Lost Soul Ultra

coulee (kū'lē): A deep gulch or ravine with sloping sides, often dry in summer.

You might have to be from the prairies to know what a coulee is. However, you don't have to be a prairie person to appreciate the beauty of this course. Three laps, 6 legs per lap, up and down the banks of the Old Man River valley through the city of Lethbridge.

This was the trail-iest trail race I'd ever run - 99% of the course was unpaved and, of that, more than 90% was single-track. Narrow, steep, and often overgrown single-track running up and down the coulees.

Race HQ and the start/finish line was in the back parking lot of the Lethbridge Lodge.

The first leg heads south, descending to the valley bottom.

The climbing begins almost immediately

and is repeated over

and over

for the first 3.5 legs.

Several of the competitors, which had also finished the Death Race, said the Lost Soul was harder. I disagree. True, Lost Soul 100 mile has about 18,000 feet of elevation change, which is comparable to the Death Race. However, most of the Death Race elevation change comes in big, ass-kicking chunks with each of the three peaks. In comparison, Lost Soul is the death of 1000 cuts. Each hill is small but there are sooooo many of them.

The remaining 2.5 legs were largely flat (only 3 climbs) and followed the river bottom back to the start/finish.

A single storm cloud passed through and in minutes the trail became gumbo. Fortunately it dried out nearly as fast so the running only sucked for a short while.

With all the rain the normally scorched coulees were lush. Yes, there is a trail through there but I couldn't see it either until the third lap.

Fifty-three runners started the 100 mile race. Twenty finished. The winning time was 23:06:26 (WOW!). I finished 4th overall in 27:53:06. I was 2.5 hours behind 3rd and 30 minutes ahead of 5th so it was a solid fourth. I'm so pleased with my performance. And surprised. This was the furthest and longest I'd ever run. My goal was to finish. Placing third in my age category (18-49) was icing on the cake. Here I am, busting for the finish line.

I'd heard horror stories about Lost Soul at each race I went to this summer and I was dreading what I expected to be an unending painfest. I had little motivation when I toed the line. Three things kept me in this race. 1) I wanted to finish for my wife/support crew. I may have done all the training but she made many sacrifices for me to get to this point. 2) I didn't want to admit a DNF. Facebooking my intent of running this race to friends and family was a powerful motivator to finish. 3) Finishing the Alberta Triple.

Now that I've done it I'd run it again. The volunteers were awesome, the organization was top-notch, and the course was both gorgeous and challenging. I thought I'd hate running 3 loops of the same course - I thought the lack of new scenery on top of growing exhaustion would kill what little motivation I had. That turned out not to be the case. The second loop was in the dark so it looked totally different from the first loop. The familiarity with the course on the third loop, and knowing each accomplishment was a final task, was a strong motivator to get each leg done.