It's been several weeks now since I competed in the 24-hour World Championships, and looking back, it still feels a little surreal that I was there on the world stage, representing Canada along with some other amazing athletes. The whole experience was incredible, from our arrival in France where we got chatting to athletes from other countries whilst waiting to clear immigration, to the flag parade and opening ceremony, the mealtimes at the pavillion, the Team Canada meetings, wandering around Albi and the French saying how much they loved Canada, to the actual race itself, where world and national records were broken, PRs set, and a whole range of emotions surfaced, not just for myself but for many others that were out on the course too. Whilst the memories are still there, some of the detail has already faded with the passing of time over the past few weeks, but I still wanted to capture things as best I could in this post so that when I read it again in years to come, I can rel...
I started running when I was 10 years old, and I've been a runner ever since. Not surprisingly, that means I've done a lot of races, and I mean A LOT. These races have ranged in distance from just the 100m sprint right the way up to 200 miles, but I've never been very good at sprinting and I found that I excelled over the longer distances, usually the longer the better. It's only the past 15 years or so where I've really become an ultra trail runner - prior to that, I always considered myself a road runner, and I used to compete regularly in 10km, half marathons, and of course the marathon. I felt confident doing those distances, I wasn't afraid of the "hurt", and I knew exactly how to pace them. As a road runner, there is always this thing about chasing PBs - or PRs if you're from North America - and every time I toed the line, it was always about going as fast as possible on the day. I spent a good couple of years chasing times - that sub 40 mi...