10 Questions
with Stacey Shand by Stephen LaRose
There’s no evidence she came from the same planet as Krypton’s last son, but you’d be forgiven if you think Regina’s Stacey Shand is a superwoman. It’s cold and rainy when Stacey Shand comes through the doors of a Regina café for her interview. Only the glowing tan of her skin would indicate that she had spent any time anywhere else but in a city that has suffered through a dingy spring. But if anybody would relish the cool and damp weather, it would be Shand. During the beginning of April, she joined competitors from around the world in one of the most daunting foot races known to humanity. Shand had run in the Marathon des Sables – a 250 kilometre run, over six days, through the Moroccan desert. Think of running a marathon – 26 miles a day for six days. Now think of doing it cross country. Through the Sahara. Carrying your tent, sleeping bag, cookstove, and food. Runner’s World Magazine calls the event ‘possibly the most grueling race on the planet.’ The 32-year-old University of Regina sessional instructor and research coordinator has progressed through middle- and long-distance racing the way a land-flipper goes through real estate during a boom – each step becomes bigger, more exotic, and more fantastical. Some of the other races before the Marathon Des Sables would leave the average jogger gobsmacked – she’s run the Coastal Challenge (a six-day, 230 KM run through a volcano-filled region of Costa Rica) Yellowknife’s Cold Foot Classic (55 kilometers – in the dead of an arctic winter) and Europe’s toughest ultra marathon, the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc – a 130 kilometer multi-day race and climb through the French, Italian, and Swiss Alps. How does she do it? Why does she do it?
1
This road race you entered was 250 kilometers through the Sahara Desert. Why?
I started like many other athletes. I wanted to have a healthy life. Going into my adult years I wasn’t an active person at all. If I skipped any class in high school, it would have been physical education. I was not active. I wasn’t starting out my adult life very healthy either. When I turned 25 my goal was to register for my very first five kilometer race, the CIBC Run for the Cure. I did that, and … it sucked. It felt like my lungs were bleeding, and I couldn’t believe that I could have run five kilometers. But at the same time, I really felt I had accomplished something. I was at a time in my life where I had just finished my education and I was trying to launch my career. Everything felt like it had taken so long. It seemed like everything was work, work, and more work, and there were no rewards. But with the training for the 5K, I could see the results. I loved that feeling. After that race, I went home, and I registered for the next race, which was a half-marathon – not realizing how long a half-marathon was. I did the half-marathon – my very first – and loved it. Once I got into the marathons, my body seemed as though it liked running marathons better. I didn’t have as much pain running a marathon as I did running the shorter distances. I gradually started to build up more distance. That’s when I started competing in events such as the Canadian Death Race, through the Rocky Mountains …
2
Wait a minute. Why would you - or anyone - want to enter a competition that’s called the Canadian Death Race? Maybe it scares away people, but it does intrigue you at the same time (Editor’s note: the Canadian Death Race is held during the August long weekend around Grande Cache, Alberta, 430 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Competitors run a 125 kilometre course through mountain ranges, cross Hell’s Gate Canyon – which is how the race gets its name – and summit three mountains. In addition to the distance, racers go up and down over 5,000 metres. Competitors must finish the race within 24 hours). There’s a lot of extreme climbing, and downhill as well. I had never raced straight for 24 hours before, and I thought it would be a really unique opportunity. It got really hot in that race – so many people dropped out. Only 16 females, I think it was, ended up finishing, and I was one of them. When I finished that race, and survived, it felt really good. Other people were hobbling around for a couple of days after the race, but I bounced back really well. My body could adapt to those extreme conditions. I thought, ‘I could do this, and there weren’t many women doing this, and I wonder what else I could do.’ So I started looking for races that challenged me, not just distancewise, but also mentally and physically in extreme conditions. It became a hobby that used so many of the skills that I use in my daily life – my job, the research – and I love to learn. The Marathon des Sables became my goal this year.