Sunshine, Rainbows and Candies at Canadian Death Race

Originally written August 6, 2019

It was the first summer in years where I hadn’t over-committed to athletic adventures. After DNFing Black Canyon in February, (and a bunch of other 100k’s, let’s be honest!) I decided to back wayyy off. I wasn’t sure I liked running long ultras anymore. I’d lost the stoke, and I’d kept trying to revive it, to no avail. I’ll stick to small, local events and maybe some low-key 50k’s, I thought.

But then, Tara and I ran the 75k West Coast Trail in June, and my spirits changed. The day was absolutely amazing, the type of magical day you dream about. After that day, I started to believe in the whole thing again. I started to reconsider. Maybe something in me had changed?

Spurred on by the West Coast Trail, I signed up for the Death Race two weeks before the event. It took me those 120k of mud pits, overgrown animal trails, over 5,000m of ups and downs and thunderstorms to finally re-discover my why. I’d forgotten, it’s not about having a perfect run. It’s about working on the practice of mental discipline and positivity, and the satisfaction that comes from meeting inevitable problems head-on and embracing them.

Below is a non-traditional “race report” which I originally posted on my Facebook page.

Canadian Death Race was fun! For fun/motivation I pretended I was on a fictitious co-ed relay team even though I was doing the 125k solo. (😂) It kept me laughing all day imagining a new character as I ran…

• Leg 1 runner was Samantha. She’s fairly new to running and the team only invited her because she’s dating Lopez, (more on him below) and didn’t want her to feel left out. The team put her on the first leg, not expecting much. Samantha did her job well, started out smoothly and not too fast.
• Leg 2 runner was Lopez. He’s a machine at climbs and descents, and he was amazing charging up Flood and Grande Mountains, possibly getting the team into 2nd place. However, he’s a bit of a low IQ type and got lost only one mile from leg 3, running 23 minutes back onto Leg 1. Talented, just not so smart…
• Leg 3 runner was Jennifer, a road runner. The team chose her because that leg is essentially an old logging road. She did fairly well, nothing to write home about but she plugged away, and got the spirits back up after Lopez’ getting lost situation.
• Leg 4 runner was Jordan, inspired by the real-life Jordan Maki-Richards. The team needed a strong-as-hell & smart ringer on this tough leg (over 2,000m climbing and 40k!) and Jordan fit the bill. She was super strong and just kept charging. She also really had her head screwed on. When a sudden thunder storm started that looked pretty menacing, she found tree cover, opened her emergency blanket and wrapped it around her base layer from her pack so it wouldn’t soak through.
• Leg 5 runner was Jeniqua, a partier, who the team didn’t know that well and unfortunately was a bit of a lemon. She came for the night party & fun boat ride across the Smoky River, but she couldn’t really run worth shit. A bit like Lopez, she made a fatal error — the bright headlamp she’d brought wasn’t charged, (🤦‍♀️)so she had to use the less bright backup. She was also a super pretentious eater, all she wanted was things she didn’t have. In the end she got it done, but slower than the team would have liked.

Relay team alter-ego aside, all in all it was a super fun race & community! I appreciated the assorted beef products in the race swag (very Alberta!), the amazing community who treated me like family, and leg 4— Mt Hamel, where you could see amazing views of the Northeast Rockies & Smoky River Valley. I ended up in 5th Female / 21st overall after the events described above, which I’m pretty happy with, I think there were over 350 solo runners that started! (Wow, 134 DNFs this year! Likely due to the crazy wet, muddy bog conditions!) We can always improve and that’s fun to dream about as usual, but I’m happy with my headspace, how I stayed positive and single-minded all day.