Aspiring doctors fill their own prescriptions
There’s never a doctor around when you need one.
As far as Lindsay Van der Meer is concerned, there always seems to be one too many medical specialists beating her to the finish line in the Prince George Iceman.
Van der Meer had to settle for second-best again Sunday in the 31st annual race. After more than two hours of hard slogging in the five-segment multisport endurance race, the 35-year-old Van der Meer crossed the line just 10 seconds behind Kajsa Heyes, a 25-year-old second-year medical student at UNBC.
“Last year I was second to a med student, there’s a theme,” said a smiling Van der Meer, the solo female runner-up last year to Icewoman champion Cara McCulloch.
“They’re younger and I’m a working mom and I just do the best I can.”
Heyes, a two-time Canada Winter Games cross-country skier (2011 and 2015) who raced the weekend before Iceman in the BC Cup events at Otway Nordic Centre, wasn’t getting much glide in her skis either on Sunday, but that wasn’t too much a concern. She was the first soloist to finish the eight-kilometre ski event and she needed that fast ski time to get a headstart on Van der Meer. The former figure skater caught up to Heyes during the five km run from the oval to the Aquatic Centre. They jumped into the pool at the same time and were close all the way in the 800 m swim. Heyes finished in 1:12:55, 10 seconds ahead of Van der Meer (1:13:05)
“Lindsay was so impressive, she caught me on the run and she
must have been really fast,” said Heyes. “I knew I had to make up almost all my time on the skiing because I’m not a great runner and today was my second time or nordic blades, so it was a bit frightening. She had speed skates and knows how to use the, so she was doing laps around me on the oval.”
The temperature was -16 C at the start of the race and a slight wind out of the north made for chilly, lung-burning conditions. But nice the sun rose the course warmed considerably. Considering the snow bomb that buried the city under 45 centimetres of new snow late last week, Heyes was amazed at how quickly all that snow got packed into a raceable course.
“The ski conditions are pretty slow,” said Heyes, a Vancouver native. “But it is so challenging to groom when you have two feet of fresh snow and Mike (Caledonia Nordic Ski Club trails manager Palagnio) and his crew did an incredible job.
“It was a bit skied out on the second lap so it felt a lot easier and nicer on the second lap because everyone had been around (to flatten the hard ice crystals). The ski
ing was good, the second run, not so good. That 5K is really tough because it was icy. In the swim I was getting a bit of foot cramp, which I’ve never experienced before and it’s not fun.”
Heyes and her boyfriend, Thomsen D’hont, also a medical student and provincial-calibre skier, won the mixed team event at Iceman last year. D’hont successfully defended the mixed title on Sunday, teaming with runner Nick Bartell, skater Margot Schmidt and swimmer Julie Wing. They posted the fastest time of the day, finishing in 1:47:29.
In the race for the male solo title, Chris Pendray of Smithers learned from his mistakes last year when he stopped racing once he touched the wall at the end of his final length in the pool, his legs cramping, not knowing he had to drag himself out of the water to run his timing chip across the the pool deck sensor to stop the clock.
Pendray claimed his first Iceman title in 1:53:55, 11 minutes faster than second-place Francois Dagenais-Cote (2:05:09) and thirdoverall Mike Buchanan (2:05:43). The 52-year-old Buchanan was tops in the grandmasters class.
“It felt physically better than last
year in terms of how I’m feeling at the end,” said the 28-year-old Pendray.
“I was in rough shape last time. I didn’t do much planning last year in terms of trying to eat and drink during it. This time I took a couple of energy gels and that helped out.” The last part of the 5K run was pretty rough, there was just a bit of headwind and I was fatiguing.”
Running is Pendray’s strength and he knew he was in good shape when he no other soloists ahead of him as he started his 10km run from Otway to the Exhibition Park ice oval. He was third after the eight-kilometre ski leg and saw 2017 Iceman champion Cam McNamara end his race just after the ski leg.
“He was behind me in the ski, he wasn’t feeling very well and it was kind if a shame, I thought we’d duke it out again,” said Pendray.
“I tried to get better at swimming because last year I suffered. I worked on my skiing and skating and swimming technique. I knew my running shape was good.”
Van der Meer, a dietitian with the B.C. Cancer Centre, said it helped that she drank and ate during her long run.
My goal this year was just to feel stronger than last year and I’ve been working on running all year and I felt a lot better overall,” said Van der Meer. “The 10K in particular, I felt great. The ski was hard because there was no glide, so you don’t get a break.”
Van der Meer got an energy boost from the cheering spectators who lined the course and the band playing at the corner of 18th Avenue and Ospika Boulevard. Like the other 504 racers, she went to sleep Saturday night not knowing for sure if the race would go ahead, with overnight lows dipping colder than the -20 C race cutoff temperature.
“I’m glad it went ahead, there’s so many people who enjoy participating in it,” she said.
“It’s such a great community event, it would be a shame not to have it go ahead. This race kind of sets people up to be active for life and that’s why it’s so important.”
The race drew 40 soloists, 31 junior teams and 69 adult teams. Other solo category winners were: Masters women – Beth Hillhouse, 2:38:51; Grandmasters women – Carolyn Buehler, 3:00:43; Veteran men – Richard Harrison, 2:21:34; Masters men – Kevin Stirt, 2:21:04.