Day 5, we are all together, one incredible day to go!

No photo today gang, we are located at http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=62.4664,-114.9762&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1, Trout Lake Lodge for today’s finish of the stage. I have internet access but it’s dreadfully slow so I am limited in sharing today’s action with you.

From our perspective it was a wonderful day in the NWT full of sunshine and minimal wind. The main issue we heard from the athletes was the changing conditions of the snow. They would be racing in powder and then find hard packed snow.

From the start of the stage, the cat and mouse game between RN 420 Phil Villeneuve and 419 Micheal Argue continued with Argue opening a 33 second lead with one kilometer to go in the stage. The final stage will be very exciting and we are planning to be at the spot where we anticipate the battle for the EKATI diamond will begin.

Athletes and media are all in the same camp today totally isolated from the world.. It’s our first chance to be around the athletes. We were driven here by the owner of the Lodge, Ragnar Wesstrom in his Swedish military built Hagglunds. They are crazy fun, nothing can stop these vehicles, deep snow, trees, hills, we move forward. These are the same vehicles they use to monitor the ice depth in the highway used in Ice Truck Driver Highway TV series. Other than these vehicles, snowmobiles and Float plane are the only way you can reach this Fishing & Hunting Lodge (www.enodah.com) that specializes in prize catches. For the non racers, like me and the other cats, the lodge has a bar and it’s open!

The final athletes finished by mid afternoon so this was a great opportunity for me to observe and ask reader questions. Here are their comments……

“ I feel loose, warm and the race comes down to tomorrow”

“let’s get this over”

“hard packed last 5 K, time to fly”

“I use the other races to motivate myself”

“Viva Italia, Viva Spain”

“Oh my god, that beer felt good (yes, from a racer!)”

“I need to fix my pulk”

“The difference between possible and impossible is in the mind”

“I’m pretty pleased and I can’t wait for a bath!”

“We are sad the race is over because we have been happy every day”

“If the Irish can win the Grand Slam of Rugby, I can finish this race”

“I am looking forward to KFC and a dirty bucket of bert”

We are all in one warm crowded lodge room, gear is everywhere drying out, the room smells like sweat and then gas as the race crew shows up. The Europeans are talking a combo of Spanish and French, the Canadians are trying to figure out which pulk works the best and wait I smell a whiff of A-535. Some nap but the brits are enjoying Canadian beer and showing off their blisters, Yeck! There is a public computer and the athletes line up one by one to update their blogs. Lunch is Moose stew and dinner is pasta with caribou meat sauce, welcome to the Northwest Territories.

This room is the perfect setting to start thinking about a great athletic blog to finish this epic event.

Another reason to love Canada...

When your house is on an island in Great Slave Lake in the summer, you can drive right up to it in the winter.

Day 4, Last race of the Ultra, but stories abound!

For the diehards that have been following the Diamond race, everyone is following the cat and mouse game between RN 420 Phil Villeneuve and 419 Micheal Argue. These two national level athletes who are also friends in the x-country ski division have been shadowing each other since day 1 like lions looking for dinner. Waiting for a hint when the other will break and then pounce. Phil informed me he has an unusual bit of swelling in his feet but being a true sportsman he didn’t take advantage of a very late opportunity in yesterday’s stage when his competitor broke his pole with less than a kilometer to the finish line.

The crazy brits, 402 and 404 continue to enjoy their first ultra race or should I continue to repeat, their daily first marathon or the first time they have ever been on cross country skis ever race. Their feet are quite blistered but they continue to laugh and carry on.

It’s hard to talk to all the athletes because they don’t come out of their warm quarters until just before the race start. I don’t even dare to enter their inner sanctum in the mornings.

After watching the wind burned, very stiff but ready for the day’s challenge Diamond athletes leave Matrix village I bumped into RN 002 Martin Parnell who won the Cold Foot Classic Solo Foot / Snowshoe single day race. He gave me an idea of how brutal the weather conditions were that day. He ran his first 30 K in 3 hours and 50 minutes, the final 15 K took him 3 hours and 15 minutes. This was the result of a cold snowy head wind that resulted in whiteouts and numbing wind chills. Ugh! Martin was at Matrix headquarters to be awarded his 1st trophy by volunteer extrodinaire, Elaine.

Another fascinating unbelievable story involves the Japanese and Korean athletes, RN 427 Miho, 236 Yukako and 414 Jesse. Rumor has it which is great about blog writing since I’m not a real reporter, I’m smiling, can write about chatter, when they showed up prior to the start of the race some of their gear still had the price tags and plastic attached. They have this wonderful non rush attitude which is confirmed when you check out their respective race results at www.sleepmonsters.com . Even at today’s race start time of 9:00 AM this threesome didn’t even start their race until 9:28 AM but still had time to pose for my camera. Say Sushi, which I did have for dinner tonight from Sushi North.

As a race sidebar, last night the media and the race crew enjoyed evening beverages at the Black Knight Pub, being a true gentlemen, Race director Scott Smith politely excused himself to brush his teeth in the bar before joining our table. If you ever meet Scott he is a gentle giant, massive in size yet genuine and grounded with emotion.

Day 4, one race left but

Hi gang, as day 4 of the Diamond race begins we find some great stories as we start pondering the finish line which is only 2 days away.

From the cat and mouse game of the lead cross country skiers, the behind the scene race crew, the Japanese and Korean athletes, the international media team and the love of the locals.

Stay tuned!

Spring?

So, I have been talking a fair bit about the weather, I've had e-mails about how much snow there really is, here's the evidence from my hotel room and main street YellowKnife.

I hope where you are, you are enjoying Spring time!

hm

Day 3, two races finish, one more to go…

Today marks the end for the 3 day Ultra racers and the half way point for the 6 day Diamond racers.

The weather today is somewhere in the mid to low teens! Cloudy, light wind and we had another inch of snow overnight.

The day starts by meeting RN 406, a female Italian Diamond racer that dropped out of the race on day 2 because of severe knee pain. She weighs 49 KG and the ski pulk she was pulling weighed 20 KG which set off the knee pain. On a tech side, she didn’t like the pulk she was using because it didn’t track straight and kept pulling her from side to side. Her next race in May is a 6 day ultra run in Africa.

The media team grows as we welcome on board RN 406 and 415 for their expert knowledge as we travel the course. Unfortunately both athletes dropped out of the race due to medical reasons.

Sadly I meet RN 225 on the course while she is on the back a snowmobile. You will re-call RN 225 was the five star chef of peanut butter and marmalade sandwiches for her partner. Due to the wet brutally cold feet she abandoned the race. She later learned her partner also was forced to leave the course due to sickness. In her ever positive way she told me a touching story about the volunteer that gave her smokey peanuts in the 2008 race and met them again at the same point in the race this year and had in his hands for them, smokey peanuts!

From our vantage point on the Ice Highway, we see the athletes heading toward the finish line focused but with a tiny smile because this is the first time in three days they have full traction under their feet. From our moving warm media van these cold weather extreme athletes tell us:

“I’m doing as good as possible after 130 K but I’m a bit of whiner” This self called whiner ends up winning the Ultra Snowshoe Male Division.

“I might sound like a bit of a southerner but how cool is it to be running on an ice road”

“Hard day one day, tailwind today”

“Does anyone speak Spanish?”

“All I need today is one layer” I have spoken to RN 424 before, a male diamond racer and I have come to the conclusion he is a human furnace.

A very touching moment at the finish line, RN 204 Sara Montgomery who wins the Female Snowshoe Division runs straight into the arms of her husband Derek Spafford who had to drop out of the Diamond race due to sickness. The first words she uttered with tears in her eyes were, “are you okay?”

So you were wondering….

Who’s the sponsor of this extreme event? Bhpbilliton, resourcing the future, a diamond company (bhpbilliton.com) which produced the first diamond mine in Canada. The mine is located 300 miles from YellowKnife and is air only accessible for their employees which numbers 600 – 700 per day. Their work force is made up of approximately 67% northerners and 39% from the aboriginal community. What a perfect sponsor for this Yellowknife based event. They have also signed on for the 2010 race so start training on your cross country skis, snowshoes or running shoes!

How do you move all those orange tents and the gear belonging to the athletes? Well, you do what they call a sling load. You get a giant cargo net, load all the gear bags in the middle of the net and call in a helicopter to fly the “sling load” to the next stage camp. I was very impressed to watch this high level of co-ordination.

So Harold what do you do with your spare time? Well today was the first time the cats were allowed to play so I did something I absolutely wanted to do prior to arriving. I became an ice highway runner because I don’t know how to drive an eighteen wheeler which means I could never call myself an ice highway trucker like the specialty channel show that was filmed in Yellowknife that people from all over the world know about.