U Can’t Touch Seth at Victoria Marathon

This past weekend marked an epic battle between two unlike UBCTC warriors. They would finish a measly second apart despite the two’s contrasting training styles. 

The battle dominated the headlines, attracting the likes of Simon Whitfield, Gillian Clayton, and a crazy fan running the entire marathon in a business suit. Whitfield was thrilled and pulled out a couple couches onto a driveway to catch a glimpse of the exciting battle. Clayton didn’t want to miss a step of the action by participating in the race herself. Theresa Price also paid a visit to Clover Point to cheer everyone** on. 

**but REALLY Theresa was there to secretly cheer on Victoria with her awesome sign “Must DESTROY Bluman!”

The idea of the battle prompted when Seth joked that he would match Victoria’s goal of going sub 3:30. Victoria was odds on favourite with home field advantage, running as steady as one can be. But was Seth out of his mind? He specializes in short distance sprints and had only started his training in late August (so much for taper).  

BREAK IT DOWN (More on this story later…)!

In the half marathon race, the race was all about getting to finish start line due to the early start.

New comer Jing Zhi believed that banking sleeping miles would get him farther. He napped for a decent chunk of the night in his running attire. Despite showing up to the race 4 minutes late, Jing would later smash his pb by 20 minutes and with a negative 7-minute split. In another close battle, Dylan Stephanian and Eliza Christie raced each other getting to the start line. The actual run component didn’t matter, since both recorded exactly identical chip times.  

Eliza was spotted registering as an elite athlete to gain the advantage against Dylan.

In the marathon race, Nick Sunderland led the way with a 2:50 even performance. Not far behind was Bryan Andrews, who came out of retirement to smash a PB. Sean Conner was “tapering” in this race for his 80K ultra in two weeks (no typo, just best of luck to him and Jing). But the real attention was the race between Seth and Victoria. Pace bunny Ben Kresnyak completed his job at 30km by successfully pacing the Victoria and Seth show. 

Ben avoided all nipple chafing incidents with his lucky tape.

Seanna Martin got lost trying to find the donut truck and consequently missed her ferry sailing. However she can be forgiven for her poor navigational skills, since she somehow ended up doing a marathon in Portland on the same day. 

Research on whether mental training can boost running performance is largely non-existent. But don’t contend this to Seth Bluman. 

“It’s 90% mental,” Seth admits after consulting a few trusted friends from the UBCTC, when he explained why he was caught carrying his study notes in public. The remaining components were just trivial (i.e. physical training, carb-loading and recovery – ALL OVERRATED). 

To Seth’s credit, he is the hardest working person (albeit it all being mental training). On the ferry, he was making notes; in the car, he was scribbling more notes; at the race expo he was…

…you’ve guessed it!

If the race was the final exam; Seth has already aced 90% of it. Now, I blame him for (brain) washing dishes with fat beats, and this tune is stuck in my head.

STOP!   

HAMMER TIME.

PS - Congrats to everyone who raced this past long thanksgiving weekend!!! And huge thanks to Kevin for letting us stay at his place.