Hot off the heels of securing my permanent bib at the Canadian Ski Marathon, I found myself once again boarding a bus, skis in hand, ready to tackle another great adventure. Less than 6 days after finishing the 167km journey of CSM, I was set to race two days back-to-back at the 40th Annual Gatineau Loppet! Day 1 would be the 51km linear Classic race, followed by repeating the exact same 51km course the next day, but this time on skate skis. Beyond the challenge of just mentally preparing for such a feat less than a week after CSM, this […]
Race Reports
Hello friends! Seems like my blog posts are becoming fewer and farther between, but I assure you it is not for a lack of my being active. On the contrary, I’m still up to my tricks, training and racing whenever the urge strikes. However, I find these days with other platforms around, I often just scratch out a short FB post instead to summarize some of my exploits. However, sometimes, it’s still worth me archiving results in a more permanent way with a full story. This post it such a time, as it will talk about my recent [successful] completion […]
My trail running race season had wrapped up. It was time to turn my focus to winter sports. So why then did I find myself on a Thursday night hitting ‘register’ for a 50k trail race in 2 days? Some might say I have an addiction of sorts. They would be correct. The bottom line was that my feet felt good, my legs felt good, and I was looking for that little bit of motivation to keep active going into winter. Plus, the race was taking place at the Ark, which has a soft spot in my heart. All told, […]
As I crested yet another little rise, feeling the many kilometers in my entire body, I could utter only a single word to myself in my internal monologue: “run”. So goes the simple existence of an ultra-runner deep into a long race. In this case, it was the 106km Midnight Moose Ultra, taking place in Gatineau Parc, so near my house, yet so far away mentally. The mantra I trained myself to repeat ad nauseum is simple: “Run where you can, walk where you have to”. This truly is the key to getting through an ultra. You need to simplify, […]
Now that you’ve read all about the lead-up to the big race, it’s time to get into the actual race reporting, isn’t it? First off, let’s clear up the title of this post. As many of you are aware, a month before this trip, I also found myself out west for another race, the aptly-named Sinister 7, which of course you can read all about. Unfortunately, at that race, I ended up with a DNF, but one that I had to wear as a badge of honour in my journey as an ultra runner. The conditions and my own mental […]