Earle Couper
Record Staff
The talented twosome of Liz and Tom Thompson turned in terrific times at the 2011 Appleton Rum Peak to Valley Race, held Feb. 4-5 at Whistler.
Liz helped her Barry The Rooster team win their age category and place fourth overall (out of 72 teams) and was the fastest female skier on Friday. Her husband Tom was on the Blue Ice Wrecking Crew team that finished second in their age category and third overall. He was the eighth fastest man on Saturday.
Peak to Valley is billed as the longest GS race in the world. It goes from the top of Whistler Mountain to the Creekside base, and it's a thigh-burning test of endurance with 114 gates on Friday and 161 on Saturday (a normal GS has 35 gates).
Teams of four (one member must be of the opposite sex) tackle the 5K-plus Franz's Run which has a 1,443-metre vertical drop. Two team members race Friday and two Saturday. The start order is based on age, with the oldest competitors starting first.
Team Hoopla/Best of Both (combined ages 149 and under) were first overall in a time of 20:15.01. Blue Ice Wrecking Crew with Tom Thompson, Kim McKnight, Dave Johnston and Chris Kent (combined ages 175-199) posted a 20:35.38 time while Barry The Rooster with Liz Thompson, Tom Prochazka, Kent Wills and Steve Fleckestein (combined ages 200-224) finished in 20:39.31.
Liz set Friday's fastest female time of 4:29.08 in a field of 49 skiers while Tom's time of 5:51.92 was eighth best in Saturday's field of 107. "My biggest worry this year was making sure I didn't have to race the same day as Liz. She would have been 10th fastest in the men's race on Friday and I was eighth on Saturday – no wonder I was worried!" Tom laughed.
"The weather on Friday was not good – 70 km/h winds and poor visibility – so the start was just below the Peak Chair," said Tom. "That's why the times for Friday are faster."
Liz, a nurse at St. Joseph's General Hospital, has raced the Peak to Valley around 12 times and is a perennial top-three finisher. This was her second win, and she did it against stiff competition.
"Liz, who is in her mid-40s, was skiing against some girls half her age," said Tom, a former national ski jumping team member and West Coast pro fishing guide based out of Sonora Resort.
"The second- and fourth-place girls, Joan Wilson and Kim McKnight, are former national ski team members." Tom notes Barry The Rooster is a perennial powerhouse. "The Peak to Valley trophy has been at our house in Comox three of the last four years for Liz's team," he said, adding the duo appreciate the sponsorship of Ski Tak Hut.
Liz was understandably ecstatic with her win. "Yahoo! And Yahoo! Finally, 4:29.08 seconds later, I crossed the frigging finish line – red-faced, barely breathing and no oxygen tanks to be found. I definitely wasn’t at work," she said.
"My tongue (was) hanging on the ground, my face and hair drenched in drool. I had collapsed in the snow – utterly exhausted. In my scrambled thoughts due to lack of O2 and/or H2O, all I could think was, “I hope my time was good enough for myself and the team.
"With only 14 days of skiing and seven runs in gates this year, I had tried my best. Now, all I could do was wait for the heckling to start. As I looked up, there he was! I couldn’t move and had nowhere to hide or run. It was HIM!! One of my fiercely competitive team mates Frankenstein, I mean Fleckestein.
"As I was gasping for words this ... one-piece Spandex figure approached me. He was in his glory, grinning ear to ear. And there I was waiting and trembling in my boots and thinking what excuse could I possibly conjure up if my time sucked," Thompson recalls.
"But then I realized I didn’t really have one and I really didn’t give a rat's behind as I was so, so, so, tired. What the heck could I say? I mean, I had the most amazing Fischer World Cup skis (thank you Robin), I had the best sex wax technician around – my husband – and to boot I was just training with Chris Kent, Tom Pro and Kent Wills (thanks guys) a few days earlier.
"Yep, no excuses for me. What?! Did I just hear some buzzing ... Liz somebody ... winning time ... or am I in cardiac arrest? What do you mean I had a good run?
"Then it starts to make sense. My head clears, my vitals stabilize ... I won! (and ) our team will be in a great position to win gold..."
Reflecting on the annual event, Tom notes, "It's not a normal ski race. There's too many variables: changing weather conditions, changing snow conditions, and passing skiers in a safe manner can be tricky. Add some fog and poor snow conditions and that's what makes the Peak to Valley race the event it is today.
"You need more than four great skiers on your team to be champions, you also need some luck. And I think that's what Dave Murray would have wanted when he helped establish this event over 25 years ago – skiers of all different ages and capabilities racing and having fun, then heading down to Dusty's for a cold one. That's what Peak to Valley is all about!"
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