Third Annual Royal Roads GutBuster
Doug Doyle / 26.03.2007
The third annual Gutbuster came to Victoria, BC on Saturday March 24, 2007 at Royal Roads University grounds and in the true spirit of the “wet coast,†Bryan Tasaka (of the Mind Over Mountain Event Company) promised to deliver a race course to test the legs, lungs and amphibiousness of Gutbuster participants.I have added the Gutbuster Trail Running series to my cross training activities for the upcoming adventure racing season as it is a means to gauge my fitness after my winter hibernation and encourages me to get out of the gym to start building base miles.
Also, it presented an opportunity to return to my alma mater: back in the day, there was not an inkling of thought that I would have been running the trails of the now named Royal Roads University in a Gutbuster long course when I was attending the former Royal Roads Military College from 1976 to 1979 – I was entrenched in academics and military training and it was a rarity to have time to run the myriad of trails that the grounds had to offer. The only similarity I could find between my time at RRMC and today’s’ third annual Gutbuster at RRU was the weather – rain. While I was used to getting muddy and wet playing rugby during the spring season on the fields of RRMC, today I was at the start line experiencing the rain and anticipation of mud and sweat in the company of 228 other runners primed to take on either the short course (5km) or long course (11km).
Steve Cook and Mark Allison of the Royal Roads Running Club designed an athletically entertaining short and long course taking advantage of the hilly terrain that RRU has to offer, ensuring endless hills of steep, narrow trail racing and the deepest, slipperiest of mud puddles available.
Toeing the start line was a who’s who of local athletes and the likes of Melanie McQuaid, three time World Xterra champion, as well as the Three Roads to London crew of Jin Finlayson, (2 x Canadian Marathon Champion), Michael Lord and Rumon Carter.
Another team on board was Team Gobi Canada (Donald Peterson, Donna Carrigan and Rob MacKay) who are soon to be journeying to the Race of No Return, a 250 km stage race in the Gobi Desert of China.
