My goal for the 2015 Mountain Madness Fat Dog 120 mile had been to finish strong within 32-35 hours. The race is said to be Canada’s most scenic ultra, starting in Cathedral Lakes and continuing through Manning Park on an almost point-to-point course with 8,673 metres (28,455 feet) of climbing through the Cascade Mountains. It’s also considered Canada’s Hardrock 100, and is one of the few races in the world tough enough to be a Hardrock qualifier.

It was to be my longest run ever, both in mileage and time on feet. If I could just pace myself properly through the first day, then make it through the night, I’d only have one more day of running. Just three shifts.

While I consider my race a success, things didn’t go entirely as planned.

It’s been a few months since I’ve posted a training update, but it’s certainly not for lack of having any training to talk about.

I had a successful run at the Sun Mountain 50 miler in May, where I nailed my goal of placing top 10, finishing in 7:47 for 6th place overall. This represented an hour improvement over my time from my first 50 miler there two years earlier, despite struggling with an ankle sprain.

My training was a little rocky leading up to the 2015 Sun Mountain 50 miler. The week after my first race of the year, the Diez Vista 50k in April, I managed to strain my left hamstring. A couple of weeks after that, I rolled my ankle pretty bad while running on some technical trail at night, resulting in a grade 2 sprain.

Rainshadow Running’s Sun Mountain was my first 50 miler back in 2013, and I’d always wanted to go back to see by how much I could improve my time. After getting injured at the 2014 Diez Vista 50k, I had to skip last year’s race, so there was no way I was going to miss out on toeing the line this year. I just wasn’t sure if I’d be able to finish. But if I was gonna run, I would aim for about 7:45 and top 10 overall.

The Diez Vista 50k in mid-April which was my first race of the season went pretty well, where I finished in 5th place. More importantly, I did so without getting injured like last year. But that didn’t last long!

There’s nothing I love more than adventuring in the backcountry, whether on a destination run like a double-crossing of the Grand Canyon , a circumnavigation of Mt. Rainier, or something closer to home. While I try to travel fast and light, there are some things I won’t leave home without to make sure I’m also being safe.

Our local North Shore Rescue has a great list of the 10 essentials, but do the same rules apply to trail runners? Let’s review these items first and then I’ll tell you a little story.