Vomiting. Dizziness. An inability to eat solids or drink water. Exhaustion. Dehydration.
As an emergency room doctor, Kyle McLaughlin said treatment for this type of patient would have been an easy call: start an I.V. and get them into a hospital bed.
But when the doctor became the patient on Saturday (July 6), 70 kilometres into the 148-kilometre Sinister 7 race in Crowsnest Pass – the first actual ultra-marathon race of his life – the rules changed.
“I started getting bad stomach cramps. I couldn’t get food or water down and I started throwing up. I know it’s a wicked spiral: if you can’t get food in, you will stop running,” McLaughlin said. “There is an inherent risk with these races. I was definitely dehydrated and under-nourished. If I wasn’t able to keep anything down, I would have been forced to pull out… The racer in me said keep going. The doctor in me said this is insane.”
He walked and stumbled his way for another 10 km to the transition area, realizing he wasn’t even halfway through the longest race of his life. Thoughts of quitting pushed their way into his head, as he thought no sensible doctor would allow him to continue.
“I was fighting thoughts to quit. It was the crux of the race for me. I sat down for 30 minutes. I hadn’t drank for three hours and I was still throwing up. I fell asleep for a bit on the ground.”
His wife Carrie McLaughlin was in the transition area with him, along with his children and several MitoCanada athletes and supporters, monitoring his condition. One of his training partners and MitoCanada teammates, Myron Tetreault, then appeared. He had been running an hour behind McLaughlin. A Coke and a Sprite later, they were back on the trail.
“Our goal was to do the event together. He came in and we both thought of quitting. But we were back together, and said we’d start walking and see what happens. We were shuffling along like a couple of old ladies.”
Step by step, they came closer and closer to the finish line at the 148-km mark and away from the black abyss that threatened to end their adventure, which took on dreamlike properties.
“About 125 km in, in the middle of the night, we came off the crux of the course. I felt like I was hallucinating. There were all of these blue Christmas lights. I remember asking Myron ‘are those really there?’ and he said ‘yes.’ There was a runway and a bonfire going at 2 a.m., with this big party.”
A few short hours later, dawn broke on the Sinister 7 course and McLaughlin and Tetrault crossed the line together in 13th place after regaining their form on the final leg. In total, it took them 22.05 hours and more guts than they imagined possible.
“I’ve never suffered that much in an event before. I’ve never come that close to quitting. But it was a neat experience from many different levels. To finish it with Myron, it made it that much greater to do it with a buddy. I’m not too sure I would have been able to do it on my own.”
McLaughlin’s experience is not unique in the Sinister 7. Every year, about 40 athletes finish the solo venture, which includes 5,350-metres of elevation gain, several river crossings and varied terrain over ridge runs, steep climbs (no switchbacks in sight) and deep forest exploration. He had planned to do another ultra-marathon in Colorado, but switched to the Sinister 7 due to a work conflict. He had researched the race, but not extensively enough to know what sort of pain awaited him.
“I honestly did not look at the course. I knew how nasty it was and I ran with a few people who had been in it, but none had finished. I didn’t know the area, either,” McLaughlin said. “I had no clue how tough this race would be.”
The Ironman athlete is no stranger to pain, but found new limits within himself through the test. Running for MitoCanada in the suddenly trendy black and green kit, he got tons of praise on the course, and the support of friends and family kept him moving forward.
“Twenty-two hours is a long time to think about why you do these races. I’ve been in lots of dark places in Ironman, but never that close to saying enough is enough,” he said.
“I try to seek out experiences. That’s how I get most joy. It’s a really special moment to do this race, come so close to quitting and finding a way out of it, and share a life experience with one of your buddies, it was really special.”
