Vedder-Cultus DIY Ultramarathon
- Greg Luesink
- Apr 16, 2022
- 8 min read
TLDR: Nate and I trained all winter for an Ultramarathon. Nate planned the route, and we joined forces with Nathanael and Cade to conquer it! Danika, Theo, Nathania, Zack, and my parents all helped make it happen! What a memorable day.
Written Nov. 2024
How I met Nate the Great
First we need to set the stage with a little backstory. I met Nate through his sister Charis, whom I was in the Kinesiology program with at UFV.
Charis asked me one day, "Greg, you like to bike right?"
"Yeah!"
"Well, my brother Nate is really into cycling, you guys would get along!"
So, I messaged him over Facebook to see if he wanted to go on a ride together. Despite being 3 years younger than me and still in highschool, I found that Nate was very mature for his age and we had a lot in common. It's funny how age difference matters a whole lot less after high school! Thus we embarked on what has become friendship for the ages filled with many adventures. But I am getting ahead of myself.
After we started cycling together in 2020, Nate and I started running together in 2021, including a couple half marathons and a 30k. I would go on to run my first 50k with my friend Dustin in August that year, while Nate was away at YWAM. Long story short, Nate got sick with giardia during outreach in Colombia, and had to come home early. While he was recovering, we would go on walks at the river. He regaled me with his tales of the "Beau Miles Marathon" he did in Montana before getting sick - running 1 mile every hour for 24 hours. This launched us into discussion of future goals: running a mountainous 50k. So we got to work, planning our route, and preparing a training program for ourselves over the winter.
Training
Despite my ongoing schooling in Kinesiology at the time, I quickly found that it is one thing to plan weeks with "perfect" mileage and progression... and another thing to do it! Amidst school and work, we tried our best to be consistent. Nate and I spent the winter tromping around in the snow, up Gloria Lookout, Vedder Mountain, Tamihi FSR, Elk Mountain, and more. We may not have had the most rigorous training regime, but we had a lot of fun, exploring many new areas on foot.
One particularly fun adventure was running from Tamihi Rapids all the way up the Tamihi FSR to a view of the Border Peaks. What was initially going to be a 10k on the TCT snowballed (almost literally) into a 30k winter run on New Years Eve! It was bitterly cold, our water in our soft flasks froze, and so did my mustache! On our trot down, a truck stopped us and the driver was so impressed with the icicles on my 'stache that he wanted to take a photo, to which I obliged. Only after my picture was taken did I realize that my water flasks were shoved down my shorts to try and thaw them! With that, Nate and chuckled our way back to the van, hoping that they didn't notice...
Disaster Strikes
Alas, just when things were going well, I injured my left hamstring at the climbing gym doing a heel-hook manoeuvre. Pulling myself into the wall with my heel, I felt a "TWANG". Thankfully, it was not a full rupture, but I spent the next few months rehabbing a strained hamstring, making it very hard to run with any kind of serious mileage. Ultimately, it was up in the air if I would even be running the 50k. If I wasn't better in time I would crew Nate; but, the injury was in January, so I still had hope to fully recover before spring.
Eventually, my hamstring was feeling good enough to run, so I decided to ramp up the mileage slowly. Nate wanted to do the 50k just after his birthday, so we picked a Saturday in April. A few weeks before, we did our last long run around Cultus Lake. My friend Dustin joined us for our long run, but sadly he wasn't able to make it to the 50k due to a family vacation. We were feeling pretty good, except for my hamstring still being a little bothersome.
Planning and Preparation
The last details to sort out were having "aid stations" and pacers. Since we were planning a "Do It Yourself" ultramarathon, we asked my parents and some friends to act as aid stations to restock on food, change shoes etc. Starting in Yarrow, we planned to circumvent Vedder Mountain, connecting with the Around the Lake 30k route. Danika and Theo graciously agreed to drive all the way to Watt Creek and wait for us to get there. Then, my friend Nathania (a lot of Nathan-esque names in this blog post!) was planning on pacing us for a 10k section to Edmeston road. There, my parents would have the final aid station for us to refill water and snacks, and Zack would pick us up to pace the rest of the way back to Yarrow!
The Squad:
I can't remember exactly how or when we invited Nathanael and Cade to join our adventure, but it was a relief to have the experience of Nathanael joining our team. Nate and I first met Nathanael in 2021 when we ran around Cultus together, and we all got along really well. Nathanael had been running longer than we had, and had a few "Ultras" under his belt. He knew how to pace for the distance and could give us a mental boost to get out of the inevitable low moments. Meanwhile, my friend Cade from the climbing gym had expressed interest in joining us. This would be his longest run as well as ours, but unlike us, he was keen on using his barefoot shoes. We were all a little skeptical, but Cade was determined. With Cade living in Abbotsford and mostly running on Sumas, and Nathanael living and running in Hope, Nate and I didn't manage to get any training runs with them before the big day. Nevertheless, the team was assembled, our training was adequate at best, and the plans were in place for the main event!
In a last ditch attempt to shake my lingering hamstring niggle, I booked myself for a massage. I was hoping for some sort of miracle to happen, but alas, it felt just about the same, and I was $100 out. Oh well, live and learn. Onto the fun part!
The Big Day - Time to Execute
Bright and early, Nate picked me up to meet Nathanael and Cade at Duck Farm Loop in Yarrow. We snapped a quick photo, and got the day underway!
We wound our way up the trails to reach the FSR that encircles Vedder Mountain. From there, we chugged our way along at a reasonable pace.
After a while, my hamstring started to get a bit aggravated. And, of course, my toe arthritis continued to provide an ever-present ache in my right MPT joint. At this point, I was quite used to the toe pain, but the hamstring was a little worrisome. I didn't want to forfeit a summer of hiking by a setback in my hamstring recovery! By then, we were about 20k into the route still on Vedder Mountain, and I didn't see much point in dropping, so I kept on going. The first half of the day was rather uneventful. We chatted about life, ate snacks, drank tailwind, and enjoyed the cool, overcast weather.
Aid Station 1
Danika and Theo were waiting (for quite a while... eta estimates were a taaad off) at Watt Creek. We took a much needed rest, refilled water, and I changed out my shoes (sorry, Danika and Theo... as I write this I realize that I made you take my stinky shoes in your car!)
Nathania joined us for the next 10k as we made our way up the Watt Creek climb, through the lush green trails behind Teapot Hill, and all the way down to Edmeston road. I remember getting a bit carried away on the downhill to meet my parents - I just let the legs keep spinning as fast as I could! My quads voiced their complaints about this decision later in the day...
Aid Station 2
Parked at the yellow gate, my parents graciously waited for us to arrive. I don't think my ETA updates were very accurate... My dad brought his camera along and snapped some fun photos of us as we made our way down the hill to the van filled with goodies. The 10km from Watt to Edmeston was a really fun section, and is always so green with moss and trees. Truly a trail running sanctuary.
We were all dreading next section: the flat roads to get back to Vedder Mountain. Accordingly, we refilled our water, grabbed some snacks, changed socks and shirts, switched out my shoes, and mentally prepared for the next segment. Zack began pacing us to keep us motivated, chatting, and the legs moving.
From what I remember, Zack later expressed his surprise that we were, in fact, barely running at this point... more like a lethargic shuffle. Whilst he was prepared to give it his all, he found that it was more of a hike for the remaining 20k to get back to Yarrow! The legs were feeling it, especially my hamstring, but we kept on moving on.
Soon, the insufferable flats were done with, and we began our ascent of Vedder Mountain's shoulder. Nate really found a second wind, so he and Zack pressed on ahead, while Nathanael, Cade, and I commiserated at the caboose. At this point, the headphones came out to blast some motivating tunes in our ears. We would break into intermittent bursts of conversation, get tired of huffing and puffing up a hill, and mentally creep back into a little deeper into the "paincave."
We took the network of Forest Service Roads higher up the mountain, until, much to our surprise, snow started to fall on us! As we plodded along through the dusting of snow, we realized that we hadn't seen Nate and Zack in a while... assuming that they were well ahead, we pressed on. Finally, we had only a few kilometres left. We all felt a rush of excitement to be done with the suffering, and picked up the pace with a little help from endorphins.
Staggering our way back to the Duck Farm Loop parking lot, we saw Nate and Zack chilling out at the cars. It turns out they had split off down a fork in the FSR, and had been pushing the pace a bit because they thought that we were ahead. Meanwhile, we had been slogging away to catch up to them because they were ahead! We all shared a chuckle at this as we celebrated our collective achievement.
Epilogue
The final stats from our GPS watches ranged from 55 to 60km of distance, and 2,100 to 2,300m of elevation gain and loss. Either way, it was a huge day for us! In total, it took us about 9.5 hrs to complete this adventure, including both aid station pit stops.
In the end, my hamstring was pretty mad at me, but it didn't cause any long-term issues. Cade's footwear choice resulted in some achy knees, but those barefoot shoes got the job done. Nathanael added yet another casual ultramarathon to his repertoire, and Nate smashed his Ultra goal after recovering from illness just a six months prior.
What a team, what a day!
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