Roll With It
My wife signed me up for the Quebec Mega Trail race this summer. Held near Quebec City, the qmt is one of the most challenging ultras in eastern Canada (if “Mega” in the race name wasn’t enough of a clue) and runners traverse two mountains, the Massif de Charlevoix and Mont-Sainte-Anne, with significant vertical gain.
My wife, an avid trail runner, bestowed this gift to me over Christmas. While in the throes of a bacon-andchocolate breakfast coma that morning, the qmt seem like a grand adventure, high in the Laurentians in semiexotic Quebec.
Yet as the race draws nearer, I’m more trepidatious and with good reason. Last summer, I ran the 25k distance at the Finger Lakes 50 Trail Race in New York State (a distance the race organizers deemed so short they couldn’t be bothered to include it in the name) and promptly proceeded to get lost.
I do, however, have about a dozen trail races under my belt that I actually managed to finish, and even a few podium appearances. Yet, like some of you reading this, I cut my teeth on asphalt when picking up running over a decade ago and that’s where I’m still most comfortable. I find the clear-cut parameters of training for and competing in road races satisfying. It’s the language road runners often use when talking to each other:
“How’d Scotiabank go?” “Great. I ran a sub 4:30. Things started getting a little dicey at 27k, but I managed to hold on to a 6:20 pace.”
Yet this is not the language of trail running, it seems. While road running tends to gravitate toward precision, trail running leans into “feel.”
I think that’s why I haven’t yet fully embraced running around in the woods, even though that’s where I increasingly find myself these days in preparation for the qmt, along with my spouse, and Sunny, our labrador ret r iever. I’ve come to accept that any trail worth its salt rarely allows you to settle into a rhythm for very long. With shifting terrain underfoot, presence and improvisation is the name of the game. If road running’s more akin to a military parade, then trail running’s all Dizzy Gillespie: staying in the moment while manoeuvring around roadblocks in real time. I’m getting there, though. I no longer look at my watch every two minutes to check my pace or distance covered. As long as the gps signal guides me out of the woods and home, I’m good.
Back on solid ground, we also provide trail-running content of a more practical nature in our 2020 trail issue to help prepare you for your own jaunts in the woods this year. These include trail-specific strength exercises (p.20) and nutritious, homemade energy-boosting fuel to pack for race day and adventures in the backcountry (p.18). Now is also a good time to consider what shoes you’ll wear during your adventures in the woods this spring through fall. We’ve got you covered on p.56.
Happy trail running in 2020.
Dave Carpenter @CanadianRunning