Sam Dickie isn’t afraid of a little brush with death. The Banff ultrarunner did more than just survive this year’s Canadian Death Race but came out the other side with a first place finish. “It’s as sinister as possible,” said Dickie who crossed the finish line at a time of 13 hours 25 minutes, an hour ahead of the pack. Designed by Sinister Sports, the Canadian Death Race is just about as tough as ultramarathons can get in Canada and across the international trail running scene. “If you’re an ultrarunner in Alberta, you kind of always have the Canadian Death Race on your list,” said Dickie of the five leg-race in its 26th year. “It’s got a bit of a cult following now.” The 118-kilometre course starts in the west-central Alberta hamlet of Grande Cache, spans three mountain summits and 4,770 metres of elevation change. Between bushwhacking, marshy trails and strategically placed leg-burning hills that dash runners hopes even when the going got tough a long time ago, there’s a reason why the ultra requires a little blood, sweat and tears to make it over the finish line. “Even to the very end, like two kilometres out, there’s this super steep dirt road … It’s a perfectly built out race that really is demoralizing in some sense, but it’s genius in other ways,” Dickie added, crediting the Sinister Sports race organizers. “It’s just relentless.” Racing out of the start gates under smoky skies and in high temperatures on Saturday (Aug. 1), runners wouldn’t skirt “death” so easily this year as the Rockies had a little something up their sleeves halfway through the day. “The temperatures dropped like 15 to 20 degrees, and it ended up turning into this wild lightning, thunder and hailstorm,” said Dickie, noting runners on the course’s high points had to be evacuated with the help of the town. “The Rockies really threw it all at us that day.” “They had a massive dropout rate this year, unfortunately,” he added, referencing the more than 100 racers who had to bow out when the conditions did a 180. While the risk of dehydration suddenly turned into the risk of hypothermia, Dickie pushed on. The crux of the course came two thirds of the way through – something the ultrarunner has come to expect with nearly eight years of racing under his belt. “Around that 80 kilometre mark when you’ve run almost two marathons and you still have about a marathon left, that’s a pretty brutal point,” he said. On the 1,300-metre Mount Hamell climb, the course takes runners on an out-and-back where a coin, needed for the next leg of the race, awaits them at the top. “That’s how they know that you did the out and back is by grabbing a coin,” said Dickie. Reaching Hell’s Gate Canyon on leg five, where the Smoky and Sulphur rivers meet, a grim reaper-dressed volunteer guards the crossing where a ferry shuttles runners to the other side. “That coin is also your pass to get onto the boat,” Dickie said. “They have these two boats that go back and forth ferrying the runners across, and it’s like this epic gorge with high walls,” he added. “I think that really stands out against other races.” The fabled race is one of few Canadian qualifiers for the Western States Endurance Run and the famed UTMB World Series, which Dickie has his eye on next. “The higher the index you have, the higher up in the wave you’ll be, so the more elite runners are at the beginning,” Dickie said of the UTMB world series event in the Swiss Alps this September. “Top three of that race get to compete in the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in Chamonix next year,” Dickie said of the roughly 170-km race known as the most prestigious mountain running test piece in the world. Running alongside filmmakers with Canmore-based production company Sherpas Cinema, Dickie’s, and others, death race efforts will be featured in an upcoming Travel Alberta short film. “It’s kind of a tribute almost to trail running in Alberta as a whole. It’s going to showcase how amazing the running is in Alberta and at the centre of this whole wild running community is Sinister Sports and the Canadian Death Race,” Dickie said of the film that’s set for release next year. It’s not just about the fastest runner, but the community atmosphere created during a race. “We captured the last place runners and everything. We want to show not somebody who’s trying to win but what this community of runners comes together to do, and everyone’s coming to the start line for their own reason,” he said. “[My race] took 13 hours and I gave maximum effort for 13 hours. Other people took 24 hours and they gave maximum effort as well. Everyone’s out there just giving their best.” Steadily gaining a reputation beyond Alberta, this year’s death race saw runners compete from around the world, including teams from Australia, Colombia and the U.S. “There’s not a whole lot of reasons to go to Grande Cache unless you’re watching the AC/DC cover band,” Dickie said with a laugh, referring to the tribute band performance that concluded the race weekend. “I was blown away [by] the terrain they have up there. Those mountains are really, really cool. It was really neat to go explore a different part of the Canadian Rockies that I would never normally go to.” The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. This position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.
