Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

A couple of years ago, I went to one of the orientation runs organised by the River's Edge Ultra team. A group of us had just completed an easy run on the Homestead Loop, and we were sitting in the sunshine on the deck at Bryan and Debbi's place, having a good chat whilst enjoying a post run drink and one of those delicious homemade cinnamon buns. I can't recall the conversation in any great detail, but Bryan happened to mention that he had been considering introducing a 100 mile event to the REU, and he was looking for some input from us runners. I remember there being some discussion about what the course would look like and what the cut-off time would be, and there was no doubt about it - many of us would be up for the challenge - myself included - should the 100 miler come to fruition, After much work behind the scenes, "The Mammoth" 100-mile race was born and that following year, a small group of runners had signed up for the inaugural event. Sadly, I wasn...

A couple of weeks before the River's Edge Ultra, a post appeared on the Leduc Runners page about a community event in Calmar that was being organised to raise funds for outdoor recreation in the town. It was billed as a fun packed day with lots of family activities, a vendor market, live outdoor music, food trucks and a 6 hour run open to anybody, with the goal being to run a combined distance of 1000 miles. I didn't really give it much thought, but then a couple of friends said that it sounded like my kind of thing and before I knew it, I found myself registering to take part. The event took place just one week before REU but I had said to my coach Paul that so long as I didn't go too fast, I thought that a marathon or a 50k within that 6 hours would be feasible, and hopefully it wouldn't take too much out of me for REU. He agreed, so I set a goal to run for the 6 hours at an easy, leisurely base, as final preparations for River's Edge. We're still in the proce...