Hugh Trenchard

As this event was veritably in our backyard in Kamloops, I am glad to have taken the opportunity to participate. Though the majority of events, held between March 1 and March 6, took place on a 200m indoor track at Thompson Rivers University, there were a handful of outdoor events associated with the indoor meet, including an 8km cross-country race, a couple of race walks, and a half marathon.

My event was the half-marathon, though at one time, a few months ago, I thought there may have been a full-marathon as part of the meet, which I would have preferred. In hindsight, I’m glad it was not a full marathon, as I would not have been ready, although I find myself intrigued by the possibility of the full-marathon at the outdoor Master T&F Worlds next year in Sacramento, in July.

Due to a continuing battle with plantar fasciitis, I was arguably only marginally ready for the half itself, although sufficiently ready to be in reasonable shape for it. In February I attended Synergy Health Management for three sessions of shockwave therapy (very painful!) for my now one year long battle with my foot, and with a resulting reduction in mileage, it was not possible to train optimally to be in the best shape possible. Still, my fitness was reasonable enough so as not to embarrass myself.

I had also given some consideration to competing in one or two other events, as many did, like Mark Sherman, for example, from Vancouver, who ran, impressively, the indoor 3000 in 9:38 and the 800 in 2:04, and then the half marathon, finishing just ahead of me. However, it made most sense to stick only to the half-marathon on the last day of the meet, given my work schedule and that I am not trained to run shorter events. In any event, it was not necessarily my intention to peak for the race, as my sights are more focussed on the Vancouver marathon on May 2nd, although the state of my foot will certainly dictate my degree of readiness for that too.

There were no qualifying criteria for the event, and so the event was really an international festival of athletic participation for Masters competitors (over 35 years old), but it was this international flavour that made it so much fun. The United States had a strong contingent, as did the British, Mexicans, Germans, Australians, and the Spanish; there were also noticeable contingents of Algerians, Moroccans, Norweigans, Russians, Brazillians and Japanese, among others. In total there were 48 countries represented.

Still, there was an air of greater formality than simply a festival of competition. Competitors were required to sign a declaration of intention to compete and to abide by the rules of conduct, including the possibility of drug testing. This was witnessed by an event official. For most of the track and field events, this was required to be done by 6:00pm the day before, although an exception was made for the half marathon, for which competitors could make their declaration the morning of the event. I found the formality of the declaration interesting, as I don’t recall making a similar declaration prior to the duathlon world championships, in which I competed three times, although I suppose I must have made a similar declaration in one form or another.

The course for the Half was a flat out-and-back, done twice (5k out, 5 back, 5 out, 5, back, plus another km or so on the ends), along the Thompson River near the Kamloops airport. In the blazing sun, across the river was the ever-present white smoke-stack plume of the pulp-mill, and in the bright cool air there was a residue of the odor, though it was not overwhelming. It was about 4 degrees at the start, which is much colder than I like it, but in the sun and, with a slight tail wind on the way out, it seemed warm enough for singlet and shorts.

Off the start I was surprised that Don King of Calgary, Mark Sherman of Vancouver, and me, settled into a group of three off the front of the group. Having seen some of the seed times, it appeared there would be a couple of foreigners who potentially could handily run away with the win. Perhaps some of the seed times were outdated, or the runners I saw on the list did not run.

As it was, Jose Navarroe of Spain, who is over 50, hung back just behind the three of us, with the rest of the group in tow. Soon after the first turnaround, near 7km, Don pulled away from Mark and I and never looked back, and gradually put distance on us to finish in 1:13.39. For a few km I had put a few seconds on Mark, but he stayed near, and with about 4km to go pulled past me, finishing in 1:15.22 to my 1:15.44, after Jose Navarroe had already passed us both, finishing in 1:14.55. A Norweigan was 5th in 1:17+ and Maria Castro Solino from Spain won the women’s event in 1:23, with Cindy Rhodes from Canada in second in 1:27, and Piedad Rodriguez from Spain 3rd in 1:28.

I was surprised that on a flat course we didn’t run faster, but perhaps the cold sapped us all a bit, though granted, I have not run any races this year that would indicate I should be faster than 1:15+ for a Half.

It was fortunate that Don King collected his gold medal, as some of us were given erroneous information that the awards ceremony was delayed, although it turned out to be right on time for the first time in years, apparently. I missed that presentation, as did Mark, although I was on hand to collect a gold medal for the team standings, which was nice, but neither Mark nor Don were there at the time, and I declined to get on the podium without them.

Later Kristin, who was nice enough to travel with me, and I watched some of the 4X200 relays to close up the meet. Great fun, though we obviously missed some fantastic competition during the week: a quick perusal of some of the results and you see, for example, there were numerous sub-4:15 1500 metre times, sub-52 second 400m times (remember these are on a 200m indoor track), and the 8k cross-country to open the meet was stacked with some times in the 24-26 minute range (though it appeared the course may have been a little short), with most of the top runners being non-Canadian. The meet was a serious international event, and the calibre of the competition extremely high for most events.

Finally were the closing ceremonies, at which time the event flag was passed to a town in Finland for 2012. Next year are the outdoor championships in Sacramento, which due to the fun I had in Kamloops, I will give serious consideration to attending.

Final medal tally was, for top 5: U.S. 326, Canada 281, Germany 115, Great Britain 71, and Australia 63.

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