I have found trail runner paradise. The Disney land for dirtbags, the candy store for grown ups with an insatiable sweet tooth, the ultimate all inclusive luxury vacation for people who would rather chase summits, then go to the spa. TransRockies is the ultimate Summer Camp for Trail Running Big Kids.
I’ll be honest, I always looked at TransRockies as one of those things I would only do if I ever won the lottery, but not something I ever had on my race season radar. It’s a premium event with a premium price tag that didn’t feel within reach while raising three kids and shelling out for a master’s degree. But when Tania won a team entry through a social media contest and asked me to be her plus one, the lottery dream went from fantasy to reality. A quick check on the calendar showed that it coincided perfectly with finishing that degree, and was perfect training peak week before The Divide 200. Even better, there was several of our friends from Edmonton already on the roster. All the stars aligned.
Getting there was brutal. And I don’t mean the hours getting lost in the rain on a dirt road in the Colorado backcountry before finding our AirBnB before the race, although that was wild too. I mean the weeks and months leading up to getting on that plane were a grind. I started my degree in Counselling Psychology as a Covid project when time felt a little freer. But as life sped up again, navigating coursework and meeting deadlines became its own ultra. And for the last eight months I was also juggling an unpaid internship, my regular paid employment and busy kids schedules. Its an absolute privilege to earn that education and intern experience, but nothing about it felt easy. So when I hit submit on my final project, I felt like I had really earned a week of playing in the Colorado Rockies.
And wow, did I ever get to play.
Six days, 120 miles, 6000m elevation gain, 400 new and old friends, the best teammate, incredible catered meals, coolers of beer on ice, and a team of volunteers to make sure the whole thing runs smoothly. I was completely offline for 10 days other then a few check-ins with the family and didn’t spend one second thinking about work or school for the first time in years. I even read a novel. For fun. This is my absolute paradise.
Each morning buzzes to life with a hundred Garmin alarms and the sound of sleeping bag zippers. People shuffle to fill their run packs and prepare for the day. Tania and I were lucky enough to be there with several of our other run friends we affectionately call our Run Family from Edmonton. Jim, a Run Family member and one of the finest humans I know, leaves us coffee outside the tent.
We eat a delicious hot breakfast, throw our gear in our luggage, hit the potta potties and queue up at the start line. The song, always “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC to countdown and get everyone hyped to go. There’s nothing quite like the buzz of a start-line. Everyone adjusting their packs and chatting, shifting from side to side with nervous energy. Now imagine getting to do that day, after day, after day, with the same incredible people, for six days in a row. What a time to be alive…
The gun goes off and so do all 400 racers, to tackle between 20-40km of running, each day taking between 4-6 hours, with lots of stops for pictures, high fives and the occasional shot of liquid courage.
The course on Day 1 takes you through the scrubby, desert-like hills of Buena Vista with a couple of good views and adorable cacti that make this northern girl smile every time.
Every other day had us running through forests and and mountain trails more reminiscent of our Rockies back home in Alberta. A major highlight for me was on Day 2 going over Hope Pass at 3800m, a place I had wanted to go since I was nearby a couple years ago when helping a friend at Leadville100. Gandalf guarded the passage up top, and a volunteer passes me a shot of fireball before the stunning descent through Interlaken to Twin Lakes.
Bucket list item: ✅ A new highest elevation for me.
Day 2 ends in the iconic mining town of Leadville, a place almost exclusively kept alive by bike and trail races these days. Dinner is in the old gym, a sacred piece of ultrarunning history, and the start line the next morning takes us through town before heading up and over the mountains to the most beautiful camp spot of the week called Nova Guides by the abandoned military base called Camp Hale with rows of empty concrete bunkers used years ago for the 10th Mountain Division, now being reclaimed by nature and graffiti artists.
We got to spend two days at Nova Guides; each morning watching the fog roll over the lake, and at night, sitting around the campfire listening to live music and watching the stars come out.
Earlier that day, while out on the trail, Tania had shared a story about her late husband Trevor, how he used to sing a lullaby to their babies at bedtime “Rock me mama like the wind and the rain, rock me mama like a southbound train. Hey…mama rock me”. This trip was Trevor’s bucket list. Something he and Tania had talked about doing together one day. The woman with the guitar at the fire starts singing the song, as if she knows the story, as if Trevor whispered “Sing It” it to let Tania know that he was there too. I realize that I am a stand-in teammate for someone else’s dream. I am reminded again at the fragility of life and how nothing is permanent. Grief is not permanent. Neither is beauty. Not even that perfect moment under the shooting stars in the Colorado mountains. The moment passed too soon.
On Day 4 we end in another tiny town called Red Cliff, aptly named for how it is nestled in…you guessed it, some red cliffs. The finish line is set up just outside a bar called Mangos where a taco buffet and margaritas wait for us, in case we need another excuse to sit around and celebrate being alive.
Leaving Nova Guides and Red Cliff for Day 5 takes us over a mountain range and on to Vail Ski Resort. The chairlifts hang awkwardly strung across the bare slopes waiting for snow to fall, but for now, there is no free ride, we have to work for those same views.
We pick our way across the ridge to hit the aid station, the town of Vail below us. Tania was a ways behind me, and as a team we aren’t allowed to pass checkpoints without each other so I sit down and wait. This has been the story all week, but I don’t mind. I’m excited. It’s not a hardship to wait on the top of a mountain. Smiling and chatting with every other racer out there, whooping at the views, dancing with the volunteers.
Tania, on the other hand, is not able to enjoy her time out there as much due to pretty serious pain in her knees. She reaches the aid station and I can tell her smile is forced, but we continue together anyway, starting a long descent to the finish line. An especially dramatic fluffy weed catches my eye. It looks like an oversized white dandelion, its seeds begging to catch in the wind. I yell something ridiculous over my shoulder about the floofy weed as I’m flying down the hill but Tania doesn’t answer. I stop to look for her and see her farther up the mountain; hunched over on her poles. Miserable. In tears. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Not from her. We’ve been through so much and she has always been the strong one, the one that maintains a positive outlook and forges ahead with a resilience that only comes when you’ve already been through the worst. And yet here she is. The last few years have been a rollercoaster of knee pain, recovery and rehab for her, and taking on something as big as TransRockies was a bit of a Hail Mary move for her. Back-to-back long days are especially difficult if you have an injury because any inflammation that is happening doesn’t have time to dissipate or do its job to heal the problem area. And here she was on Day 5, really feeling the cumulative effects of it all.
We stop for a moment to regroup and of course everyone that passes us checks in to make sure everything is ok. Like always, she rallies, but I can tell she is ready for the day to be done; remember how nothing is permanent? That goes for pain too. Vail is in sight, but there is still a whole lot of descent to go before we get there. The sky opens up and we are quickly drenched by the storm clouds that have been building all afternoon. Lightening strikes a little too close for comfort, one more reason to celebrate being alive, and we both pick up the pace to finish quickly. Soaked to the bone. Completely and ridiculously alive.
The last day excitement felt exactly like the culmination of summer camp from when I was a kid. Tania was feeling a lot better and we cruised over 1400m and 36km in good time. The finish line buzzed with all the hugs and emotions of six days of running coming to a close. For many people, finishing TransRockies is a lifetime achievement far beyond what they once thought possible and the finish line feels were real. The party didn’t stop there though, the final night hosts a phenomenal banquet up the hill at Beaver Creek Resort and an after party that had us shutting the bar down with our new friends.
The trip left us physically tired but mentally and emotionally refreshed from the complete break in responsibilities. TransRockies takes care of every detail for the whole week, allowing you to really relax and enjoy the best parts of life; friends, nature, movement. For Tania, it was a finally realized dream started years before we ever met. For me, it was a bonus adventure to celebrate the huge milestone of finishing school and the perfect training week for my next endeavor. Stay tuned for The Divide 200…
Run me Wild 
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