FINDING A WAY FORWARD
Ultra-trail racing is gruelling, rewarding
One day in early spring, a little over a year ago, I exited my house and ran into my neighbour from three doors down. Chakib and I had never actually spoken before, besides perhaps a cordial hello.
This time we stopped and talked. I asked him about the group of runners I had seen assembling on his steps for months, or maybe years. He said, “Why don’t you join us?” “Maybe,” I replied. Then I did what I always do before committing to what I sense will be a significant act: I thought about it. I thought about it and then I trained for six weeks alone before I showed up on Chakib’s doorstep one Saturday at 8 a.m.
There, I was introduced to many people who would come to change my life.
Running, I was to discover, was a way forward. The distance extends according to your desire to follow it. Sometimes the distance can even generate that desire.
For me, what started out as a casual five-km jog (an accomplishment that at the moment was not without significance) has turned into a love for ultra-trail racing. Ranging from just over 42.2 km (marathon distance) to well over 200 km, ultras have been big in Europe and the U.S. since the late ’90s, and are growing in popularity in Canada.
Cam Miller, Mountain Equipment Co-op’s operations activity co-ordinator in Vancouver, says the trail race that takes place every August in Gatineau has witnessed a 50 per cent yearly increase in registration since 2015. He reports a similar growth for the co-op’s trail races in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto.
Among the world’s most iconic ultra races are the Western States in California (touted as the world’s oldest 100-mile race, beginning in 1977), the Marathon des Sables in Morocco (roughly 251 km over six days through the Sahara) and Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (a 171km loop through the French, Swiss and Italian Alps).
Although I don’t have the Alps in my backyard, I do have a little treasure called Mount Royal, which up until that Saturday morning had been a topographic feature I glanced at from my house. Now the mountain, like Chakib, has evolved from neighbour to friend, and rarely a day goes by without all three of us saying hello.
Since the beginning of this year, I have logged over 1,400 km and amassed 30,000 metres of elevation. I like to imagine that going up and down Mount Royal enough times could one day lead me to Mont-Blanc (known as UTMB to trailers) or another of the ultra biggies.
This “dare to dream” scenario would require a lot more weekly kilometres than I am putting in now. Luckily, I am the kind of person who dares to dream. (I’m also someone who has difficulty discerning between suffering and a good time.) Rather than be discouraged by discovering the sport so late in the game, I am spurred on by the fact that many of the top female finishers are in my age division (40-45). With more experience and better training, it’s onward and upward.
This audacious relationship with possibility has already led me and my companions to places as far away as the Middle Atlas mountain range of Morocco, to compete in a three-day race called the Trail des Cèdres. Held in May outside Ifrane, a small, clean city that reveals a curious Swiss influence in its architecture, the event is unsurpassable in terms of ambience, as competitors are treated to traditional Moroccan meals and entertainment.
This 77-km race, with the total distance distributed 32 km, 25 km and 20 km over the three days, requires one to run “today” while being cognizant of the effort that will be required tomorrow. It taught me all sorts of things about endurance, which, in its most compassionate form, is rooted in acceptance.
The Trail des Cèdres showed me how to say yes to what could be seen as obstacles — the sun, the climbs, the exposed flats. In doing so, I discovered that I am not against the environment, and it is not against me — I am part of it. I am alive and in motion, and that should above all be celebrated, no matter what superficial aches and pains accompany the journey.
I placed third in the women’s division. Although I am no stranger to sports, having been a serious cyclist and skate skier in the past, I had never before been on a podium. It was the best vantage point from which to appreciate the good fortune the path has brought me. Going forward and saying yes is in itself a gift.
While working on this article, I competed in the Mountain Equipment Co-op 50-km race in Gatineau — an impeccably organized, good-vibe event with cheap registration fees. Both my head and my body have been busy of late. I’m a student, a writer, a mother, a friend and an athlete. Sometimes these roles coalesce and sometimes they compete. I tidy lots of things in my head when I run — I reflect, I assess, maybe I realize. I move on.
Certain races provide less time for reflection. The Northman XC in St-Donat this year was a lesson in total mindfulness, as we ran the 38-km course from start to finish in the pouring rain, through mud and water that at times reached waist level.
If you wanted to stay on your feet, you had to focus on the ground beneath you. I have been a lover of mud since I was a child, and it was probably one of the most joy-filled days of my life. I lost third place by 4/100 of a second. That stung a bit ( just enough to have me out for a recovery run the next morning).
The criss-cross of tree roots on the technical trails of the 50-km Quebec Mega Trail in Mont-SteAnne provided another lesson in mindfulness. On such terrain, if you lose focus when the moment forbids, you can be reminded quite violently that in order to move forward you must be present.
To fall on a trail, as in life, is pretty much inevitable. But if you can, you pick yourself up and you keep going.
And as I was shown at the MontSte-Anne 50 km, when I fell so hard that for a moment I was uncertain which planet I was on, sometimes total strangers are willing to stop and pick you up and set you on the path again.
For myself and the people with whom I train, the final races on our schedule this season are the most important: Harricana, which for the first time is part of the UltraTrail World Tour, will take place in La Malbaie in the Charlevoix region on Sept. 8 and 9; and Bromont Ultra is on Oct. 7 and 8.
At Harricana I will do 65 km, and at Bromont 80 km. Friends of mine are training for the 125-km and 160-km courses, respectively.
I would like to imagine such distances for myself next year. But this year, I know that even though the spirit is willing, my body still needs time and miles to get accustomed to those kinds of distances.
For now, I content myself with respectfully pushing against those boundaries that define me, which to my delight prove more malleable than fixed.
I think this fascination with limits is common among ultratrailers. And when the going gets tough in my day-to-day, I consider the trail race as a metaphor. Every uphill distance provides a view, and with it comes the satisfaction granted by a mechanism as simple as it is enduring: one step in front of the other.