Grouse Grind

Go early to avoid the people, and preferably on the weekdays.
As for the info, check out:
http://hiking.grousemountain.com/grousegrind/

Length of Grouse Grind: 2.9 km (1.8 miles)

Grouse Grind elevation gain: 853 metres (2,800 feet)

Average completion time: 1.5 hours

Fastest completion time for men: 26:19 held by Michael Simpson, set at the 2007 Grouse Grind Mountain Run.

Fastest completion time for women: 31:04 held by Leanne Johnston, set at the 2007 Grouse Grind Mountain Run.


Notice that the fastest male time is a TRIATHLETE from West Van!! See, we are good athletes!

You can buy a summit seeker card for $20. That gives you access to login to this website:

http://hiking.grousemountain.com/grousegrind

The card also acts as a way to time your grind time by swiping it over the timer stones located at the bottom and top. The website keeps track of all your times and you can see how you rank in your age group, sex, and overall.

If that wasn't enough, it also let's you send a bag up for free. So you can pack your warm clothes in your bag, food, cell phone, etc., check it in at guest services, and then pick it up at the top after you're all sweaty from doing the grind.

There is also a lift card, which you can use for going up and down that you can buy for $100. Otherwise you have to pay $5 to buy a down ticket. I know someone that uses the card to go to snowshoeing in the winter.

Also related to last year's race, Lauren Groves, a Vancouver born triathlete came in 2nd place on the female side in a time of 33 minutes. She wrote on her blog that it was her first time hiking it.

Has anyone done the race in Sept.? The registration asks that you give an ETA for wave start spots. Is there a rough calculation to figure how long it would take say a 21min. 5k runner to finish?

Before signing up, I'd say go out and do it. Once you practice, you'll probably find it comes pretty close to (if not slightly faster than) your 10 km run time, but expect your first time to be slower.

However, you will find that running 10 km and doing the grind are significantly different. The grind doesn't let up, it compresses 10 km into 3 km.

I agree with the above. Most of my friends and myself have found that we do the grind in about the same time that we run 10km.

This is a nice site, it breaks the Grind down into each quarter.

http://www.briantaylor.ca/grind.html

My fav way of "doing the grind" is buying a gondola ticket, riding to the top, downing a few pitchers of beer, then staggering back to the gondola back to the bottom. No sweat, no tears, no problem!

That's great. I signed up. Should be fun... or rewarding... one or the other.

Just got back from running the Capilano Pacific trail followed by hiking the Grind.

Getting onto the trail was pretty easy, first take the seabus, then bus 236 that goes to Grouse, but get off at the first after going under Hwy #1 bridge, then backtrack and walk across the bridge.

Doing the trail is so worth it. The trail itself is fairly easy. The hardest part was the final climb on Nancy Greene Way.





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The precedent is set. Anytime you're in a race with misscullen, just utter the words, "i'm done, so tired", and she'll throw you on her back and bring you to the finish line.



Edited by meepx2 2008-06-14 11:00 PM

Today the gondola was stuck between 12:00 and 2:00 pm and it was full of people. Too bad for all those people stuck on it.

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Edited by misscullen 2008-06-19 4:05 PM

I'll be there Saturday morning. That will make #7 this year.

Yesterday, I went with a friend on the 236 bus. She's a bit slower than me, so I got off the bus and did the Capilano trail followed by the Grind. We joked that we'd probably end up at the top at the same time.

The joys of not knowing where you're going:

It was only my 2nd time doing the trail, and I'd thought I'd be clever and try to take the shortest route possible. So I stayed on Rabbit Lane Trail, ran past the raspberry bushes, and then came the part I made the mistake. If you turn right, you'll be back on the Capilano trail, but if you keep going straight, then Rabbit Lane Trail turns into Rabbit Lane road, which is paved. My first instinct was, "sweet, paved road, look at all the time I'm going to save". So I run up the slightly inclined road, which turns back into a trail. Only this trail turns into a dead end up near Houlgate Creek. Arghhh, so I had to backtrack.

I'll usually get sub 40, best time this year was 36:14 (by the timer). What about you?

Sure, we can meet at 10:00 AM at the bottom. Good?