16 Jan 2023: Bremner's Winter Vancouver Vertical KM Series Update + Summer Series also open for registration
By James StewartHello VK Folks,
We are now at the halfway mark of the Winter Vertical KM Series: http://www.verticalkm.ca
What a crazy two months of weird winter weather we have endured! Congratulations to everyone who has got out there so far and endured the conditions.
We're hoping that late January provides a more settled winter experience that is more in line with previous years - a deep firm snowpack. We'll see!
Up high our high alpine VK courses have changing conditions day by day.
The best way to know the conditions and temperatures is to look at the websites for the three ski resorts: Grouse, Seymour and Cypress as they have up to date snow and temperature conditions.
Just a reminder, you need a BC Parks day-pass to park up at Mt Seymour resort during the day time if you don't have a ski pass. After 4pm you don't need a pass.
After hours is good time to enjoy Hollyburn (Cypress) or Pump Peak (Seymour) Winter trails under headlight and avoid the parking difficulties and people on the trail. Plus the track usually firms up too. It's my favourite way to do these climbs in winter!
If you haven't signed up for the winter VK series - there's still two months to go - and it's free to join! Join here: https://bit.ly/3Ujxd9A
BREMNER FOODS
Thank you again to our Sponsor Bremner Foods!
A perfect way to recover from a VK is with a refreshing high quality premium juice. Their juices are distributed in over 400 grocery, drug and health food stores such as; Save-On-Foods, Urban Fare, Price Smart Foods, Whole Foods, London Drugs, Thrifty Foods, Choices, Quality Foods, Stongs, select IGA’s and Real Canadian Superstore plus many more! Terry Bremner sponsors many local running events including Knee Knacker and Coast Mountain Trail Running events and our very own VK Series. Without his support we never would have been able to get off the ground with this series. Please support his fantastic local business as thanks!
SIGN UP OPEN FOR SUMMER SERIES
We're back again for this summer with the 20-course VK Series running for its third year beginning on Saturday June 3rd and running until Sunday October 8th.
The sign up is free with optional entry-free donation via this link: http://bit.ly/3XBS7lG
6-12 MONTH VK TRAINING PLANS
January is the time to start working on your uphill fitness for the summer with a proper Endurance and intensity build.
Couch to the Summit Performance Coaching offers 6 and 12-month Vertical KM (VK) Training Plans (customised to you based off of a 45 question questionnaire) that will turn you into an uphill beast! You also receive a 70-page training manual that teaches you how to train properly and effectively.
You may not be interested in VK racing, but you can still use the training plan to become an improved climber which will improve your performance across all trail running formats. The training plan is built with formulas allowing you to also increase or decrease the difficulty of the training plan (so you can also use it in future years as you improve).
In 2015, coach James Stewart finished 21st/2000 in the grueling Mont Blanc Marathon in Chamonix France, off of VK training alone (no specific long run training). Once you're a strong climber, your performance across all formats really sky-rockets. Many of the top marathon and ultrarunners in trail running also have very impressive VK resumes.
I believe VK training is the best place to start for beginner athletes and its how I started as a trail running athlete - but its a very unconventional way for non-European athletes to train (or think about training). It's hard but it makes you a lot stronger quicker.
More information here: http://www.couchtothesummit.com/vk-training-plan
Purchase here: http://bit.ly/3iGaDKT
If you're interested in full-time coaching, I've recently updated the website and you can learn more about Couch to the Summit Performance Coaching here: http://www.couchtothesummit.com/coaching
WINTER SERIES LEADERBOARD REVIEW
Thank you especially to our 5 competitors who have completed ten or more VK efforts so far this winter:
Brian CLEMENTS 15
Rene GAUTHIER 12
Peter NORRIS 11
Herman ALAGAO 10
Joshua SAFFOLD 10
Ladies where are you?
A big congratulations to Herman Alagao and Joseph Cossey who completed an insane 6 Full VK's in a day during the day and overnight on New Years eve. They actually climbed 7000m on their watches but didn't complete a full course on their final effort - to be honest, I don't blame them. Mad respect to those guys!
Also kudos to Brian Clements who completed 5 Full VK's in a day on the same day. This is the first time in any of the summer or winter series we've had someone go over 5 VK's in a day, and its an impressive effort given you guys have to endure the downhills too (no trams were taken here folks!).
Speaking of Brian Clements - our two-time summer power ranking champion - thanks to his 5 VK in a day effort he has once again climbed to the top of the Power Ranking Leaderboard. Again he assures us he is "still not competing." We need some of you athletes to keep pushing our champ by taking away his lead and getting him motivated :)
Our top 5:
17550 Brian CLEMENTS
15750 Joshua SAFFOLD
13350 Meredith WILSON
13300 Jan DIERCKX
10750 Herman ALAGAO
Brian also leads the Men's side of things in the Winter Uphill Challenge, the Winter Up-Down Challenge and the Winter Downhill Challenge.
Thanks to our early leader Jan Dierckx who blew out of the box early in the series with some impressive efforts to hold the lead for a long time and got things started for the series strongly.
Joshua Saffold has laid down some very impressive efforts in the series (particularly on the downhills) and poses a strong threat both in the power rankings and fastest times competition should he complete all five courses.
Meredith Wilson has also surged up the leaderboard thanks to some super fast times and holds the fastest time records for the women in four of the five VK courses. She holds the lead in the Women's Winter Uphill Challenge, the Winter Up-Down Challenge and the Winter Downhill Challenge and has one course left to knock off.
We have a bunch of fast people in the series in both the Men's and Women's competitions with some really fast times posted already - so the Course Record side of things is proving to be very competitive. It seems a few of the fastees are lurking around - potentially waiting for the right conditions.
Don't lose interest all - keep fighting till the end and we hope to see everyone finish each of the five courses at least once so you qualify for a finish in the Uphill, Up-Down and Downhill challenge rankings!
SUBMISSION AMNESTY
We have a policy not to accept submissions more than three days old. This is to help protect other competitors from being jumped at the end of the competition by surprise (i.e. someone posting all their efforts on the final day type of deal).
However, we've seen with this series some competitors didn't know the rule until they went to submit their effort. When they let me know I did do the submission for them.
So, I'm allowing anyone to submit any previous efforts with a mid-series amnesty. If you have an effort you didn't post yet, please do so now.
Simply submit your effort with the current date and let me know in the comments to admin when submitting the effort its from a different date and I'll fix it up for you on my end when verifying.
IF YOU NEED HELP GETTING STARTED
Just under half the people who signed up to the Winter series haven't yet submitted a VK effort
Ultimately, we do understand there are some drawbacks and difficulties with an online series where you compete on your own time :-
If you can't figure out the submission process - please email me at support@verticalkm.ca and I can walk you through it. If you don't want to use Strava - no problem. I can walk you through how to submit a GPS file of your effort. If you use Strava but don't know how to submit your activity, I can talk you through how to copy the strava link. If no matter what you do, technology is not your forte, you can always just let me know when you've done a VK effort and I can submit it for you.
If you're worried about getting lost or following the course directions - just let us know and we'll send someone super cool and encouraging out with you on your attempt to guide you through it and teach you the course. It's totally free and you'll make fantastic new trail friends.
If you signed up and didn't know what you were really getting yourself into - please get in touch, I'd love to help you to learn more about VK's and how to get more active and explore the great trails our city has to offer.
If you're participating in private and not submitting your times - either from self confidence issues or other reasons - please get in touch, I'd love to have a chat.
If you're injured, get better soon! :)
If you signed up thinking they were in person races - we hear you - and we're working on it for future series. Unfortunately, we just don't have enough interest yet in the series to make it financially viable to go through the permitting process. We hope to run a casual free "fat-ass" style VK race in the Summer where we all get together at a chosen time and race a course together - but we really need to hear your level of interest in that. If you think its something you'd like to participate in this summer, please send an email to support@verticalkm.ca to register your interest.