© Julie Schmidt

What is great about running is the variety of challenges we can sign up for. There are races of all distances, terrains, elevations, weather, and even all together in a single event. That’s the case of ENDURrun, a staged race that offers something different every day for 7 days. I had the privilege of competing at the Sport edition, which covers 80km of paved paths, trails, and track, in different locations around the Region of Waterloo. This is half the distance of the Ultimate edition, which occurs a month later, challenging runners to complete 100 miles in a week.

With a 200 m elevation gain and temperature above 20︒C, Calgary hosted a marathon as hard as Ottawa last year. I worked more on my acclimation to the warming weather this year, but it wasn’t enough to contain my profuse sweating. At least I was 25 minutes faster than that fateful Ottawa race, showing gradual progress over time. On the other hand, compared to the marathon I ran less than a month ago, it was a shame. Should I put all the blame on me?

I picked the Toronto Marathon as the first long race of the year. That’s the second time I run this race. The first time was before the pandemic. With my plantar fasciitis constantly bothering me, I couldn’t build any real expectations about the outcome. The plan was just to put into practice some lessons learned and run the whole course. To my surprise, I ended up getting a new personal best (PB) in a chaotic race!

It has been 3 years since last time I ran this race. It was in 2019, in my first year in Canada. Meanwhile, the pandemic cancelled the 2020 and 2021 editions, and the 2022 edition was so demanded that the race was sold out a month in advance. This time, I couldn’t miss Around The Bay 2023 and registered as soon as possible.