I didn’t do much in the name of adventure during my holiday break. I wanted to stay off the winter roads and rest my brain. The big highlight was running all the trails at JJ Collett Natural Area in Lacombe.
Yes every single one of them.
After a terrifying drive north on Hwy 2, I met Amanda and Doug to run the trails, as part of a virtual JaJa Marathon event. (The actual JaJa Marathon was cancelled this year due to the pandemic)
Organizers invited runners to take part in a scaled-down virtual version of the race in the month of December.
The rules were simple. You had to simply run all the trails at JJ Collett while collecting nine pages from nine books on the numbered trails. In order to verify a runner has actually ran all the trails, his or her Strava map had to match the organizer’s map.
Amanda had run the route twice when I decided I wanted in on the action. We crossed off the trails on a printed sheet as we ran them and collected the book pages.
Doug had done his homework too. He knew were all the books were located and the best route to take. This was perfect. I just had to follow Amanda and Doug’s lead after they planned the route.
This worked out perfectly for me.
The trails were in perfect shape for running. At the time I went to Lacombe, we had just had that big snowfall in Calgary. So runnable trails were just what I needed. I don’t think I ran out at JJ Collett much when I lived in Red Deer. It was a nice change from running along the Bow River.
We ran at a fun pace, chatting and getting caught up on stuff while we navigated the windy trails. There were lots of people out walking. Several people asked us what we were doing so we made sure to explain the concept to them.
Most of the books were in their hiding places. We took selfies at the places were the books were supposed to be in a couple cases to prove we were there in case it was called into question. The book names were pretty funny from Alone, Who Needs A Road?, Still Waters to Satan’s Tail.
All in all the route was just under 20K with roughly 450 metres of elevation gain. The weather was perfect and the company didn’t suck that much. It was fun to look at our Strava maps at the end of the day.
I loved this take on the Barley Marathons. But unlike the popular ultramarathon in Tennessee, the failure rate is definitely not 99 per cent. (The actual JaJa Marathon is a the 42.2 marathon distance.) I am not sure how many people participated. Amanda definitely needs to get a prize for doing it at least five times because “she has nothing else to.” Her words.
Books and running are two of my favourite things so I loved this fun run.
How were your holidays? Did you get up to any fun running adventures? I would love to hear from you in the comments below.