Pauline and Greg
By Leslie Ann Bent
The Vancouver Island Trails series was back this weekend with the 4th race of the series. The Transfer Beach race offers flowy trails around Ladysmith and along Holland Creek. If you have time, don’t miss the water falls. The race offers the sport short course option of 9km, and the gutbuster long course of 19km, which includes an additional 3km of scenery and challenge compared to the prior year. This year 98 runners took part in the long course and 133 in the short.
Our STARR trail threesome was there with their game faces on for the long course - all bringing home some hardware in the long course. Jonathan was the first STARR across the finish line with an impressive time of 1:48:00. He placed 8th overall and took home the 3rd place medal in the M40-49. Greg Balchin was next with a 2:09:16 time, earning him the 2nd place medal in his age group M50-59. Pauline was breathing down his neck, coming in just behind Greg with a time of 2:10:04. She was the eighth woman and finished second in F50-59.
Ken Pungente completed the sport route in a time of 1:15:47. He finished first overall in the M70 plus category.
For those of you who know Bob Butterworth from Sooke, you may be interested to know that he ran 1:21:16 in the short course (over 80 category).
The top runner in the long course was Sean Chester with a time of 1:31:35 for the men and top female runner was Patricia Roney with 1:46:52 = both from Victoria. The short course winner was youngster Adam (no last name apparently, M16-19) from Brno with a time of 42:20. Heather Lither was 5 minutes behind him with a time of 47:20, taking home first place for the women.
I asked Pauline for some feedback on the race and this is what she had to say. “I had a great time at the race. I especially enjoyed teasing Greg at the water station, slapping him on the back and saying ‘Good job.’ He hates that and it was enough to spur him on to a strong finish. I personally just wanted to beat my time from last year. I improved by 20 minutes - very happy with that. They created an 80 and over category for Bob. They didn’t realize he was that old.”
Congratulations to all of our runners!