I already had this whole posting pre-typed and then the Glenn Redpath fan club came out in full force!! Looks like the young buck Aaron Heidt blazed the first half of the competition, but the ever experienced Redpath saved his best for last and finished stronger than anyone else in the poll. He dominated the final 24hr and come out with a convincing 43% of the total votes cast! At over 100 for the men and just under for the women I'm very excited by the interest this garnered for all involved!
On the Women's side congrats to Ellie Greenwood for her dominating performance at the Stormy 50miler in Squamish where she crushed the women's course record and narrowly missed out on winning the race outright, finishing just minutes back in 3rd overall! At 37% of the vote she won convincingly.
Top three performances as voted on are:
1) 37% Ellie Greenwood CR Stormy 50miler
2) 22% Tamsin Anstey for her 50mile debut at Mountain Masochist
3) TIE 13% Sue Lucas & Tracy Garneau for Sulphur Springs & HURT respectively
For the men,
1) 43% Glenn Redpath for significantly lowering the course record at Canada's older 100 miler (15 years)
2) 32% Aaron Heidt for taking down the very established course record at the 20 year old Knee Knacker 30 miler
3) 9% Ryne Melcher for running the third fastest time in Mt Si 50 miler history...while on a bum knee that needed surgery!
HUGE CONGRATS to everyone! Like Bruce Grant mentioned, Canadians seemed to disappear from the top of the ultra scene for a few years but it looks like we're back in full force again now and hopefully many will have breakout races in 2010! Let's make this poll even harder to decide upon in 12 months time!!
OK, here it is, Canadian Ultra Runner Of The Year. Poll to your right, stats below. (Poll will run till 11pm on Monday night)
WOMEN
Tracy Garneau:
1st HURT 100miler / 2nd Diez Vista 50k / 2nd Stormy 50miler / 3rd North Face 50miler Champs
Tamsin Anstey:
1st Diez Vista 50k / 1st Frosty Mtn 50k / 1st Mtn Masochist 50miler
Ellie Greenword:
1st Orcas Island 50k / 1st CR Dirty Duo 50k / 1st CR Chuckanut 50k / 1st Knee Knacker 50k / 1st CR Stormy 50 Miler / 1st CR Run For Toad 50k
Monica Scholz:
3rd HURT 100miler / 3rd Sulphur Springs 100miler / 8th Badwater 135miler / 1st Arkansas Traveller 100miler
Sue Lucas:
1st Sulphur Springs 100miler / 1st Dirty Girls 24hr / 5th Lean Horse 100miler / 1st Halliburton 100miler
Nicola Gildersleeve:
4th Way Too Cool 50k / 5th Diez Vista 50k / 2nd Frosty Mtn 50k / 2nd Mtn Masochist 50miler
MEN
Aaron Heidt:
2nd Dirty Duo 50k / 1st CR Chuckanut 50k / 1st CR Knee Knacker 50k
Chris Downie:
1st CR Sinister 7 90miler / 1st Stormy 100miler / 1st Frosty Mtn 50k / 1st Walk In Park 54k
Adam Hill:
3rd Bull Run Run 50miler / 1st Sulphur Springs 50miler / 1st CR Laurel Highlands 50k / 22nd World Trail Challenge 68k France / 1st CR Dirty Girls 6hr / 1st Halliburton Trail 50miler / 3rd Oil Creek 50miler / 7th Mtn Masochist 50miler
Glen Redpath:
1st CR Halliburton 100miler / (1 week later!) 2nd Iroquois 100miler / (1 week after that!) 2nd V.Veromont 50miler / 2nd Bull Run Run 50miler / 2nd Bel Monte 50miler / 3rd Greenway 50k / 2nd Massanutten 100miler / 1st CR Dirty Girls 12hr / 7th Mtn Masochist 50miler
Ryne Melcher:
(Just for the record here, Melcher was born in the US and he actually cheered when the US juniors beat Canada in OT this week! Take from that what you will...)
1st CFA NYD 50k / 3rd Dirty Duo 50k / 1st Mt Si 50miler / 3rd Portland 50k / 2nd Frosty Mtn 50k / 2nd Run For Toad 50k / 4th Ozark Trail 100miler
Gary Robbins:
(Still heart broken from Canada's loss to the US...like any red blooded Cdn would be!)
3rd CFA NYD 50k / 2nd Orcas Island 50k / 1st CR Dirty Duo 50k / 1st CR Diez Vista 50k / 1st CR CFA 6hr Enduro / 49th Western States 100miler / 4th Knee Knacker 50k / 3rd Run For Toad 50k / 3rd Mountain Masochist 50miler
Have at er, and thanks for taking the time to vote in this 'just for fun' poll!!
GR
7 comments:
Fun to read. Interesting results. Very tough to choose performance of the year with so many great races being run by Canadians and I really think that a very strong case could have been made for any on the poll.
For UR of the year though, that is what blew me away more about Glen and the way he stacked some great races together in a short period of time. Same goes for Adam too with some incredible races. Adam was flying early on at Haliburton and was probably on CR pace for much of the day, but ran into some stomach issues. He looked pretty beatup by the end, but still finished (in a slow time for him) and won comfortably.
Note: I realize I'm just commenting about the East, but will leave those from the West to make their observations from there.
Just for the record here I did not vote for myself! That was my Dad, and I love him dearly for it!!
You told me your dad voted for me!
He voted for your lame ass in the Performance Of The Year, which his son was not a part of! You still owe him a beer!
GR
Gary, Down here we just consider Michigan part of the Candien Riviera. Congrats on all your performances. Best of luck to you all in 2010.
Love reading these comments. I understand the selection had some criteria and may not be categorically suited for one Ultra runner who primarily competes these days at the international events. It worth to mention the name, his last race time is one of the fastest Canadian 100K time in the international level in the last 10 years. Darren Froese ran 7:32 in 2009 at the Commonwealth Championship in Keswick, UK. He is also turning 50, not only he is slowing down but he is getting fast and faster. For this poll I was going to say Aaron deserve the Male pole but I should go with Gary since Gary and Aaron went toe to toe at Dirty Duo and Gary won the race. He probably could have race and won Chukanut too if he hadn't blown the gasket at Dirty Duo. Then I say to myself, what about Glen, he is the only guy in the poll over 40, shouldn’t he deserve it, What about Chris Downie, he won every race he ran in 2009. OK, Gary wins my vote for 2 CR;
For Female, this one was also hard selection, but Ellie came on top, with number of races and her placing she deserves the spot.
Good luck to all performers putting Canada on the map of the ultra running.
Happy running :)
In response to Sammy, first off thank you!
Secondly Froese is most certainly a top Cdn runner but I'm unaware of him competing on trail in 09? At stormy in 08 he was just behind me for most of it and he won initial Sinister 7 as well. All very impressive times!
Regarding Aaron Chuckanut, etc. I'll go on record and say there's no way I would have beaten Heidt at Chuck and the fact that we hammered each other two weeks before that race at DD only makes his race time that much more impressive. I think if I were fresh I would have had a shot at top three there...will get to hopefully prove that on March 20th this year!
My vote went to Glen, and that was before I just learned of yet another top result he had in 09. Check this out, in a 15 day span Glen won Halliburton 100miler in CR time, was 2nd at Iroquois 100miler, and 2nd (by just 30sec) at Vermont 50 miler, that's just SICK!! In two weeks over three races he ran 250miles and the worst he finished was 2nd, WOW!!!
Either Glen hasn't tuned in here at all or he's too modest to even correct his own results via a comment. Either way I met him at MMTR and he's a great guy with a ton of talent, and on top of it all he's now 44 years old! Damn old guys are making us young bucks look slow and weak!
Check out his partial resume at Ultra Sign Up,
http://ultrasignup.com/results_participant.aspx?fname=Glen&lname=Redpath&age=0
GR
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