It was looking to be a very different Emperor’s Challenge this year.
At the 12.5 km mark, where the photographer (and this reporter) stood, buffeted by 45 knot winds, waiting for a break in the clouds, the first runner broke out of the trees and made his way past.
Click, flash! went the camera.
But it was not, noted the editor of the paper, Kris Swanson.
A few minutes later, a second figure appeared. Click. Flash. Not Kris.
A third figure, this time, female. Obviously not Kris. Click. Flash. And then a minute went by. Two. Three.
Finally another runner broke from the bush, clad in red and black stripes. This time it was Kris, well behind the first three runners.
Something unusual, it appeared, was afoot.
Indeed, it was. But it wasn’t that Kris was in fourth place. Instead, a handful of runners had got on the wrong track and wound up skipping a section of the course.
When the first person reached the finish line, he called out that he had got turned around, and was directed around the finish line, as was the next runner.
So when the third person came into sight, it was Kris Swanson, crossing the line in a time of 1:31:47, having passed one of the runners who had got off track.
Swanson says he had no idea that there were people in front of him until he passed one of them.
Less than a minute behind him—with a time of 1:32:40—was Alexander Nemethy, out of Vanderhoof.
At the last Emperor’s Challenge, in 2019, Nemethy was about five minutes behind.
Swanson, who is now in the masters category, is a decade and a half older than the 25 year old Nemethy, and, says Swanson, Nemethy wasn’t at top form for this race. “Given that he wasn’t properly prepared this year suggests that the worst is yet to come,” he jokes.
Rounding out the top three overall male finishers was Matthew Scace, who crossed in 1:35:38, less than five minutes behind the leader.
Scace’s stats says he’s out of Toronto, but the recent J-school grad moved to Prince George in October of last year.
This is Scace’s first time running the Emperor’s Challenge, and coming from Ontario, it was a bit of an eye opener. “I ran on the Queen’s University Cross Country Team. Kingston has one hill going up to Fort Henry. I think the most elevation you can get on one run is 85 meters. Now in Prince George, I average 250. It’s a bit different since I moved here. Even that is nothing like the Emperor’s Challenge. It was straight up for six kilometres.
“It feels like a different sport,” says Scace. “It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve done before. It’s harder, but in a different way, compared to the last 2k of a half marathon where I’m running really fast. I’ll be running uphill and I can’t feel my calves because they’re so sore and so tight. And then all of a sudden going downhill I feel okay. And everything sort of goes away. But then there’s this small hill, and the feeling comes right back and I’m back in the pain cave. The sensory experience of running a mountain race is just very different from anything I’ve experienced.”
Scace was about 19 minutes and three people ahead of the first female to cross the line, Carly Madge out of Prince George. She was the sixth runner to cross the line, at 1:54:31 followed by Wendy Giesbrecht from Cecil Lake (at 2:05:01) and Victoria BC’s Laura Kissack, at 2:09:38.
The Tumbler Ridge RCMP, Fire Department and Search and Rescue had a challenge to see which team was the fastest. While Jesse Coonce from Search and Rescue was the first First Responder across the line, it was the RCMP who had the fastest team overall, beating the fire department by 45 seconds, on average.
But it was the Fire Department that truly won, raising over $3000 for Muscular Dystrophy Research.
Former Tumbler Ridge resident and adaptive athlete Rose O’Neil was the last person to cross the finish line, but unfortunately did it about 20 minutes after the race cut-off. She says she was timed at 5:20:36. “I am pretty proud of myself,” she says. “I am on crutches healing up for the next little bit from my blistering, though. But a week of not walking is worth those five hours of hell I put myself through.” She laughs. She already has plans to bring along more adaptive athletes next year, but it’s not without issues. “I had to change out my leg six times (fully take my leg off, dry all components, replace socks and liner while keeping it all clean at roughly eight minutes each stop. I am fiercely competitive with myself. That being said, I am so grateful for the challenges faced as they just make me stronger.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
