Five records fall on first day of city track
Randy Pascal For The Sudbury Star

Dan Gardiner (Chelmsford — 2005), Eili Kleppe (Lockerby — 2009) and Rachel Leck (Lockerby — 2012) have all given way.

So too did Adriana Duncan (Confederation — 2017), but she was quick to offset that with a new mark of her own as the high school track and field championships debuted at Laurentian University on Wednesday.

In fact, the new records that were established came from a rather interesting cross-section of athletes, some of whom we have become quite accustomed to hearing from, the past few years, and others who are only beginning to build their resume.

Accomplished Lo-Ellen jumper Kurtis Wennerstrom, an OFSAA bronze-medal winner last June, took down the longest-standing standard of the quintet, erasing the previous SDSSAA record of 13.55 metres with a leap of 13.61 in the senior boys triple jump.

Such is the calibre that he has reached that his noteworthy jump was still open to critique from the athlete himself.

“Right now, I’m still working on my balance,” said Wennerstrom. “I’m not completely balanced when I am jumping. I need to keep my upper body up, instead of forward, because I lose some distance when I am falling forward.”

A Grade 9 student who transferred from Macdonald-Cartier to Champlain midway through her first year of secondary schooling, Madison Soulliere got the Requins into the record book, thanks to a height of 1.48 metres that she cleared in the midget girls high jump, barely eclipsing the 1.47 mark that had stood for a decade for Kleppe.

Alison Symington, also a freshman over at Lo-Ellen, did not cut it quite that close. A very impressive time of 2:24.92 in the midget girls 800-metre race was not only enough to dethrone Leck in the Grade 9 division, but is also faster than both the current junior girls record (Karly Hellstrom — 2:25.89) and senior girls record (Eve Boissonneault — 2:24.93).

As for Duncan, the Confederation Chargers soon-to-be 18-year-old bumped her own mark in the senior girls shot put, adding nearly a half metre in bettering the record from 10.45 metres to 10.87 metres.

Much like Wennerstrom, her own personal target was actually set higher.

“I have been throwing in the 11s, so I was kind of hoping for that, but I haven’t been practising as much this year,” she confessed.

With all of the hullabaloo with her final year of high school, mixed in with plans that she hopes will involve a tryout with the Ontario women’s tackle football squad, trying to squeeze everything in hasn’t been easy.

In a discipline that is far more technical than most might imagine, the lost workouts can prove costly.

“A lot of people have this misconception that throwing is all upper-body strength,” said Duncan. “It’s really not — it’s core and legs.

“If I’m not down far enough and not pushing up enough with my legs, whipping enough with my body, I can really tell the difference between a good throw and a bad throw.”

That kind of attention to details in the throwing events is exactly why some of the records that Duncan have set, quite recently, may be erased by Lo-Ellen junior Lauren Fearn. Also a medal-winner at provincials as a ninth-grader in 2018, the talented multi-sport athlete bumped Duncan to the side in the junior girls shot put, her toss of 11.81 metres absolutely smashing the old record of 11.00.

In fairness, it should be noted that the girls shot put marks were reset just a few years ago when the weight of the put itself was lowered.

And though his performance was not record setting, Lasalle newcomer Josh McKay has thrown down the gauntlet as the man to beat in the sprints in the 2004 age bracket. The first-year high school student followed up an impressive performance at the Black Flies Meet earlier this month, taking first place in the midget boys 200 metres in a time of 25.13 (into a strong head-wind), with his best event (100-metre dash) still to come.

It’s just the latest in the string of track and field progression that McKay has shown over the years.

“I ran for Carl Nesbitt since Grade 3,” he explained. “I started to beat people in Grade 5, but when I started getting actual fast was more like Grade 8.”

“Beating people is when you are still close to them, and fast is when you’re a little more ahead than that.”

Following is a breakdown of the Day 1 winners:

Midget Girls Division

– 200 m dash — Jasmine Savignac (Lasalle) — 28.43

– 800 m — Alison Symington (Lo-Ellen) — 2:24.92

– 3,000 m — Avery Sutherland (Lo-Ellen) — 11:21.67

– 80 m hurdles — Jasmine Savignac (Lasalle) — 14.10

– High jump — Madison Soulliere (Champlain) — 1.48m

– Pole vault — Chloe Rodrigue (Notre-Dame) — 1.90m

– Discus — Emma Coutu (Notre-Dame) — 22.72m

Midget Boys Division

– 200 m dash — Josh McKay (Lasalle) — 25.13

– 800 m — Patrick Wiss (Lo-Ellen) — 2:16.17

– 3, 000 m — Ian Mackenzie (Confederation) — 10:21.94

– 100 m hurdles — Ethan Shoup (Lo-Ellen) — 16.34

– High jump — Ryan Rubic (Lively) — 1.69m

– Pole vault — Eli Gerhardt (Lockerby) — 2.40m

– Long jump — Brady Ducharme (Lockerby) — 5.25m

– Javelin — Ryan Rubic (Lively) — 31.82m

Junior Girls Division

– 200 m dash — Naomi Palmer (Sacre Coeur) — 27.78

– 800 m — Kalila Bachiu (Lo-Ellen) — 2:28.39

– 3,000 m — Kalila Bachiu (Lo-Ellen) — 11:42.69

– 80 m hurdles — Isabel Maki (Lo-Ellen) — 14.15

– Long jump — Chandyn Bachiu (Lo-Ellen) — 4.57m

– Shot put — Lauren Fearn (Lo-Ellen) — 11.81m

– Javelin — Lauren Fearn (Lo-Ellen) — 32.36m

Junior Boys Division

– 200 m dash — Devon Savignac (St Charles) — 24.36

– 800 m — Tomasso Deni (St Charles) — 2:20.71

– 3,000 m — Austin Mashinter (Lo-Ellen) — 10:18.61

– 100 m hurdles — Bryce Desabrais (Lo-Ellen) — 16.08

– Pole vault — Will Fabbro (Lo-Ellen) — 3.03m

– Long jump — Logan Spicer (Lo-Ellen) — 6.17m

– Triple jump — Brendan Lemay (Notre-Dame) — 11.68m

– Shot put — Matthew Gordon (Champlain) — 11.65m

Senior Girls Division

– 200 m dash — Ariane Saumure (Macdonald-Cartier) — 27.53

– 800 m — Natalie Marks de Chabris (Lo-Ellen) — 2:35.74

– 3,000 m — Meredith Kusnierczyk (Lo-Ellen) — 11:42.57

– 100 m hurdles — Fiona Symington (Lo-Ellen) — 17.46

– Pole vault — Hannah Nykilchyk (Lockerby) — 2.60m

– Triple jump — Amy Connelly (Confederation) — 9.92m

– Shot put — Adriana Duncan (Confederation) — 10.87m

– Discus — Angelina Lam (Marymount) — 28.07m

– 4×400 m relay — Lo-Ellen Park — 4:21.25

Senior Boys Division

– 200 m dash — Zach Mainville (Notre-Dame) — 23.12

– 800 m — Kendyn Mashinter (Lo-Ellen) — 2:04.17

– 3,000 m — André Larocque (Notre-Dame) — 9:39.34

– 110 m hurdles — Nick Burke (Lasalle) — 18.92

– High jump — Liam LaPierre (Lasalle) 1.70m

– Pole vault — Justin Watson (Notre-Dame) — 3.15m

– Triple jump — Kurtis Wennerstrom (Lo-Ellen) — 13.61m

– Discus — Jacques Mathieu (Notre-Dame) — 34.70m

– 4x400m relay — Lo-Ellen Park — 3:53.34

Logan Spicer did not begin the high jump Thursday with great expectations, let alone thoughts of setting a city record.

Competing on a cold, dark and drizzly afternoon at the Laurentian Community Track, the Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School standout had just turned in a season-worst time in his 100-metre heat.

“I wasn’t feeling the best coming in,” admitted the 16-year-old. “But as I went through the competition, I felt better. It was cold, but as I jumped and jumped, I got warmer and warmer.”

And he went higher and higher. His leap of 1.89 metres narrowly beat the SDSSAA junior boys record of 1.88, set by Noah Lapierre of Lasalle Secondary in 2014. Not quite done, Spicer then sailed over the bar at 1.92 metres — just three centimetres shy of his personal best.

He was one of four athletes to set new records on Thursday, bringing the number to nine after five records fell on Wednesday.

“I was surprised I even hit 1.80 today, to be honest,” Spicer said with a smile.

“At the start, I was still angry about the 100 and I wasn’t feeling the best, but as I was clearing those bars with distance, I was getting height over them, and that was just building the mental game more and more.”

While it wasn’t quite a PB, the record-breaking performance nonetheless confirmed that Spicer was on track to hit his goal of two metres, despite missing part of the season due to a bout with mononucleosis.

He hopes to make a two-metre jump by the provincial championships, to be held in Guelph, June 6-8.

“That’s a big milestone for a high jumper, so I would really like to get over that this year,” he said. “I think it’s realistically possible — my old PB was 1.85, then a few months ago, I cleared 1.95, so that’s 10 centimetres, which is a lot, so I really think it’s possible.

“It’s going to take a lot of hard training. I’m coming off a sickness right now, but I think as I get healthier and healthier, it’s naturally going to come.”

Lo-Ellen teammate Lauren Fearn may not use quite the same words describe the process behind her own rapid rise in junior girls discus, but the results have been just as impressive.

One day after setting a record in the shot put, Fearn threw her discus 37.02 metres, smashing the old mark of 29.23, established two years ago by Angelina Lam of Marymount Academy.

“I learned how to spin this year, so that’s different,” explained Fearn, 16. “Last year, I just stood and hucked, so this year, it has been kind of nice to spin and learn more technique. I think learning more technique has really changed things this year.”

Asked if it was a smooth transition, however, Fearn let out a laugh.

“I tried spinning last year, but I never did it at a competition, because I knew it would screw up my distance,” she said. “It was always like five metres less. This year, I found the spinning at the beginning was bad, like really short, but I started learning more and my coach and I, we took it bit by bit — first a half spin, then three quarters of a spin, then full.”

Fearn takes a similar step-by-step approach to setting distance goals. She doesn’t enter a competition looking to set records, only personal bests.

“I don’t want any more stress than I need to have,” she said. “And it’s something I honestly don’t care that much about. I’d rather PB than be like, ‘Oh, I got a record.’ If I PB and I get a record, I’m perfectly fine with that, but I don’t want to focus on getting a record. It just screws with your head.”

Lo-Ellen’s Kalila Bachiu, meanwhile, was well aware, as she turned the final corner in the junior girls 1,500 metres, that a SDSSAA record was within reach.

The smooth-running 16-year-old crossed the line in 5:08.45, about a second slower of her personal best, but just a little faster than Haley Maziarski’s record time of 5:08.87, set in 2011.

“I started training really early this year, in March,” Bachiu said. “Just the other week, I hurt my calf, so I had to take a few rest days, but yesterday, I was feeling pretty good and pretty confident that it was going to go well today.”

At the NOSSA track and field championships in North Bay, next Wednesday and Thursday, she’ll be aiming to break another record, the 10-year-old time of 5:01.65.

“Hopefully, I have some more competition to really push me,” Bachiu said. “During the second and third lap, I kind of lose my focus, so I think having competition to push me will really help.”

Speaking of a push, the perennial powerhouse from Lo-Ellen received some stiff competition in several events from athletes representing Lasalle Secondary, Lockerby Composite and College Notre Dame, among others, but the Knights once again reigned as team champions with 1,108 combined points. Lasalle was second with 466 and Notre-Dame third with 355.

Lo-Ellen’s Alison Symington, another record-breaker with a time of 2:24.92 in the midget girls 800 metres, finished tied for first in the individual midget girls point standings, alongside Jasmine Savignac from Lasalle. Brady Ducharme from Lockerby topped the midget boys standings.

Bachiu and Fearn finished tied for first among junior girls, while Spicer led the junior boys.

Amy Connelly from Confederation Secondary was tops among senior girls and Erik Struk from St. Charles College led senior boys.

Full results, including team and individual standings and record breakers, are available online at sdssaa.rainbowschools.ca/pages/tfresults.htm.

bleeson@postmedia.com

Twitter: @ben_leeson

with a recap by Amber Konikow

Sulphur Springs 100 miler won this time.

I ran, climbed and slipped and slid hard.
The first loop it started to rain, thunder and lightning. The trails were wet and therefore, the mud sections were a bath of mud.
At the last of my 4th loop, it rained again but worse. The winds were so strong a few trees were crashing. I knew the 6th loop would be a serious shit show. My upper thighs were tight and I was in serious pain to my middle upper back which I never had that sensation before. Most likely due to sliding, twisting, slipping, pulling on those muscles...need more strength training and need to run on more mud.
I started the 5th loop (100km mark) with my pacer. I was hopeful I would finish, even if I just walked. Started okay with walk and run, once we got into the 2nd section, my mind and attitude changed from " I can do this", to "I am not doing this!". The section was so bad. I was slipping everywhere and my leg pain and back pain escalated. The risk of snapping, pulling, twisting and breaking my body was too high of a risk.
I did finish the loop, it took me 5 hours of baby steps. I decided it was best to stop. 100km in 20 hours. More than half the 100milers dropped out.
I am not sad I didn't finish. I am happy of the lessons learned, I met new people and saw familiar faces.
The race directors, volunteers and racers were, as always, very supportive, positive, encouraging. Thank you to Jrun Fbuddha for pacing, would have been nice to finish but there is next time! It was a pleasure to have you pace me!
Congratulations to everyone one who race at Sulphur springs, regardless of the distance, the conditions were extremely hard and challenging! Wow!

Thousands of runners took to the streets this weekend for Ottawa Race Weekend 2019. More than 32,000 people laced up their running shoes for the past two days of races, from the two-kilometre run all the way to the marathon. That's comparable to the 33,000 racers who took part last year. But numbers have been declining since race weekend's 40th anniversary in 2014, which saw about 48,000 racers, said spokesperson Annie Boucher.

Although runners had to cope with wet conditions Saturday, the sun shone through Sunday.

Kenyan Albert Korir won the main Ottawa Marathon with a posted time of 2:08:03. "This is a great achievement. It's a dream," said Korir, who had been keeping pace with the second place finisher Abera Kuma from Ethiopia. Korir said he chose the right time to make his move, leaving Kuma behind and crossing the finish line with an 11-second lead. He takes home a $30,000 prize for his win, but said he doesn't know what he'll do with the money yet.

Third place went to Ethiopian Tsedat Ayana.

Another Ethiopian, Tigist Girma, was the marathon's fastest woman, posting a personal best time of 2:26:34. It's the 10th straight year an Ethiopian woman has topped the field, race organizers said.

The Canadian winner was two-time Olympian Reid Coolsaet, who finished in 2:17:37. The first Canadian woman to cross the finish line was Dayna Pidhoresky with a time of 2:37:19.

Lucia Salmaso places 2nd in her age group

https://www.sportstats.ca/

On May 18th, we started a 5 day hike on Lake Superior's Coastal trail. We are paddlers at heart, but Spring hiking brings new vistas, almost no bugs, and secluded trails (we only saw one other hiker!). Superior did not disappoint; it was as rugged as it was beautiful. We earned every step of our journey!

Day 1 - Shuttle to Gargantua Road to Rhyolite Cove
We started the day in the Sault and met our shuttle (from Twilight Lodge) at Agawa Campground. Hard to set out when the forecast calls for 30-40mm of rain, but we estimated a short day of hiking from our drop off on Gargantua Road to Rhyolite Cove. We realized quickly that our Voyageur Trail Guidebook recorded kms based on the distance between two points, but the trail was anything but. Our first 5km of climbs and scrambling on wet rocks and boulders took almost 4 hours, but we finally arrived at a secluded campsite between unique rock formations and rugged shores.

Day 2 - Rhyolite to Orphan Lake
Spent the morning drying out before heading out to enjoy a sunny day on the trail through Beatty Cove’s sand beach. We hiked the ‘snakes and ladders’ of cobbled beaches, rocky shoreline, across Buckshot creek and uphill to Bear Mountain for amazing views of Superior. We reached a gorgeous point campsite in time for dinner and sunset at the intersection with the Orphan Lake trail.

Day 3 - Orphan to Barrett River
More sunshine as we started the day with a climb to the Bald Head peaks. Then the trail led us to rugged shores, more boulder scrambling and inland trails to Robertson Cove and the sandy beaches of Katherine Cove near a Hwy 17 parking lot. The sound of the Hwy only added to the trail’s charm (there was something amazing about this spectacular beauty feeling so remote but yet being so accessible). We pushed through along the Sand River and long stretch of sand dunes before finding another beautiful beach site at Barrett River.

Day 4 - Barrett to Agawa Bay
From Barrett, the trail was a mix of coastline walks, cobble beaches with small rocks and basketball-sized boulders, and pine forest climbs to a beach site at Sinclair Cove. It was a very pretty campsite, but only early afternoon so we decided to push to the Agawa pictographs as the rain started to pick up. The trail from the pictographs to Agawa Bay was an unexpected mix of rugged peaks, ducking through caves, and steep climbs and descents. We reached the beaches of Agawa Bay around 6:30pm and could have done another 3km back to our car, but we decided to enjoy the clearing skies and deserted pebble beach (we had our pick of 4 sites).

Day 5 - Agawa Bay to the Agawa Visitors Centre
A short hike out, mostly along Hwy 17 as the footbridge back to Agawa Campground was washed out. ~55km from point to point, but our Fitbits tracked up closer to +85km. It was a spectacular trip!

Superior reminded us of a few life lessons:
1 - Good things come from hard work.
2 - Choose a good partner. Be a good partner.
3 - Appreciate the beauty, and challenge, of each day.
4 - You don’t need a lot, but you need to value what you have.
5 - Sometimes you just need to make a leap!

- Processed food has been linked to obesity, but researchers were not sure if there was actually something about the meals that led to weight gain.
- Now, in a new study published in Cell Metabolism, researches found that even if calories and nutrients like like carbohydrates, fat, sugar, sodium were matched, people still ate more of processed food than they do of unprocessed food.
- People ate about 500 calories per day more, adding up to a weight gain of about two pounds over two weeks on the processed diet.

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It’s probably one of the most well-known tenets in the wellness industry: Lay off the processed stuff and eat more whole foods if you want to lose weight.

The link between processed foods and obesity is well-established, but what hasn’t been quite as clear is if there is something about processed foods that actually causes weight gain or obesity.

Researchers set out to answer that question with the first randomized, controlled study—often described as the gold standard for determining cause-effect relationships, where a variable is tested on one group, and the other group serves as a control—on calorie intake and weight gain on processed and unprocessed diets.

In the study published in Cell Metabolism, researchers split a group of 20 participants in one of two groups: The first group ate an unprocessed diet of three meals per day and snacks that was provided to them for two weeks, while the second ate processed food for the same amount of time. Examples of an ultra-processed breakfast consisted of Honey Nut Cheerios, whole milk with added fiber, a packaged blueberry muffin, and margarine. An unprocessed breakfast included a Greek yogurt parfait with strawberries, bananas, walnuts, salt, and olive oil, and apple slices with fresh-squeezed lemon.

After two weeks on their first diet, participants switched and ate the opposite diet for another two weeks.

The researchers made sure that the calories and nutrients like carbohydrates, fat, sugar, salt were matched in each meal. They instructed the participants to eat as little or as much at each meal as they desired.

At the end of the study, people ate significantly more if their meals were ultra-processed—around 500 more calories per day—than they did if they were given unprocessed meals.

In fact, on the processed diet, they consumed 54 times the added sugar and 1.8 times more saturated to total fat.

The added calories on the processed diet contributed to a two-pound weight gain. On the flip side, people on the unprocessed diet ended up losing about two pounds over the course of the two weeks. Additionally, body fat mass increased by almost 1 pound when eating the ultra-processed diet.

Participants reported liking both options, which eliminated taste as a factor for why people consumed more calories on an ultra-processed diet.

Researchers speculate that the reason more calories were eaten overall is that people tend to chow down on the ultra-processed meals faster, leading to more food consumed. They found that differences in calorie intake were not associated with reported differences in appetite, taste of the food or familiarity with one diet.

“It is possible that ultra-processed foods are easier to chew and swallow, softer, and that this could delay the satiety signals,” study author Kevin Hall, Ph.D., a NIDDK senior investigator, told Runner’s World. “More studies are needed to determine if the consistency and density of the foods, how easy they are to eat, are important drivers of the total amount of food consumed.”

A few things to take into account: The cost of the ultra-processed food provided in the study was significantly less than the unprocessed meals—$106 versus $151 for the week. That supports the cost issue many people give when explaining what makes them reach for processed food rather than cooking their own. And add that to the convenience factor: In this study, both meals were provided to the participants, meaning all they had to do was sit down to a healthy meal, while in the real world, they would have to take time to prep it themselves. Those are two reasons that can help explain why reaching for the fast food egg sandwich is more enticing for breakfast than scrambling your own.

Cost—both monetarily and in time—are valid concerns, but they don’t sentence you to a lifetime of processed junk. Making time to meal prep breakfast or lunch for the week can be one step to helping decrease the amount of ultra-processed foods you eat in a week, and can save on time and on takeout cost.

Or if you are pressed for time, look for unprocessed foods that are convenient, like store-roasted rotisserie chicken and frozen veggies you can steam with it. Taking small steps will be beneficial to your health and help these changes seem less daunting.