Once again Jasper’s athletes shone at an extreme endurance event, when several of the town’s runners scored top finishes at the Canadian Death Race in Grande Cache, Aug. 2.
Ultra marathon superstar Tracy MacDowell busted a three-year string of second place finishes when she won the solo female category of the grueling 125-kilometre race through the mountains surrounding Grande Cache.
The Death Race starts on a 1,280-metre plateau. From there racers slog through gnarly trails that see them climb over three mountain summits, and more than 520 metres of elevation change.
MacDowell finished with a time of 15:22:28, two and a half hours ahead of the second place female finisher.
Reflecting on the race, she said the stars just aligned for a perfect race.
“It was one of those days where I was just happy—I felt really good and everything just clicked,” she said. “I’ve been three times second place, so this finish made it very sweet for me.”
Along with MacDowell, Jasper’s Chris Leblanc also finished the entire solo race with a time of 22:38:43. Only 25 per cent of solo racers finished this year, making Leblanc’s 83rd place finish that much more impressive.
Suzy Whitty competed with a mixed team that took first place in its category (finishing with a time of 13:58:56), and a team of Jasper ladies also made an impact, finishing second overall in the female team category, with a time of 15:45:21.
The Bucket Babes—a reconstituted version of The Bucket List team from previous years—featured Lourdres Nunes, Katy Pourier, Terry Smith, Marnie Oatway and Wendy Copp.
Copp, who ran the race for a second year in a row, said she had a blast, but the heat that day was really intense.
“I saw several people get pulled off the course from heat exhaustion [and] several people collapse before they could finish their leg—some had to get hooked up to IVs,” she said.
Copp ran the 38-kilometre fourth leg of the race, which began with a 10-kilometre climb up the highest point in the course, Mount Hamel.
“My high point [was] definitely getting to the top of the mountain—because I knew it was 10 kilometres up, and once I was up there I was done. It is amazing when you come up to the top, and then you know that everything else from there is totally manageable,” she said.
“I knew the faster I get to the top of that mountain, the faster I could fly downhill.”
Copp said that while the race itself is rewarding, the energy that blankets Grande Cache during race weekend is what really draws her back every year.
“It feels like a festival all weekend,” she said, explaining that the locals were all incredibly friendly, businesses were decorated with messages of support for the runners, and people were constantly honking whenever they saw runners in town.
She said she made sure to get up early—around 5:30 a.m.—so she could watch people cross the finish line during the last hours of the race.
“It’s quite emotional watching people come in during that last hour or two. People are in tears, and excited—it’s just amazing to see,” she said. “There’s people of all shapes and sizes coming in. It’s amazing to see what people can do. It’s quite inspiring.”
MacDowell agreed, saying the high point of her weekend was standing at the finish line with all of the other Jasperites, seeing the excitement and pride on everyone’s faces.
“We have an amazing community of athletes in this town, it’s just unreal,” she said.
Trevor Nichols
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