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Living Well - Pavilion Triathlon continues to grow and gain popularity

Wayne Little's monthly column about fitness and motivation.
48066ashcroftCOMMlivingwell13Sept26
Maurice Maher from Kamloops

Sunday Sep 14, once again we held the Pavilion Triathlon.

Outside temperature in the 30’s, and the water temperature was 19C. These two things alone were telling me that this years event was going to be spectacular.

A few more registered than last year - the event is growing as more people hear about it, with people coming from as far away as Sooke on the island and Calgary and Winnipeg for the event. But most of the triathletes were from the local area of Kamloops, Ashcroft and Cache Creek. A lot of the comments I get about the event is that it’s considered to be a grassroots race, and of course everyone likes the swim in Pavilion Lake.

Maurice Maher from Kamloops led the race all the way from the swim to the run taking First overall with a time of 1:09. Linsey Emberly from Kamloops won First Place Female last year and won a free entry to this years event. This year she came back and beat her own time by another four minutes with a time of 1:13 and she also finished Second overall.

This summer we organized the kids triathlon and there were a few teens who seemed to really enjoy the event. There was some money left over from sponsorships, so we made up two relay teams, one of boys and one of girls and entered them into the Pavilion Tri. All the kids were from the Ashcroft area.  With all six of them being very competitive, I knew it was going to be good. In the end though, the “Boy Beaters” team of Haley and Leeza Schroeder and Allie Aie were faster than the boys team consisting of Griffin and Hayden Aie and Solomon Wiebe. Not only will they have to hear about that for the next year, they had to do the chicken dance across the finish line!

The Relay team idea seems to be really catching on. It’s a very easy way to enter the world of triathlon.   There were five relay teams this year - two were from Kamloops, and three from the Ashcroft area.  Our other relay team consisted of Denise Tapia, Tracy Kubik, and the ever inspiring Merv McKague, although at this event Merv was no match for the lightning quick Allie Aie during the run!

Some other locals tackled the event solo including Vicky Trill, Briggy Schroeder - who finally completed her first full triathlon, and Alf Trill - who has discovered that if he actually trains for a triathlon, he’s pretty darn good at it.

Another icon in the triathlon community is Bruce Butcher from Kamloops, who showed up this year.  At 79 years old and having raced over 150 triathlons in his life, it was quite a compliment when he said I did a good job organizing the race.

We had an unexpected spectator this year, a black bear. Up in a tree right beside the run course, he seemed very uninterested and calm with what was going on. Even still I sent in super volunteer Steven Aie with an air horn to scare him off if there was any problems. Steven is still alive, so there were no problems.

It’s really amazing how the locals at Pavilion have taken to the event, with their family relatives using the event as way to come and visit, and Frank Smith’s manpower. I mean really, the guy put in about five or six hours of labor into helping me out.

I’d like to thank the volunteers and parents who came out to show their support, members of the Kamloops Triathlon club, Megan Marlow, Eddie and Steve Aie, Heidi McCall, and Deanna Horsting.

Next year’s Pavilion Triathlon will be held on Sept. 14, 2014. If you are interested in competing, volunteering, sponsoring, spectating or just showing some sort of support, shoot me an email.

Wayne Little