LGRR was welll represented at the  "April Fool's Half Marathon" held last weekend at Sechelt. Here are the club members who ran (photographer Frank Stebner):

Left to right they are:

• Kelly Homeniuk - 8th in division, 65th overall in 1-37-22

• Dario Herrera - 1st in div, 9th overall in 1-21-31

• Jeanne Kim - 2nd in div, 77th overall in 1-39-35 (good training for Jeanne's ironman preparations)

• Johnathan Ainsworth - 4th div, 15th overall in 1-23-36 (great to see John out there after watching his exploits on Thursday for the past few months)

• Jordan Myers - jogged much of the run with youngster in baby buggy and ran the last 5K !!

• Mark Williams - 4th div, 22nd overall in 1-25-35 (great effort considering Mark very recently logged the Chuckanut 50K trail race)

• Al Thompson - 7th div, 252 overall in 2-04-32

Not shown above is Tim (Darth Vader) Adkins who ran in costume "to hold myself back for the Sun Run". Honest, guys, I have no idea how Tim could even breathe inside that helmet, never mind run 1-35-38 to place 6th in div and 57th overall. In case you're wondering, he carried a straw to allow drinking at aid stations!

Congratulations to all - this is NOT a flat course and most of our GPS's pegged it a tad long as well. About 450 finished the run.

Thanks to Roger Brownsey for this report.

My First 50 km Race - The Chuckanut Ridge 50K

As the New Year started, I made a conscious effort to run more frequently and almost immediately started to incorporate some long distance runs every week. This year, I thought, was going to be different - It's time to be a runner once again. After about a month of keeping things going, I got exciting about doing the Chuckanut Ridge 50 km trail race in March. I set this as my goal and continued my training. Registration was opening in late February and as that date neared, I looked at the past numbers and decided I'd make up my mind to race shortly. Little did I know how popular this race was as all the spots filled up in less than six hours!? - I had missed my opportunity. Damn. Ray Barrett let me know that they usually open up spots near race day and that's how he had gotten in last year. Per the website, they said Registration was full and in early March spots would be opened if available. I kept checking back and in early March they made the statement that "No late entries would be made available this year". Guess I missed out.

Honolulu Marathon Race Report - Mark Shorter

I ran Honolulu Marathon on Sunday, December 13th. My results were as follows:

Finished 106 out of 20,321 overall 3/897 in my age category.

My final time:03:05:52 Chip time: 3:05:52, minute per mile pace:7:06,

10k time: 41:11, 1/2 way time: 1:28:11, 30k time:2:06:21, 40k time: 2:55:10

It was a tough race from 30k on. The day started out at about 23 degrees and clear. We started at 5:00am under a sky of fireworks. Each mile and every 5k were marked making it easy to check pace. There were aid stations with water, Gatorade, ice & sponges at about every 2 miles throughout the course. Compared to a normal year there was little wind and slightly lower than normal heat & humidity. The sun came up at about 7:00am and started to really heat things up by 7:30. There were about 16,000 or so Japanese runners in the event.

I managed to stay on pace up to about 30k then started to slow a bit even with consuming 7 gels and 8 salt capsules and Gatorade at each aid station. I pulled out every trick from my bag of tricks to keep my pace up in the last 6 miles, keeping my cadence up, using positive thoughts, segmenting the course, watching for my wife, Cara, at the bottom of the Diamond head Hill, and more. There is a good hill (Diamond Head Volcano) at 7-8 miles on the way out and 23.5 - 24.5 miles on the way back that certainly garners attention. While heading for the finish at 24-25 miles there were participants in 2's and 3's at 8 miles heading out on the course and thinking about what they had ahead of them gave me a little impetus.

Today I'll go for a nice scenic bike ride to Kailua & back (about 50 miles). It isn't too hard to stay motivated for training in Honolulu! Cara & I are in Honolulu until December 31st and we should move into our new condo on the water this week!

Happy training everyone!

Submitted by Mark Shorter

Well the dust (or should I say sand) has just about settled on the 2009 edition of our Gunner Shaw classic at Jericho and I want to thank you all for helping out and/or running in the event.  We had more than 45 club volunteers and about 15 runners, a huge effort from all concerned.  Thankfully, the day was spectacular, especially in light of the fact we escaped the high winds that blew in the following day.  For the long-suffering marshals and timing crew, the wind is probably the biggest hazard and on that score we certainly lucked out. 

More than 200 runners enjoyed a sunny day of racing in Jericho Park yesterday. Many excellent performances with the red singlets of Prairie Inn Harriers, Victoria very evident at the front of the pack.

Linda Wong's photos from the race can be viewed here. Results should be posted later today.

Update: Results now available:

Overall 10k results

Agegroup 10k results

5K Silver Fox results

Agegroup 5k results

Team results

Update 2: More photos here