For Imme­di­ate Release

West Van­cou­ver, British Colum­bia — The second Sat­ur­day of July is coming up, and that can only mean one thing for a grow­ing number of enthu­si­as­tic long-distance trail run­ners — time for the Knee Knack­er­ing North Shore Trail Run (the “Knee Knacker”). The race tra­verses the trails of West and North Van­cou­ver, and the twenty-second edi­tion takes place on Sat­ur­day, July 10, 2010.

The race started out as a “fun run” with only 8 par­tic­i­pants in 1989, when the sport of ultra­ma­rathon­ing (races longer than a 26.2 mile marathon) was in its infancy in Canada. While there are races over dis­tances much longer than the 30 miles cov­ered by the Knee Knacker, not many are tougher in North Amer­ica. Canada’s largest ultra­ma­rathon race takes par­tic­i­pants from Horse­shoe Bay to Deep Cove along the 30-mile (48.6 km) Baden-Powell trail. Run­ners go up, over, and around the major North Shore moun­tains — Cypress, Grouse, and Sey­mour — gain­ing over 8,000 feet (2,400 m) in ele­va­tion along the way for a total ele­va­tion change of over 16,000 feet (4,800 m). With recent weather con­di­tions, run­ners can expect hot and likely humid con­di­tions on the course.

Over the years, top ultra­ma­rathon­ers from around the world have trav­eled from afar to chal­lenge them­selves in what is referred to as the “knarli­est” footrace in Canada. How­ever, the great appeal of the race is that it caters to adven­ture seek­ers of all levels and not just elite com­peti­tors. Con­firm­ing the grow­ing pop­u­lar­ity of ultra­run­ning, and the rep­u­ta­tion of the race, this year saw over 300 entrants apply to the lot­tery. Race par­tic­i­pants were selected by the luck of the draw in March, and 200 racers will toe the line on race day.

This year’s race will mark the 22^nd year of the event, and will see a very com­pet­i­tive field at the start­ing line. 2009 cham­pion and course record holder, Aaron Heidt of the Okana­gan, will be back to defend his title against a deep field includ­ing elite ath­letes Gary Rob­bins of North Van­cou­ver, Oliver Utting of Burn­aby and Peter Find­lay of Kam­loops. Find­lay set the Knee Knacker record in 1991 that stood until 2003 in the same year that he cap­tured the still stand­ing Cana­dian Record at West­ern States 100 (17:03). This year, Rob­bins may well be look­ing to better Findlay’s com­bined States/Knee Knacker time, as 2 weeks ago, he placed 6^th over­all at West­ern States 100 in a blaz­ing time of 17:06.

In the women’s field, 2009 Cham­pion Ellie Green­wood is back to defend her title, going head-to-head with North Vancouver’s Nicola Gilder­sleeve. Both Green­wood and Gilder­sleeve have had out­stand­ing sea­sons so far with Green­wood win­ning the Scorched-Sole 50M ultra out­right and Gilder­sleeve having a stel­lar per­for­mance at West­ern States just 2 weeks ago.

Three addi­tional ath­letes are expect­ing to cel­e­brate a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone upon their suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of Saturday’s race:  David Brown, Neil Wake­lin and Ron Adams are look­ing to be the first to ever com­plete the Knee Knacker 20 times!  Five addi­tional ath­letes are expect­ing to cel­e­brate the mile­stone of 10-time fin­isher: Lori Wong, Patri­cia Jensen, Darren Lauscher, Judy Kin­dra­chuk and John Hebron. This feat has been accom­plished by only 31 ath­letes to date.

The race itself starts at 6:00am Sat­ur­day, July 10^th just above Horse­shoe Bay, Exit #4, off of West­port Road. Run­ners must arrive at the Panorama Park beach in Deep Cove by the race cut-off time of 4:00pm. The fol­low­ing is an esti­mated sched­ule of where and when to catch the run­ners in action:

A sched­ule of race activ­i­ties is avail­able at www.kneeknacker.com. Mem­bers of the media are invited and encour­aged to attend any or all of the activ­i­ties. A good oppor­tu­nity to meet the run­ners is at reg­is­tra­tion & race brief­ing Friday, July 9^th, from 5:30–8:00pm at North Shore Ath­let­ics (#101‑1200 Lons­dale Ave, N. Vancouver).

The Knee Knacker is a vol­un­teer run, non-profit race that has donated over $49,000 to com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions. Pro­ceeds from this year’s race will ben­e­fit the North Shore Search & Rescue. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion contact:

Kelsy Trigg, Race Direc­tor (604–787-8097, rd@kneeknacker.com)