Canadian Running Magazine 2025 will mark 24 years of me hosting events... and what an adventure it has been. I am never quite satisfied with just sitting still, and the crew at Sinister Sports has had an itch to do more. In case you missed the news, we're going to expand into Ontario with two new events. The SOO 200 will be our second 200-miler, and it will take place in the third week of July in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The Blue Bully Ultra is a three-day stage race that will happen the first weekend of October at Blue Mountain Resort, north of Toronto. Rather than me going into great detail, check out this excellent article by Keeley Milne of Canadian Running Magazine. We go through a painfully long assessment process when picking new venues. We try and balance both our schedule, and other regional race schedules to be sure we minimize any conflicts. We look for locations that have great amenities, and helpful people. I hope we'll see a lot of you out there for the firs...
Food is undoubtedly a big part of the race experience. More so, getting nutrition into your meat sack is critical for a successful race. We spend a lot of time trying to decide what foods to offer at each event, and we actually look at eight different values when we are deciding on aid station menus. We get a lot of requests for different things; sometimes it's an "ah-ha" moment, and often it's just not practical based on our requirements. Here are the eight values we consider when selecting food options. Satisfaction Basically, will people like it? We want to be sure we have stuff that is easy to consume and palatable, as well as having broad appeal. When we try something new, we always assess after the race to see if people actually enjoyed it. If there was a lot left, it means it was either not popular, hard to serve, or people just didn't know it was an option. Usually it's the former, and it gets taken off the menu for future races. Racer expectations ar...