Running: Sinister 7

I run a lot, and I love running on trails. Since I began running in April 2006, I have completed the 50km (2007) and 50-mile (2008) Blackfoot Ultra. (For those unfamiliar with running these races are called ultras because the distance is great than a regular marathon of 42.2km or 26 miles.) I have also completed leg 3 and 4 (58km) of the Canadian Death Race as part of a relay team. I did run a half-marathon road race for kicks and training in the fall of 2006, but I much prefer trail races.

This coming weekend is the first running of the Sinister 7 ultra trail race. It is a 135km course in the Crowsnest Pass area in Alberta. The race is run solo or as part of a relay team. I am part of a two man team called "Two Fun Guys". I am running legs 4, 5 and 6 for a total of about 62km. I'm not quite so fast as my relay partner, so I will be done in about 8 hours.

This is a new ultra trail race for Alberta. I had been living in Edmonton, AB until last summer, so I'm looking forward to getting into a new area of the mountains to run. The late spring has meant that running in the mountains has been delayed since I'm not a huge fan of post holing in thigh deep snow. There's been a lot of warm weather in the Crowsnest area lately, so I'm hoping things won't be too slippy or muddy for the run.

I'm feeling much more relaxed going into this race. Prior to the Blackfoot ultra I had picked up a bad chest cold that wiped out my plans for completing my last four weeks of training. This left me pretty freaked out about my prospects of even finishing. I haven't gotten in as many long runs between Blackfoot and Sinister 7, but I'm much more confident in my ability to finish the distance strongly going into this race than I was leading up to Blackfoot.

Back to work!