It is – 28 degrees C right now. Slowly warming up. Looks like it will be another incredibly sunny day. That should give all remaining athletes lots of energy.

Everyone is fine. Johnny is on his way to McCabe. Torben is in Carmacks. Brian is on his way to Carmacks. Robert, James, Stefan, Eliot and John are at Ken Lake. Tim is approaching Ken Lake and Bernard will check on him shortly.

Gabriela and Pietro, Ali and Linda left from Braeburn early. That’s great because if they keep moving well they should make the 4 days and 12 hours cut-off in Carmacks.

Jim Moonie and Roger Norris were the last 100 mile athletes to reach Braeburn. They were in very good shape and said they really enjoyed the experience. Diane gave them a ride back to Whitehorse.

300 milers Ali, Linda, Gabriela and Pietro also arrived in Braeburn. They are now resting and hopefully leave again soon. Not that we don’t want them here but they have the 4 days and 12 hours deadline in Carmacks coming up.

Johnny is racing towards Carmacks as I write this. And Torben is not too far behind him. Why are these Danish always in such a hurry?!

Brian Bell from Ireland is currently our number 3. Then followed by a group that is fairly close together.

The trail is very icy and the lakes are wind blown. It’s a good thing they all have spikes.

Temperatures may go down to -36 next week. That will be a challenge. Luckily by then they all will get used to it a bit.

Johnny Wulff Andersen from Denmark arrived at Ken Lake at 12:25 and left exactly one hour later. He surprised the crew there as his SPOT is not working. They tried a reset but it still is not sending. We will give him a replacement unit in Carmacks. He does have shin splints but otherwise he is fine.

Davide Ugolini decided not to continue his 300 mile race. It was not easy for him to decide that because he trained hard for the YAU and otherwise he was perfectly fine. But it probably was the right decision because to do another 200 miles with a sports injury will not make things better. We all hope he recovers well and comes back next year.

We have also seen more 100 mile finishers. Congratulations to you all. For the times please see the results table.

I also want to congratulate our female 100 mile finisers. Maren Kraft from Germany (arrival 31st/21:39) places 1st. Mandy Miller (USA) and Mary Betts (Canada) place 2nd (arrival 31st/23:30). Mei Zhou from China arrives this morning at 07:24 and thus ranks 4th. Well done you all!

In 12 years of organising this race we have never had zero scratches at Dog Grave Lake. So, the trail is in pretty good shape and so are the athletes. I am really happy!

Yesterday was a busy day. I did write an update but when I then pushed the delete  rather than the safe button I decided it was best if I sleep a bit … I am back in action now and will try to catch up as best as I can.

First of all an update on photos. I am having problems with the upload onto our website. Facebook worked. So, there are plenty of pictures in our group there. At same point later today I will give it another go in the gallery here.

Local runner Karl McEwan wins the 100 mile foot category

Karl looked strong when I saw him at Takhini Hot Springs and he did not slow down very much. He arrived in Braeburn yesterday at 09:58 and I am told he sprinted the last few miles.

Rank 2 goes to Michael Stashin, also from Canada, who arrived at 11:55. Michael secret weappons were an amazingly positive attitude to everything and everyone. AND some serious tobogganing down the many hills. He did break his sled doing it but made it to the finish line no problem.

Simon Donato came in before Michael at 10:04. Which means he placed 3rd overall and 1st in the xc-ski category. This makes him also the first xc-skier ever to reach the 100 mile finish on the first attempt.

Peter Mild from Sweden arrived at 18:30 ranking 3rd in the foot category. Congratulations!

On to the MTB category. Tim Sommers from the US got in at 14:44 and placed second. Andrew Gregory from England checked-in at 16:10 being the 3rd athlete on bike.

They all got their transfers back to Whitehorse yesterday.

We had more athletes arriving and the results table is pretty up to date. Whoever is not at the 100 mile finish yet, will make it in time for the cut-off.

Torben Jensen from Denmark is currently the leading 300 miler. Our crew at Ken Lake is waiting for him and happy to get something to do. Then there is a gap to Johnny Wulff Andersen and Brian Bell. As I left Braeburn Logde a little while ago others were getting ready to leave. Some are still resting. Davide Ugoli from Italy who had been first is still debating whether to go on or not. He had an inury about 3 months ago and it is hurting again. Tim Wilks also was in pain but he said “I do not give up easily” and will give it a go.

The sun is out and it is beautiful here. It will hopefully give all 300 milers the energy they need. Sue at Pelly Farm is waiting with Lasagne guys!!!

Everybody who finished last night or this morning will get a shuttle back to Whitehorse around noon.

Day 1 was busy at the Takhini Hotsprings. The crew did a wonderfull job helping everyone at the checkpoint and it was a great location for us to be in. Very friendly help from the staff of the Hot Springs and great support also from the Café balsam. Thank you for that!

After having mentioned some highlights I want to just give you a general overview before I hopefully get a chance to update the results table.

The trail was fast but there was one stretch that was a bit softer. Not easy of course if you know you need to go over it twice … Markings were very good but coming back three marathoners were not paying attention at crucial turn off and went the wrong way. They realised they were wrong as there were no more markers but it did take them a while to get back on track.

All those who did not scratch were in good spirits. Most SPOTs are working with currently 2 exceptions – Peter Mild and Johnny Wulff Andersen. We will try to get the message through to Dog Grave Lake in the morning and hopefully we can get their tracker to work. Both were doing really good. So, no reason to worry.

More news and hopefully some photos later today.

Paul Trebilock arrived at 3:36 AM on January 31st at the 100 mile finish. So, he is our overall winner for this distance. Due to hard trails and an incredible effort Turbo was faster than we thought. Now I know why he has got that nick name … I am sure this is a record time for 100 mile bikers which will last for quite some time. And I also think it’s probably one of the best if not the best time for a biker ever to do the 100 miles. But I do need to double check before I confirm.

Anyway, Paul is fine and of course very happy to be here. Since our official checkpoint had not opened yet I brought him over to Scuttlebutt lodge to sleep with the crew.

Not all 100 milers carry a SPOT and I will need to look at some in/out times before I can be sure. But next in the field should be local athlete Karl McEwan. He left Dog Grave Lake and can get here in the morning. For an athlete on foot I expect a very good time from him, too.

Some athletes had to scratch

When we were still at the Hot Springs David Bohn (100 miles) came back. His water bladder was leaking badly and he got soken wet. He had clothes to change into. So, that was not the problem. However, he did not feel safe with only a small thermos as back-up. And of course it’s no fun to stop to melt snow every hour. Needless to say that he is dissapointed. Otherwise, he is in great shape and we all hope to see him back.

For Danile Modolo (300 miles) the SPOT is showing a location in Vancouver. That is not where he is but unfortunately he had to scratch and never left the checkpoint after coming back. That is why the SPOT gives this position. Daniele felt sick. Possibly a cold coming on. Of course with so much ground still to cover it is understandable that he decided to call it a day.

Here is a nice video which Robert from Takhini Hot Springs just put online:

This is just a quick message to let you all know that all athletes are fine. We were starting to worry a bit about Martin Parnell. He was late and reports we got indicated he took a wrong turn. Glenn and Spencer headed out to look for him and sure enough, 20 minutes later he reached the finish. Martin did take a wrong turn on his way back. So did two more marathon runners. They were cruising and possibly so confident that they stopped looking for the markers for a while. All of them realised at some point, turned around and finished. Possibly they also just wanted to run an ultra rather than a marathon 🙂

I will have more news later.

After winning the 100 miles in 2013 Stefano Gregoretti from Italy came back in 2014 to win the marathon. He finished at Takhini Hotsprings after 3 h 35 min. Considering the fact that the trail was softer than expected this is pretty incredible. People who saw him on the trail said he was “flying”. Marek Peterka and Vit Syrovy from Czech Republic came second 25 minutes later. Paul (Turbo) Trebiloc was the first athlete to reach CP1. He is on MTB and came in after 3 h and 32 min. I will update the detailed results table later today.

SPOTS are here!

The SPOTs have arrived in time for us to hand them out at Takhini Hot Springs. Once again, thanks to Matthew Lee from Trackleaders.com to make this happen.

If you want to follow participants who have a SPOT please click on the Trackleaders.com logo on the top right of our website.

Thanks to an incredible effort by Matthew from Trackleaders.com and the services of Air North Cargo all rental SPOT units will arrive in Whitehorse in about 1 hour. This means that we should be able to give out most of the SPOTs at the Hot Springs. The rest we will try to get to athletes on the trail asap. That way everybody can follow their progress. There are some SPOTs active now. These are the one that belong to the respective people. In case you are wondering whey the don’t follow the red line which is the trail we normally use, that is because of the change we had to make on short notice in this section.