Mountain a challenge for Hobbema youth

Page 23

Some people travel to Italy for the culture, the scenery, or the food. Matthew Wildcat went to Italy to run up, then down, a mountain.

The 17-year-old from the Ermineskin reserve at Hobbema, Alta. was part of Team Canada, competing in the junior men's category for the 2001 World Mountain Running Trophy in Arta Terme, Italy.

Wildcat, who is currently studying Engineering at the University of Alberta, has been involved in competitive running for about three years-both cross-country and track and field-but just took up mountain running this past summer. And, although he's represented his country in the sport, he's only run three mountain running races in his life.

"I did the one to qualify, and then I did one warm up race, and then we did the one in Italy. But the ones in Alberta don't even compare to the ones in Italy . . . In Alberta, people wouldn't go to the race if it was as tough as it was in Italy. No one would show up. So they can't make them that tough," Wildcat said.

"It was great," he said of the experience. "It was an all-round good experience. I have nothing bad to say about it. They treated you really well. And the competition, I thought, ran really smoothly. And my teammates that I went there with were great."

While mountain running is a relatively unknown sport in Canada, it has a long history in Europe, and is popular in many parts of the world. Also known as hill running or fell running, mountain running competitions can involve running up, then down, a mountain, or just up, with competitors walking or driving back down at the end of a race. For the World Mountain Running Trophy, the courses alternate, with an up-and-down course one year, then an uphill course the next. This year's competition featured an up-and-down course.

Little in his past competitive running experience could have prepared Wildcat for the event in Italy.

"The first hill is 3.2 km up, probably took about 20 minutes to run, except that I didn't even run the whole way up because everyone around me was walking. One of my teammates said that that's the first time he's ever passed someone in a race walking. And then after that, the downhill section was almost as long down. . . . and then after that it was kind of like a regular course, up a couple hundred metres, down a couple hundred metres. But the first section was just, I don't know. I'd never done anything like that before," Wildcat said.

"I remember the day before, when we were walking up the course, we were looking up the valley to another mountain, and there was a lighthouse or light tower up there, and we were saying 'Look how far up that is.' And by the time we were up the course, we were kind of pointing down at it, saying 'Oh, there's that lighthouse we saw when we started.'"

Wildcat was one of four Canadians competing in the junior men's category for the World Mountain Running Trophy, with all four runners coming from the same track club in Wetaskiwin, Alta.

"We had kind of gotten lucky by going to the qualifying race and we had no idea, actually, that they were going to pick junior boys. We knew that it was a senior men's and senior women's race. But when the race director, I guess the guy who chose Team Canada, saw our times, he said they were competitive enough for us to go over there."

Wildcat, who finished in 58th place in the international run, wasn't happy with his performance.

"I wasn't personally, because first of all I got beat by someone I've never been beat by, from Canada. One of my teammates. And I was expecting to do a little better. But I think the course psyched me out, and the experience psyched me out, and I didn't. I'm not going to be like other Canadians and say I went over there and tried my best. I don't think I really gave it the best effort I possibly could of."

Despite his disappointment with his results, Wildcat has already set his sites for next year's international championship.

"I'll continue mountain running, because it providesme good experience to compete internationally, and compete at a level that is extremely high. I'm planning to go next year to Innsbruck, Austria. And next year's is all up hill," he said.

"The downhill is where you can hurt yourself, because going down, it's a lot easier to trip. There were guys coming in and they're pretty much bloody from head to toe, because they fell on the downhill, and the trail is quite rocky. So if you fell, there's pretty much nothing you can do. You'll just scrape your whole body because you're just wearing tiny little shorts and a singlet."

Now that he's decided to concentrate his efforts on mountain running, Wildcat knows his training regimen will be changing.

"I think to train for mountain running, you have to run mountains. That's my view of it now. I wouldn't call myself an expert, because I've only done it for a month. But this summer, I know, I want to drive up to Banff or drive up to Jasper once a week or once every two weeks and meet with some people, and just run up a mountain for an hour, and then just run down. I know my dad knows the mountains really well, and he could probably come up with a new mountain that has a good trail to run up every week. So that's my plans for the summer.

"But other than that, you also need to be good at running down hill, which we'd also practiced before we went. But running down a nice, grassy slope is a little different than running down a steep, rocky trail . . . that's a little dangerous, a little scary."