I’m excited for the first race of a new trail running series that kicks off tonight in St. Catharines, Ontario. It is the Aktiv Trail Series presented by Aktiv Life.  There are 8 races over the summer (every 2 weeks) with your best 5 results counting to the final points series.  Registration will remain open over the first few races if anyone nearby wants to participate.

I was talking to someone the other day about how fortunate we are in terms of race opportunities.  I bet I could race every weekend without having to travel more than 1-2 hours from home if I wanted to!  I feel lucky to have the opportunity to now have this series at a great location about 10 minutes from my house!  Niagara has a lot going for it.

The course is a fun, technical, and hilly 6K loop on some of our great local trails. Lots of single track, with a few fast gravel road sections thrown in to open it up. It should be a nice mid-week motivator and speed workout.

What’s awesome about this type of race is that it gives you a good idea of your fitness over the season. It is difficult to compare race performances within a season because every course is different, even though it might be the same distance. I used to do a weekly cycling club time trial race which was great for seeing (hopefully) improvements over the season, and I hope these trail races will be the same.

I’ll post some mini reports after the races.