Canadian Death Race
The Three Amigos
It all began as an of the cuff remark that “Maybe we should run the Death Race”. At the time it seemed like a reasonable idea, especially if we put a team together first and ran one leg each.
Nah! We should do it SOLO. That was the consensus, although I’m still not sure who all voted for this.
Anyway, Robert, Erik and Mike have all ran for what seems like a million years. We’ve all completed multiple marathons and ran the Kananaskis K100 as part of a team several times; so, the Death Race seems like a natural progression. Although following this thought, where are we progressing to?
Without pointing fingers (Robert), the decision was made to run the Death Race together as Soloists. That means we would support each other on the training runs, and all run the race together. Sharon and Kimi would support us on the actual race.
Anyone who has completed a race marathon length or longer will tell you the hardest part about a race like this is the training. We all knew this going in, but how do you train for the Death Race? What is the Death Race?
Our Support (Sharon & Kimi)
Well, the Death Race is an Ultra Marathon in the Grande Cache area of Alberta Canada which covers 125 kilometers in the Canadian Rockies over three mountain peaks. It consist of three legs which can be ran as a team or solo. Legs one and three are easy (a dirty lie), legs two and four are difficult (very, very, very you get the picture), and leg five is usually ran in the dark.
Each leg has a time cutoff, and the overall race must be completed in under twenty-four hours. Because of this Robert concluded it would be like a brisk walk for us (Another dirty lie amongst many as I was to discover).
So how do you train for the Death Race?