For Reid Roberts, it's been like training for a Star Trek mission.
His final frontier is 80 kilometres of rugged mountain terrain between the start and the finish of Sunday's Scorched Sole Ultra in Kelowna.
He figures it will take him nine or 10 hours, but it might feel like light years for the 42-year-old D.P. Todd secondary school phys-ed teacher by the time he's finished running through the fire-ravaged forests of Okanagan Mountain Park.
Why would he want to subject himself to such punishment, you ask? Roberts got bitten by the bug two Septembers ago when he entered his first off-road half-marathon distance race on the Cranbrook Hill Greenway Trail, part of the Mad Moose Marathon.
He heard about the Scorched Sole race, entered it last year, and came home with a medal after finishing second overall in the 50km event, a race that took him 4:49:42 to complete. That gave him plenty of encouragement to up the ante this year and go the distance as an 80km runner.
He stepped up his training through the winter months, and he and training partner Aaron Bond have been busy on city trails running up to 100km per week trying to simulate the grueling course they plan to cover on Sunday.
The race starts 355 metres above sea level and rises to the top of Okanagan Mountain 1,560m. The total elevation gain over the 80km course is 4,260m.
"It's a brand-new course on terrain I have no idea about," said Roberts. "It's mostly single-track to the top of the mountain and it's a fairly steady climb for 40K, then you turn around and come back. The last 10K to get up the peak is quite steep and technical and then you come back down that for the return.
"I'd say I'm much more prepared this year for running the long distance than I was last year. I've done a lot more training."
Roberts and Jeff Hunter of Prince George, the fifth overall 80km runner last year in Kelowna with a time of 9:14:38, are entered in 80km event. Bond, Richard Stewart of Prince George and female runner Jamie Lazar of Vanderhoof will be in the 50km race.
An ultra-marathon requires constant hydration and nutrition along the way. Reid will be running with a two-litre water container strapped to his back containing e load, an energy drink which fights the effects of heat stress by replacing electrolytes and fluid that Roberts will sweat out. The mixture will also contain dissolved salt tablets. Roberts will ingest carbohydrate-rich energy gels about every half hour and will stop for solid food at the aid stations. He'll have another water pack waiting for him at the 40km mark.
While Hunter plans to enter a 148km off-road race called the Sinister Seven, July 9 in Crowsnest Pass, Alta., and will be part of the 125km Canadian Death Race in Grande Cache, Alta., July 30-31, Roberts is building his endurance to tackle the Fat Dog 100, a 115km race through Manning provincial park, July 23-24. Last year, Roberts ran the full Mad Moose Marathon and completed two 50km races.
"That's one of the reasons I'm doing the 80K is to have a warmup for the 115K a month after," he said. "When I say 'warmup,' that's if I can do this distance. This is all new territory for me.
"I got hooked when I ran the Mad Moose half-marathon two years ago and then I started running with the Stride and Glide crew -- Cory Watts, Shar Jackson and Kevin Grigg -- running every Sunday on the Greenway. We were doing 36K every Sunday as kind of a casual run and it was so much more enjoyable than running roads.
"The Scorched Sole is like a fast hike where you're pushing yourself, but it's not like a road race where you're going all-out, from start to finish. That was appealing to me. I felt I could run slower, but go longer. I've been dealing with knee issues the last couple years and the more I run the trails, the better it gets."
His students at D.P. Todd have a hard time grasping the distance Roberts will be running, and he hopes his new hobby will inspire some of them to follow in his tracks.
"I'm promoting a healthy lifestyle when kids see me running and when you start to talk about running a 50K or a 100K, their eyes just get huge," he said. "To be honest, I did too when I first heard about it. I thought, 'you gotta be crazy,' but there's a lot of people doing it. Trail running is becoming very popular."
