A Mountain Home

In 2016, if you had asked me if I would ever run an ultra-marathon, I likely would have laughed at the notion and dismissed the thought of ever having a desire to put my body through the torture that endurance athletes such as ultra-runners endure. Racing 50 + kilometers up the side of a mountain  never seemed all that appealing to me and I couldn't quite comprehend the idea of people doing this for 'fun'. It is interesting how our seemingly definitive perspectives can be adjusted in such a short period of time. My tune on this subject slowly began to shift as the months of my time in Canmore passed by and as I became more ingrained in the trail running community and the infectiously positive and happy individuals it attracted. After instantaneously falling in love with this type of running, it has been the culture and people that surround it that has made running and racing in the mountains steal my heart. There is an incredibly contagious, yet inconspicuous lure b...

There were over twenty people out that evening, standing at attention at the base of a mile long winding hill with an impressive gradient.  The running group I tagged along with on this Thursday evening seemed a little more serious, a tad more focused and not quite as social as the Tuesday Canmore Trail Culture (CTC) group I had been out with the previous week. This group referred to themselves as 'dirtbags' which, hindsight being 20/20, could have possibly served as some clue as to what the evening had in store. When it was communicated that the workout entailed five sets of this beast of a climb at a 80 percent effort I nearly choked on the tasteless gum I'd been chewing for the past hour. I scanned the group for reactions but no one appeared to be phased by the announcement. I then quickly did the math in my head and with a puzzled look on my face I questioned my addition and multiplication skills. Had I heard that right, were we about to embark on 16 k's of hil...