TNF Banff 3 Peaks Challenge - 21st of August 2013

A couple of months ago I had an idea of doing something out of the ordinary before I left Canada. 

I came up with the idea of running from The North Face Banff store in town out to Norquay Ski Resort then to the summit of Cascade Mountain then back down to the store for a refuel station then out to the top of top to pick up the trail to summit Mt Rundle before descending and finishing off with a summit of Sulphur Mountain, and finish where I had started in town outside The North Face store.. As far as we knew after doing some research and asking around this was going to be a first for this challenge and many others had ran the 3 peaks but used a car to get in between each trail head. This made it more exciting for me to know if I completed the challenge I would have the fastest known time!

Route/Elevation data..  

The summer didn't go to well for me with a injury to my hamstring, I ended up not running for 5 weeks before I competed in this years TNF Canadian Death Race. Therefore I had really not given this new challenge any though with time running out and recovery from my race... Until last week I was speaking to my manager Randy about this weeks rota and he mentioned I could have Wednesday off to try my challenge.. Well this got my mind thinking could I put everything in place and get my mind into the frame of doing this challenge in a matter of 5 days and only two and a half weeks after race TNFCDR! It was easier than I thought all I had to do was sort my self out.. The support I received before running was amazing, I had a number of people jump at me to become my support crew which was amazing as I was never going to get it done with out them! The amount of messages I received was out of this world! And I thank each and every one who did take the time to help me out and send me messages of good luck on my Facebook and Twitter this is truly what got me though the day! 

• Cascade Mt - Shawn and Conor

• Mt Rundle - Jason

• Sulphur Mt - My little Gem / Randy

Spot the runner!.. My descent from Cascade Mt.

Wednesday the 21st of August come round so quick.. 5:00am start and I was off! I was nervous about doing Cascade Mountain as with being injured over the summer I hadn't had time to go up and see the mountain/route.. And this was the longest and highest of the 3 peaks.. I set off down Banff Avenue with a good clear positive mind of giving this challenge a good go! I wasn't going to not finish and fail twice while being in Canada after my DNF in the Fernie 80k Ultra. After leaving Banff town it was a bit of a road run up to Norquay Ski resort where the trail for Cascade Mountain started. Once onto this trail I was feeling much happier running on undulating single file tracks till I hit the river crossing where I knew (after looking the day before) that there was no way around this and I had to take my shoes and socks off and walk through freezing cold water at 6:00am to continue up Cascade! But it could of been worse my support crew Conor and Shawn had all ready had to cross at 4:00am in the morning to get up onto the top ridge before I made it there to offer me some food and water as fuel. After running for a further 1:20 I caught up to the guys on the false summit ridge.. by this time the sun had started to rise and the views were out of this world! I continued up to the summit before descending back down the ridge to get some food and drink of the guys before heading back to the ski resort. The summit was so cold! The wind was really strong and I had to pick my route really well to save getting to close to the edges along the way.. After re-fueling with the guys I left them and headed down, crossed the river and bumped into two black bears along the trail! Only in Canada.. This was an amazing experience and strangely gave me a little boost. On reaching the car park again for the ski resort I noticed I had a good solid run hitting summit and back in 3hours 54minutes! Down the road I went and back to The North Face store in Banff to collect some fresh water and take on some fuel to ready me for the second peak Mt Rundle. 

I decided to take a good 15 minutes in store to recover and get some good fuel on board before I headed off as the weather was getting well above 25 degrees by now and I need to take on as much water and food as possible.. 25minutes later down some trails I had the trail head for Mt Rundle and started to climb, this trail just goes up from the start and just gets steeper along the way. I was feeling so warm and dehydrated once I had been climbing for an hour, I started to drinking my water like it was going out of fashion.. That was the worst mistake I was every going to do! 30 minutes later I was on the dragons back of Mt Rundle and still had a lot of climbing to do to hit the summit I ran out of water! I had drank all 2L I had in my pack and I was just getting to the most exposed area with the sun. Different to Cascade, Rundle had no wind at all just sun beaming down on me and I am never good in the heat. 3/4 of the way to the summit I really started to loose control a little and had to keep sitting down on the scree slope as I was loosing focus and my vision was even blur!! I started to panic a little as I knew I wasn't in a great place to be loosing control and I was a long way from Jason (my next support crew) I managed to reach the summit somehow and just took a lengthy break while sat on the summit I started to hallucinating that there was bears on the summit with me?? Crazy I know! I have never ever been so dehydrated that it has got that bad, I took my bladder out of my pack took the top off and tried to tip anything out I had into my mouth, this was nothing! The bladder was bone dry and nothing left in the tube either, my mouth was like a desert by this time. The only I could think was open my tub of Vaseline I had and rub some on the inside of my mouth and on my tongue to give it some moisture. The other down side to my mouth being so dry I couldn't take any fuel/food on board as it just stuck to my mouth like glue. After a very very long and slow descent down to the forest trail I finally bumped into Jason 3 hours later! I have never been so happy so him ha! I think he could tell straight away something was wrong with how pale I looked and my whole body language was down, I breifly explained what had happened and took a full bottle of water on board followed by a bottle of coke and then a second bottle of water while Jason filled my bladder up with water also. Little did I know at the time he had given me all his water to me too! (Thanks man, but that was crazy! You should of kept some too) I felt a different man after spending 20 minutes with Jason just eating and drinking. Shortly after I contiuned down the trail to head over to Sulphur Mountain my 3rd and final peak of the day before heading back into town to stop the watch. My total time for up and down Mt Rundle to trail head was my slowest ever, but I was glad just to be down and off the mountain safely - 6Hours and 15 Minutes. 

Climbing up to summit one.

After a run from the trail behind the Fairmont hotel up to the Gondola for Sulphur I had hit the trail head to tackle Sulphur Mountain, with it taking so long unfortunately I had missed Randy my next part of my support crew as he was looking after his baby. (Thanks for waiting around for 40 minutes for me anyway Randy!) Sulphur Mountain is totally different to the first two peak as there is no exposed areas and it is switch backs all the way up in the trees to the board walk to the summit. I was really struggling by this point with my legs feeling so heavy and I just felt like I didn't have much energy left. I really started to notice that The Canadian Death Race 125k Ultra from two and a half weeks ago was clearly still in my legs and was making things a lot harder. But after what felt like a real long climb I had reached my final summit! And was starting to make my way back town the trail before running back into town to finish my challenge, half way down the trail I was met by my little monkey Gem who had finished work and ran out to run me in for the last few miles! This was a great little boost for me and I started to run a little quicker down into town. Jason had also drove up to see me on my final road into the finish to offer the last bit of support too. After 15 Hours and 32 minutes I was final back at the store and the challenge was complete!! I had done it, not sure how but I had completed what I had set out to do from 5:00am that morning. It was great to reach the store and see many friendly faces I was greeted by some good friends who was working Marie, Kayla and Josh and also Shawn, Conor and Jason was all in store too. The feeling inside was amazing I felt I had done something big and I had all this buzzing energy from finishing... 

We had asked around a lot before the challenge about who had done this before and it came about that many had done the three peaks in 24hours before but had drove in between each trail head but not the way I had done it, and as far as we know I had just set the fastest know time for this challenge with running in-between each trail heads.. :-) 

Again a huge thank you to everyone who got involved to support me by coming out on the day or sending me good luck and well messages! It all means a lot to me... 

Finished! 15hr 32mins later...

I have put a very small video together (on the link below) of some footage I took throughout the day for people to see if your interested.. (But no laughing at my commentary along the way, not sure what I was doing!) 

http://youtu.be/XepVvfuAlq0

Thanks for reading 

Paul x

The Final Countdown for Canada and whats next?

As I am writing this, we only have two weeks left in Canada! Time has flown by since we left our old life behind in the UK back in January and here we are again about to move forward once more...

The time and experiences we have had in Canada have been out of this world! We have had everything from Ice skating on frozen Canals, Hiking to the summit of 10,000ft Peaks, Grizzly Bear encounters to seeing the Northern Lights with even a crazy Ultra Marathon thrown in the middle. We have met some amazing people and have made new friends for life! I do hope we continue to keep in touch and meet up further down the line once again.. I have had an amazing time working for The North Face Banff, being apart of such a great team has given me some great experiences and learnt so much. Gemma has been working all hours possible to keep the funds coming in to fund the rest of our amazing worldwide adventure and I am very grateful for what she has done whilst we have been here! Being the best always..

As mentioned above we have both had truly an amazing time here in Canada but for what we have booked and coming up is just mind blowing! When we first left everything behind in the UK we were both very determined to make it really worth while to leave, but little did I think we would do it how we are! We have the following booked and planned for the next steps in our adventure around the world :

• Time in Las Vegas 
• A Trip to Bryce Canyon, Lake Powell and Antelope Canyon in Utah National Park
• Time in LA 
• A trip/holiday in Hawaii
• Quick stop off in Fiji
• One Year working holiday visa in the stunning country of New Zealand
• A trek adventure up to Everest Base Camp in Nepal 

I'm sure this list will go grow as we go along.. But for now it's looking pretty good so far! Also we have some awesome races coming up, as we will be racing in Hawaii and in New Zealand to date! Really looking forward to adding new places to my list of "Places we have raced in around the world!" 

The plan for the next two weeks now is to enjoy our last little bit of time here, finish up in work and keep planning for our future! 

Question is : How much of this world can we tick off?? 

Thanks for following our adventure! 

Paul and Little Gem x 

The Canadian Death Race Ultra Marathon..

After 5 weeks of pain and suffering with my hamstring pull it was time to try and run 'The North Face Canadian Death Race', every year on the August long weekend here in Canada this race takes to the trails and mountains of Grande Cache.. This year was my turn to try and become part of the group that "Beats Death" and complete the whole 125km with 17,000ft of elevation change.. It wasn't looking good! 39km was all I had ran in the 5 weeks build up to it, my mind still freshly had my unfortunate DNF In Fernie Ultra too... But never the less I do love a good challenge! 

If I was going to take on such a challenge and complete it I needed a good plan and support crew! For this I had been looking at each leg and times I needed to run, the elevation change etc etc.. My support crew was my lovely little monkey Gem and a good friend of mine Jaime who works with me at TNF Banff.
On Friday the 2nd of August we drove up to Grande Cache in time for the 8am start on  the Saturday 3rd of August, the drive from Banff to Jasper was stunning! Right through the heart of the Rocky Mountains.. This was getting me very excited  knowing I would be soon running in the mountain trails myself. After a break in Jasper for lunch we arrived in Grande Cache early afternoon. On arrival we checked into our hotel room what TNF had kindly sorted out for me and my team.. (A Huge thank you to them!) and went down to the Death Race field area to pick up my number/time-chip/coin and race bag of goodies! Things suddenly started to sink in that I was going to take on this mammoth challenge in less than 24 hours! We finished our evening off by meeting everyone from TNF Canada and had our racer briefing ready for the morning followed by a early night to get some rest..

Start/Finish Area

5:30am soon came around and the alarm sounded... My first thought was "Here we go! No turning back now.." I jump up out of bed to finish getting my kit ready and put my race kit on. After sorting everything out and was happy to go, we all went down to the restaurant to get some breakfast before our long day out on the trails, as time passed it felt like forever before my porridge oats came as obviously I was getting a little nervous and just wanted to get started. After food and a short car drive down to the start area the place and atmosphere was in full swing! People every where getting ready and doing warm ups, checking their timing chip activated.. My heart was starting to go a little faster at this time and the nerves were starting to creep in. My legs felt some how heavier and my mind was going over everything at 100 miles an hour. 15minutes before the gun was due to go everyone started lining up and wishing each other good luck and so on. (It was a great friendly race) 8:00am struck and we were off! This is how it unravelled: 

First leg, 19 km: The Downtown Jaunt The third leg was know as the easiest leg of the event but I found being so fresh and having lots of excitement energy leg one went by so fast! We set off racing down the road before we took onto the single track trails. The pace was good, the sun was shinning and best of all my hamstring was 'ok' at that moment in time! As we got further into leg one it was coming clear that this race was going to need full attention all the time the terrain was forever changing from track to rocks to soft mud and waist deep bogs! I started to really enjoy it and ran with the leading group for that leg, I knew I wasn't going to run with them for the whole event but I just wanted to get stuck in and go on from there... 19km soon past and we arrived at checkpoint one! I was still feeling good, fresh and full energy so I stopped briefly with Gemma and Jaime, took some water on board and raced off into the forest.

Taking on some extra water..

Second leg, 27 km: Flood & Grande Mountain Slugfest Many people argue that leg two is the hardest of the five legs due to it's two mountain climbs (Flood and Grande) the very challenging rugged terrain and the two creek crossing it has to offer all within 27km of running! We started off running along side a old railway line before hitting the single track trails for some undulating km.. Then the fun really started by running through real rocky and swampy sections along the trail before climbing up towards the summit of Flood Mountain.. Mentally I had broken the race down to section by each leg then down again into smaller portions, therefore on summiting Flood I knew one summit down two to go! The trail between Flood and Grande Mountain was  some of the toughest and most rugged trails that I have ran on. The running was very hard on the feet and legs with all the rocks and routes but just as we summited Grande Mountain the sky had filled with clouds and it had gone very dark! I knew this wasn't a great place to be if this storm broke out, after quickly checking in on the summit with my timing chip I quickly headed down the power line.... Well that wasn't really fast running at all, it has to be some of most technical and steep descents I have ever ran! The whole way down was rocky drop-offs and  unstable footing for each step you took.. Towards the bottom of the mountain the heavens opened up! Hail the size of golf balls came down followed by heavy rain.. I quickly ran thought the town of Grande Cache and into my next checkpoint where it wasn't  really doing anything just really overcast. After a great tasting banana sandwich Jamie and Gemma had put together for me along with other snacks and a couple cups of coke I was off running up the road to tackle leg three!

(47km) Coming into a checkpoint..

Third leg, 21 km: Old Mine Road (or “City Slicker Valley”)Everyone had said to me this was the easiest leg of the race. On setting off into the distance from the checkpoint the heavens opened up again! Even worse this time the rain was driving right into my face and it soaked me thought within minutes. I quickly stopped again to put another top on and my hat and gloves as the temperature had also just plummeted, the wind was picking up, thunder and lightening was in full swing! and I really started to feel cold. I was more worried about getting cold with my hamstring! I knew if that got cold I was in trouble and it was still a long way to go before I was going to complete this challenge. I kept eating in small amounts so my body would use the food as warmth while digesting in my stomach. This was the first real low point I had in the event two runners behind me had decided to go off track into the trees for shelter out of the storm.. It crossed my mind but by looking up at the sky it wasn't going to go away anytime soon so my thoughts were keep going, push the pace a little get the heart working more and fingers crossed keep warm! Well my plan was going really well as this point, as the trail was downhill mainly, very slippy but I was use to that living in the UK where it is always wet and muddy on the trails... The views across the Smoky River were amazing! By this time the weather had not let up one bit and people were really struggling and slowing right down, as I past many on the trail I briefly stopped to ask each one if they were ok and continued pushing on down the trail to the next check point.. 7km from the next check my worse nightmare was happening, my hamstring all of a sudden was really bothering me and felt very tight. I immediately stopped and stretch it out knowing that running through it was no good as I found out in Fernie where it got so much I had a DNF. After a good 5-8 minutes stop and stretch I decided to continue slowly and just had it in my head to get to the next checkpoint and work it out from there. 50 minutes later I had arrived into my checkpoint, thank god! 

(70km) About the only flat running in the whole course! 

Fourth leg, 36 km: Hamel AssaultBefore starting this leg I decided to take a good rest in the checkpoint area and fuel up well before taking on the hardest leg of the whole race. It was great to see Gemma and Jaime again with my food! But I also had a nice surprise as some from TNF Canada were around giving me some support and Dave from Wild Mountain, this was a good little boost I needed! Dave was great he explained the next legs section by section for me so I knew what was coming up in my mind and to push thought to the next checkpoint and ultimately a step closer to finishing. Dave had kindly got my a chair to sit on while I fuelled up again and had brought some dry socks for me! This was a great help knowing that he had so much experience in ultra running his hints and tips was going to help me along the road to finish! So off I went to tackle the fourth leg of the race, This leg contained mainly dirt trail and hard packed gravel but the elevation change was well over 6500ft which all came at once! The climb up to the summit of Mt Hamel was broken into two long sections and it felt like climbing to hell.. My legs were burning, hamstring was firing a little and my lungs had decided to start complaining too. But on the plus side the weather was looking good, the clouds had starting to lift and the sun was back out in full swing! But going from really wet to really warm in my man area I had lots of problems going on with the good old runners chafe! Just another wall to get over to the finish right? Or I had done something bad in my past life because the last 3 hours of this event I had just ran was hell! On reaching the summit of Mt Hamel we had to run along the ridge to collect a flag before we checked in at the hut to prove we had been to the end and back up. Dave had told me that once I had reached the top the descent was good running as it wasn't really technical running. But by this time my legs were getting really heavy and with not training at all over the last 5 weeks it had started to get really really tough ! Downhill running all of a sudden was just as hard as running up a hill. Even bumped into a black bear just off the trail to make things even more interesting... But I was so focused on completing this event, the time wasn't  a major for me to be really honest as I knew I wasn't in great shape but the finish line was my goal and where there I was running or crawling I was getting to that line... A good few hours later I was at the 4th and final checkpoint before the finish line!!

(100km) Some extra support before heading into the final leg.. 

Fifth and final leg, 24km, The River Crossing  Coming into the checkpoint at the end of leg four was a different from the rest as it was now night time and the head torches had to be put on to see the trail. Again before setting off on the final leg I took a seat and re-fuelled up and took on board some chicken oxo to warm me up, a sandwich and some other snacks and a couple cups of coke! It was different at this check point from the rest also because unfortunately one of my support crew Jaime had taken really ill and had been taken into hospital! ( I just thought she'd do anything to get out of having to put up with me anymore at the checkpoints! ;-) ... ) But Gemma did great getting everything ready for me and thanks to the TNF crew who had helped in driving Gem to the check point and cooking me some chicken broth. (Much appreciated!) On leaving the checkpoint the trail went straight up!! It was now pitch black and we were following small silver round reflectors, which may I add looked like animal eyes as you turned a corner.... I don't know how many times I thought "Oh come on, Really! deal with animals in dark now too?" But I was good thank god, the bear on leg four was enough wild life for one race. The final leg was over single track and dirt trail with a little gravel road oh and a big river crossing where we had to take a boat over with our coin we had carried for the last 110km. I was more than pleased to finally pass it over as every time I went in my pack for food etc.. All I could think of was "DO NOT LOSE THE COIN!!" or my race would be done whether I liked it or not! After leaving the boat we started to climb up a very steep bank for 5km but in my mind I knew this was the last climb until the small road section back into town. With my hamstring so painful and my whole right leg having gone numb I was forced to walk most of the last bit of this leg but I wasn't going to beat myself up to much as I had done it (Nearly!) off no training and was still going forward no matter what the speed was now. After another hour or so I finally hit the FINAL road climb!! All of a sudden I had a big grin on my face and I felt so happy inside, that one I was going to finish but two I want' going to get two DNF's in Canada! I somehow found a little energy and powered up the road and finished with a little sprint finish... I was so glad to Gem on the line with some fluid and a big hug! On stopping my body just filled with pain and felt warm all over.. I was well and truly done! But what an experience and an amazing race... I was so glad I got the opportunity to run at this years Death Race. I will be back one year fully fit and injury free to run a quicker time and cheat death once again! 

(125km) Made it!! Finish Line picture... 

Overall the race was a huge success in my eyes.. I finished 30th Overall and I could walk the next day! A big thank you to 'The North Face Canada' for looking after me in the race from providing race kit to putting a roof over my head for my stay in Grande Cache. Thanks to 'The North Face Banff and Wild Mountain' for helping me and making it possible I could go to the event to compete. A huge thank you to 'CompresSport Canada' for supplying some compression kit to help me around the course.. 'Energy Bits' for fuelling me along the way. Finally a massive Thank You to Gemma and Jaime for being a great support crew, I couldn't of done it with out you!! I hope I did everyone proud and didn't let anyone down. But for sure I will be back! 

Official Finisher... 

Team picture the day after! Thanks girls for your support...