Everyone wants to leave a mark on the world. A claim to fame. A legacy.
For the past decade, Penticton's Jen Annett has been working on doing just that. But this past weekend, she cemented that legacy in platinum. The platinum that comes from a truly world-class performance.
But first, let's back up a bit.
One of the top triathletes to ever come from British Columbia, Annett, now 39 and a working mom but still training and competing hard as ever, has consistently won and/or podiumed against some of the toughest competition out there.
Her list of accomplishments is long and loud.
But this past weekend, Annett, who turned pro in 2013, took a chance and temporarily parted ways with the sport at which she excels. Why? Because Ultraman Canada was calling.
Ultraman, as the name suggests, is indeed ultra. It's like a triathlon in that it incorporates the disciplines of swimming, cycling, and running, but that's where the similarity ends.
Whereas a standard (Olympic distance) triathlon is comprised of a 1.5-kilometer swim, a 40-kilometer bike and a 10-kilometer run, and an "Ironman" triathlon ups the ante to a 3.8K swim, 180K bike and a marathon-distance (42K) run, Ultraman takes it to a whole other planet.
Try a 10K swim and a 145K bike ride. And that's just Day One. Day Two is a 276K bike ride. Day Three punishes what’s left of you with a brain-melting 84.4K double-marathon run.
It's a test of human endurance few will even conceive of attempting. In fact, and as you might expect, Ultra races regularly attract a mix of top-level athletes and well-healed mid-level folks who want to challenge themselves like they've never done before. A typical Ultra field is small, eclectic and international.
One other thing. Each competitor brings along a crew, usually family/friends and/or a coach. That crew travels alongside their athlete for much of their journey, supplying them with food and drink every few minutes.
Penticton has traditionally been an Ultraman hotbed. It’s home to Ultraman Canada, one of four Ultraman events worldwide, the other three being in Florida, Arizona, and Hawaii, where the finals are held later in the year.
The 2024 edition of Ultraman Canada kicked off last Friday at Naramata's Manitou Beach and ended Sunday at Summerland's Memorial Park. And Jen Annett, in her first-ever crack at the distance, was nothing short of remarkable.
Ultimately, Annett would win the 2024 event with a time of 21 hours, 39 minutes, 21 seconds. That was more than six hours (yes, six hours) faster than the runner-up, 37-year-old KC Northrup of Florida, herself an experienced endurance athlete.
The first male to cross the finish line, 32-year-old Englander Georege Hellyer, was 1:40 behind Northrup and almost eight behind Annett.
But to really get a grasp on her accomplishment, you have to hit the history books. Annett's result was the third fastest since the dawn of time in an Ultra-branded Canadian event. We're talking women *and* men.
The only ones to better her are Penticton's own Dave Matheson and New Zealander Simon Cochrane.
Matheson, then 47 years old, set a new Canadian mark of 21:37:27 at the 2018 Ultra520K Canada. Then last year, Ultraman world champ Simon Cochrane, a guy generally acknowledged as the best-ever at this distance, came to Penticton and set the new standard at 20:02:18.
But here's the thing. Annett's 21:39:21 is just an hour and a half off Cochrane's record. And it's a mere two minutes off Matheson's 2018 record. She was mixing it up with the very best *male* performances of all time.
The fact that Matheson, still in top form, ran alongside Annett during part of Sunday's finale in a show of friendship and respect only added to the moment.
But that's not all. Annett led the 2024 event from start to finish. She cut a stunning 2:37:06 from the best-ever Ultraman Canada women's time. She cut 1:09:10 off the best-ever worldwide women's time. And her run time of 6:46:01 was the fastest of any Ultraman female anywhere.
Needless to say, along the way she shattered numerous Ultraman Canada women's daily and discipline-specific records too.
"Today is one of the fastest Ultraman performances in history, man or woman," said Ultraman Canada co-race director Brad Sawa. "And it makes it extra special that this is a local athlete in their hometown.
"I've followed Jen on social media and I've been a fan of hers for years and I knew this would be a good distance for her. But what she did was just amazing. I don’t know if even Jen anticipated what she was going to do."
Legendary announcer Steve King, who's likely witnessed and called more endurance races than anyone else on earth, called it a "master class on how to do this event."
"She had a great team with her and a great coach in Johnny Caron," he said. "But she's the one who did all the work in putting it all together. She was only two minutes slower in her second marathon distance than her first, which is just unbelievable.
"She's the number one female right now in the world at the Ultra distance."
Matheson was over the moon about the exploits of his good buddy.
"She was here when I finished in 2108, and she said she was inspired," he said. "And I'm so honoured that she asked me to be one of her run pacers today. It's pretty cool when you’re pacing with someone who's setting absolutely crushing world records.
"But for her to beat my run time and come within minutes of my total time, wow."
A relaxed Annett said taking on Ultraman was "a bucket list thing."
"Everyone's been asking me for the past five, six years when I'll do the Ultraman," she said. "I guess I did it because I'm decent at the long distances, and because it’s local and because we're really good friends with Steve Brown, who ran Ultra520K in the past. So it's all been on the table for a long time."
Annett said she finally stopped waffling and fully committed to it in the early spring.
"Since February-ish," she said. "But we had such a cruddy spring that I didn’t get a lot of the endurance riding in. I can’t do that much riding on the trainer indoors because it gets pretty boring. So I couldn’t ramp it up 'til the end of May."
Her biggest concern was the 84.4K run. Prior to Sunday, the most she'd ever tackled in one go was the 42.2-kilometer Ironman/marathon distance. This would be double.
"It was just put one in front of the other today," she said. "That one (steep) hill out of Trout Creek (on the dirty Princeton Summerland Road) was the one I was dreading the most.
"But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The downhills after that were the worst – on the quads."
Having Matheson with her during many of those kilometers was a highlight.
"It was great running with Dave today," she said. "He's a good friend and other than swimming, because there he's stronger than I am, we’re similar on everything else. So I knew what my pace had to be today."
We asked Annett, who says she's faster now than she was when she got involved in triathlons at the age of 23, if she'd do Ultraman Canada again. And her answer was immediate.
"Yes," she said. "It was an awesome experience."
But Annett wasn’t the weekend's only competitor. Nor was she the only woman to outshine all the men.
Second place finisher KC Northrup, for example, crossed the line nearly two hours ahead of the fastest man, Lambright, in third.
Then there was Brit George Hellyer, who looks like an action figure with his shirt off and played the role of comedian just about every time we encountered him.
Sunday more than halfway into his run and while experiencing some degree of back pain, he told us he's the type of guy who'll try anything once but is not really good at any of it.
Then he called us "lazy" for not continuing to run with him. The guy's a laugh riot. He'd ultimatley hit the podium in third.
There was Spain's Toni Ramos, another dude with an Adonis build.
Ramos gleefully hammed it up for the camera every time he spotted us. And he sat comfortably in third place overall after the Day One swim and bike.
"It's my first time in Canada," said the veteran of several Spanish Ultra competitions, including one where he finished second. "It's so beautiful here, but so much climbing. And I always swim in the sea, so the lake is more difficult for me."
On Day Two, Ramos was forced to withdraw with stomach issues.
And then there was Japan's Mizuki Imaizumi, quite likely the most fashionable, the most camera-aware and the most polite of all the 2024 entrants. Her crew was just as lovable.
But could this veteran of just four previous triathlons handle the strain of Ultraman? If she couldn’t, she didn't let anyone know. After the Day One swim and bike, when she found herself in last place, Imaizumi was, well, very Imaizumi.
"It was fun," she laughed. "It wasn't hard, it was fun. I was afraid of swimming long distances at first, but I like it now. And I'm even better at biking."
She kept that smile right through to the end.
For Brad Sawa and wife Sigrid Stefanson, who share race director responsibilities, the recent slip in competitor numbers (21 in 2022, 17 in 2023, nine in 2024) is not a concern, particularly after the record runs by Cochrane last year and now Annett.
"We couldn't be happier with the success of this year's event with nine athletes representing six countries," said Sawa. "Our event is very exclusive and athletes have to be invited. We must vet each one to ensure they're appropriate and safe.
"We won’t compromise on that in order to have higher participation numbers. The overall quality and safety of the event is far more important to us than the quantity of participants."
For more info on Ultraman Canada, hit up the website here.
