For three straight days at the end of July, a small group of endurance athletes from spots across the globe raced each other and themselves through a South Okanagan course so challenging and so taxing it at first seems straight-up impossible.
It was called "Ultraman Canada," and it's wild, baby.
One Day 1, July 28 they began with a ten-kilometer swim in Okanagan Lake and a 144-kilometer bike ride that ventured to places like Osoyoos and Keremeos before returning to Okanagan Falls.
One day later of July 29, they embarked on a 276-kilometer bike ride that kicked off a Skaha Lake Marina, headed south to Osoyoos, doubled back to Okanagan Falls, then pushed up a hill so extreme it's been nicknamed the "Wall" to the other-worldly White Lake Protected Area.
Then it was the long, long trek out of the Okanagan entirely to Princeton and Allison Lake beyond that.
On Day 3, July 30, the athletes were greeted with a double marathon foot race (!) that began just north of Princeton and ended 84.6 kilometers away in Summerland.
The route? The ancient Princeton-Summerland Road -- a thoroughfare so desolate that much of it isn’t even paved and so hilly one can be forgiven for thinking they're on a roller coaster.
Ultimately, the 2023 edition of Ultraman Canada was no different from those before it -- 514.4 kilometers of pain. And PentictonNow was there for most of it.
Granted, we had the rather substantial benefit of zipping around in our car. And we couldn't make it to many of the daily finish lines because we were too busy with those who hadn't yet finished.
Still, when you're out there in the middle of nowhere chasing these guys and gals --- and their teams, which tagged along in vans and cars, dispensing refreshment and motivation where needed -- you can’t help but get an inkling for what they feel.
We remember people like 56-year-old Emma Lucy Centeno Novelo of Mexico, somehow finding the will to continue on the last day when her pace had clearly dropped and the heat and the course were stacked against her.
And Miguel Madrid Lopez, 52 and also of Mexico, who biked and ran with a smile on his face and always a ready wave for the camera.
We marveled at how many of the competitors had the wherewithal and incredibly good manners to say "Thank you" as they streaked past us on their bikes or ran or walked past us in the midst of the dust and the unrelenting heat.
And we can’t forget 22-year-old Vedant Negare of India. As the days blended together, Negare could often be found near the back of the pack. But he still had the good humor to throw a pose for the camera any chance he got.
Then just past midday Sunday at Summerland's Memorial Park, it was 38-year-old endurance racing star Simon Cochrane of New Zealand -- the same guy who set a world-record Ultraman time just a couple months ago in Australia -- who won the thing.
Indeed, Cochrane demolished the Ultraman Canada record books, and event announcer Steve King -- a national treasure himself -- got on one of his amazing verbal runs when we asked him later to itemize Cochrane's accomplishments.
"On the Day 1 swim," said King, "there was a problem with his kayak, so he had to swim by himself and do the straightest line he could until the final kilometer. But he still did the third fastest swim time ever in Ultraman Canada with a 2:22 clocking.
"He then set a new record on the bike course on Day 1 with a 3:52. And he set a new record at the end of Day 1 with a 6:14:28 clocking."
King kept rattling off the new records, and the margins. Cochrane knocked 6:58 off the bike course record on Day 1. He knocked 17:50 off the Day 1 swim/bike combo. On Day 2 he ripped 18:04 from bike course record. Put the entirety of Day 1 and 2 together and he lowered the record by 53:20.
"Then on the run," continued a clearly impressed King, "he just set a new record of 6:19:11, which was 18:30 less than the old run record.
"And with his total time of twenty hours, two minutes and 18 seconds, he knocked one hour, 35 minutes and nine seconds from the previous three-day record. So Simon Cochrane now owns the world's best-ever time at 19:48 (Ultraman Australia in May) and the second best-ever in the world, which we just achieved here."
PentictonNow didn’t get a chance to chat with Cochrane after his win because we were still occupied on Princeton-Summerland Road. But we did chat with 38-year-old Wojciech Ptak of Poland, a very nice fellow and fierce competitor who would have won the thing if Cochrane had stayed home.
"Every single day I was second," he laughed, alluding purposefully to Cochrane in first place but unintentionally to everyone else behind him.
Ptak came to Canada and the South Okanagan specifically for the event, knowing he was up for the challenge. Though he'd not competed at the Ultraman distance in the past, he had practiced it.
"In my head," he said with a rather impressive grasp of the English language, "it's been evolving for many years. I first thought about the Ultraman distance five years ago when I ran the run distance in less than ten hours.
"Why do I like it? Because I like this type of race. I don't like very long days. Splitting it into three is better. Once I did 130 kilometers in training, with more than 8000 meters uphill. It took 18 hours. That was way too long."
Ptak is stoked he made the trip.
"I want to share this race with everyone," he said. "Amazing swim course, amazing bike course and a really amazing run course. There was no traffic at all today and we had beautiful views.
"I'm very grateful I'm here and for everything that happened here. Especially my crew that I met over the Internet. They're mostly from Poland and we made a very special team. They were so helpful, they were so involved."
And finally, the Number 2 finisher echoed something we've heard countless times about Penticton's "Ultra" events -- both Ultraman Canada and Ultra520K Canada. The sense of family.
"Everybody became a family on that first day," he said. "when we stood in a circle (just prior to the official start) and Steve (King) read some words to the group. I was almost crying right there.
"And at the finish line I was almost crying again. My dream came true."
