This past weekend was the Cabot Trail Relay Race held in Cape Breton NS, Canada.  It is a 24 hour, 298km relay race up and down hills along the Cabot Trail.  I had the opportunity to participate in it this weekend along with 14 other people on my team where we placed 13th out of the 70 teams competing.  Did I mention that I did my leg of the race wearing VFFs?

The Race

The race is excellent, very challenging and not like any other race I have been too.  The relay is broken up into 17 different legs of varying lengths and difficulty.  Some range from a little over 12km to one just over 20km and every single leg has hills in it.  What makes this race interesting other than all the damn hills is the people running in it.  Some came from across Canada and the USA.  Many of the teams we wearing costumes that were definitely interesting to say the least.  At least one person there had run all 17 legs over the years, and he was starting on completing all the legs again for the second time.

The weather during the race was good.  Nice and cool, around 11 degrees (Celsius), a light drizzle at times and cloudy so no hot sun.  I thought it was the perfect weather condition to run in.  Warm enough that you didn’t need warm gear but not so hot that you had a hard time cooling off.  I was prepared for anything though as one year they had 70km/hr winds and there was still snow along the highway at the top of one of the mountains this year.

The views during the daylight were spectacular as the trail is along the Atlantic Ocean; steep cliffs and ocean views during the daylight.  The hills were amazing and some were so steep you would think no one would be able to walk up them, let alone run.  You have to see this link to the terrain profile of what we were running.  The terrain profile is at the bottom of that page.  This picture doesn’t do justice to the hill in leg number 4 which is 20.01km of which 2.1km is up hill by a series of switchbacks.  When I drove up it, I could feel the weight of my body on my back rather then my butt on the van seat just to give you an idea of how steep it is.

My Race

There was one other person in my leg who was wearing VFFs but he was not the most approachable person.  I guess not everyone who wears VFFs is friendly so I’ll leave it at that.  The next leg after mine I talked briefly to another person who was wearing some Sprints.  In the brief chat before his race, he said he had switched over about a year ago after hearing that running barefoot or nearly barefoot was better for you.  He said he used to have some leg and hip pain after running but since he switched to FiveFingers he has had no problems.  He was very happy with the VFFs and planned on wearing them for more races.  The next person I saw wearing VFFs was in town after the race where he was wearing them post-race.  I couldn’t say for certain that there was only 3 of us wearing VFFs at the race, as I only watched 6 of the 17 legs.  Despite the few number of people wearing VFFs, most people seemed to know what they are which is a testament to their increase in popularity.

I ran in leg number 8 which is the shortest leg.  I took advantage of the fact that I was the second oldest on the team and had ran a more difficult leg a few years ago in the same race in order to secure leg 8.  I finished my 12.36km leg in 57:12 which placed me 14th.  Needless to say I was very happy with my time and that I had ran a race in FiveFingers.  Now that I am done blowing my own horn, I have to tell you about a fellow on our team who ran 3 legs! And two of them were the biggest mountains in the race.  He ran leg 4 (20.01km), leg 10 (14.7km) and leg 14 (19.81km) for a total of 54.52 km in less then 24 hours! He also finished 4th, 7th and 6th!  He is obviously an excellent runner and most likely the reason why we placed as well as we did.

First Race in FiveFingers

I have been wearing VFFs for awhile now, but have never raced in them before so I was a bit apprehensive at first.  Needless to say my worries were unfounded.  I ran with no problems.  I kept short strides and landed on my forefoot and concentrated on relaxing while running.  My stride felt nice and light and I felt like I flew down the hills whereas my last time running downhill was not fun as I was putting on the brakes the whole way down by landing on my heels.  Once I reached the last kilometer, I was able to pick up my pace (this was my fastest km in the race) and was even able to pass one person just before finishing.  I really enjoyed this race.

If any of you have the chance to run in this race, you should definitely go and do it.  The terrain is unbelievable and extremely challenging, the people racing are fantastic and the view when running (daylight hours anywise) is stunning.  You won’t be disappointed.

Have you run in a similar race?  Did you do it in FiveFingers? Let us know in the comments!