900-Kilometre Dash

JODY WILSON

words :: Molly Hurford

If you’re a nature lover living in Ontario, you’ve likely hiked a chunk of the Bruce Trail. Maybe you’ve even done a few longer day hikes, or camped for a few nights as you hiked a full section of the 900-kilometre rugged trail that runs along the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara to Tobermory. While Karen Holland loves hiking the trail—it practically runs through her backyard in Kimberley—she prefers running it. In September, she did what only a few people have done: She ran the whole darn thing. And not only did she run it, she did so in recordsetting time, besting the existing women’s record and smashing the men’s record as well.

How did the 34 year old make it through 900 km with thousands of metres of climbing in just under nine days? One step at a time. She started in Tobermory on Friday, September 3, and finished in the wee hours of Sunday morning the next week. While each section of the trail has hard moments, the easiest sections for Holland were the ones with the most climbing and some of the most technical terrain—because they’re home. “The day we were running in Beaver Valley and the Blue Mountain sections,” Holland says, “I felt like I had all my run friends from the area out and I know every single step of every single corner in these sections. With that knowledge, I felt like the day just went along as if I was on a training run that just happened to be in the middle of this epic adventure. It made the miles go by really quickly.”

Of course, that’s not to say it was all roses. There were dark moments, too: swollen legs, blistered feet and an ever-increasing fatigue. At times, every step, whether up, down or on flat ground, felt agonizing. But Holland had a mission: “I knew my A-goal was to go under the existing record of nine days and three hours,” she says. “I had mapped out roughly where I needed to end each day to hit that goal, and I came pretty close to those marks every single day. By the last day, I was able to start doing the math for how many kilometres per hour I had to do to finish in under nine days, and that made it easier to keep pushing on through that last night.”

But more important than the Fastest Known Time (FKT) was the experience of being joined by dozens of other runners along the way, including four past record holders. In fact, the former women’s record holder Chantal Demers even crewed for several days of the journey. “I feel like I’ve always found good friendships during times like these: The community and friendships that you build when you’re out there are the strongest that you probably can ever build,” Holland adds. “It’s a shared experience that you can’t replicate anywhere else.”