Members of Club Fat Ass start the Pure Foolishness 72K at 6 a.m. January 19, 2008 at Panorama Park in North Vancouver.Rafal Gerszak for The Globe and Mail
As rain pelts down on the Lower Mainland, Club Fat Ass this weekend embarks on "the easiest 100-mile run anywhere."
This is the realm of ultramarathons, where total distances vary but are always far farther than the standard marathon distance of 42.2 kilometres/26.2 miles.
Club Fat Ass (clubfatass.com), officially established in 2003, was born in California in the late 1970s, with an informal bent to running unreasonably long distances. It emerged in Canada in Vancouver in 1993 with the Fat Ass 50, a 50-kilometre New Year's Day huff to shake off/out-run hangovers - and it's become an annual event.
The Seawall 100 is something else. In this land of the 100-mile diet, this first-ever race is a celebration of the amazing beauty of the Seawall. The 100 miles is made up of four legs on a 40-kilometre course. Starting in West Vancouver, the path wends through and around Stanley Park, along English Bay, around False Creek and out to University of British Columbia. Starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday, with the first finishers expected at 4 a.m. Sunday - some 20 hours later.
So, how do you mean "easiest"? Course is flat, mostly, so no gruelling ascents at the, uh, 72-mile mark. However, runners are counselled that "so much pavement and flat running will tax your body parts in way that you did not imagine existed." Moral support is encouraged along the course, particularly in the dark middle-of-night hours, "when the spirit is feeble."
It's not all pain. As club member John Machray said a couple years back: "We're known for excessive running followed by excessive beer drinking."
David Ebner, outthere@globeandmail.com