| Placed 436rd overall. Total marathoners 2635 |
