5 Peaks Trail Running Race: The ARK
By:  Lee Hawkings   (2012/11/20)

Last month, on October 27th, a few of us XC Ottawaers made the journey out of the big city to the Ark Conference Centre an hour north of town. Salomon and Mountain Equipment Coop were holding the last race of their 5 peaks trail running series and we wanted to check it out. This was my first time doing the event while Logan, Kyle and Katie were all seasoned veterans. We were also joined by Matt Brown, Bella Waterton, and Holly Jones from the Carleton Nordic Ski Team and XC Ottawa Alumni Vesta Mather.

The whole gang before the start of the race

Us XC Ottawaers sporting our various Podiumwear duds.

The event was awesome and I for one was glad to have the awesome tread provided by my Brooks shoes to keep traction on the windy, narrow, slippery course. We all competed in the Sport distance, which is 6 km, There was also and enduro which was 14km and a half marathon.

In the end between XC Ottawa and Carleton we took the 4 top spots in the Mens race and 4 out of the top 10 in the women’s side including taking both first and second!

Although running may not be our specialty it is always fun to be able to see that having ski fitness is good for other things as well. I overheard a particular conversation at the finish which quite amused me. It was something along the lines of-

"Those guys don't look like runners but they were flying out there?",

"Ya they look like rowers or something",

"But they must be runners because their shirts say XC on them?",

"Maybe they are cross-country skiers?"

"Ya could be, who knows?".

I thought this was awesome and hilarious! It is fun to know that all this training that we put in is transferable into other sports and activities.

Congratulations to all the racers and thank you to the event organizers for putting on another great event

 

Sport Event Results:

http://www.runningbydesign.ca/5peaksarkso.pdf

The boys looking no worse for wear post race!