Winners Crowned at First-Ever Canadian Mountain & Trail Running Championships

The first-ever Canadian Mountain & Trail Running Championships crowned its national medalists on Saturday, September 17, in Vernon, B.C.

More than 350 athletes hailing from Canada and beyond competed at Okanagan’s Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park across championship races across ten categories. The top two finishers in each championship event auto-qualified for the 2023 World Mountain & Trail Running Championships in Innsbruck and Stubai, Austria.

“The conditions were pretty much perfect,” said national mountain and trail running team head coach Adrian Lambert. “We started off at a chilly six degrees and it rose to 16 – all dry, and sunny, and the trails were smooth.”

In the Senior Classic Up and Down race, athletes covered 331m of elevation climb and descent over the course’s 11.2 kilometres. Care Nelson took home the women’s title in a time of 50:13, besting Karley Rempel by nearly 90 seconds. Nelson was just one week removed from racing the Finlayson 28k near her home on Vancouver Island last week.

“Karley went out like a rocket and dropped me like a hot potato on the first downhill… but I slowly was catching her and passed her at 5.5k,” said Nelson, adding she was afraid that Rempel would catch her on the last 1500m of downhill.

“I managed to hang on – I was happy,” said the mother of three.

Rob McCann, meanwhile, won the men’s race in 41:44, successfully coming back to form after rehabbing a knee injury for the better part of the pandemic.

“The course was certainly fast – slightly flatter than what I’m used to,” he said. “I knew my uphill probably wasn’t that great, so I took it out faster than I would have liked to and didn’t look behind me during the race.”

A pair of athletes with strong track and field pedigrees took home gold in the women’s and men’s vertical climb. Gareth Hadfield, a 3,000m steeplechaser and cross-country runner from Alberta, won the men's event in one hour, two minutes and 53 seconds. Cam McNamara and Jared Welsh were next to finish behind Hadfield, respectively.

On the women’s side, Sasha Gollish showed once more that her versatility as a runner knows no bounds. Already the world record holder in the W40+ indoor track mile, and a member of Team Canada at the 2022 NACAC half-marathon championships, the Toronto-based runner was the top finisher in one hour, 10 minutes and 22 seconds. She finished less than two minutes ahead of Melissa Paauwe, who gave Gollish little breathing room by finishing at one hour, 11 minutes and 50 seconds.

Of the four men finished the 80km long course championship, Brandon Miller came out on top, stopping the clock at seven hours, 57 minutes and 14 seconds. The Calgary-based runner reached the halfway mark just five minutes ahead of eventual runner-up Connor Meakin, but then closed faster than the entire field and won by a healthy margin of 28 minutes. Meakin crossed the finish line in eight hours, 25 minutes and six seconds, and Charles Perrot-Minot was third in nine hours, 58 minutes and 52 seconds.

The event was hosted by Bush Babes & Bros Trail Running.

Find full results here.

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