Tag: ultrarunning

  • Lap Eat Nap

    No Old Tom Backyard for me this year, but I’m excited to be helping out and relive some memories vicariously through friends who will be running loops this year. If you’re a past participant, or lining up for your first backyard, head over to Big Sky for a poster to commemorate that time you signed…

  • Actif Epica 115km

    As I drove home after 2025’s 50km Actif Epica, I looked out over the frozen fields to the south, curious about the southern half of the route. In 2026, my curiosity was satiated, as I took on the full loop. Setting out from St. Pierre in thick morning fog which hung around for nearly the…

  • Rider vs Runner

    From the moment we dropped down into the valley at dusk the evening before the race, I was hooked. Rider vs Runner is a small, intimate race exploring a hidden Manitoba gem of the Souris River Bend WMA. Drawing on inspiration of early North American trail running lore (which I wrote a bit more about…

  • Who Would Win: Horse vs Human

    This weekend, 20 runners including myself, will test our mettle in a race against horses and their riders, in the 23-mile Runner vs Rider race along the Souris River in Manitoba. We will join the historic debate – can humans beat horses in the footrace? The now iconic Western States Endurance Race famously has its…

  • Q After Ultra

    Questions abound leading up to the race, but what happens afterwards? Here are some of the questions spinning through ultra runners’ minds on the day after the big race. With a nod to all my Old Tom Backyard friends who might be asking some of these questions today.

  • Memories of Mantario

    When Greg, Cory, and I finally snuck in a Mantario run on a rare warm November last fall, we had no idea what would happen to this wilderness area just a few months later. Six months later, half of the trail has burned, questions abound as to the future of the trail, and so many…

  • Old Tom Backyard Poster

    The day(s) of the Old Tom Backyard quickly approach, and maybe you, like me, are feeling all the waves of excitement and dread that come with this epic adventure. If you’d like to commemorate the race, or maybe point to the exact spot on the course where, after 47 or 25 or 2 yards you…

  • Old Tom Backyard

    Last year we went in unawares, most of us having never running a Backyard Ultra before (as my race plan might have suggested). This year, we’re smarter, though possibly not wiser. Old Tom Backyard enters its second year, and we look forward to nearly endless loops around the barns and through the woods, followed by…

  • No time to spare in Beaudry

    “You’re late.” In 2019 I signed up to run loops of this beautiful little trail along the Assiniboine River west of Winnipeg during the annual Beaudry Fall Classic. This particular year, the race was preceded by a couple weeks of heavy rain, and as I drove out on a dark fall morning, the windshield wipers…

  • Actif Epica

    I’d been curious about the Actif Epica, an annual race along the Crow Wing Trail, for several years, and 2025 was my year to finally be part of it. As the day approached, the forecast continued to promise “classic Manitoba winter” temperatures below -20° C. The race bills itself as a “celebration of human resilience,”…