North Vancouver's Idar Karlsen climbed the same mountain 15 times last Saturday, winning Grouse Mountain's inaugural Multi-Grouse Grind Challenge.
To put that into perspective, that is like running an entire marathon, plus a bonus kilometre or so, straight up a mountain. That's 12.8 kilometres of elevation gain, or roughly the elevation gain of travelling from base camp to the peak of Mount Everest - three times. That's 42,450 stairs, the equivalent of walking up to the 86th floor observation deck at the Empire State Building - 27 times.
To summarize, that's a whole lot of climbing. And maybe the most remarkable stat of all has to do with Karlsen, the event's champion: he's 69 years old.
"It just comes down to doing one Grind at a time," said Karlsen with more than a hint of a Norwegian accent coming through. "If you are in good shape you just keep on going."
Karlsen grew up in Northern Norway, north of the Arctic Circle, and came to Canada when he was 20 years old.
"I thought I'd come over to the West Coast and stay for a year," he said. "At that time you couldn't get a work permit, so I immigrated. And here I am."
He eventually became the chief electrician at the paper mill on Annacis Island before it closed down.
Karlsen coached his kids in sports like softball and baseball but never got into elite sports himself.
"I don't know that I would call myself an athlete," he said with a laugh. When the kids left home he increased his fitness regime, hiking trails all over British Columbia and taking up kayaking. He discovered the Grind many years ago and started hitting it on a regular basis 10 years ago. Karlsen did the Grind so much that he decided to move from Coquitlam to North Vancouver three years ago.
Since then he has really started cranking out the Grinds, doing 345 official ascents last year and 115 already this year, putting him first by more than 30 on the official Grind stats page for 2014 climbs. With 725 official Grinds in his lifetime Karlsen ranks seventh on the all-time list.
Last Saturday's Challenge - cleverly scheduled for the longest day of the year - saw seven athletes racing to claim the first official record for most ascents in one day. Other unofficial records have been set but this was the first race sanctioned by Grouse Mountain, with proceeds going to the B.C. Children's Hospital Foundation Grind For Kids program.
The action got underway at 4 a.m. and Grind veteran Colin Pither, who happens to be 45 years younger than Karlsen, set a fast early pace. The climbers continued to Grind away while the trail became busier and busier with Saturday traffic.
"It's pretty awful," Karlsen said of trying to keep a pace while faced with a wall of tourists. "There's people everywhere so you've really got to concentrate on where you step and what the people are doing ahead of you."
Karlsen settled into a rhythm of doing two or three in a row before stopping for food, averaging about 50 minutes per ascent.
"You can throw in a 45 but it just takes too much out of you, and it doesn't fit with the Gondola," said Karlsen. "I tried to time it so I'd get there just in time to make the Gondola so I don't have to stand on top waiting, while at the same time not taking too much out of me. Just nice and steady.. .. I missed one (Gondola) that I really wanted to get. The girls and guys that run the Gondola, I've known them now for quite a while. They're very nice."
By late afternoon Karlsen's steady approach put him into the lead and he stayed there for good. By the end of the night he
was the clear-cut winner, outpacing all his younger opponents. Others may have been surprised to see a 69-year-old take the title, but Karlsen was not. His vast Grind experience includes many days full of multiples - his previous best was 13 in a day - and the younger racers will catch up to him once they get a bit more experience, he said.
"I think this was a good learning experience for them and I'm sure they will come back strong next year if they enter," he said, adding that the day didn't take too much out of him. "I feel good. A lot of it is mental toughness. Part of it you learn from training by yourself and running marathons. That is something that makes you pretty strong mentally."
Veteran Grinder Sarah Tomlinson set the pace in the women's event, ending the day with 13 ascents.
"She's an awesome lady," said Karlsen. "Strong, strong hiker."
Karlsen, meanwhile, doesn't expect to ever top his record of 15 if the race format stays the same - all of the racers had to swipe in for their last ascent by 10 p.m. "I'd have to pick up another half an hour somewhere along the line and I'm not so sure of that," he said. "I do not have 16, within the time frame that we had this year."
That, however, is not going to stop him from hitting the Grind at least once every day that he is in the Lower Mainland.
"You meet a lot of very nice people and you strike up friendships," he said. "You come down and have a cup of coffee or tea with them. For a retired guy that wants to stay in shape, it's nice."
