The Challenge Cup

We invite all personnel of recreational centers and fitness centers, firefighters, police and medics to participate in two new special events: the Challenge Cup for recreational and fitness centers and the Challenge Cup for firefighters, police and medics. Teams participating in the Challenge Cups for recreational centers will receive a substantial reduction in the entry fee. The winning team in each of the Cup categories will be presented with the Challenge Cup to cherish until the next year.

RECREATIONAL AND FITNESS CENTERS TRIATHLON RELAY TEAM CHALLENGE CUP

POLICE, FIREFIGHTERS & MEDICS TRIATHLON RELAY TEAM CHALLENGE CUP

RECREATIONAL AND FITNESS CENTERS TRIATHLON RELAY TEAM CHALLENGE CUP

Over the years, thousands of triathletes and duathletes have trained in Victoria's local recreational and fitness centers, receiving numerous training tips, personal encouragement and creating lasting friendships. As our way of acknowledging the contribution that the recreational and fitness centers' personnel made to triathlon, the Self-Transcendence Triathlon has established the Recreation and Fitness Centres Challenge Cup as a part of the annual race.

Overview and Rules

Team category, comprised of 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike ride and 10 km run.
Each facility may enter up to 2 teams.
Each team shall have 3 competitors, any combination of male or female.
It is preferable that teams consist of personnel working at the recreational or fitness center. However colleagues working for the municipality (e.g. city hall, parks, public works, etc.) may also be included on the team, if necessary.
The overall winning team will be presented with the Challenge Cup. This is a perpetual trophy that the team will return to the triathlon organizers in June 2009.
Teams interested in this category should first contact Ian Phillips (ijphillips@shaw.ca, phone 250-474-1491).
As special guests of our team the entry fee for each team is a flat fee of $50.00. This fee is to cover basic costs such as the insurance and cost of medals for this category.
The teams must be entered no later than July 15, 2008. Each team must submit their entry forms together by mail. Due to the reduced entry fee of $50.00 online registration will not be possible for this category. Note that each team member must ensure that the waiver is signed before submitting the entry.
Medals will also be presented to each member of the top three teams.
Previous Challenge Cup winners: 2006 - Juan De Fuca Recreational Center, 2007 - Crystal Pool.
At this point, the Challenge Cup is open only to recreational and fitness centers in the Greater Victoria and Sooke. Depending on the future demand generated by this category we may consider expanding eligibility to all recreational and fitness centers on the Island and the Mainland. Feel free to contact us with your thoughts.
All participants in this category will receive a personal framed certificate and ribbon of participation.
All other race rules and requirements shall be followed. See our race information page. All Triathlon BC Regulations race rules and safety requirements shall be followed by the competitors and will be strictly enforced.

POLICE, FIREFIGHTERS & MEDICS TRIATHLON RELAY TEAM CHALLENGE CUP

We see our triathlon as an event that is supported and is supporting the community. As firefighters, police and medics have an important role in the well being of our communities, last year our triathlon established a new Challenge Cup to honor their service.

Overview and Rules

Team category, comprised of 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike ride and 10 km run.
Each municipal/provincial/federal precinct may enter multiple teams.
Each team shall have 3 competitors, any combination of male/female.
Each team must be employed as a firefighter, police officer, medic, or work as support staff to these professions (i.e. Secretary, driver, clerk, etc.).
The overall winning team will be presented with the Challenge Cup. This is a perpetual trophy that the team will return to the triathlon organizers in June 2009.
Each team must submit their entry forms together either by mail (download the form here) or register online (preferred). Note that each team member must ensure that the waiver is signed before submitting the entry.
Medals will also be presented to each member of the top three teams.
Previous Challenge Cup winners: 2007 - Victoria Police Station (Martine Renaud, Jason Eagles and Tony Parks).
All other race rules and requirements shall be followed. See our race information page. All Triathlon BC Regulations race rules and safety requirements shall be followed by the competitors and will be strictly enforced.

If you have any questions please contact Ian Phillips (ijphillips@shaw.ca).

Photos by Mark Creery and Blazej Neradilek

Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team articles - more articles

If you were to watch the Sri Chinmoy Marathon at New York’s Rockland State Park towards the end of August, you would hear people at the first aid station at trackside yelling out “Seaweed! Seaweed!” and handing out medicine cups of dulse to runners who were going by.

“What the heck is that about?” you might think.

Through years of experience, trial and observation, the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team has discovered that seaweed is one of the most effective mineral replacements that runners can consume. This is preventive medicine. If we can convince runners to chew and swallow seaweed along with drinking lots of water, then we have far fewer problems with electrolyte depletion in the medical tent.

The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team (SCMT) began putting on ultramarathons on 27 August 1978, with a 47-mile race to celebrate Sri Chinmoy’s 47th birthday. Ultramarathons were rare in those days, and only a handful of runners dared to attempt this race.

However, the 47-mile run became a regular annual event as part of the Sri Chinmoy Centre’s summer spiritual retreat, and about 100 of Sri Chinmoy’s students have run this race every year since then.

Because of my background as a registered nurse, I had been asked to help organize the medical tent for this event. Other nurses, doctors, homeopaths, physiotherapists and massage experts were also part of our medical team. My role was to make sure we had adequate supplies and volunteers and to set up the medical tents. I would then work as part of the team, treating runners in need and referring serious cases to the doctors.

In the early days, runners would collapse at the roadside. We would pick them up, treat for shock (lie them down with legs elevated, etc.) and try to get them to drink the diluted electrolyte drink. They were usually severely nauseated and sometimes they were vomiting, so drinking was a problem. The most serious cases went to hospital and ended up on intravenous therapy.

We tried plain salt tablets (sodium chloride), and some runners would change from chalk-white to normal, but others vomited a few hundred feet down the track.

Then the idea came to me to try natural, organic minerals in the form of seaweed. We used North Atlantic dulse harvested off the coast of Maine. I tried it myself, running the 47-mile on water, watermelon, mashed potato and dulse. It worked! I had no problems.

The neat thing was that, from previous years, we knew the particular runners who were likely to collapse. We started really encouraging them to take dulse, and those who agreed to do this seemed to fare much better.

The case that really convinced me was a well-trained ultramarathon runner from New Zealand. She ran the 47-mile and collapsed with seizures and vomiting. She had to be on intravenous therapy for two days before she finally stabilized.

I felt that she should not be permitted to run any of our long races again; it was too risky. However, the doctor in charge of medical at the SCMT marathon the following August gave her permission to run. I was very frightened! Would she end up on intravenous fluids again?

I decided to try dulse. I gave her a plastic baggie containing about a cup of dulse and told her very forcefully, “Start chewing this dulse right from the very start of the race! Drink lots and don’t stop eating the dulse until you finish!”

The runner did as she was told. She came to medical after her marathon with a huge smile on her face to tell me that she was perfectly fine – just a bit hot (very natural when running in the heat of a summer day).

We put her in a large tub of cool water (another awesome and easy method of quickly cooling an overheated runner), and within minutes, her temperature was normal. Furthermore, she had no problems in the days following the race.

From this experience, I knew that dulse and natural sea salt were extremely effective in preventing electrolyte disorders (mainly hyponatremia) in the hot August marathon and the 47-mile race. The next challenge was to get the runners to take it.

The following year, we did a big educational campaign, handing out medical instructions with explanations about the need for sea salt or seaweed to all our runners. I ordered a huge volume of dulse from Maine Seacoast Vegetables, Inc. and organized a team of volunteers to give out the seaweed in medicine cups at trackside.

The result was fabulous! Most runners looked a whole lot better after finishing, and we had much fewer problems in the medical tent. This is the glory of preventive medicine.

At first we offered only seaweed, but there are some people who find it unpleasant. (I must add that most runners who are starting to get salt depletion find it absolutely delicious.) In any case, we added natural sea salt, the best being Celtic sea salt, to our trackside offerings.

Just last fall at the SCMT 24-hour race in Ottawa, I tried mixing Celtic sea salt in water until it tasted only slightly salty. I gave it to runners who were showing early signs of salt depletion (becoming pale and fatigued). This race is done on a loop course, and we kept an eye on the runners to try to catch them before nausea and vomiting set in.

Except for one woman, they began to feel better and continued running and taking our natural, organic electrolyte drink. I’m thinking now of creating an electrolyte drink by mixing sea salt and honey in water for our Sri Chinmoy 6-hour race in Kingston this spring.

At the end of the day what would I recommend? For any races longer than a half-marathon, at any time of year but especially during the summer months, I would advise some form of organic salt replacement along with plenty of water. The easiest is to chew seaweed in small mouthfuls or take mashed potato mixed with dulse flakes. Another option is to take small amounts of Celtic sea salt right from your hand or shake it on watermelon, itself a great and easily assimilated source of many trace minerals. Coconut water is another increasingly acknowledged way to offset dehydration. I have heard that Himalayan rock salt is also excellent, but I have not tried it myself.

An ideal option would be to mix up your sea salt and water in one-litre bottles. Add the salt until it tastes just slightly salty. If the course is a loop, drink that every few laps right from the beginning of the race. In a point-to-point race, perhaps personally labeled bottles could be stashed at aid stations along the course. Race directors could let runners know in advance that seaweed and salt would be available for participants during their races.

Whatever regime a runner chooses should be tried out during training or cautiously at the least sign of dehydration, paying close attention to the body’s signals. We wish all runners the best and healthiest result with this approach.

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About the author:

Nirbhasa is originally from Ireland but currently lives in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is an enthusiastic multi-day runner, having completed four times the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race - the longest race in the world.

Starting in May of 1981, this race has an unbroken streak, except for one year, that now stretches back 35 years. It just may be the longest continually held 24-hour race in the world. For the past few years the race, which now also accommodates a 6 and 12 hour event, has been held in the Louis Riel dome. 49 participants came to take part this year on September 26 and the winner of the race won the Canadian 24 hour championship.

Here are some comments from participants:

“You get to see and run with folks you have seen before. That is the fun part. Running is fun. It gets a little less fun later on. The bear climbs on board and the fun factor is reduced. The people are still here and it is great running with other folks who are going through the same highs and lows. It is not like dog eat dog. If somebody is running well you encourage them, and if somebody is not running well you encourage them. It is great. Everybody is a winner. Anybody who has the guts to run for 6, 12, or 24 hours that is great. They are are demonstrating a fit lifestyle. They are challenging their own limitations."
Bruce

“I have only heard good things about this race. For many ultra runners it is kind of an institution. The people are always enjoyable. But also it is fun to just run and not think about anything for 24 hours. It is kind of like meditation."
Debra

“I have been doing long distance running for the past 33 years. The race organizers here are the top notch people in the world. You never know what is going to happen. It is such a long race, lots of things can happen. So you have to handle the demons. The demons go when you handle them properly. They are mental as well as physical.
Hans

It is incredible. There is a long term satisfaction doing the race and knowing that you can. But the feeling you get, even when you don’t do well. The last hour or so when you are on the track there is a feeling and energy that comes that is just incredible. You can only experience it by doing it. The bad thing from the beginning is that you have to the other 23 hours to feel that last hour."
Sue

“I am doing it this year because I just turned 70. I wanted to do one as a 70 year old. It will probably be my last ultra. My goal is to always stay on the track and keep moving. It doesn’t matter how slow I am. It is just about participation. I think the real race is the human race. I think all the years of running and being active improves my life in general. To get the most out of it you have to move. Be active. Doing something. Get excited about something.”
Paul

“The vision behind this race is incredible. How could Sri Chinmoy, at the time (35 years ago) have envisioned to seed 24 hour races all around the world. There were tons of them. That was one of the starts of the ultra world. People did not know at the time the potential of human beings to do long races like this, and Sri chinmoy saw that. He made it happen. Look at this. It is continuing. Good people. You can see, we are having fun.”
Darika

"This is a beautiful race because there are beautiful people here."
Kimberley

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