From blazing heat to wild animals, there were many memorable takeaways from the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) 100km World Championships for local athlete Jessica McBride.
McBride was the only female athlete selected to represent Team Canada at the race in Bengaluru, India on Dec. 7. She ran with teammates Matt Tribe, Dylan Hayes, and Mathieu Dubé.
The race didn’t exactly go as predicted, with monkeys appearing on the path, trying to bother the runners.
“They were in the trees, and I guess to some degree they are starving. So, they recognized that people had food. And they started kind of descending and approaching people,” McBride said. “So that was another complication to the race.”
Another issue was the intense heat as temperatures hit 43 C, according to thermometers brought by Team Great Britain.
The excruciating heat was something McBride had tried to prepare for. In the weeks leading up to the race, she did her training in a sauna. But there was only so much she could do, coming from a colder climate like Canada.
“To perform well in hotter climates, you need to have a higher volume of red blood cells to produce a higher volume of red blood cells. You have to train at high heat,” she said. “So, it’s kind of a circular issue.”
To make matters worse, McBride fell during the first lap of the race because hazards on the running path hadn't been marked.
“Anyone who had watched me on the livestream was calling me immediately, because I was bleeding down my legs within the first 10 minutes,” she said. “It was unlike anything else I have ever run.”
She persisted, finishing in 45th position among the female runners, with a time of 10:04:40.
“I knew that I had been given the opportunity to represent my country,” she said. “So, I wasn’t going to call it. I was willing to put up a less than stellar time to ensure that Canada was one of the few teams at the World Championship this year where the entire team finished.”
“Myself and the three men for Team Canada, we all got it done,” she said. “Painfully, but we got it done.”
McBride has to take a week off to rest and let her knees heal, but she has her sights set on her next challenge.
“The plan after that is to start training to race Survivor Fest, our 24 Hour National Championship in June,” she said, referencing a race that will take place in Sherwood Park.
Despite the challenges of racing, McBride takes lots of pride in being given the opportunity to represent Team Canada and the Association of Canadian Ultra Marathon Runners. She hopes more people will get involved.
“A lot of people don’t seem to realize that it is not solely an elite organization. I think people think that because they organize for World Championships and for National Championships, that’s all they specialize in. But they actually are an organization available for people who want to break into our sport,” she said.
The full list of results at the IAU 100km World Championships can be found at the organization's website.
