News Flash

Winston Guo just returned home from a hard training session. Upon an interview request he simply stated he needed to go have his recovery meal but come the Triple Crown, he would be ready.

Get Your Legs Ready

Brick Workout Event #8

Oh my I'm behind on updating the blog. Nearly 10 days out of the Brick/Swim set and I'm just getting to it now. Shameful!

There have been many speculations as to why I haven't updated in so long. The leading hypothesis can be heard in this re-enactment of a discussion overhead in the triathlon club office earlier this week.


Make sure your sound is on.




The accuracy of this video is incredible. The space aged office, Nathaniel and Matt wearing spandex, Vince being... Well you know.


No doubt in my mind that this happened.


However, it saddens me to admit this is not why the blog was so delayed. In all truth, its because I've been so busy with lab work. Mixed in with a visit from my mom and I'm just getting around to it now.


But rest assured, I remember all the important parts.


As one of our smaller events, the brick workout only had 14 people show up for the legendary ride on that cold wet morning. The conditions dampened the hopes (hahahaha) of those who had counted on drafting the entire bike course, however, this courageous bunch wasn't going to be deterred by the weather.

Nathaniel Janzen ready to take on the rain

An oversight, due to the weather, the official timer (and security guard for bikes) did not show up. This left the club with somewhat of a conundrum. Fortunately the graceful leader opted out of participating in order to watch over the bikes. Who knew that along with being a generally good looking guy, he was also so giving.


Due to weather conditions, the duathlon turned into a brick workout as the team opted out of doing the first running leg.


Quickly on the bike, a small trio of Barry Claman, Derrick Lee and Kory Seder took off the front. They worked hard and managed to open a gap on the rest. At the turn around Kory missed the turn only to venture another 700m down the road (Correction, Barry turned too early and everyone else followed. Kory is the only one who did the correct course). At this point Barry was able to distance himself from Derrick and came in to transition with a solid cushion of time.


Following this leading trio was the main pack of men, with Nathaniel, Winston and Scott all following not too far behind.


In the girls race, it was a little more of individual efforts as Kim Seder biked away from the group finishing the bike course with a demanding lead heading into the run. A little ways back the main pack arrived led by Victoria Gilbert with Lauren Spazadore and Celeste Pakstas just behind.

Kim Seder Leading the women's race

Female Peloton coming in to transition

Barry rounded out the finish in an impressive 21:31 with Kory having an adjusted time (due to the detour) 30 seconds back.

Barry Claman Coming in to finish

Nathaniel with a strong run, was able to break away from the pack and rounded out the podium in third.


In the girls race, Kim led from the gun finishing the run nearly a minute ahead of second place, where Victoria was able to break open the pack and lead Celeste to the line by just over a minute.

Woman's chase pack

Winston looking freakishly happy despite the weather

Derrick's finish

In a controversial turn of events, 4 members of the UBCTC partook in the brick the following Wednesday with the aid of Spazadore timing. The weather forecast was terrible, rain and cold, and therefore it was agreed that these conditions were fair to be similar. However, as lucky twist of events, Wednesday turned out to be a beautiful day. A little windy but otherwise amazing conditions. Since this was clearly no longer a fair battle, a new scoring system was put in place. Individuals racing an event after the original event has taken place, DO NOT GET PARTICIPATION POINTS. With that, we felt the advantage was neutralized, because although conditions were better. This would result in a net 13 point loss at the end of the series.

Quartet of make up session

That being said, a different tactic was employed by the men on this fateful Wednesday. Matt Reeve, Vincent Lavallee and Andrew Wight decided to work as a team rather than trying to break one another on the bike. Doing so result in the fastest bike split of the week by over a minute. As the hit the run, Matt pulled away and won in a new course record of 20:34 with Vincent 7 seconds behind.


Claire also took part in the make up session of the brick workout. However due to some navigational issues her time had to be doctored, her time works out to 26:16 but please don't ask me how I came up with that. There is a lot of hand waiving involved.


Full Results

Matt Reeve	20:34
Vincent Lavallee	20:41
Barry Claman	21:31
Kory Seder	22:03
Nathaniel Janzen	22:27
Derrick Lee	22:53
Winston Guo	23:12
Scott Chris	23:22
Andrew Wight	23:37
Kim Seder	24:47
Victoria Gilbert	25:20
Ceilidh Curis	25:38
Jesse Chao	26:08
Claire	26:16
Celeste Pakstas	26:44
Lauren Spazadore	27:02
Kelsey Foote	29:50

Photos

Event #7, 5K Run TT Race Report

5K RUN TT

On a day that looked dry and crisp, the Gods decided this wasn't to be the case for the 5k Run time trial as only 15 minutes before practice started, the skies opened up and unleashed a storm!

Despite the horrible weather 26 athletes participated making it the second largest event thus far.

The team ventured East towards Acadia Blvd where the 5.5 lap run would take place. The general atmosphere was much more relaxed than last week at the mile, as jokes of eating Red Burrito and Subway where passing through the air. Andrew Wight was even going to far as to blame Safeway and Halloween candy until he called himself out on the lame for using classic Vincent Lavallee excuses.

Group shot during warmup, with Team Seder prominently in the front

After a rather short warmup due to the cold weather the 26 athletes were off! After a rather"quick" start by an overexcited Claire, Barry Claman, 2 time defending UBCTC event champion quickly took over the lead never to relinquish it. After being out-kicked in the dying meters of the Mile last week, Claire was not going to let this happen again as she distanced herself by 90 seconds over her competition by the finish line, edging out any ideas of a quick finishing sprint getting by her.

Victoria Gilbert finished in second with Rachel Schoeler just over 15 seconds back taking third.

With this strong finish, Claire moves up in the standings to be tied with Flipper Janzen for second.

On the men's side, behind Barry, Vincent Lavallee led out the charging group. Giving short 100m surges to break apart the group, Vincent managed to drop all the chasers but one, Matt Reeve. Then it became a race within a race, with Vincent and Matt Dueling and Winstorm, Flipper and Liam HARRAP close behind.

With 1 lap to go, Vincent gave one final powerful surge on the long backstreach uphill to finally snap the elastic that was holding Matt, and managed to distance himself 10-15 meters coming into the finishing stretch. Behind these two, a true race unfolded as Winstorm managed to open a gap on Liam and Flipper, Flipper managed to hold off Liam HARRAP in the sprint for the line.

Flipper sporting conflicting clothing, some running flats and a tuque

This was not the only sprint finish, as behind this group a minute or two down was the race between Evan Cheng and Matt Robinson with Cheng edging the win at the line.

On a hugely successful night for all, there were multiple personal best achieved:

Matt Reeve, Winston Guo, Andrew Wight, Nathaniel Flipper Janzen, Scott Chris along with many others (tell me and I'll put your name up) despite in being rumored a long course.

Image showing Dark/Wet/Cold conditions racers faced

Comparing the three GPS wearers, Winstorm and team Seder, the average distance covered was measured at 5.13km. However after all the votes are in, no corrected times will be given for the time trial. Although the GPS watches give readings of 5.1+ km, the arguments were made that everyone was running wide and with the leaves/wet ground etc. it was just lack of tight cornering that resulted in the long distance. Also, you don't want to have to justify your result in the future if ever someone asks.

To remedy this situation, many UBCTC members are rumored to be running another 5k TT but this time on the track. No questions there (other than how many laps have been done). Hopefully the previous three weeks of racing won't hurt too much, and the athletes will still have the juice in their legs for a good run. Any company will be encouraged and welcome, an e-mail will be sent out with some warning as to when.

In a post race interview with series leader Matt Reeve, he was asked about his thoughts on the race:

"Well, I've been pretty confident in my running after the uphill time trial and the mile race. I knew that I had the form for a good performance, maybe even a PB. I decided to go out strong. Immediately I saw Vincent take over the lead of our chase pack and figured that I would simply hold him and then when he started to fade I would take over and run in for the win. Well who would have thought Vince had it in him. I mean, we all know he's a decent runner and a generally good looking guy, but the kick he put out at 1km to go was just a little too much today. I have to be happy with the 3rd."

Results:

Barry Claman	17:10
Vincent Lavallee	18:08
Matt Reeve	18:17
Winstorm Guo	18:35
Nathaniel Janzen	18:43
Liam Harrap	18:44
Andrew Wight	19:04
Scott Chris	19:36
Kory Seder	20:02
Evan Cheng	20:32
Matt Robinson	20:32
Ceilidh Curtis	21:46
Derrick Lee	22:18
Jesse Chao	22:26
Fabian Jankovic	22:41
Claire	20:28
Victoria Gilbert	21:58
Rachel Schoeler	22:16
Alana Schick	22:32
Melanie Thompson	22:45
Kimberly Seder	23:05
Lauren Sagadore	23:28
Annie Mauer	24:17
Kelsey Foote	24:34
Celeste Pakstas	24:35
Debbie Poon	32:30

Event #7, 5K Run TT

Tonight starts the second half or the University of British Columbia Triathlon Clubs Fall Classic Series. As one of the longer events, the 5k run TT could shake things up in the overall standings for in this event, endurance and not speed is what is required.

We will leave the track out of it this week and run a more traditional road race, heading a few blocks east into the endowment neighborhood of Acadia. This 5.5 lap run course is fast paced, but not without its challenges. With 4 90* turns a lap and a short hill, athletes will have to pace themselves to prevent a collapse.

Will Barry Claman be able to make it 3/3 and run his goal of sub 17 minutes? Course record is held by Jaime Orellana Tamez at 17:05 last year (in a full tracksuit for some reason). And on the women's side, who will take the running top honors, will it be Victoria or Claire? Or will there be a new dark horse who wins this race?

Be ready and warmed up by 6:10PM to find out!

Iona Bike Time Trial Event #6

After a very hyped up and exciting Mile Race last Wednesday, it was nice to have a more mellow race in the form of the flat bike TT out at Iona on Saturday. Once again weather proved to be our friend and on a crisp but sunny morning, 25 riders made the trip out to try their luck on the course.

In a competition where technology has been a factor (such as racing spikes and flats in the mile), the bike TT showed a whole new level of racing gear. The most over the top coming from former and current UBCTC Presidents and generally good looking guys Barry Claman and Vincent Lavallee who raced in skinsuits, TT helmets, Race wheels and Time Trial bikes. Pressure was high for these two because showing up like that and not performing well would simply be embarrassing.

Barry and Vince pulling all the stops

After shuffling everyone into position for the start, Matt Reeve counted everyone down and the race was underway.

Racers lined up for the start

Vincent Lavallee about to start

Barry about to start

The racers had nearly perfect conditions, with very little wind the flags were barely moving, this being uncharacteristic for Iona were winds have been known to gust up to 60+kph.

After a series of running events, the cyclist were ready to get their turn. In the men's division, it was no surprise that Barry Claman quickly closed his 30 second gap on Vincent and was charging to his second victory of the UBCTC Fall Classic Series being the only athlete to break the 40kph barrier. The surprise of the day however came from Kory Seder. Kory who has put together some very respectable times in the running events was an unknown on the bike having missed the uphill time trial. Kory thundered home to an impressive second place finish who despite not having race wheels/skinsuit/teardrop helmet was just over 30 seconds back of Barry followed closely by Vincent in 3rd.

The more interesting race probably took place mid pack though. That is the race for the overall title. Matt Reeve cracked the top 5 finishing just over a minute back of the lead, in doing so grabbing some all so important points over Nathaniel and Winston who chase in 2nd and 3rd overall.

In a post race interview with Barry when asked how he felt about this, his second victory in the UBCTC Fall Classic series he said that he was humbled by the achievement, however, that despite his expectations, he would have been disappointed without the victory.

"Showing up with all the aero equipment and not winning would have been an embarrassment, and what would that make me, I would have been like Vince."

On the woman's side, the race for the overall is even tighter. Coming into this event, Claire Haddock, Victoria Gilbert and Lauren Spazadore, the top 3 women were only 11 points apart. A spread which could easily be made up with a good ride.

With Spazadore having to leave early, she raced the TT before everyone else arrived, setting the benchmark time of 18:47 for the rest of her competitors along with prefacing the conditions for everyone.

The women's race was a lot closer than the mens, where the top 8 women were finished just over a minute apart, which can only be said for the top 4 men.

Kim Seder, part of the Seder powerhouse duo brought home the victory in a time of 18:23. Only 8 seconds back was second place finisher Marina Heaton who edged out Celeste Pakstas in third by 6 seconds. Once again the women's field show the men what it means to be competitive.

Marina Heaton (green) and Kim Seder (blue bike) preparing to start

Kim Seder coming to the line

Powerhouse couple Kim and Kory Seder took near top honors on the day with a 1st and 2nd, edging out other leading couple Flipper Janzen and Scott Chris in the points race on this day. In response to this, Scott blamed Nathaniel for not pushing hard enough. Upon inspection Nathaniel had a spiderweb on his bike which was not destroyed during the race. Scott's argument being that Nathaniel wasn't pushing hard enough, all the while Nathaniel rebutted that spiderweb is the strongest known fiber and that it acted like a parachute slowing him down to which people compared this weak excuse to one of Vince's.

After this event, halfway through, the women's race is closer than ever with the top 3 ladies only 5 points apart, with the top honors being shared between Claire Haddock and Lauren Spazadore.

In the men's race, Matt Reeve conceded some points, however, his lead grew over his primary rivals Flipper Janzen and Winstorm. Can he maintain this momentum over the next 6 events? We will see as he starts the second half tomorrow night with the 5k run TT. Hopefully this time Matt won't disappoint his fans and forget to wear the cape for this could be his last event wearing it.

Barry Claman	14:59
Kory Seder	15:37
Vincent Lavallee	15:47
Derek Westra-Luney	16:05
Matt Reeve	16:10
Derrick Lee	16:24
Fabian Jankovic	17:30
Winstorm Guo	17:32
Scott Chris	17:35
Jared Penner	17:45
Tiger Ye	18:07
Nathaniel Janzen	18:17
Carson Cheyne	18:20
Mike Penner	18:21
Kimberly Seder	18:23
Marina Heaton	18:31
Celeste Pakstas	18:37
Lauren Sagadore	18:47
Dwayne da Silva	18:50
Victoria Gilbert	18:58
Greta Raymant	19:02
Claire Haddock	19:06
Kendra Rudibega Swain	19:29
Kelsey Foote	20:53
Kaylee Robertson	21:11

For full event photos, click here.

Correction Time

Hey, so after our undisputable results from the uphill time trial, the executive decision making council convened and it turns out that we messed up Claire Haddock's time. As a result, instead of running a 3:5X as we previously had her down for, she ran a 3:43 to take the victory on the day.

Sorry Claire, sometimes we aren't too smart at math.

Photo a little blurry from mile, sorry!

Mile Showdown

The Mile. Amongst the most grueling physical activities ever designed by man. On Wednesday October 21st, 2009 the UBCTC will be running a Mile on the UBC Track.

There is much speculation as to how it will unfold. Will it be a predictive victory, or will a dark horse prevail?

Already the taunting has begun. No matter how much is said, it will all be decided out on the track.

To commemorate this awesome of evenings, a social gathering will be had at the Gallery after the event where stories can be told to describe the pure athleticism that was seen that night.

Show up at 5:30 to prepare your warm up for the event at 6PM.

To elevate the excitement around the mile, I present to you the Miracle Mile, run not 20 kilometers from where we will be running 55 years ago.

Swim Relay Results!

With the swim relay approaching, the chattering between competitors increased. Who would reign the victor? Many questioned Matt Reeves capabilities to hold the golden cape in a quest for the Vincent Lavallee Cup.

One anonymous athlete, lets call her Lauren... No wait, forget that, we will call her Miss Sagadore was overhead taunting Reeve by saying his new hardware would be such a hinderance that he would sink to the bottom of the pool, face first. To this, his only rebuttal was to remind this Miss Sagadore of a game of cribbage from the night before, were victory was easily achieved, as it would similarly be on the morning of the race.

Being a swim competition, the dynamic of the day was very different from the uphill time trial, Nathaniel "Flipper" Janzen was by far the favorite team leader for the relays. Upon the announcement of the teams, an observant fan claims to have seen a single solitary tear matched with a silent fist pump from Andrew Wight as he heard he was paired with Flipper. Would this team be too much to beat?

Flipper and Andrew paired with Celeste Pakstas and Melanie Van Soeren were up to the challenge of being the "team to beat".

Not to be outdone, Rachel Schoeler, along with newcomers Heather Enns, Kyowon Kim and Claire Haddock toed up to the line next to lane number 1.

Lauren Sagadore after a late and rather difficult night filled with loss at cribbage would not be silenced on the far side of the pool. Together with Carsen Cheyne, Annie Mauer and Jesse Chao, their lane easily provided the most smack talk despite the fact that 3 members of the relay were mostly silent during the events.

As would be expected, local favorite and generally good looking guy Vincent Lavallee was obviously already laying down excuses of feeling light headed. He slept through his alarm and had to rush to the pool having to pass on breakfast. His team of Scott Chris (the man with two first names), Derrick Lee and Jason Chang did not heed to Vincent's excuses and prepared for the fierce battle at hand.

Vincent Lavallee with excuse #37: My beard slowed my down

Finally and surely not least, Alex Lush and her team of Bandits, including Golden Cape Wearer Matt Reeve finish up the list of teams. Paired with Winston Guo (lacking his trusty Harmin the Garmin), and Lara Russel, they would try to distance themselves atop the leader board.

Winston showing how to perform his patented streamline

In a classic countdown fashion, Ivan started the racing. Scott Chris reaching the wall first in a decisive manner tagged the wall for Derrick to follow. After 2 swimmers it appeared as though leader Matt Reeve was in danger of losing his title to Flipper Janzen whose team was in the lead. That was until Reeve pulled himself up from 4th overall into 2nd with some fierce swimming. Legend has it, that Matt Reeve did not even breathe, instead he just side swam all the while smiling towards his competitors with his new headware. Defying any of them to make fun of him.

Matt Reeve moving up the ranks... in the pool.

After much more smack talk from Vincent Lavallee on the blocks, Rachel Schoeler declared:

"Your slow, I caught up to you by the wall, we flipped together and I beat you back"

Vincent Diving in

Followed by Rachel

Into the second round of 100's, the athletes were getting tired. By this point lane number one was adequately titled for Flipper Janzen along with Melanie, Andrew and Celeste were far in the lead. Many spectators in fact mentioned that Flipper really had no affect on the outcome of today, his team carried his weight as he struggled through the water, fortunately with enough buffer from his teammates to seize the victory.

Flipper cruising in to victory

Former teammate Andrew Wight upon winning his first UBCTC Fall Classic Series event could be seen once again performing a fist pump, however this time, it was not silent.

Andrew Wight (left) holding back tears

In a post race interview Andrew could be seen crying tears of joy while Melanie van Soeren described the days events.

"This was really a great effort by everyone in lane 1 today. Well except Nathaniel, we think all the Flipper names have gotten to his head. We really needed to make up a lot of time for him, otherwise I don't think we would have won."

After Sundays events there was a big mixup in the overall. The results from the day can be seen below.

1st

Nathaniel Janzen

Celeste Pakstas

Andrew Wight

Melanie Van Soeren

2nd

Alex Lush

Matt Reeve

Winston Guo

Lara Russel

3rd

Rachel Schoeler

Heather Enns

Kyowon Kim

Clara Haddock

4th

Vincent Lavallee

Scott Chris

Derrick Lee

Jason Chang

5th

Lauren Sagadore

Carson Cheyne

Annie Mauer

Jesse Chao

The Look of Champions: Flipper, Andrew, Celeste, Melanie

With this we see the closest the Fall Classic has ever been for the female leader with Lauren Sagadore and Melanie van Soeren tied for first place.

In the overall title Matt Reeve managed to stretch out his lead on all the competitors but Nathaniel, however he managed to retain the overall title. This is what he had to say about it.

"Well you know, there was a lot of smack talk coming into this event, some people were making fun of my braces and they just really thought they could beat me. But I knew in the end I just had to pull out all the stops and take it home. Although I didn't come out on top, I still have the overall points lead and I'm happy with that. "

Golden Cape Wearer: Matt REEVE

A special mention must be made to Scott Chris for hand stitching the Golden Cape. An Icon of the UBCTC Fall Classic Series

Royal Victoria Marathon and Half

I figured it was better late than never. Congratulations to everyone who raced in Victoria.

UBCTC had 7 athletes racing; Ceilidh in the full marathon, and Winston, Kelsey, Melanie, Kori, Kim and Vincent in the half marathon.

It was quite a successful day for everyone!

Ceilidh finished the marathon in a time of 4:23:30 to start his training for ironman in 2010!

Kelsey Foote, running in her second half marathon wanted to run it in under 2 hours and succeeded by running in 1:56:09. In a post race recap she was quoted as saying that her favorite part of the race was that at midway there were people serving beer. How could she not have a good time.

Kimberly Beck also ran the half marathon, in a time of 1:55:46. Unfortunately I don't know if this was a pb or not, you'll have to ask her yourself.

Melanie Van Soeren ran herself to a personal best with a time of 1:44:08 falling below her target time of 1:45!

Kori Seder ran himself to a PB in the half marathon with a time of 1:38:08. Not only that, he snapped a pretty funny picture.

Winston prior to the race was worried that he may not be able to run a pb, his previous pb was from two years ago when he was in "better running shape". This I find hard to believe, especially since he set a 19 second PB with 1:28:32 along with being runner up at the uphill TT this past week.

Vincent Lavallee was the last of the racers also running a pb in the half with a time of 1:23:57. Seeing as how Vincent had never run a half marathon without a 90km bike first, a pb was in the works.

Uphill Run TT Results

On a wet rainy night, the UBCTC approached the running route Spanish with conquest on their minds. This 1km long grueling climb, the venue of the first running test, would surely shake up the standings of the Fall Classic Series.

In a UBCTC Fall Classic series first, we were seeing the introduction of technologically advanced athletic apparel to try and sneak any bit of advantage the racers could get in this ultra competitive contest. From racing flats to cross country spikes and even global positioning systems were all in action on this fateful night.


The atmosphere was set with many of the favorites laying down preventative excuses of too much turkey over the long weekend and no fitness from the days off.


One first time UBCTC Fall Classic participant and generally good looking guy went so far as to lay down a solid foundation of excuses over tired legs as a consequence of running the Victoria Half Marathon on the weekend.


A small surprise met us as the bottom (steepest) part of the climb was closed due to mysterious repairs. With that a quick change to the race was made and the route was cut 200 meters short. This could prove to be a critical change due to the lack of leg burning steepness at the beginning of a 5 minute gruel fest.


Standing in the rain at approximately 6PM Barry Claman started off the racing, setting the tone with a blistering 3:09 clocking. Who would dare to test against this?


Matt Reeve, who suited up with his running flats, was up to the challenge!

Matt possessed pulverizing the spirits of his competitors

As the 23 competitors completed the course, the task could not be summarized in words, and for this the age old saying; "A picture is worth a thousand words" works perfectly. I present Andrew Wight upon completion!

Look at the exhaustion

After much confusion and photo diary replay to conclude the final order of the competitors, the officiating committee finally came up with the non disputable results.

The look of confidence

There was a strong showing in both fields, Male and Female. With 9 competitors in the female division, we don't think the UBCTC has seen a race so close. With 1st and 9th separated by only 29 seconds and the top two only 1 second apart.


Newcomer Kimberly McMurtry took home the glory in the Female division over second place finisher and Overall Female points leader Victoria Gilbert. Unfortunately we don't have a photo of winner McMurtry.

Victoria smiling as she must clearly know she moved up in the overall standings with a stellar performance

In the mens race, sandbagging Matt Reeve dropped his bag of excuses at the starting line and was pounds lighter as a result, soared to victory in a crushing time of 2:59.


Probably the surprise of the day came to Vincent Lavallee, as his iron clad excuse of tired legs was blown away by a Winstorm! It would appear as though Winston Guo took our Windgust jokes to heart and stamped his dominance with a second place finish in the hill time trial despite also having "tired legs" running a PB on the weekend in the Victoria Half Marathon.

Winstorm in his trusty multi-purpose shorts crushing dreams

After todays results, there is a big shake up of the overall standings. Absent Dan Clouston drops down to 6th overall with Matt Reeve holding a 1 point advantage over Victoria Gilbert, and with Lauren Sagadore and Nathaniel Janzen close in their wake.


At an all time high of 42 competitors taking part in one or more events, this proves to be the largest UBCTC Fall Classic in history! With 10 events left, it's still anyone's game.

Men's Results

Matt Reeve	2:59
Winston Guo	3:08
Barry Claman	3:09
Vincent Lavallee	3:13
Flipper Janzen	3:14
Andrew Wight	3:18
Scott Chris	3:20
Tobi Volkmann	3:24
Derrick Lee	3:35
Kory Seder	3:36
Evan Cheng	3:44
Steve Yau	3:45
Matt Robinson	3:46
Liam Harrap	3:48
Women's Results
Claire Haddock 3:43 Kim McMurtry 3:49 Victoria Gilbert 3:50 Naiely 3:59 Lauren 4:03 Rachel Schoeler 4:06 Melanie Van Soren 4:07 Kimberly Seder 4:10 Shannon Woods 4:18

Complete Race Photos.

Uphill Run Time Trial

Yup, you heard that right! Uphill Run TT!

But wait... Wasn't Wednesday Oct 14th supposed to be the mile run? Your right, it was, however a conflict with the track team has caused the necessity to shift that back a week and replace it with the uphill TT. Should be a grueling test of pacing and guts to get to the top of the Jericho Hill trail first.

To set the stage, Winston has provided a map and profile of the run course.

Click to enlarge.

The run starts at the bottom of the route Spanish (route 23) and running up to Chancellor Blvd. Should be an exciting 1km of pain!

The first true running test of the fall classic series could shake up the overall standings. Will we have a new overall leader after tomorrows race?

Stay tuned to find out!

The Mile Run will be held next week on the 21st.

UBCTC Series Race #2, Aquathon

After an exciting opener to the series where 24 individuals braved the line, the UBCTC will take on the second challenge of the series; The Aquathon.

This 500m swim followed by a 3 lap, 2.7km run will be the first test of multifaceted dominance.


Will some new stars rise up the ranks of the UBCTC Fall Classic Series standings?


Swim Course: 500m



Run Course: 3 Laps, 2.7km



The Sundays swim will be starting at the new time at 10:00AM, which continues to the end of term. There will be a 30 minute warmup followed by the Aquathon at 10:30AM!

UBCTC Pre Race Show

After many month of waiting, the largest sporting event of the year is finally upon us. In its much anticipated arrival the sporting legends are doing their last minute preparations before stepping to the line Saturday October 3rd for the first grueling test of athleticism, the uphill cycling time trial.

In a unique event where not only one strength will prevail, this diverse competition requires large array of skills, crossing the boundaries of sport by having the champion excel at not simply cycling, but also running and swimming. This qualifying feature has many of the worlds greats reeling from fear of disgrace.

3X World Time Trial Champion and Olympic Gold medalist Fabian Cancellara was expected to step up to the line in the inaugural event this coming Saturday, however, the challenging terrain has him second guessing himself.

"Sure, I've won the world championship title 3 times and beat the best in the world in Beijing, and don't get me wrong, coming off the World Championships last week, I feel like I am in the best shape of my life! But this is the big time! I just don't feel like I am ready to take on the UBCTC Fall Classic Series this year. Hopefully I can have a successful off season and build to be ready for the 2010 series. It would be asking too much of me to perform this early in my career at such a difficult event."

(Reuters 2009)

Other athletes, have also voiced their feelings towards the challenges of the Fall Classic Series. Marathon Champion and 21X world record holder Haile Gebrselassie after a disappointing world record attempt at the Berlin Marathon two weeks ago has concluded that;

"Although I still won with one of the fastest times in the world this year, I just don't think I could put up with another disappointment of a poor performance in the series (UBCTC Fall Classic), my spirits were shaken up, I just need more time."

Both sporting greats Michael Phelps and Cadel Evans were absent for questioning, however, they suggested that they may compete in select events, they are not yet ready for the grueling task of a full semester of competing.

Lance Armstong who never shies away was undecided on his participation in the 2009 race series, however, his twitter updates nailed the coffin shut on his appearance for 2009.

The absence of these excellent athletes has little impact on the competition in the 2009 race series. But the real question still remains, who will reign the victor in 9 weeks time.

There are many competitors with a fighting chance. The question is will be it be a specialist, such as Nathaniel Janzen (Flipper) who will accumulate his points in the pool, Matt Reeve who has made great strides by training exclusively on a fixed gear track bike to maximize his power output on the bike, or Winston Guo who promises to be consistent on the track with the help of his trusty GPS (Harmin the Garmin).

Or will it be an all rounder who will show the most promise; Andrew Wight, a dominant factor on the half ironman circuit, or Scott Sebastion Grayden Chris Scott who has show such great improvement over the summer that he expects to be peaking just in time for competition to start on Saturday.

Or will there be an upset from one of the girls, Lauren Sagadore who has finally decided to put some effort into her running and comes out to run training in order to hone her skills.

Or will a more creative approach be needed? Vincent Lavallee who will be absent from the first two events taking a risk by hedging his bets by putting in some last minute altitude training. Vincent was unreachable for comment due to his being in isolation somewhere in the Northern Canadian Rockies. Will this game plan benefit him? Will the added fitness be enough to make up the handicap of the first two events. That is yet to be seen.

Or will it be one of the rookies of the UBCTC that will claim the title?

All that is known is that this should be exciting, ESPN reports on twitter their excitement for the events to come.

All this to compete for the right to wear the Golden Cape and to one day hoist the Vincent Lavallee Cup above their head.