A decade ago, Mike Vine became the national off-road triathlon champion by winning the 2000 Xterra Canadian Championships in Whistler. Even though his training time has been limited this summer due to his new non-racing day job, working away on Edmonton rooftops under the hot sun, Vine repeated that feat on Sunday (Sept. 5) when the Xterra national championships returned to Whistler for 2010.

Completing a tough and technical but well-reviewed Whistler course in two hours, 10 minutes and 22 seconds, Vine finished second overall in the Xterra Championship distance race behind Josiah Middaugh of Vail, Colo., claiming the Pro Men's Canadian title as the first Canuck racer to cross the line.

Vine is a longtime Xterra competitor and winner of multiple Xterra events internationally who stepped away from full-time racing this season. He hasn't been testing himself against the top pro athletes, such as Middaugh and other competitors from Colorado as well as three-time Xterra world champion Conrad Stoltz. The cream of the sport's crop raced in Whistler.

“I was pretty excited to see how I would do, but at same time I was thinking, ‘Yeah, just to be anywhere near them, I'll be pretty happy with that.' And I was just right there in the bike, slugging it out with those guys. This is my stomping ground – I come from Victoria; I lived in North Van last year and came up to Whistler as often as I could and rode these trails,” said Vine, who recorded top results in last year's Westside Wheelup and Ken Quon Memorial and Re/Max Corridor Cup Team Challenge.

Vine had about a 40-second lead on Middaugh as the pros headed into their running leg, and the Colorado athlete chased down and passed the current Edmonton resident. After a season of running on flat Alberta lands, Vine said his legs felt “like rubber” after nine kilometres of big Whistler climbs and downhill plunges.

“He's pretty much one of the top runners in the sport, I wasn't surprised when he passed me,” Vine said of Middaugh, who won with a total time of 2:09:30.

For the Xterra Championship-distance competitors, Sunday's racing started with a 1.5-kilometre swim in Alta Lake, with about 100 competitors surging away from the Rainbow Park beach. Some 30 kilometres of biking and nine kilometres of running followed for the Championship-distance racers, taking them up, down and around a range of West Side trails before hitting the finish line in front of Nita Lake Lodge in Creekside.

The Xterra event also included a Sport course, with a 750-metre swim, 15-kilometre bike and 4.5-kilometre run on essentially the same course but with fewer laps. Athletes could also choose to race a Duathlon with a 30-kilometre bike leg and a nine-kilometre run.

As a Colorado resident doing his first race in Whistler, Middaugh said he wasn't used to the rooty, slippery nature of the local trails winding through dense forest. But he praised the Whistler Xterra course designed by Grant Lamont and Munro Duncan, saying he would “absolutely” be interested in racing here again.

“(The course) was great, just spectacular scenery. Very tough, though, technically. Lots of roots and rocks that I wasn't used to racing on. So it was a challenge. Taken at slower speeds, it's just a great, fun course, but at race pace it's pretty sketchy for me. I mean, Mike did really well on the technical stuff, and I was flailing a little bit,” Middaugh laughed.

Melanie McQuaid, a three-time Xterra world champion and winner of this season's European championships, captured the Canadian women's Xterra title with a strong performance that left her smiling at the finish line.

Recovering from what she called a “crappy swim,” McQuaid delivered a commanding performance in the bike portion by seeking out the straightest and sometimes toughest lines on the technical trails. She said she enjoyed running through challenging trails like River Runs Through It en route to the finish line.

“I was hoping for something like this, where we could show off some of the cool singletrack we have and make it a mountain bike race for mountain bikers. It didn't disappoint, for sure. It was a fabulous course… There was something for everyone in this race, and I think that's a good showcase of what we've got here,” said McQuaid, who was the winner of the Epic Solo Women category in the B.C. Bike Race that wrapped up in Whistler earlier this summer.

McQuaid cemented her title with a time of 2:29:28. Whistler's Joanna Harrington finished fourth among the five pro female athletes in the challenging Championship-distance race, posting a time of 2:59:09.

Several Whistler and Pemberton athletes tackled the off-road triathlon with strong performances, including several first-time triathletes. Whistler's JP Boulais finished second overall in the Sport race with a time of 1:51:01, after deciding within the last week to toss his hat in the ring, on the prompting of Whistler's Trevor Hopkins.

Boulais said the course was “so fun, really challenging and really fun.” He had a successful race, meeting his goal of a top-10 result, even though he was swimming in the lake for the first time.

Whistler's Adam Ward won his Male 20 to 24 age group and finished 19th overall in the Championship race with a time of 2:35:08, while Greg Sandkuhl finished second in the Male 55-plus division and 81st overall by finishing in 3:28:09. Whistler's Caroline Lamont claimed second place in her Female 45 to 49 category and 94th overall in the Championship event with her time of 3:50:57.

Team Whistler's Hopkins, completing his first triathlon, finished sixth in the Male 35 to 59 division and 37th overall in the Championship distance with a time of 2:54:30, and Whistler's Craig Johnson finished 10th in that age group. Whistler's Kevin Hodder finished 15th in the Male 40 to 44 category with a time of 3:15:24.

In the Sport race, Whistler's Bart Ross and Tristan Underhill cracked the overall top 10 by finishing fourth and sixth, respectively, while winning their age categories. Whistler's Sylvie Paré won her division and finished 15th overall as the fourth-fastest woman in the Sport race.

Whistler's Darlene Knapton and Pemberton's Jillian Davies finished back to back in 18th and 19th overall in the Sport distance. Whistler's Mike Conway finished second among the four athletes who completed the Duathlon.