WOW… 5 days, 8 hours and and a hand­ful of min­utes until Knee Knacker 2009…

Wel­come to the 21^st Knee Knack­er­ing North Shore Trail Run. This is my favourite time of “Knee Knacker Season”… the antic­i­pa­tion, the excite­ment, seeing every­one a little bit on edge from taper­ing… too much fun! I hope you have trained well, tapered well and are ready for adven­ture on Sat­ur­day, July 11^th. Below is some impor­tant info to help you nav­i­gate the next couple of days, and if you have any ques­tions, please don’t hes­i­tate to call me at 604–787-8097.

Impor­tant Reminders

1. There is absolutely NO day-of-race reg­is­tra­tion.

If you have not picked up your race packet and reg­is­tered by Friday night, July 10^th, you will not be in the race. Please bring along pic­ture iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, as we will be attach­ing a med­ical wrist­band to your wrist once we have cor­rectly iden­ti­fied you as the reg­is­tered runner. If you have some­one else pick­ing up your race pack­age, please advise me ASAP, and you MUST pro­duce pic­ture iden­ti­fi­ca­tion prior to the race Sat­ur­day morning.

2. Your entry is NOT trans­fer­able.

You cannot sell or give it away to anyone else. If you are injured or do not intend to run this year’s race for other rea­sons, please let me know by phone or e-mail. There are no refunds.

3. The Knee Knacker 2009 start is off of West­port Rd., Exit 4.

This is the same as the last 3 years, but is a sig­nif­i­cant change from our his­tor­i­cal start. You will miss the race start if you go to Eagleridge Drive.

4. Vol­un­teer requirement.

Remem­ber to send in your vol­un­teer hours using the Vol­un­teer Require­ments Form. We rec­og­nize that many of you already vol­un­teer in many ways – thank you for this.

5. Have fun. Remem­ber to enjoy the moun­tains, trees, trails & fellow run­ners along the way!

Vol­un­teers – Please treat them well!

Once again, we will have over 250 vol­un­teers work­ing together to help you meet your indi­vid­ual Knee Knacker goals. Your thanks and co-operation ensures that many of these vol­un­teers come back year after year. Vol­un­teers are the back­bone of the Knee Knacker – with­out them we would not be able to put on the run. In keep­ing with their impor­tance we invite all vol­un­teers to the Awards Ban­quet free of charge. Please take the time to rec­og­nize their work both during the run and at the Awards Banquet.

Race Pro­ceeds

We are a vol­un­teer run orga­ni­za­tion and all pro­ceeds go to North Shore Search and Rescue. This helps buy and main­tain equip­ment that NSSR needs to save way­ward trail run­ners, hikers and the like. North Shore Search and Rescue leads all race day emer­gency response & we are immensely grate­ful for their support.

Aid Sta­tions, Cut-offs & Checkpoints

We have 11 aid sta­tions on the course this year. We highly rec­om­mend that you carry at least one water bottle and food between aid sta­tions – we’re cur­rently expect­ing warm, sunny race day weather! As in past years, there are three manda­tory check­points — Cypress Bowl, Cleve­land Dam and Sey­mour Demon­stra­tion Forest. It is YOUR respon­si­bil­ity to ensure that you’ve been noted at these check­points. Spe­cific info is on the web on aid sta­tion sup­plies and cut-off times. Please famil­iar­ize your­self with these to ensure you have what you need along the way.

Drop Bags, Trans­porta­tion and Parking

Drop bags will be trans­ported from the start to the halfway point, Cleve­land Dam aid sta­tion, for your use. These bags will then be trans­ported to the finish line for pick-up. We highly rec­om­mend that you park your vehi­cle at the finish line (Panorama Park in Deep Cove), as there is very lim­ited park­ing at the start. Free pre-race bus trans­porta­tion is avail­able from the finish in Deep Cove to the start off of West­port Road. These 3 buses will leave from Deep Cove at 10 minute inter­vals start­ing at 4:35am. The last bus will leave at 4:55am sharp!

Spe­cific Race Rules

Please review the fol­low­ing impor­tant race rules. The race com­mit­tee has two sanc­tions for infrac­tions of rules:

• Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion – means the runner will not appear as an offi­cial fin­isher in the race results.
• Future entry denied — means that an appli­ca­tion for a future Knee Knacker Race will be returned.

Infrac­tions result­ing in dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tions are:

- Short­cut­ting of the course;
– Miss­ing a check­point;
– Get­ting in a moving vehi­cle;
– Fail­ing to remain at a check­point for med­ical eval­u­a­tion on request of check­point per­son­nel;
– Run­ning with a dog, pole, or any other aids;
– Fail­ing to with­draw on request of race offi­cials; and
– Imped­ing another runner.

Infrac­tions result­ing in denial of future entry are:

- Run­ning as a bandit or pacing and/or crew­ing for a bandit runner;
– Having crews drive cars to areas des­ig­nated as off limits;
– Lit­ter­ing;
– Fail­ing to with­draw from the race for missed cutoff times;
– Fail­ing to respect pri­vate prop­erty; and
– Mis­treat­ing aid sta­tion per­son­nel, other vol­un­teers or other runners.

The race com­mit­tee reserves the right to impose sanc­tions for behav­iour not specif­i­cally mentioned.

Reg­is­tra­tion, Pack­age Pick-up and Race Briefing

Thurs­day, July 9 — 5:30pm – 8:00pm & Friday, July 10 — 5:30pm – 7:00pm

NOTE: Race Brief­ing is Friday, July 10 from 7:00pm – 7:45pm
North Shore Ath­let­ics — #101 — 1200 Lons­dale Ave., North Van­cou­ver, 604–990-6888

Reg­is­tra­tion & race packet pick-up is on Thurs­day and Friday night at North Shore Ath­let­ics. This is manda­tory for all run­ners. There is absolutely NO day-of-race reg­is­tra­tion. If you haven’t reg­is­tered by Friday night, you will not be in the race.

First-time run­ners of the Knee Knacker are also required to attend the course brief­ing on Friday @ 7:00pm. Please bring along pic­ture iden­ti­fi­ca­tion as we will be attach­ing a med­ical wrist­band to your wrist once we have cor­rectly iden­ti­fied you as the reg­is­tered runner. If some­one else is pick­ing up your race pack­age, please advise us on who this person is before Pack­age Pickup and remem­ber to bring your pic­ture id to the start.

Day of Race Check-In

Sat­ur­day, July 11, 2009 – 5:15am – 5:40am
There is a manda­tory check-in for all run­ners at the start area from 5:15 am to 5:40 am. Please do not con­fuse this with the manda­tory reg­is­tra­tion on Thurs­day & Friday nights. There will be no race pack­ets or race num­bers given out on race day. These must be picked up on Thurs­day or Friday evening. If some­one else picked up your race pack­age, you MUST pro­duce pic­ture iden­ti­fi­ca­tion prior to the race Sat­ur­day morning.

Awards and Banquet!

Sat­ur­day, July 11, 2009 — 5:30 to 10:00pm
Every­one is wel­come! We will cel­e­brate the 21^st Knee Knacker this year with cater­ing from Tommy’s Cater­ing and our tra­di­tional awards for all fin­ish­ers. We will start dinner ser­vice right away to keep the evening moving & hungry racers, friends, family & vol­un­teers fed!

The ban­quet will be held at the Park­gate Com­mu­nity Centre, 3625 Banff Court, North Van­cou­ver. Park­gate is just a few kilo­me­ters from the finish & show­ers are avail­able for a nom­i­nal cost of $2.00 payable at the Com­mu­nity Centre. This makes it even easier to ease those aching mus­cles before dinner! If you haven’t already RSVP’d please be in touch ASAP through the feed­back form.

For a full sched­ule, please see Race Week­end Sched­ule.

We are here to help you reach your indi­vid­ual goal on race day. Please don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact me or any of the com­mit­tee mem­bers if you have any com­ments or questions.

I wish you the all the best in your 2009 Knee Knacker challenge!

Kelsy Trigg
KKNSTR 2009 Race Director.