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Buntzen Burner

Three Quesnel women made the trip down south to run 50 km.
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Laurie Bare

50 kilometres is a long way to run. If someone said that to you, you would respond, 'fifteen, not fifty, right.' To which the runner would respond, with their head up high like a boss, 'fifty, five zero.' And you wouldn't respond, you'd just sit there with your mouth slightly open because that's just way too far to run. Three ladies from Quesnel recently did exactly that, traveling all the way to the Lower Mainland to run for seven hours. That's pretty much a work day, if you take out lunch and bathroom breaks and minutes lost looking at nothing or checking your email. Jocelyn Loomis, Judy Frisby and Laurie Bare took on the Mercurian-worthy run. Loomis finished the 50 km in 7:45, Frisby in 6:43 and Laurie Bare in 7:15. The first numeral there is hours remember. The race drew 150 steel-legged and iron-lunged runners from all over B.C. to Buntzen Lake, just north of Port Moody to run the trails of the area, gaining and losing 1,800 metres (6,000 feet) in the process. The route, ranging from clear dirt trails to rough and root-riddled, wound around Buntzen Lake and through the forests of the coast.