Living vicariously through my friends

 Sulphur Springs Trail View 

Our newbie trail runner from London via Eugene Oregon, Katie on the Right with Meg from Toronto

After the 20K and 40K fun runs, there was a pot luck brunch at Monica and Phil's

Before I forget,

I may have mentioned to you (a couple hundred times) about my running idol Monica, and her inviting running friends to a 20K or 40K Fun Run from her home during tte winter months.

Well Sunday was the first one and I volunteered to do the aid station that was normally done by her dad (Dieter) for years until becoming sidelined to a wheelchair with some health issues. Anyone who has run the Sulphur Spring Trail Races up until a couple years ago, would come up to the aid station before hitting the 'Lolly Pop' sections of trails as it become known as Scholtz's Deli because of the hot foods and beverages he would bring out during the late night early mornings of the ultra races to fuel the runners on toward the finish. 

I contacted Jennifer Anne to see if she was going to attend and when she said yes, I offered that she come with me. She asked that we not run out of gas on the 401 like what happened to us a few years ago. 

(make one little mistake and they never let you live it down) 

Katie, a newbie to our trail running group but not to trail running by a long stretch, also drove to Ancaster to do the 20k. 

Katie is from Eugene Oregon and doing her PHD at Western and has said that she has to go to the Byron ski hill to find anything close to a hill like she normally trains on back home, and this sounded like a welcome change.

She hooked up with Meg from Toronto who knew the course, plus had enough speed to make it a bit of a challenge for Katie.

Afterwards we all met at Monica and Phils home for a pot luck brunch.

And that's where all the good stories start, like a couple years ago Bill, Danny and myself showed up to do the 20K fun run and were sitting at the dinner table afterwards as Iris Cooper said she had just signed up to do a 200km trail race in Switzerland in the summer. Then Monica asked 'what is the date for that?' She then got up looked at the calendar and said she was free that date, so right then decided to enter as well. Danny and Bill looked at me and shrugged and said it takes us longer to plan a 10k race in Ontario then they did for one in the Swiss Alps.

Well Sunday's best story was again coming from Iris Cooper who came out to do the 40k fun run to get a longer training run in following an Ultra she did in October.

When I asked for details of her race she commences tell me she did the Moab 240 MILE Utra in Utah.

Temperatures ranged from hot during the day in the lower elevations while getting below zero during the night plus snow in the higher elevations.

She said she was hallucinating something fierce and at one point sat down, pulled out her cell phone and called her husband to come pick her up, she was done.

He kindly pointed out that he was in Toronto and could not pick her up, but was following her progress in the race as all runners had to wear tracking devices and could be seen live on the race web site.

He told her she was only three (3) miles away from the finish and she better get going.

Iris, got up and ran the three miles to the finish line with a time of 110 hours, 7 minutes and 8 seconds.

WTF!!?? That's 4-1/2 days without sleep, and running a race.

And yes there were other stories told, and will share with you out on the trails.