Canadian Death Race Solo 2019 – The Race Report

Disclaimer: This might be the longest race report on the planet. I wrote it for me to remember the experience. But you might need a coffee break partway through…

If you want to read my “why this race?” you can read more here. The reader’s digest version is that when I was 32 and pretty new to trail running, I ran on my second CDR relay team and said brazenly “maybe when I turn 40 I’ll solo this thing.” My birthday always falls on/near the August long weekend, so even though some of the non-runners in my life thought this was a strange way to celebrate, to me it still felt like a perfect challenge to take on, 8 years later. I was as ready as I was going to get for my first >100km race (my previous longest race being a 50miler at River Valley Revenge in Edmonton in June). I’d followed the training plan given to me by my fantastic coach, Paul Hill (@Evolution Hill), who not only put up with the many other events I wanted to include in my training but kept my head game in check in the weeks leading up to the race. I’d spent countless hours visiting Tyler Gamblin at Active Physioworks to keep the grumpy parts of my body as ungrumpy as possible. I’d somehow convinced all of the fantastic people in my village of support to be on board with this goal, which meant watching my kids while I trained, giving me many words encouragement, and generally helping me carve space in my life for a lot of running and working out. I’d also surrounded myself with other awesome ultra runners to train with and glean wisdom from. Many months ago I got it in my head that I wanted to finish in under 20 hours. Initially, I felt like I’d pulled that number out of thin air but in the weeks leading up to the race I realized this goal should be attainable and my excitement (and nervousness) grew.

I wanted to arrive in Grande Cache nice and early the day before the race. I had visions of doing some yoga in my hotel room, having a leisurely dinner with my crew and fellow racers, going to bed early. Of course we left Edmonton hours later than I hoped (I am sort of a disaster at packing, but in my defence I was packing not only for the race weekend but also for my two kids and I to spend the following week at my friend’s cabin in BC), none of that happened, and I’m not sure when I last felt like a day went by so incredibly quickly. The good news was I had very little time to get anxious. When I walked in to the arena to check in, I couldn’t help myself, I started to dance around like a big kid. I worked hard to control my voice down from a shout at the volunteers “I’m signing in at the SOLO TABLE! Eeeeeeeeee!!!”

This was juxtaposed with some dashing around trying to get my 7 year-old an appropriately-sized shirt for the kids race, and a much more serious and emotional moment writing a prayer flag for the top of Mt. Hamel in memory of my late husband Trevor Nickel. I had already seen a huge raven unceremoniously cawing at me from the rooftop of the house beside where we parked the car, and a rainbow on the way in. I couldn’t help but feel like he was sending me good luck vibes, all the while wondering what he would be thinking of the fact that I was actually here to do this (well, mostly I think he’d be saying something like “YESSSSS! You are awesome! Go Tania go!”).

I hugged and high-fived so many friends, feeling ridiculously happy to be here and to see all of the familiar faces, and listened with intense concentration to the pre-race briefing, all of which I had heard before, except for the assertion “this is the wettest we have EVER seen this course.” I had been following a number of running peeps on Facebook in the weeks leading up to the race who had been training in Grande Cache and so while I knew it was wet, this was still slightly shocking to hear. I then returned to my hotel room to eat the dinner I hadn’t had time to eat before the meeting and go over my race plan and kit with my crew, aka “run wife/soulmate” Janelle Schultz. Finally, Janelle ordered me to go to sleep. It was late, so after a quick Facebook post to thank everyone for getting me to the start line, I crawled into bed, fully expecting that I might spend the night staring at the ceiling. Fortunately, I did sleep reasonably well (last year Janelle and I ran Sinister 7 as a two-person team and I was so hyped up the night before that that I did not sleep AT ALL. And it was fine. I even destroyed my previous Leg 3 time. Ever since, I’ve been much less worried about pre-race sleep, which of course, makes it much easier to get some).

Leg 1

Time disappeared just as quickly the morning of the race between the time the alarm went off and the moment I found myself milling through the crowd at the start line, having dashed out of the porta potty in the middle of the singing of Oh Canada, and having lost sight of all of my people. I very unpatriotically walked through the crowd while half-heartedly singing in French instead of standing still respectfully, searching for familiar faces. Finally, I spotted Thomas, one of my fellow soloists. “Don’t move!” He ordered. I obeyed. A minute later, he reappeared with my mom and my kids, who had made “Go Mama Go” signs. I grinned and gave them huge hugs. I then dragged Janelle (who was also running Leg 1 on a relay team) and Thomas closer to the front of the pack. The countdown was on. Man there were a lot of racers! It took us a full minute or maybe two after the word “Go!” to even get across the timing mats and shuffle out on to the street. The out and back along the main street was awesome because it gave me a chance to see and shout positive words to a lot of people I knew that I had not had time to find before the start of the race, especially Dean, who’s finish two years prior had been part of the encouragement I needed to sign up in the first place. As we came back toward the start line I found my parents and kids looking anxious but relief flooded their faces as they saw me and cheered. I waved and grinned and we were off!

Janelle and I had planned to run Leg 1 together, although she could likely have gone faster, she said it would be more fun to stick with me after many months of being training buddies. Thomas and I had agreed to see what happened, knowing we are not that different in pace, but not wanting to commit to sticking together in case that affected either of our races. The three of us started off as a pack and they were initially clearly both working to keep up with me. I have a habit of starting out pretty quickly in races – all those nerves getting worked out – and then usually finding my pace and my place in the crowd. I have occasionally hung back and been chatty at the start, but usually then find myself frustrated as soon as the course narrows and congestion becomes an issue and I am behind slower-paced runners. I knew we had a couple of km before the race would head into the woods and while it wasn’t single track, it would bottleneck and I wanted to be in good position. A bit of uphill as we headed toward the forest entrance and I found myself ahead of both of them. Thomas caught up and we ran together for a bit until the first big downhill and he was gone – that would be the last I would see of him until I caught up at the 3/4 transition and he pulled out of the race due to an Achilles injury – but I had no idea what had happened to Janelle. At our last training run she’d had some pain in her hamstring and I was worried she was hurting already (she had, after all, successfully soloed Sinister 7 – her first 100 miler – only a month prior). I settled in to a pace, such as it was, punctuated by the giant puddles I had been expecting, and a calm mental state. I followed the crowd around the first few puddles but eventually I observed the slippery mud along the edges and joked “I’d rather go in vertically than horizontally” and started just splashing/wading right through their middles. I wasn’t expecting to be ahead of Janelle, but I knew that whatever was going on she’d be ok and would not want me to slow down for her. It turns out she ran the entire leg with me in her sights, but decided not to let me know she was there because I seemed to be “in the zone.” When the trail gave way to the gravel road I watched my pace on my watch and was super happy to see that everything was so far going exactly according to plan. I was wearing a small hydration pack for this leg that had been given to me by Phil Alain, belonging to my friend and his late wife Amy Alain, and as I ran I imagined her giving me wings and this no doubt contributed to my calm, centred state and easy pace. I also ate all of the nutrition I was planning to (way more than I would normally consume on an 18km run but I knew I needed to stock up for later and basically keep my stomach “open for business”). My strategy of eating regularly hadn’t let me down on a long run yet. I was also appreciating that the crowd had thinned out and that as I approached the first transition area (TA), I could pick my way through the sticky black mud without anyone on my heels or in my way. I rounded the corner into the TA and it felt like pandemonium erupted. The TA was a cacophony of people and it was actually hard to find your way through it. I desperately needed to stop at the porta potties and regretted not stopping at the ones near the campground we had passed that were free of crowds and lineups. By the time I came out, Janelle was waiting for me! She walked me to the food tent where I picked up a banana and she grabbed me the fattest slice of watermelon I had ever seen. We found my parents who were waiting with my other loaded pack, I tightened my shoelaces (making my hands completely filthy with mud in the process), chowed down the fruit, hugged my crew, and took off.

As I ran down the train tracks, I saw Keith Heslinga, who whooped, then as I passed him started laughing and shouted “Happy Birthday!” Janelle had decorated the pack I had just donned and was planning to wear for the remainder of the race, effectively creating for me a trail birthday party:

Leg 2

Having raced this leg only two years ago, this part felt comfortingly familiar as I headed under the highway and started to climb. The wind kicked up as I was temporarily out of the trees and I realized that the only thing that hadn’t made the pack transfer were my sleeves, which I now wanted and looking at the sky suspected I’d want even more up top. I very briefly considered going back for them, but some helpful voice in my brain said “we knew there would be things that would not go exactly according to plan. You need to be flexible. You have a coat, you’ll be fine, it’s no big deal.” This attitude would help me not get caught on a few other wrinkles later in the day too, and is one of the things I’m pleased with about this race (sometimes I react way more strongly than I would like when things don’t go according to plan or plans change!).

As we started to climb and I set up my trekking poles, I had more of a chance to look around and observe my fellow racers. I love people watching and this is the very best kind! There was a guy racing in full army kit. There was another guy wearing heavy hiking pants and no shirt with a tilley-style hat and tattoos I wanted to start conversations about (but didn’t). Up ahead I could see my friend Tess Owen who was tackling the Triple Crown after having lost 6 toenails in the aftermath of Sinister 7… she looked strong and I wondered if I would catch up to her (spoiler alert: nope, I would not). I found myself thinking about my friend Steve Baker and how cool it was that he had raced in all 20 CDR’s and had bib number 20 for this year’s solo race, and I looked up and there he was! We chatted about lucky numbers as I power hiked past him. All along this section I passed people and people passed me and tons of people said “Happy Birthday!” and asked questions like “is today your actual birthday?” This was super fun but also made me self-conscious. What if they thought I had put the sign on myself asking for birthday wishes? I told as many people as I could that it was my crew having a sense of humour, and felt a bit like an imposter because my birthday was actually not until Tuesday, but when I told some people that, they all said things like “that’s close enough! Awesome!” I reflected that this was better than getting sung to by the entire restaurant (which I hate), possibly because it allowed for more one-on-one wishes, but only sort of. I was just glad Janelle had resisted her temptation to add to the sign “and I’m single” after all of our joking in the months leading up to this race that an ultramarathon would be a pretty great way to meet a like-minded person to date.

As I ran towards the turnaround point for the Near-Death marathon and volunteers shouted bib numbers to check people in, I saw Paul Hill coming down from the summit and paused to give him a high-five. I was super happy to see him as I had just been wondering if I might see any familiar faster faces at that spot. This gave me a little emotional boost as I turned to climb the steep section to the summit. Also he likes to say “Up! Up! Up! Up!” so I could hear that in my mind too. I thought about how I had left painted rocks for each of my kids at the summits of this leg two years ago and smiled to think they would still be there somewhere, even if their paint had been washed off. I paused for an obligatory selfie and carried on.

• 

Coming down off the summit of Flood, I started to leapfrog with this guy. He would sprint past me, breathing very audibly, almost a groan, and then stop ahead and… check his phone? What was he doing? I chuckled to myself as I kept my steady pace down and passed him, only to have him pass me again. This happened a bunch of times as we worked our way down and through “slugfest,” though he stopped checking his phone and started exclaiming things like “oh my God!” and “This is insane!” out loud. Eventually we chatted a bit and I found out he had never done anything like this before. I remembered that feeling and grinned, also enjoying the feeling that I was now a “seasoned” racer and none of the mud/bog conditions or steep steep descents were surprising or throwing me off. I did, at one point, manage to pull the top off one of my bottles of electrolytes instead of pulling it out of my pack, drizzling sticky electrolyte solution all over myself and had to stop to sort that out, where he passed me again. We started to climb up the other side, up a trail that was a veritable river of flowing mud that my friend Jill would later call the “chocolate fountain” section, and I pulled ahead again and he said “I don’t know if this is an inappropriate thing for me to say, but I like your pants,” which was even funnier. That was the last I saw of him. I then hugged Trevor Fikkert who was hiking in to cheer people on from god knows where (he was seriously in the forest in the middle of nowhere! How did he get in here?!). I was thoroughly enjoying myself while remaining focused on not falling and eating something every 45 min to an hour. Somewhere in here I also realized that I was in a time warp and I spent some time trying to figure out what time of day it was out there in the “real world.” Lunch time, I guess. I thought a bit longingly of a nice sit-down lunch as I squeezed a gel into my mouth and carried on.

Another highlight of this leg was arriving at the aid station on the way up to the summit of Grande. I was thinking as I thought I was getting close “I hope they have chips, I could really go for some chips!” When I arrived there was literally a SMORGASBORD of chips. I think there were 6 different kinds, in costco-sized bags, wide open on a table like a chip buffet. I was ecstatic and sampled some of everything. I raved about this to the volunteers and anyone around me that would listen (ok, they didn’t have a choice did they?), joking with the guy beside me “why are ketchup chips even good? They’re SO GOOD!!” The volunteer chuckled and said “they never taste as good anywhere else as they do up here!” I took two fistfuls of my favourite flavours (plain and ketchup) to go and crushed them into my mouth as I walked. I also was remembering this part of the course from two years ago and appreciating that it was a bit cooler, but also observing what were clearly gathering dark clouds. As I rounded the curve up to the summit the first of the clouds arrived and we were very briefly pelted with sideways rain (jacket goes on), which ended just as quickly as it had come. I could tell from the sky that this was unlikely to be the end of the weather, but appreciated that the sun came back out for the time being.

Even better, as I arrived at the summit I found Michael Markowski, who I’d met and then run ALL of the RVR 50 miler with in June. I was so happy to see him and knowing we had a similar pace at that race thought I might get to run with for awhile. But as we headed down power line and sun beat down I had to stop to re-stow my jacket and that would be the last I would see of him. On this section I got a few more awesome birthday-related comments. One guy said “Hey! Welcome to the club!” and another said “do you know what happens the day after you turn forty? The sun gets up and you feel the same. Don’t sweat it!” I replied that I wasn’t sweating it, turning 40 is a privilege. Watching your 39 year-old husband suddenly die makes you appreciate that we should all be so lucky to turn 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, etc. I feel blessed to be turning 40, even though part of me is still a little shocked to attach the label to myself.

I cruised down the power line and enjoyed the awesome views. I would later hear a lot of hellish stories from this section as the people behind me got heavily rained on and everything got slick, but for me it was beautiful. The mud was tacky, my legs felt surprisingly good. I didn’t go as all-out as I had a couple of years ago, knowing I still needed my legs for a long time yet.

I got to the bottom and there was this group of volunteers holding up a giant sign that said “Pow!” One of them was complaining that her arm hurt from holding the sign. Then she realized I could hear her and that her complaint in the context of soloing the race was sort of ridiculous and we all burst out laughing. I gave the sign a huge high five, thanked the volunteers enthusiastically and carried on into town. I remembered how dead my legs felt after my Leg 2 PB a couple of years ago and was pleased with how I felt. I was also about 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and looking very much forward to seeing my crew. As I came into transition, it started to rain. Fortunately my crew had a nice tent and I changed my shoes, ate some food, checked in. “Do you want Tylenol?” Janelle asked. “Nah!” I replied, “I feel good!” I also decided I wanted to keep my poles, which was not on my race plan. Too quickly, it was time to go again, but off I went.

Leg 3

Janelle and Paul had warned me about “post transition-area depression” after Sinister 7, so I was sort of expecting it, but not the way it happened. After the TA, you run down a giant hill and then back up and across the highway past the dump. There were flocks of ravens/crows, which reminded me of Trevor and made me smile, except then I realized what was attracting them and was less impressed. The volunteer at the highway crossing mentioned a bear sighting. I decided I needed to put my coat on. Or maybe take it off, I can’t remember. I was already regretting saying no to the Tylenol. I stopped and took some after crossing the highway. At this point I started to get generally fussy. Last time I did Leg 3 (my first ever trail relay), I positively flew down the bouldery trails. Now, my knees were getting sore and I was just starting to feel kind of… blah. I didn’t really need to eat that much, but I kind of wanted to, so I did, but after a bite of whatever, I didn’t want to anymore. It kept raining and stopping, raining and stopping. I regretted keeping my poles because now they were just getting in my way. I must have stopped at least half dozen times to fuss with my gear – to take my jacket out and put it back in my pack, stow the poles, mess with the battery pack I had picked up at transition and was now using to charge my phone and then my Garmin (yikes! when I plugged it in it said 1% battery! How had I missed all of the warnings? I almost lost the record of the whole run – phew!).

Mostly I just didn’t feel very much like running anymore. And it didn’t help that I was now getting passed by a lot of people, relay racers on fresh legs. They dashed past me, shouting “Happy Birthday!” I said thanks, but I probably didn’t sound that grateful. I half-smiled to myself, remembering how many soloists I had flown past when I was a relay runner and how a lot of them had barely grunted a greeting in response to my chipper “nice jobs” and “Go Death Racers.” Now I knew how they felt. The weird thing was I didn’t feel BAD exactly, nothing was really wrong. I wasn’t in any major pain, my tummy was ok (though eating was getting less and less appealing), my headspace was ok. It just wasn’t exciting anymore. And I was slowing down. Big time. I tried to focus on my pace a bit, but it felt like a losing battle.

Toward the mine, it started to rain in earnest, so I put my head down and I just ran. As I came across the bridge, the volunteers with the “Pow!” sign had moved to there, so I jokingly asked about their arms and their laughs gave me a little lift. I knew I was getting close to the TA, and I was looking forward to seeing my people again, and to the food I was planning to eat (fried rice, lovingly prepared by my mom the day before). I knew they’d taken out the sketchy section I’d heard horror stories about, so I assumed it would be what I remembered from 9 years ago, running in the ditch beside the highway. Instead, I was sent across the highway and up into the trees on some gnarly single track. And although I had been with a bunch of other runners on the gravel before the bridge, somehow now I was completely on my own. I thought “if I were a bear, this is where I’d be.” I heard a train whistle. So I answered it with a similar imitation train-whistle yell to advise the wildlife of my presence. This section felt long, but wasn’t, and after a steep muddy descent I did run a ways along the highway into the TA. There was even a train sitting there when I came out of the trees. I snapped a photo for my train-loving 5 year old son.

I was so happy to get into the TA, again. Everyone was there looking like drowned rats, raincoats and rubber boots and mud everywhere. The walls of the screen tent were soaked, but inside it was like a little party. Thomas was there too, and I was super excited to see him, thinking we could run Leg 4 together. Except why was he here? He’d been way ahead at last report. I then realized that he’d pulled out of the race and felt bad for him. He was positive and encouraging though, and I knew I needed to stay focused. Much to my mother’s delight, I begged for a toothbrush and scrubbed away at my teeth while Janelle covered my checklist and repacked my pack. Unfortunately, my fried rice had been forgotten in the hotel fridge. I was disappointed but again had that “this is one of those little hiccups, you need to let it go” voice in my head. I think I had oatmeal and who knows what instead. It was fine. Sort of boring, but calories, and at this point that was really all that mattered. I also got congratulated for drinking all my water, which felt kind of funny. Like a toddler. I was looking forward to Leg 4 and feeling the pressure of being at the outside of my predicted timeline for Leg 3, so off I went. My kids were sad; this was the last I’d see of them because it was nearing bedtime, and my son did not want me to leave. That was a bit hard, but they pulled it together and I knew they were in good hands.

Leg 4

I left the TA feeling well fed and taken care of. A couple of young guys passed me and said something along the lines of “you’re soloing for your 40th? You’re a beast!” Smiling, I reached the beginning of the trail and the climb and suddenly I was completely alone and unexpected tears sprang to my eyes! This was the strangest almost-cry I’ve ever had, because I didn’t feel that emotional, I just noticed I was alone and thought about Walden saying “Mommy don’t go!” and realized I was missing my kids while running this race. I took a deep breath and thought about how I was going to spend the next week snuggling them and the wave passed and I set my mind on the climb ahead. I was, in fact, relieved to be here for several reasons. 1) If I was climbing I didn’t have to run and 2) I had run (most of) this leg last year with friends and so it was fairly fresh and familiar and I knew what to expect. What had changed was the mud factor. For the second time that day I found myself climbing up through a downhill-flowing river of mud.

The forest was incredibly lush and green. The clouds were clearing and the sun was coming back out. For some weird reason, I imagined Hagrid from Harry Potter standing on the side of the trail saying something like “Don’t step in the muddy river. Oh! I should not have said that. I should not have said that…” This vision amused me for quite some time. And then I found Wayne Parchem again! I’d passed/been passed by him a few times already that day. We climbed amicably for awhile and then I pulled ahead, he stated he was not enjoying the humidity.

The time of day was changing, and fortunately, so had the weather. The clouds were clearing out entirely and the sun was streaming down in evening fashion. It was pretty. I was noticing that it was getting less and less appealing to take in any calories. More and more like force feeding. Again, I didn’t feel bad, I just didn’t feel fantastic either. I hummed along to the song that had been stuck in my head all day, even though I only knew a few of the lyrics:

“Oh, through the wilderness/You and I will walk into the emptiness… (random humming) Cross my heart and hope to die/Taking this one step at a time/I got your back if you got mine/Oh, one foot in front of the other… Oh, one foot in front of the other”

One Foot by Walk the Moon

I continued to power hike and try to force myself to run wherever it was flat enough. As I started up the scree slope towards the summit of Mt. Hamel, the wind kicked up something fierce. I pulled out my toque, put on my coat. Switchbacks up and up. What was neat here was that I could see A LOT of other runners above and below. I had been feeling pretty alone, so it was nice to see some other people. The out-and-back to get a pin flag along the ridge at the top might have been one of the highlights; seeing and chatting with other runners, and the incredible view, despite the insane wind.

There were even some mountain goats. They seemed idyllically unaware of the sufferfest going on around them.

At the top Wayne caught back up to me and we shared a really sweet moment talking about being closer to lost loved ones up here. The next day Wayne worried that might have been upsetting for me, but instead it was one of the more meaningful moments of the race.

The excitement of reaching the summit wore off way too fast. Wayne and some other guys started cruising as the terrain switched to downhill and disappeared from view. I started to (try to) run also and OW! Ugh. Ok, my knees are sore. My legs are tired. Ok, everything hurts. I didn’t want to run, even though it was downhill. All of the other runners have disappeared again and I am completely alone. I have to pee and there’s no cover anywhere. I pass a guy on a quad and think to myself “holy crap, how did that thing get up here? I’d much rather be on my own two feet, that’s terrifying.” I shuffle along. Finally some scruffy trees to pee behind. I take this opportunity to grab some more Tylenol. A gel. Then this good-looking dude comes up behind me and says “Happy Birthday! Hey, is your birthday today?” and I say “no it’s the 6th” and he says “mine is the 5th! This is my birthday run too!” I am so ecstatically happy to see another human that I pick up the pace, make conversation. I know more about this leg of the race and the race in general, this guy has done some other long races but not this one. We cruise along for awhile, chatting, and I’m so happy to have found a buddy. I have lucked out at other races to make new friends of the same pace, and had been hoping this would happen here too. Unfortunately, this didn’t last, eventually I couldn’t quite keep up, or maybe I stopped to pee again, or something. It’s a bit foggy now. After he pulled ahead, I got into a truly apathetic state. Again, nothing major wrong, just not feeling like running. I think I really wasn’t expecting this. I’ve heard of the “pain cave” and that sometimes during big ultras people really struggle to keep a positive frame of mind instead of going someplace dark. That wasn’t happening, emotionally I felt ok, but I wasn’t feeling any pep either. The giant puddles weren’t helping. I would slog through a 30 foot pond, using my poles to check the depth and keep my balance. Then on the other side I’d have to convince myself “ok, run. No run. No seriously legs, I said RUN.” Legs would start to shuffle in a slow jog. And then there would be another puddle. Eventually I started to feel like the amount of energy I was expending trying to start running every time wasn’t worth it so I was just hiking along as fast as I could with the puddles. I was reasonably content hiking, but I could also tell that I was losing time and getting slower and slower. Coming off Leg 2 I had thought I might really crush my time goal, but somewhere along this section it started to dawn on me that I might be getting behind schedule. I needed to stay in the window I’d set for myself if I wanted to get under 20 hours, I still had quite a long way to go, and the window was narrowing. I tried to give myself a pep talk “we knew this could happen… this is way longer than you’ve ever run before, we are entering uncharted territory about now.” And yet still somehow I felt disappointed in myself. Like I’d be immune to all of that slowing-down/running-out-of-steam that other people talked about. In hindsight it occurs to me that this was happening at what would normally be getting close to bedtime, and I can’t help but wonder if part of my slump was my body saying “we’re going to wind down now right?”

The sun had been down for awhile but daylight lingers for a long time in the summer in Grande Cache, so it was still dusky when I finally made it to the Ambler loop aid station. I popped out of the bushes and it felt like a party. There were so many people! Runners and volunteers. Music. And SOUP. Hot, delicious, salty soup. Might be the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Ok. Was it better than the chips? I can’t decide. I think it was. By this point I didn’t want to eat anything in my pack, pretty much all of which was sweet. Something fresh and savoury was just what the doctor ordered. I had caught back up to August 5th – “Hey! August 6th!” he shouted. He’d found another friend. I started off down the Ambler loop road and for the first time in awhile, buoyed by the soup, felt myself cruising along at a decent pace. However, I failed to realize how much of a downhill this is. Until I got to the end and had to come back up the trail with the puddles. I did remember the puddles (they’re always in this spot, even on a dry year), so that wasn’t a surprise. I finally had to power up the headlamp. I could hear August 5th and his buddy behind me, but they weren’t quite close enough for comfort so I sang loudly and let out periodic whoops to let any wildlife know I was there as the trail closed back in. I made it back to the aid station in good time. I couldn’t resist stopping for more soup, even though this soup was now too hot and I had to wait for it to cool enough to slurp. I was getting antsy. My time goal was closing, but I knew I’d be able to run a reasonable pace down the road. So off I went. However, the cruising pace I’d been able to put in on this leg when I’d done it as a relay runner was far from my reach now. This time, Beaver Dam Road lived up to it’s reputation. It went on FOREVER. I leapfrogged with August 5th and his friend. They must’ve stopped to pee three times, each pulling to a side of the road. I’d pass them, and then they’d catch back up and pass me. My pace was steadier, but they were ultimately moving more quickly. I had to pee that entire time but I didn’t want to have to go into the dark bushes to do so, so I just kept going, joking every time I passed them pulled over that it wasn’t fair to be a girl who had to pee. By the time we reached the bottom they’d pulled a ways ahead and I was on my own again.

There is a long gentle downhill into the 4/5 TA along the highway, and I know from experience of waiting for runners there that you can see headlamps a long way off. The TA is also a hopping place in the middle of the night with all the soloists and relay runners and crew, so there are lots of people cheering. As I started to get closer, someone shouted super loud “GO DEATH RACER!” and I actually teared up a little. I was doing it. My 20 hour goal was looking tenuous (although I hadn’t given up on it yet), but barring disaster I was going to complete this race. Holy crap. I was a Death Racer. The full meal deal. My heart swelled with pride.

When I arrived at the TA, it took me a minute to find any familiar faces. Then my friend Denise (who had run the Near Death marathon) appeared. “You’re here!” I said. “Of course I’m here!” she said. “I thought you might be asleep!” I said “What, and miss THIS?” I grinned and then winced “I have to pee!” She walked me through the swamp to the porta potties and waited patiently for me outside. I think I peed for about 5 minutes. Finally I made it over to our tent and all of my run buddies/crew were there. Thomas. Paul. Kayla. Denise. Janelle. They each jumped into action, cleaning out and repacking my pack, cleaning my gross feet, changing my shoes. The fried rice had appeared, though it was no longer very appealing. I did eat something there but I’m hard pressed to remember what it was. All I remember is the I felt like a rock star with all the attention. And I also remember thinking as I looked around how GOOD everyone looked. I mean, it was probably partly because they were all showered and wearing clean clothes, and everyone else I’d seen in the past 5 or so hours was sweaty and muddy. But I think it was mostly because they were such a sight for sore eyes. I felt so much love and gratitude towards them all. It was 12:30am, they’d all been up all day, most of them had also raced earlier. And they were all here for ME. It was almost hard to take in. I was insanely happy in that moment. And then I stood up in my clean, dry shoes having vetoed a change of clothing and tried to take a step. Ow. My feet felt like they were in a vice. “Nope. These shoes are no good. We’re going to have to put the muddy ones back on.” My backup shoe plan had failed. Fortunately, my trusty Salomon’s still felt great, despite being truly filthy. I stood up again, ready to go. I got hugs from everyone and headed back to the trail.

Leg 5

Congratulations on making it this far into my story! You shall be rewarded because what happens next is probably the most dramatic moment of my race. As I got back to the trail, two volunteers pulled me aside and said “we have multiple reports that there is a cougar up ahead. He has been growling at racers, especially single ones, from the bushes.” The volunteer proceeded to tell me exactly where on the course the cougar had been heard (spotted?!), but I couldn’t even begin to absorb that detail because a) this was the part of the course I had never run before so I had zero frame of reference but mostly b) coyotes don’t scare me, bears don’t scare me (much), but cougars terrify the living shit out of me. The thought of being stalked silently while on the trail and being pounced on unsuspectingly… **MASSIVE SHUDDER** I just really try not to think about it. Well now I was thinking about it. I froze. Janelle, a few feet away, said “Go! Why aren’t you going?!” and I turned to her and said in a bit of a squeak, “they said there’s a cougar.” Janelle. Didn’t. Miss. A. Beat. “What? You’re not 40 YET!” she said. Everyone burst out laughing, me most of all. I have thought of this moment hundreds of times since and been in total awe of her lightning-quick wit and deadpan delivery, but also how humour was the exact thing that I needed in that moment. The reptile part of my brain, which had been woken from it’s I’ve-been-running-for-more-hours-than-ever-before torpor into a complete panic state, relaxed back into some regular zone of high alertness. The volunteer said “we’re recommending that you buddy up.” I looked around, now in problem solving mode. I didn’t see any runners anywhere looking ready to go. I looked ahead and saw someone quite a ways up the trail, which climbed sharply up the bank away from the TA. I hesitated for another half-minute. Then, remembering that I was now definitely on the edge of not making my 20 hour cutoff based on how I had been moving coming down off Mt. Hamel I said, “well, I guess I’ll try to catch up to that guy, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll stop to wait for someone.” The volunteer nodded approvingly. “You’ve got some time, it’s close to the river.” I relaxed a smidge. I did know approximately where the river crossing was, though only sort of (to this day the numerical details of this leg are fuzzy… I think I thought I’d figure it out by the time I got there, and by the time I got there my brain was far past recording numbers accurately or figuring anything out). I did know it was not imminent, which gave me time to find a friend.

I set off to the cheers of my crew and power-hiked as fast as I could toward the runner ahead. The trail climbed steeply and I attacked the hill with all the cougar-related adrenaline. I got closer to the runner ahead but was struggling to actually catch up. I tried calling out conversationally, but got zero response. I felt the panic rising again. This guy was clearly not interested in being friends. Then I heard from somewhere behind me someone whooping and calling out like they were trying to scare wildlife. I turned around and saw an approaching headlamp. Relief flooded through me. I whooped back. “Hey!” I said as the runner got closer, “Do you want to be my buddy?” He looked up, and relief clearly in his voice too said something along the lines of “Hell yes I do!” Turns out this was the guy who had been running down Mt. Hamel with August 5th (who was now slightly ahead of us somewhere). His name was Drew, and he was from Grande Prairie. We chatted amicably – this was his first big ultra and he was really stoked about how well it was going for him, so he was very positive and enjoyable to be around. He had also pre-run this part of the course during his training so described what was coming up before the river. The trail levelled out into some sweet sweet single track, my favourite kind of trail: some mild ups and downs and lots of curves and twists and trees and plants. Lots to keep you focused and interested in running. So we ran. He was slightly faster than me, but I was highly motivated (with a tinge of panic) to not lose sight of him and be alone in the woods with all sorts of imagined wildlife. We developed a call and answer system – he was running ahead and we were out of conversational range a lot of the time, but he would whoop and I would whoop back, and as long as each other’s whoops were of a certain volume, we were ok. This went on for many kilometres. I started to panic as soon as I could no longer make out his headlamp ahead, but he seemed equally motivated not to lose me, and we continued to call out to each other. If I got too far back, he slowed his pace. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship (well, at least I hope I didn’t chew too many minutes off his finishing time). The split rock I’d heard so much about came out of nowhere. I ran around a bend in the trail and was suddenly up against a HUGE rock. “Whoa! That was unexpected. I’m going to have to run this in the daylight sometime.” “You should!” he said. “It’s really nice.”

We were ecstatic to have arrived at the river crossing. And there was Charon (from the CDR website: “In Greek mythology, Charon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the river Styx that divides the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin is used to pay Charon for passage.”), or basically imagine the Grim Reaper. Whoever volunteered for this costumed role did a fantastic job. They were completely silent and oozed this incredible commanding presence. I had been joking and chattering loudly but as I got close the situation clearly demanded a quiet, solemn reverence. It was totally incongruous with how I felt about getting to the river. It felt sombre. I fumbled for my precious coin and handed it over. Their hand closed over it and it disappeared. They moved aside to let me down the steps to the boat. I climbed in and sighed with relief to sit down for a few minutes. I can’t remember what I tried to eat here, but I definitely tried to eat something. The other guy in the boat with Drew and I talked about how he felt like he never wanted to eat anything ever again and hadn’t wanted to for some time. Drew munched down a powerbar or something. I felt kind of in the middle. I didn’t want to eat anything and was hungry at the same time. This would carry on for the rest of the race. I could feel my energy flagging and would pop a couple of peanut butter M&M’s into my mouth (the only thing left that was appealing – thanks Dean). After a couple of minutes I’d feel a little better, but it wouldn’t last very long. And repeat.

The boat ride was a blast. I’ve never been on a jet boat before! It lasted about a minute. Maybe two at the most. It was loud and at the other side the volunteers were also all business. Hauling you out and making you walk in an exact spot up and away from the shore. I felt slightly disoriented. Like we’d been dropped off not where I was expecting in geographical direction. I had run to the river from town and back many years ago in training, so I thought it would look familiar. It really didn’t. It was dark, and that memory was just too old. Or maybe I was too tired. Anyway, we started climbing. Drew and I carried on with our call-and-answer. When it started to level out I told him I’d been hoping to make it under 20 hours and if we were going to do that we were going to have to move it. He was game and picked up the pace. I kept up for a short while and quickly was betrayed by my legs. They just did not want to run this speed. Or run. Period. After awhile Drew’s headlamp disappeared around a bend in the trail and his whoops got quieter and quieter. I continued to shuffle along, coaxing my legs. “Run. Come on. Run. No. I said RUN.” They disobeyed, or at best would break into something resembling a very slow job. Then I heard some kind of rustling in the bushes right beside me. Or at least, I think I did. But every hair on my head stood up and I ran as fast as I could for a few minutes. Then I laughed and said to my legs “See? You can still run! Sheesh.” But after the shot of adrenaline left, I was back to shuffling. I never did see or hear any wildlife. Thank goodness. I caught and passed some relay runners, that felt pretty good. I should be getting close. Shouldn’t I? Where the hell was that Tree of Soles? It seemed like the trail was passing slower and slower and time was going faster and faster. Somewhere in here I realized that I wasn’t realistically going to make it to the finish in under 20 hours. I was very disappointed, and at the same time I almost didn’t care. I didn’t have enough energy left to be upset. I thought a lot about the audiobook I had listened to earlier in the summer, “How Bad Do You Want It” by Matt Fitzgerald (fabulous by the way, highly recommend). I knew from that book that I was not even close to my physical limit and I tried to use this knowledge to convince myself to speed up, also to no avail. Again, I felt mostly something along the lines of apathy here. Nothing dramatically wrong, I just couldn’t convince my body to move any faster.

Finally the Tree of Soles. An interminable amount of time later (not really, but felt like it), some lights. Gasp! Is that town? Where’s the big hill? Oh. It was just a community hall or something (Trickster. I may have sworn at it). And THEN the road up into town. Which I remembered running in that same training run 8-9 years ago and thinking it wasn’t so bad. That was because I had not already run 115km. It was also interminable. And just steep enough that at this point I struggled to maintain a run. “Asshole grade,” I thought, transitioning back to a hike. The 20-hour mark came and went. I sighed and pressed on. I was, after all, almost there. When I finally got to the street, it was deserted and I was again not geographically facing the way I had been expecting. Disoriented I looked around. And then I saw the crosswalk. Holy shit! The finish line was just over there. Suddenly I could totally run again. I could hear the finish line. I got a little teary. Trevor would be so proud of me. But even more, I was almost DONE. I was going to get to stop running (right Keith?). Running now seemed practically effortless as I jogged the last quarter block and across the field with a huge grin on my face. Where was this pace half an hour ago? And then, from behind the finish line, a crazy sight. A dozen GIANT sparklers fizzled and popped, sparking out into the air and a chorus of people started to sing “Happy Birthday to You” as I came across the finish line. My eyes blurred with tears. This was the best birthday ever. I had successfully soloed the Canadian Death Race. “Aw, you guys!” I grinned, getting enveloped into many arms. It was 4:15am. I’d missed my goal by 15 minutes. Tess was still there, having finished 45 minutes ahead of me (rockstar!). Everyone who’d been at TA 4/5 was there, and a bunch of other people. My MOM was there. Everyone was not sleeping so they could see me finish. I felt so so loved. It was amazing.

Overall I am happy with my result. I feel like a 15 minute margin of error on my goal time in a race of this distance is acceptable. Like my Dad said, “you probably spent at least 15 minutes dealing with puddles” (seriously, how much time DID I spend navigating puddles? I’m sure it was hours and not minutes). Also, this was basically an entire marathon further than I have ever run before, so uncharted territory. BUT. I am left wondering a bunch of things about the 100km+ ultra distances. Mostly, how do you keep moving quickly? I know for many people the answer is just “you don’t.” But there are some crazy fast people out there. Alex Petrosky won the solo race this year in 12hrs 47min. So more is clearly possible. But for now, I am thrilled to have checked this item of my bucket list, to be 40 and thinking “Hey, being 40 is pretty awesome. Take that, Death. Bring on the next 40.”