Introduction: Cranberries and reciprocity

On the Thanksgiving weekend, Adam and I ran a favourite coastal trail in New Brunswick. It was a wild cranberry picking day — sharp and bright — and I was reminded of long runs to cranberry spots when we lived in Halifax. I’ve been looking for a wild cranberry spot since we moved to Fredericton, three years ago (we’ve been relying on Springbrook Cranberry at the Fredericton Boyce Farmer’s Market), but hadn’t had any success.

After an hour of running, we emerged from a forest climb and I came to a sudden halt, “That’s a cranberry!” THERE WAS A CRANBERRY ON THE TRAIL! A single berry sat on a thatch of pine needles, as if placed by an animal or fallen from the sky. I told Adam that he could keep running and pick me up on the way back. I needed to find the source of this single berry. He gave me a look and entertained my search: we found low growing vines, but no berries. Just as we were about to move on, I spotted a second berry, alone in a thicket of vines, resting on a bush.

I grew up picking wild blueberries on the west coast of Newfoundland. Our neighbours, Thor and Linda, would fill their freezers each season. Along with my parents, they taught me to leave the first and last berries on a bush, take only what you need, and leave enough for others who might need them. More recently, I read The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, in which she shares similar teachings and invites us to honour gifts with gratitude and reciprocity (read about the “gift economy of nature” here).

I didn’t really want to carry on empty-handed, but I left the berry on the bush and its friend on the trail, and continued running.

An hour later, on our return trip, I spotted an abundance of cranberries along the trail’s edge. We gave ourselves 10 minutes to gather berries. What a gift! It felt like, maybe, choosing to leave those first two berries was connected to noticing the next patch.

“Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource. I accept the gift from the bush and then spread that gift with a dish of berries to my neighbor, who makes a pie to share with his friend, who feels so wealthy in food and friendship that he volunteers at the food pantry“ - Robin Wall Kimmerer

The gift economy is a huge part of my life and it has been very present in my year of ultramarathon racing. I’ve received many gifts, asked for and accepted help, and felt so much gratitude. It has led to a feeling of abundance that motivates me to pass on the wealth and do my part to continue the cycle of reciprocity.

-KH

GPT100 Starts Today!

Kelsey’s 164km race (known as the “miler” locally) starts at 8am local time on November 6th. That’s today, November 5th at 5pm AST (5:30pm NST) in Canada.

The runners wear a GPS tracker and there will be live updates as they pass through checkpoints along the course, so we will be able to follow their progress throughout the race! That said, there are longs stretches in the Grampians with no service or coverage so if Kelsey’s tracker doesn’t update for several hours it is likely she’s going through one of those zones rather than stopped (don’t worry, Mom & Dad!).

• 🔎 Follow Kelsey’s progress on the live tracker

• 📱 Tune into the GPT100 accounts on Instagram / Facebook for updates during the event. Kelsey’s on-the ground crew will also post updates as they can along the way to her Instagram account.

• 🙌 Join the Crew Notes channel on Telegram to chat with others who are following the race. 

  There is no livestream for this event, so your source for the most up to date race information is likely the GPT100 Instagram account. They’ve already put out a number of great videos, including these two that feature Kelsey:

  🎙️ Kelsey’s pre-race interview
  📹 Kelsey and other international runners learning about Gariwerd Indigenous culture

Thank You For Supporting Kelsey’s to Race GPT100

Thank you to everyone who has made a contribution to cover the costs of racing GPT100. As Kelsey wrote recently, support comes in all shapes and sizes, “friends who dog-sit or cook meals during long training days, neighbours who supply us with eggs from their chickens, and the messages of encouragement and inspiration that arrive along the way.” Thank you for the way that you help to make it possible to compete at this level.

A special thank you to everyone who has contributed to the $1800.72 raised so far in Kelsey’s fundraising campaign for this race. Contributions remain welcome and appreciated at this link.

Kerry Way Ultra

The point of this email is to make sure that you know Kelsey is running the GPT100, but briefly, I want to write a word of thanks to everyone who followed my 200km race at the Kerry Way Ultra (KWU) in September. The KWU was the first big race that I’ve done on my own and yet, at no point did I feel like I was doing it alone. The folks in Kerry were tremendously supportive and it was a great feeling to see all of the messages of support after the race.

The race felt like a coming together of a lot of what I’ve learned about running. It felt like an ending of something and also a beginning of something yet to be defined. I had “fun,” no really, actual fun, for about 92.5% of the race. There was a brief moment, about 18km from the end where it got really hard for about 90 minutes, but overall it was great to be out there.

You’ll see me in this video, at the top of a mountain, for a couple of seconds about halfway through. It tells you a lot about how it felt to be out there. My final time was 19:23:10 and I was the 12th finisher in the men’s race. Consider adding this race to your calendar; it’s so worth your time.

Crew Appreciations

• To everyone in Australia who has made Kelsey feel so welcome, thank you. To Colin and the team at Single Track — your hosting has been incredible.

• To Anthony, Luisa, Jay, Dusty, and Beatrix. Thank you for being the on-the-ground crew. In 2015, when Kelsey was living in the Kingdom of Tonga for a summer, she jumped on a boat to be part of their crew. This time, years later, they’re her crew!

• To Conrad, Emilie, Erin, and Lori for giving us a test run on Kelsey’s crew briefing before she left for Australia.

• To Brendan, from Dingle, Ireland, for showing Adam around the Kerry Way course before the Kerry Way Ultra in September. Also to Kev, Wiola, Barbara, Eileen, Geraldine, Tom, and so many others for helping me along the way.

• To Stef for saving Ralph from what would have surely been a desperately boring morning at home while Adam was running Bootstrap Boogie by Saint John Trail Running.

Finally, A Few Links for Fun:

📺What we’re watching: North of North, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Universal Language, No Other Land, Ted Lasso. 

📚What we’re reading: lots of Atlantic Canadian history (because I’m back to school), The Crow, Fia and the Last Snow Deer, Walk the Blue Fields, Staring at Lakes, Burnley “Rocky” Jones Revolutionary. 

🎤 What we’re hearing: Inside Politics with Hugh Linehan, Donovan Woods, Jamie Miller, Sara Bareilles, Scotland Outdoors.

🐣 If you’re still reading, pencil in July 24, 2027 for the 2nd edition of Mines to Pines Trail Races. We’re waiting on one last confirmation before you can write it in pen, but I think that you’re pretty safe to assume that it’s real.