I first heard about the Kneeknacker North Shore Trail Race a few years ago while training for a marathon. It sounded nearly impossible at the time, running from Horseshoe Bay to Deep Cove along the Baden Powell trail with 8,000 feet of climbing over 30 miles, when having to run up even a small hill in a marathon seemed like a challenge.

With Waldo 100k coming up in 4 weeks, Kneeknacker was technically a training run. I did take a short taper of a week or so, but was still running 75-100k per week in the two weeks prior. So I felt a little over-trained for a race of this distance and relatively fast pace (I never thought I’d consider a 50k to be too short and fast) and perhaps a little under-rested. But don’t get me wrong – I was definitely there to race and gave it my all.