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By Ian MacNairn, Photos Bruno Long Blood he Golden Ultra is the only one of its Friday evening brought 178 runners together to charge Tkind in western Canada. In fact, the up the VK course from the base of the Kicking Horse only other Canadian counterpart is the Ultra- Mountain Resort to its summit at 2,339 m. Although it Trail du Mont Alberta, in eastern Quebec. was the shortest race of the weekend, the average grade is The style is one that borrows from European 23 per cent. To compare: the Alpe D’Huez climb –famous trail and ultrarunning. That is, the style in the Tour de France– ascends at an average of not quite of , offering three disciplines: eight per cent. Vertical Kilometre (VK), , and After a summer of horrendous wildfires and a week’s a half-. Skyrunning is a particular worth of snow, fortunately for the racers, the return of a take on trail- –defined by a focus on few days worth of late summer weather helped dry the altitude and technicality. The shortest – and trails and melt the snow, other than some high altitude often most intense – discipline is the VK, in patches. The full-out effort the mountain – which participants ascend a minimum of leading runners to taste blood in their mouth – was offset 1,000 m in no more than 5k. The half and by the early autumn cool air. ultra are, naturally, longer but with compa- The frontrunners topped out well under an hour. Eric rable increases in ascent. The Golden Ultra Carter, of Squamish, B.C., led the pack, finishing in 45:37. offers the three events in back-to-back-to- Kim Magnus, of Vancouver, led the women in 57:10. For back days in Golden, B.C., in mid-September even the fastest runners, the VK is a gruellingly slow each year. The disciplines have been given “run.” For the rest, it is a long power hike. The final runner the apt titles of Blood, Sweat and Tears. crossed the finish in just over two hours. “We were inspired to start the weekend after realizing that the potential for an Sweat amazing mountain course in Golden is really Saturday morning saw the runners out early – too early unique,” race director Magi Scallion, says, some said, given the previous evening’s VK– for the 60k pointing out that nearly 90 per cent is on ultramarathon. This course took runners through trails single-track. She wanted to promote the in the forest into the alpine and across 15k of ridgeline community of Golden and its amazing trails, and singletrack in the Purcell Mountains. The course so she started the race. featured 2,500 m of elevation gain and wound its way through a massive meandering loop. A Golden-specific challenge awaited runners at the height of the course at the third aid station. Numerous runners paused their race effort to head to the Eagle’s Eye Restaurant for a refreshment and post a “beer selfie” on Instagram. The final 20k of the course sent the runners cascading down from 2,400 m back to 850 m at Golden’s Spirit Square in the middle of town. Eric Carter once again led the race until the final 12k where he was overtaken by

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