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1. Shelley at the HOKA Bandera 100km at Camp Eagle
2. Photos This Week
3. Upcoming Events: February 2, 2025 Sofie Manarin Nickel Loppet, May 25 SudburyRocks!!! Marathon
4. Running Room Run Club Update: 
5. Track North and Laurentian XC News
   

    

No whiners, wimps, or wusses. A trail of rugged and brutal beauty where everything cuts, stings or bites! It wasn’t the town or course we signed up for but it was the one we got, and it delivered. It was my first ultra race “abroad” and an opportunity to get some sun and visit our friends Dave and Hazel. Due to severe and unseasonal weather the race had to be moved and all pre-planning we’d done was out the window. Thankfully I had the best crew ever dealing with all the logistics so all I had to think about was running and rocks…. Race morning was cool (-7c) and started with a 30min delay to the race start and then we were off. There were 455 registrants in the 100km distance which was two 50km loops with 6 aid stations. The plan was for Stacy and Dave to be at 3 stations per loop to switch out my hydration pack and support me. They stuck to this plan and managed to get to one additional station on the second loop. They are all-stars! The new course was the most consistently technical rocky terrain I’ve ever run/raced on. Ups, downs, switchbacks, steep climbs and descents, rocky river beds and spiky cactus everywhere. All muscles were firing all the time to avoid rolling an ankle or taking a fall (which I saw happen to far too many participants) luckily I made it through pretty much unscathed. I found it very challenging to find a running rhythm but over time figured out how to manage the course. I had decided from the start I was going to go out strong and see how fast the top runners were going to go. I quickly settled in near some other runners and held my place in the top 2-5 women for the first 35km or so… then things got rough. I started feeling like my legs weren’t working, I just didn’t have any fire and was making small mistakes and tripping a lot. I was fuelling well, and doing all the right things but just felt like I couldn’t run or move efficiently hiking which there was a lot of. When I completed the first loop Dave and Stacy knew I was in trouble and were great at getting my pack switched and giving me words of encouragement to start the next loop. I trusted and believed things would turn around and just kept moving forward, repeating mantras to myself and latching on to any runners I could catch. I began to move better and started to feel confident. Stacy jumped in to pace me with 15km ish to go. We moved well, ran where we could, hiked fast where we needed to and focused on holding and building my lead from the 3rd place female. We managed to grow the 4min ish gap to almost 14mins by the time I crossed the finish line. I’m proud to have persevered and trusted in my training and self belief that things would turn around. I’m immensely grateful for my crew, Stacy Halonen and David Crockett for doing their own fare share of power hiking around this course to support me and other runners. 2nd place female and 11th overall well exceeded my expectations. Thank you to all the Sudbury Rocks cheering me on from home. Shelley Walushka

http://edsresults.com/bandera25/index.php?search_type=race_results&event=100K&gender=&results_per_page=400

  February 2, 2025

https://www.sudburyrocksmarathon.com/