July 8-10th was the 2011 Sinister 7 ultramarathon. Sinister 7 is a 146km run through the mountains in Crowsnest pass over a 27 hour time period. Teams and solo runners compete in this ultramarathon every year! Below is the course map. 
Here is all the gear; getting ready to go.
lots of “potions” (energy gels) as my sister calls them.
Our team #21: What was I thinking? was absolutely amazing every single one of the runners did an awesome job and we finished in approx 18.5 hours. I ran leg 6 which, is the baby blue section on the elevation map. My leg was 14km down a mountain and river in the complete dark. That map is a dirty liar and looks like all downs; but there are a lot of UPS. There were points in my leg where I was running through giant puddles, rock streams, and river type streams followed by a vertical hill that took all four limbs to get up. Running in the dark is hard; I could have probably run that leg significantly faster if I could see more than 1.5 feet in front of me!
Below are some photos of my leg in the light that I found on the Sinister 7 Facebook page.
This photo is about 3 minutes from TA-5 so 3 min in wet feet. That stream is the path.
This is one of 3 GIANT puddles to wade through about 10km in.
This is one of the downhills then up; I remember running it but couldn’t see ANYTHING so it’s nice to see what is in front of you..after the fact.
Finally here are a few photos of me getting ready to go out , coming in, and after in the dark.
Waiting at TA-5 to go out; cold and jittery on Red Bull.
Coming in from my leg; whipping off my pack to hand over timing chip. Notice the suffer face.
After my leg trying to warm up and rehydrate.
All in all Sinister 7 was an amazing ultra; the race directors and volunteers out did themselves and put on a phenomenal race. This is Sinister 7′s fourth year and boomed from 600 athletes last year to 1100 this year and my prediction is that it will keep on booming! Can’t wait for the ultra I do next year; probably death race on a team and HOPEFULLY Sinister 7 on a team as well! If I run Sinister next year I defiantly want to do 2 or 3 legs consecutively. So now the weekend is done and I am looking forward to my next races which, are the St. Albert sprint triathlon and Edmonton marathon.
Back at work. In a super sweet T-shirt. NBD.
