4th Annual Miracle Mile
Friday August 3rd, 2007, Balaclava Park, Vancouver
Celebrating the Anniversary of the “Bannister-Landy Mile”
Empire Games, Vancouver, August 1954.
The annual Mile “spectacular” was again blessed with splendid weather as the faithful hordes, well maybe 50 of us, gathered at Balaclava Park running track. Once the pre-race warms-ups, time predictions and organizing of graded heats had been done, the first group of intrepid runners set off for the classic four-lap tour of the old cinder track. As in previous years, the star of the first heat was Bob Paul, now into the nether regions of the 75+ category. Showing no respect at all for seniority, young Cody Wilson led off at a brisk pace and confounded most of the pundits by keeping up his initial pace extremely well, only being overtaken on the final bend by Tom Mannion. The two leaders were followed home by Semiahmoo guest Jim Eso, the first of the Webster family, Jeff, and then Paul Fenz and more of the Wilsons - Cody’s younger brother Curtis and father Sean. We’d better watch out for the Wilson and Webster teams. Not far behind were Arthur Wickstead, running off virtually zero warm-up, repeat performer Shelley Webster, new Lions Gater Kate Cannata – welcome aboard Kate! – and Arthur Gee. To round out the first heat we had the gripping scene of the 1-2-3 battle in the 70+ division – led home by Hans Fenz (his 7:48 translating to 5:34 with age-grading), Ed Macdonald and the above-mentioned Bob Paul. Eddie was a hair behind his predicted 10-minute pace and Bob Paul exceeded his 2006 time and shattered his 12-minute doctors’ order with an 11:03 clocking. Bob’s time adjusted to 7:15, a fraction ahead of Ed’s 7:18.
Inspired by the first heat, the second group was led by young Garrett Webster, who set off at a blistering 1:20 first lap and slowed very little en route to an impressive 5:26 time. Not bad for a youngster “who doesn’t run much”. Garrett was closely followed by Matt Murdoch, who ran a superbly-judged pace and held off the challenge of Carlos Gaspar by sustaining his form in the final 150. If the truth were told, Carlos decided to run only at the last moment, despite a recurring foot ailment. Look out if he heals up some time soon. In short order came in Josh Tanner – well under his 6-minute target - guest triathlete Harry Woo and club Prez Rene Mckibbin. Rene was another reluctant starter, having just returned from an exhausting summer of work in the Okanagan, but was delighted to have run much better than expected. Club stalwarts then filled out the remaining places, with Mark Williams holding off Robert Haines, Jeanne Kim and Paul Newton. Kristyn Webster all but caught Paul at the end and advanced a big chunk on her time from 2006, not surprising perhaps, considering her exploits in road races this year. Good to see Linda Wong able to improve on her 2006 time, despite missing a lot of training with dreaded plantar problems.
Finally, it was time for the big guns to step up for the final heat and they did not disappoint the fans. As he did last year, Jamie Epp laid out the challenge from the “gun” and whipped off 72 second laps en route to a sub 4:48 time and a new “championship” record. Mind you, had Jamie relaxed even just a wee bit, he would have been under considerable pressure from a steadily-closing Julian Cooper. These two were both inside the old record and soon followed in by Darryl Whitney, Mark Wickstead and Noah Wallace. Great race for all those guys, all sub-5 minutes on age-grading. Jamie Henman and Greg Welwood were next to cross the line and both exceeded their planned times, as did Jim Swadling. Despite moving up to the 60+ division, Jim shows little sign of slowing down and his time of 5:29 translates into a new meet age-adjusted record of 4 minutes 25 seconds. On a top-notch track, Jim should consider taking aim at Herb Philip’s 60+ B.C. mile record (5:19); way to go, Jim. Perhaps one of the toughest challenges of the evening was for Leo Lam and Rae Gordon to maintain form in light of the sparks flying in front of them in this final heat. Prevail they did, though, both going sub-6 minutes and close to 5-minutes after adjusting for their 50+ status.
All in all, a great effort of running by all those that took part. I’m dearly hoping to get past an ailing Achilles and join the fun again next year. Thanks to my wife Pam, as well as Frank Stebner, Lynn and Al Thompson who provided the timing crew – under the watchful eye of the cheerful gnome from Alaska. Thanks also to all those who provided the food and drinks that kept some of us there until sundown, to Carlos for tables and gear and to the photographers. Linda has already kindly set up the photos for you all to see.
Maybe next year we can consider a scratch 4 x 440yd relay to wind up the evening. It was in my mind for this year but I wasn’t sufficiently organized to get it set up. It might be a neat and fun way to aim even closer to that magical 4-minute barrier. Hope to see you all again in 2008 – try to keep the first Friday in August clear again and bring along a friend and fine food.