Skip to main content

The 2025 Season

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 first annual running of these races. 

Next year will see some important milestones as well. Canadian Death Race is going to celebrate it's 25th running, which makes it one of two of the longest running ultras in Canada. CDR has inspired three generations of runners; kids from the early days of the race now have kids of their own, and these kiddos are running the kids race. Some of these intrepid teens are even running in the solo, marathon, and relay categories. It's incredibly special to be a part of that journey. All solo runners will get a special 25th annual belt buckle. 

Black Spur Ultra will be celebrating its 10th running, and we are working on a few fun things, including a shorter distance option - stand by for more details on that. A lot of people wonder where the name came from, and I'm always happy to share that story over a pint or coffee. 

Castle Alpine Trail Race is going to have its 5th running this coming fall. The race is moving earlier in September, and will now be hosted at the same time as The Divide 200. The only downside to that is competitors will not be able to do the four horsemen anymore, but I think we can probably retool that in a different way. 


Sinister 7 Ultra is still going strong as ever, and we're so excited to host Western Canada's largest ultra. If you haven't been to Sinister 7 before, there is a good reason why so many people turn up for this event. The energy, the community, the views, and the challenge are just somehow magical. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's on the Menu?

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Perfect Race

There is no rest for the Sinister, and we are in the thick of planning for 2024. I follow a lot of race director forums to keep tabs on what's happening around the world, and there are always a lot of questions, both profound and basic. There is one common strain of questions asked by new RDs: can you plan a perfect race? And then I laugh and laugh because I love the naive optimism. 😂 I need to tell someone to get off my lawn now. So I'm pondering what would make a perfect race for me, from an organizer's standpoint...  My perfect race would have flawless registration and it would fill up really early so that we can plan our expenses for the year, and know how much swag to buy. Everyone would fill out their shirt sizes and not make any swaps last minute. All of it would be within our budget and vendors wouldn't increase our prices at the last minute. The permits would be a breeze and everyone would welcome us with open arms. There would be no course changes due to logg...
Post a Comment
Read more