Mandy Currie was at one of the lowest points in her life when she went for a run with a friend in Saskatoon last summer and spotted a dime on the road.
Seeing the coin shook Currie to her core. It had been only a week since her big sister, Lisa Currey, had died at age 38 after a 10-year battle with cancer. Before her death, Lisa promised to send Mandy signs she was still there. They discussed sunrises, rainbows — and dimes.
“We often talked about how finding a dime was a sign that somebody in heaven was thinking of you,” Mandy says. She scooped up the coin and put it in her pocket, wondering if she should give it to her 10-year-old son or seven-year-old daughter. Lisa, it seemed, didn’t want her to have to choose; moments later Mandy found a second dime.
“I ran home with those two dimes in my pocket. This was probably the saddest of times in my life where I felt so low and just missing her so badly — but I was ran home and I woke up my son, my daughter and my husband to tell them I’d found two dimes on my run and they were excited because they felt the meaning in it,” Mandy remembers. “Those tiny little moments of feeling connected to my sister, usually they come up on the run.”
Those moments have included running under sunrises so beautiful they’ve taken Mandy’s breath away and seeing rainbows and sundogs seemingly at every turn.
“I can truly feel the presence of my sister,” Mandy says. “Maybe I’m paying more attention now, but there’s been a lot of really powerful moments where it’s kind of taken away the sadness or replaced it with a feeling like I just had a really great coffee date or deep conversation with my sister.”
It’s no surprise to Mandy that the most powerful signs from Lisa have come while she’s been running. Running had long been part of the sisters’ relationship; the two ran together before Lisa became sick, including lining up at marathons and tackling their first ultra marathon together. Even when Lisa became too sick to run, she would sometimes hop on an ebike to join Mandy on her runs and was a frequent presence at Mandy’s races. One of the last photos Mandy has with Lisa is from the finish of the 2024 Black Spur Ultra in Kimberley, B.C. Lisa had travelled to watch her sister race less than a week before she died.
“She was all bundled up, but she was there and cheering me on as she always did,” Mandy says. “She was my best friend, she was my person. She was my biggest cheerleader.”
Though Lisa became quite frail in her last years of life, she remained filled with optimism and strove to live a full life. She would often joke that Mandy should put her in her running backpack so Lisa could join her on runs and experience everything Mandy saw. Mandy wasn’t able to carry Lisa up a mountain in life, but these days she brings part of her sister with her during her runs; after Lisa’s death, Mandy bought a small turtle pendant and filled it with some of Lisa’s ashes. Engraved on the turtle’s belly are the words “Here with you.”
“I’ve taken it to the Grand Canyon, I’ve had it in my pocket on runs around the city or when we’ve gone snowboarding as a family or I’ve climbed mountains,” Mandy says. “Sometimes I’ll take a photo of it, sometimes I’ll just be with it, and it’s my moment to feel like I’m honouring her wishes about taking her with me even if she was joking a little bit.”
Late this summer, that small turtle will take its longest journey yet, crossing the Atlantic Ocean on its way to Chamonix, France where Mandy will compete in the iconic Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), a 171-kilometre ultra trail race that takes participants through Italy, Switzerland and France.
UTMB, which Mandy describes as “the Boston Marathon of ultrarunning,” is a challenging event to get into. UTMB hosts dozens of events around the world with the top finishers getting automatic qualification to UTMB and other participants earning “stones” which act as entries in a highly competitive lottery (the longer and more prestigious the race, the more stones athletes earn).
Stones can be used within two years and Mandy, who earned three stones in 2023 when she raced the Puerto Vallarta México by UTMB Hikuri 100K, was one of nearly 9,000 runners who entered the lottery for the 2025 UTMB. She never imagined she would get in — and initially thought the email she got from UTMB organizers in January saying she had secured a spot on the start line was a joke.
The news was so unexpected that Mandy didn’t know how to react. Could she actually commit to a race so far away? Was that something her family would want to do? Then her son asked what day her race was and Mandy looked it up: her race would start on the evening of Aug. 29 and continue into Aug. 30, the one-year anniversary of Lisa’s death.
“That nervousness about not being able to make it happen was sort of taken away,” Mandy says. “This feels like it’s very intentional and I think it means I have to make this happen.”
Mandy, who has been juggling ultra running with parenting and a career as a nurse since 2016, has a lot of miles under her belt, but knows UTMB will be her biggest challenge yet. The most comparable event she’s conquered is last summer’s Sinister 7 Ultra 100-miler, where she finished second in a time of 24 hours and 34 minutes. UTMB will be both longer and involve more climbing. “It’s almost like a hill compared to the mountain that I’m going to be up against,” she says.
To prepare, Mandy and her family are planning to spend a lot of their summer in the Rocky Mountains, a place both of her kids have come to love. And Mandy is thrilled some of her training will involve getting outdoors with her son, who’s started building a bucket list of hikes to tackle. “All of a sudden my kids aren’t being pushed in a stroller — they’re climbing mountains with me. And it’s kind of fun to see that evolve,” Mandy says.
Over the past few months as she logged miles on the roads and trails in Saskatoon, Mandy has appreciated how training for UTMB has become an important part of her grieving process. Her runs provide an opportunity to heal and celebrate the times she had with her sister. Soon, the race will be a time to take Lisa to even more places she wasn’t able to explore in life.
“No matter how long it takes me to finish, I’m very determined to finish the race. And I’m going to be happy that I can make it there. My sister’s definitely going to be there with me and I’m going to be very open to having that connection with her that day,” Mandy says. “I’m just excited to take it all in and have a really powerful physical and emotional experience.”
