Race Report

Saturday July 31st I ran the Death Race in Grande Cache.

Here's the short summary: Took 10 hours to drive there, stayed in a tent, ran for 22 hours 45 minutes, struggled in the night, possibly should have dropped out from muscle cramping, finished!, and was really sore after for days. It was great!


I left Kelowna on Thursday morning and drove for ten hours to get to Grande Cache. It is an incredibly small town. We got into town and stopped in at the tourism centre hoping to find out where the tent city was located. It was closed, seemed a little odd for the biggest weekend of the year for the town. Ended up driving through town asking random people where to find tent city. Found it and got set up. We spent the Friday checking out the transition areas so my Dad would know where to find them on race day, packing up stuff for the race, meeting up with other racers, and kit pickup and all that jazz. Slept horribly nervous the night before. And woke up at 5:45 am the day of to get ready for the 8 am start time.


The race is 125 km long divided into 5 legs. Leg 1 is 19 km with relatively smaller climbs. Leg 2 is 28 km long up and down Flood and Grande mountains, up the mountains is horrendous footing and down the last mountain is super steep quad killer hills. Leg 3 is 21 km of flatter running, but again with some sections with difficult footing, this leg looked way easier on the map but due to the footing was harder than expected. Leg 4 is 36 km long climbing up Hamel mountain and then down. Leg 5 is 22 km of single track trail descending down to the river and then back up into town. There were several cut off times throughout the course, of which the one I had planned the most for was the 11 hour cut off time at the end of leg 3. I knew that according to past race results if you made it here safe, you were likely to finish.





Above is Flood and Grand Mountains which make up leg 2. Although leg 2 is shorter than leg 4, I would say it is much harder.

Pictured above is Hamel mountain.

This is where we stayed for four days. My Dad and I shared the tent on the far left, of the four nights in rained two of them. But it hardly rained long, being so close to the mountains the weather would change so quickly. The day before the race I had packed all my clothes, gear and food up into the back seat of the car and had written up lists of everything I wanted available to me at each leg for my Dad to use on race day.
Before the race we checked out the start line.

The race was supposed to start at 8 am. It started a few minutes late, at the time I had no idea what was happening. I was in the middle of the pack of the starters and couldn't hear a thing.

Later I found out this (I can't seem to be able to copy and paste, but check out "Purple Monkey Flash Mob" on youtube). Pretty cool.

Leg one started out with several km running through the streets of town. I had started out in the middle of the pack and had been told that once you got onto the trails there would be quite the bottle neck of runners and you would be better off to find yourself as far out to the front as you were comfortable with. By the first half of the leg was over I had run past several runners I recognized talking to them along the way and I was feeling good. I was power walking anything that was steeper than I was tall, I knew that I didn't want to burn out later in the race. The second half of the leg went through a trail that was very close to the highway; and there was quite a few spectators lining the trails. All the kids were putting out their hands for high fives, it was pretty rad! And then at the aid/exchange station there was a very big crowd, very cool! I finished the leg in 1:47:46. Which was 63rd amongst the soloists and 110th overall. My body felt good at this point.

On to leg two, climbing up Flood and Grande mountains. The first part of the climb was double track (maybe ATV track) at an easy incline. And then it turned into crazy footing that was impossible to pass, impossible to control your own pace, for several km it seemed like a stairway of tree roots. Very challenging.

And then we made it to the top of Flood mountain. I tried to take a picture of myself, but then someone asked to trade pictures. So they took mine and I took theirs. Ha! Maybe I should have been running faster instead of taking pictures, whoops. About 500 metres from the top of the mountain I got my first real bad muscle spasm in my left quads. Totally frozen for a couple minutes. Running downhills become very painful all of a sudden.

Up next was what the race calls 'the slugfest' which is the section that has the worst footing in the race, and considering what I had just been through getting to the top of the last mountain I was a little apprehensive of what was to come. And it was harder than they said. But at least I was feeling good to do uphills. My legs cramped up two more times in the 5 km stretch here.

We crested a hill on the course and were treated to this beautiful view; so it was snack/picture time. Rested up and felt a little better. By this point I was also starting to have stomach issues and was could tell I was not peeing enough. Later I came to the conclusion that the perpetuem I was drinking was the culprit of my stomach upsetness. I was the king of the massive burp this day and either I just shouldn't be using perpetuem or having it sit out warm in my cooler all day while waiting for me does somethiing bad to it. I'm not sure, but once I switched to gatorade only for my electrolytes and stopped using the perpetuem I started peeing more and started feeling better. But I still couldn't comfortably run anything downhill without massive pain.

Between the two mountains there was an aid station. You know it's a long race when you aren't surprised to hear the volunteer ask you "are you peeing regularly"

Felt damn good to make it to the top of Grande mountain! Awaiting us on the way down was the powerline trail. Very steep descent with not very good footing. It made trying to go down fast rather hard. If I am to try this race again I think I will definitely get poles to use. That way I could have comfortably built up speed and felt safe at the same time.

The second aid/exchange station was at the start finish line in town. Right before the aid station these two young boys said to me "man you gotta catch that girl, you can't let a girl beat you". It was Margaretha whom I would end up running the ascent of Hamel in leg 4 with... and she would beat me on the day by 2 hours. She did fantastic! I undressed, showered down with a water bottle, dried off, vaselined my moving bits which I had forgotten before, put sunscreen on, changed shoes, shirts and socks. All the while I was doing this two teenage girls were watching me with the strangest look of disgust; I felt like no one was watching and was in a world of my own at that moment getting ready to hit the trails again while thinking of my time goals (I had 4 hours to hit the 11 hour cutoff mark and was very comfortable but still nervous) and then all of a sudden I notice how many people were watching me. It was surreal. I did that leg (28 km) in 4:54:05 which was 97th amongst the soloists for that leg. At this point I had been on my feet for 6:41:51

About a km into leg three I started running with Laurie. She was doing the race as part of a two woman team. Her team mate had just told her to 'take her time' on the leg. So she ran with me and I am so thankful, having someone to run with helped me forget that I was in a fair amount of pain in my quads. At one point I remember saying to her that I felt we were running fast, but she thought it was slow! Too funny. About 75% way through the leg Laurie took off at a faster pace than I could maintain and I walked for a bit with Cyril, a guy I recognized from the races facebook page. We walked together for a bit. This leg had been extended by two km for some reason this year, and the last two were on a rail bed and I was tired at this point and very tired. I finished the leg in 3:05:50, which was 113th amongst the soloists.

I was now at 9:47:41 for the first 67 km. An hour and thirteen minutes under the cut off time for the end of leg three. I breathed a sigh of relief at this aid station, even though I felt rough I knew I could do it. I had only 58 km left and over 14 hours to do it.

Heading out onto leg 4 I megt back up with Margaretha and Cyril, we did the ascent up Hamel mountain together. We would take turns taking the leading hiking up the mountain. It was awesome, we pushed each other faster than I'm sure any of us could have gone individually and made up some great time, even passing some relay team runners (and having time to stop for snack/high five breaks). I couldn't have made it up the ascent without those two wonderful people.

Margaretha had powered on ahead of us just before the peak of Hamel. I took a picture of Cyril and I at the top of the mountain.

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A volunteer at the top of the mountain told us that we were three km away from the next aid station (which would be at the Ambler loop and would also have our drop bags waiting for us). I took his words as truth and timed my water intake such that by about that distance I was almost out... the only problem was that it was actually 10 km to the next aid station. So I then had 7 km of climb left with hardly any water and I definitely felt like crap at the aid station as a result of this. I had hoped to get to the Ambler loop station before it was dark, but I missed that by about 30 minutes. At the station I put on my jacket and gloves, loaded up on food and water and was on my way. I took me a long time to get to feeling better, and I struggled mentally once I came out of the loop again and was in the dark alone. My mind was starting to feel tired; it was almost like I had gone a little bit loopy. I must have peed six times during the 9 km stretch from the Ambler loop to the fourth exchange area. I felt rather odd. I finished that leg (36 km) in 8:15:04, 110th amongst the soloists. Total time at this point was 18:02:45.

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The last 2 km leading up to the aid station I was fighting thoughts of dropping out of the race. My Dad said I looked like hell; I rememeber telling him that I wasn't sure if I could make it. I guess that was where I hit the wall in this race, but I got through the exchange with fresh clothes on and headed out. I told my dad that I would be at least four - five and a half hours to the finish. I knew that I had just under 6 hours to go the last 22 km and I felt like I might not make it. I was destroyed mentally at this point, I just felt awful. But I couldn't give up. Even though I had been saying to myself that I would consider quitting, when it came to possibly do that it was no longer a real option in my mind. This was a thought that went through my head several times during the last leg also, when I felt like shit I thought about quitting, but when it came time to actually quit and hand over my timing stick to someone I just couldn't even get close to doing. I fail at quitting! Ha!

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The first hil heading out onto the last leg was a very minor hill, but it took what felt like an eternity. I almost fell down going up it. Throughout the first several km I felt like i was disconnected from time. It was very strange. Time felt like it was standing still but I kept moving. A relay runner that had passed me told me to keep on plugging away because "the last seven km were a dream" as she said. Eventually I caught up with a couple soloists that I had chatted with at the end of Leg 4 (while it was still light). Lori and a guy that I had never caught the name of. I don't know how I managed to catch up with them, I think I had seen their headlamps and desperately tried to catch them knowing that I would feel so much more comfortably having the company of others. Lori was leading and keeping a great pace! I wish I could have kept with them further, but nature called and I was on my own again. Soon enough I was at the aid station before the river crossing, went right passed it and headed to the boat that took you across the river. It was magnificent! I don't know what it's called but where we crossed the river was a divide where each side of the river had a massive cliff/embankment on each side. It was so peaceful and beautiful on that 30 second boat ride.

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Off the boat it was right back to climbing. 1000 ft uphill in about 5 km distance. Somehow I ended up catching up with a group of racers. I seem to go uphills faster than people that finish around the same times as I do; I guess that means I'm going slower than them on the downhills or the flats. I finished this leg in a time of 4:41:42 which was 140th amongsth the soloists. Only 150 soloists finished, so I was almost last amongst them for this portion. It's interesting looking at my time breakdowns at each leg of the race seeing where I lost and made up time around me. I fell apart a little bit physically during leg two, and fell apart mentally at the end of leg 4 and the first hald of leg 5.

I finished in 22:44:27!!!!

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I was so happy to have finished this race. It was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done, and likely will be the hardest thing I do for quite some time. Never before have I ever thought about quitting during a race; although when it came down to it I was incapable of putting these 'quit' thoughts into action. I pushed myself through a tonne of pain; I'd like to say that was something I learned about myself but I already knew I could do that and that I would when the situation arose again. I thought that I was prepared for this race, I trained on mountains and thought that I was close to matching the elevation gain that the Death Race would give me. But I was wrong, and I don't think it was even the elevation change that was the most difficult part, it was the technical aspects of the footing that came along with it that made it so hard. There were absolutely no easy sections on this course. The parts that I thought would be 'break' sections from the topo maps had insane footing. The parts that were flat road came when it was dark out and so the ease went away. Nothing about this was easy; as advertised by the race "it's a killer" and I am proud just to have finished. My Dad did a fantastic job as my support, at the beginning he said he can't imagine that I would be running 125 km, and I still think he doesn't quite fathom it. Heck, sometimes I don't think I fathom it. I just ran/walked 125 km and was on my feet for around 23 hours. And yet I am not surprised, I am to the point in my training that I knew I could do it. Yes I thought I could do better, but I knew I could do it. And I did!

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Keep on running.

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Nazzer.