Kicking Off the 2024 Race Season!
Hello and happy spring!
You last heard from us in late-August just before Kelsey’s debut at UTMB where she finished as the 41st woman with a time of 34:32:21. After returning from Chamonix we dealt with a bout of Covid — effectively ending the 2023 race season — and started a return to form by celebrating Kelsey’s graduation from Dalhousie University (with a sport psychology-focused Master of Science in Kinesiology, where her thesis research explored the experiences of first-time ultramarathon athletes) and relocated from Halifax to Fredericton.
As the calendar turns steadily into 2024, we’re settling into life in Fredericton, embraced by friends and the thriving New Brunswick trail running community. This is the place where Kelsey first began to trail run, and where she worked with the Nature Trust of New Brunswick for several years. We’re grateful for the opportunity to explore (and re-meet) beautiful natural spaces and an extended network of river valley trails in our new home. There’s a lot that feels right about embarking on the 2024 season alongside some of Kelsey’s first mentors and supporters.
Our first race of the year is just around the corner: the Madeira Island Ultra-Trail (MIUT) 115km. We leave for Madeira this week and begin our race on Saturday, April 28th at 12am local time (Friday, April 27th 8pm AT, 8:30pm NT, 7pm ET, etc.). We’ll send out another email closer to the race with more details on how you can follow along.
In the meantime, we wanted to share some exciting developments from Kelsey’s running journey and invite you to join us in getting ready for the season ahead.
News //
Sharing Kelsey’s 2024 Race Calendar:
It’s important not to get ahead of yourself when you’re running ultramarathons — as Kelsey sometimes says, “it’s aid station to aid station.” However, it can also help to have an idea of where you’re headed, so here’s Kelsey’s planned schedule for the spring/summer of 2024.
Madeira Island Ultra-Trail | 115km | Madeira, Portugal | April 28th | * World Trail Major
Dark 50 (relay with Adam) | 50km | Minto, New Brunswick | June 1st
Trans Percé (stage race)| 100km | Percé, Quebec | June 14th-16th
QMT | 100 miles | Beaupré, Quebec | July 5th | * World Trail Major
Woolastook Whopping | Fredericton, NB | 12h looped course | July 27th
UTMB | 100 miles | Chamonix, France | August 30th
* MIUT and QMT are part of the new World Trail Majors series. Learn more about the series here.
Joining Norda 665:
After getting to know each other throughout the 2023 season, Kelsey and norda have officially joined forces! It’s no secret that Kelsey has been running in (and loving) the norda 001 shoes this past year, and she is excited to join the 665 team of elite athletes that norda supports heading into this season. Norda is a Montreal-based company dreamed up by Nick and Willa Martire, an innovative and inspiring duo who share our values of community and a love of the planet. We’re grateful for norda’s support, from making super durable and speedy trail shoes with a commitment to sustainability, to their unwavering belief in exploring what’s possible.
Recognizing BackTrails by the Radical Edge:
When Kelsey first discovered ultrarunning, she quickly got to know the team at BackTrails by the Radical Edge, Fredericton’s outdoor gear shop. BackTrails is more than a store, it’s a gathering point and pillar of the trail running community in Fredericton. Mary, Kaylee and the whole team are enthusiastic adventurers who have helped so many people get active and outside on the trails. Now that Kelsey is back in Fredericton we are excited to be working even more closely with BackTrails, and grateful for their support of trail runners in Fredericton and beyond.
Reading, Watching, Listening //
Kelsey is reading The Happy Runner: Love the Process, Get Faster, Run Longer by Megan and David Roche. The coaching duo behind the “Some Work, All Play” podcast share lots of evidence-based training guidance in this book, which includes inspiring stories from athletes and practical advice on how to keep joy at the centre of the training process.
Adam is reading Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson. It feels like a necessary read for anyone involved as an athlete or crew member connected to high-intensity or high-endurance sports because it invites you to think critically about what you might take for granted about the “correct” way to strike a balance between safety and performance.
Lululemon FURTHER Project: On March 5th, 10 female athletes embarked on a 6-day ultramarathon where they broke numerous personal and world records (Camille Herron ran 901kms and broke 12 world records in six days!). The event was conceived and supported by Lululemon to advance sport science research with female endurance athletes, and partnered with researchers at the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific to gather data on all the athletes throughout their training and performance. Kelsey’s inner sport science nerd is excited to read the research publications that come out of this project (coming as early as fall 2024).
In November, we attended a screening of the Trails in Motion Film Tour, hosted by our friends at Outdoor Outdoor Film Festival (OOFF) and Saint John Trail Running. There were many inspiring films, but “Ce Qui Compte” (What Matters) stood out to us: it highlights French runner Anne-Lise Rousset’s journey to a record-setting run on the GR20 in Corsica, just one year after giving birth to her son. Kelsey shared the women’s podium with Anne-Lise at the Diagonale des Fous in 2021, when Anne-Lise came 2nd after Courtney Dauwalter in an incredible performance!
Fredericton was on the path of the recent full solar eclipse, and we watched in awe from the banks of the Wolastoq river with family and friends. It was a wildly cool experience! Did you take in this cosmic event in your part of the world?
That's all for now! We hope to cross paths or share the trails with you sometime this year, and wish you all the best with whatever adventures 2024 holds for you. What feels alive for you so far this year? We'd love to know!
— Kelsey and Adam