Graham Glennie is not the kind of guy who jogs around the block.
Last weekend the ultra-marathoner completed the fifth annual Pine to Palm 100 Mile Endurance Race through the rugged interior of Oregon and California in 23 hours, 12 minutes and 12 seconds for 17th place overall.
“I was looking for a kind of sub 24-hour finish so I was definitely pleased with the outcome for sure,” said Glennie, 38.
There were a little more than 200 starters and Glennie was among the one-quarter of the entries who were tackling their first 100-miler.
“I wanted to do a 100-mile race and it just seemed to fit well with my schedule as far as time lines and training time lines. I was trying to find an event kind of later in the year because our winters aren’t exactly conducive to long-distance training,” said the Bellerose Composite High School alumnus. “I had heard from others that it was a really well-organized event and the race director, Hal Koerner, is kind of a legend amongst the ultra community so that was another thing that drew me towards it.”
Designed and organized by Koerner and the Rogue Valley Runners, the mountainous run delivered heavy heat, big climbs, forest fires and amazing views of the endless evergreens.
It starts and ends in Oregon from Williams to Ashland and traverses the Siskiyou Mountains, a coastal mountain range in the northern Klamath Mountains in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon. It boasts more than 20,000 feet of climb and 20,000 feet of loss with three heart-pounding climbs to 7,000 feet and the breathtaking sights of Mount Shasta and Mount McLaughlin.
Runners had 34 hours to complete the race and only 126 participants were able to go the distance.
The winner was Bob Shebest, 40, of Windsor, California in 18:42:59 and the runner-up was Becky Kirschenmann, 41, of Klamath Falls, Oregon in 19:21:32.
The last runner to finish was timed at 33:02:05.
“When I was done, I was definitely sore and tired and I was ready to lay down, but overall it wasn’t like I had to be carried off from the finish line or anything like that,” said Glennie.
His previous ultra-adventure was last year in Grande Cache as the ninth-place soloist out of 371 finishers in the 125-kilometre Canadian Death Race at 15:06:49.
“There was a little bit more elevation in this race and it just didn’t really seem to be any breaks. It was kind of go, go, go. There wasn’t any sections where you could ease off a little bit and take it easy and try and recover,” Glennie said. “The other thing was it was a very dry, hot smoky day which was very different than my experience up in Grande Cache.”
The co-owner and fulltime physiotherapist at St. Albert Physiotherapy & Sports Injury Clinic started prepping for Pine to Palm in January. His last race before the endurance test was the Iron Legs 50 Miler in Kananaskis Country in mid-August where he placed fifth out of 61 finishers in 11:16:51.
“I did a lot of distance. I do a lot of strength training and a lot of stairs as well just to kind of supplement it.”
Glennie grew up in St. Albert playing hockey but caught the running bug while attending the University of Alberta. He started doing triathlons in his 20s before branching off into the endurance scene.
“I just sort of progressed from there,” he said. “I love being out in the outdoors and I like the adventure of it and the ultra community is just a real friendly and well-knit community. It’s always just a very good experience every race I compete in.”
Glennie also competed at Ironman Canada in 2007, 2009 and 2011 and his second crack at the 3.84-km swim, 180.25-km bike and 42.2-km run nationals was a personal-best 10:08:15 as the 88th overall finisher.
“The hours that you have to put in for the event are probably the same (as Pine to Palm) but I definitely think an ultra is a little harder than an Ironman even though some people might disagree with me on that,” said the 119th overall finisher in the St. Albert 10-Mile Road Race this year at 1:20:50.
