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Gary Robbins back on race scene, this time as a director, days after the Barkley

Gary Robbins, days after running the 2017 Barkley Marathons, was back on the racing scene on Saturday directing the Diez Vista 50K and 100K.

Gary Robbins
Barkley Marathons
Gary Robbins in camp between loops four and five of the Barkley Marathons. Photo: Michael Doyle / Canadian Running Magazine.

North Vancouver’s Gary Robbins endured one of the toughest footraces in the world early last week. On Saturday, while still in recovery mode, the Barkley Marathons participant, and near-finisher, was back on the racing scene, though this time not as a competitor but as a race co-director.

Ridgeline Events, a local events company founded and managed by Robbins and Geoff Langford, put on the Diez Vista 50K and 100K in Port Moody, B.C. on Saturday. The event is one of Canada’s oldest ultras and is one of many trail races in Metro Vancouver and the surrounding areas. For Robbins, the Diez Vista trail race was five days after he came agonizingly close to finishing the Barkley Marathons in Frozen Head State Park, Tenn. (In case you missed it, read all about the Barkley here, here and here.)

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“For [the] record, directing Diez Vista less than [a] week after [the] Barkley Marathons was not [a] good idea and choice,” Robbins wrote on Twitter. “Literally hanging on by [a] thread right now.” Robbins and his family, including his wife Linda and son Reed, flew back to Vancouver from Tennessee on April 6. That left Robbins two days to finalize any last-minute details before the April 8 event.

To put the proximity of racing the Barkley and directing a race into perspective, it took Robbins approximately six months to fully recover from the 2016 Barkley Marathons, a five-loop, more than 160K trail race that must be completed within 60 hours. A navigational error in both 2016 and 2017 prevented Robbins from completing the race within the necessary time limit.

Robbins recaps Diez Vista

Survived directing the Diez Vista 50k & 100k races yesterday, if barely. We were on site from 4am – 11:15pm on what was the worst weather day in the 21 year history of the event. The rain did not let up, not even for a second, until 9:15pm at night. I know it looks like I'm sleeping on the job here, because I am, but as far as I know I greeted every single finisher with a hug or high five. Massive congrats to every runner who toed the line, from the finishers on out to the record number of non-finishers due to hypothermia. We kept our volunteers and medical team busy, and thankfully no major injuries. The volunteers were beyond incredible, all 100+ of them, and our volunteer coordinator Linda Wong did an impeccable job of managing and directing the day. We can't thank each and every one of them enough, and to every volunteer I did not meet and thank personally, know that we could not do this without you. The runner experience was perfect, though maybe a single ray of sunshine woulda been nice 🙂 It was really challenging for me to have to accept that I would not be able to flag my own course, for the first time ever. To everyone who relayed that the flagging was impeccable, that's all thanks to Arnault Vernhet, the most passionate and knowledgeable course manager ever, plus the team of people he oversaw to accomplish this. It was incredibly challenging to go completely offline for the week surrounding the Barkley, and what ended up being just days before directing the DV races for the very first time. My partner in race directing, Geoff Langford, handled my absence with aplomb, and Elaine Fung stayed on top of all the emails and social media postings. (I came back online to over 200 race specific emails) What – a – team! A few people mentioned Weekend at Bernie's to me before the race. "Just show up and we'll prop you up and make you look like you're alive", and that's kinda how it played out. Thanks to my team for propping me up when I needed it most. I owe so many people for the success of this event, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, but Instagram only allows for 2200 characters 🙂

A post shared by Gary Robbins (@garyrobbins) on

As part of his role with Ridgeline Events, Robbins manages, with Langford, the Squamish 50 and the Coast Mountain Trail Series, a six-race circuit around Vancouver’s North Shore and the Sea to Sky Corridor. The Diez Vista added a 100K this year to the already-popular 50K, which sold out within 14 hours of registration opening in late 2016.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSnwWH1BGyx/

The Diez Vista begins at Sasamat Lake and runners battle the up and down terrain of neighbouring Buntzen Lake and the Diez Vista trails. The 50K features 1,825m of elevation gain and loss and the 100K features double that at 3,650m.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSqpCg9BK1a/

After Saturday’s race, participants were quick to commend the race volunteers for keeping runners fuelled and warm (with hot chocolate) on a cool and soggy day. Nick Williams, in 4:53:58, and Darbykai Standrick, in 5:04:51, won the 2017 Diez Vista 50K. Ullas Narayana and Joanna Ford are your 2017 Diez Vista 100K champions in 12:13:19 and 13:15:40, respectively.

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