The Dudar brothers love to showcase the rugged beauty of Saskatchewan. So when Warren Dudar started running trails at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park on the Alberta/Saskatchewan border, he knew he had to find a way to help more people discover the area. Enter the Reesor 50 trail race, named for the Historic Reesor Ranch which will serve as the start and finishing area of the event.
The trail race, which offers 50 mile (80km) and 42km distances, doubles the offerings of the Dudar brothers’ Prairie Sky Running group, which also organises the famously tough (and frequently sold out) Beaver Flat 50 race in Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park.
The inaugural Reesor 50 takes place May 17 and there are still some spots left. In advance of the race, Jeff Dudar spoke to the Brainsport Times about what makes the event so special.
What was the inspiration for Reesor 50?
For the past three years, my brother Warren and I had been contemplating adding another race to our portfolio, but we weren’t sure where we wanted to host one.
Warren had been going for the past few years to hang out and run at Reesor Ranch (in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park) and he felt the area could facilitate a really great longer, more runnable race.
There aren’t many races in the 50-mile distance in Saskatchewan. Given the trail system in the provincial park along both the Saskatchewan and the Alberta side and the staging grounds and infrastructure available at Reesor Ranch, we thought it was just a perfect opportunity to host a 50-mile race.
I was out there last spring to scout out trails and it was pretty amazing.
What did you enjoy most about running in the Cypress Hills area?
I love the terrain. I love the lodgepole pines and the rock and there’s conglomerate cliffs and lakes. You’re still in Saskatchewan and you can see the prairie from the elevation that the ranch is at, but when you’re running on the trails, it just feels like you’re transported into another space. The geography is a big thing for me.
Tell me about the course.
There’s a short chunk of the race on Reesor Ranch land, but the majority of the race is split between the interprovincial park: about 40 kilometers is on the Alberta side of the park and 40 kilometres is on the Saskatchewan side.
It’s much more runnable than the Beaver Flat 50. Over the 50 miles, the total elevation gain and loss is in the range of 2,000 meters. The large majority of the race will be on the Trans Canada Trail. It’s bigger than single track — kind of like a mountain bike trail — maybe four to six feet wide. Some of it is well maintained and some of it’s less well maintained and turns into single track by nature taking over the trail a bit.
When it’s not the Trans Canada Trail, there’s a fair amount of single-track running. There is some animal trail and, to connect things up, there’s a little bit of gravel road running. There’s a lot of rolling hills, a lot of forested areas. The scenery is spectacular.
What is the demand for a race like this in the province?
I think it’s pretty high. For the first year we have two distances: the 50 mile and a 42km, which we’re calling the Mountain Marathon. There’s 150 spots in each, for a total of 300 spots. Today (in mid January) we’ve sold about 200 spots. There have been slightly more people signing up for the Mountain Marathon than the 50-miler, but it’s within 10 entries between the two.
We’ve heard from our network of trail runners that people are excited. There’s lots of longer trail runs out there, but you typically have to travel out of Saskatchewan to access them. We want to offer a race closer to home.
Mid-May is pretty early in the year for a trail run. Why did you want to lock down that date?
The trail running calendar really picks up in July, August and September and there’s a lot of races that are hosted in that timeframe. Early season races are fewer and farther between. We wanted to capitalize on the early calendar and give people something earlier in the season to train for over the winter.
The race is at a fairly high elevation in the Cypress Hills. There could be two feet of snow or it could be scorching hot or raining. We’re not sure how inclement the weather will be, but that was part of the reason why we chose earlier. We want to try and catch some of the potentially winter weather that might still exist, which will add an element of difficulty.
What else do you want people to know about the race?
Reesor Ranch is a really amazing place and the Reesor family has been really supportive.
We’re sort of bringing together two worlds in terms of ranch living and running. We’re all really excited to showcase the ranch and the area to a demographic that might not necessarily have access to the ranch if it weren’t for the race. We’ve been calling it the ultra ranch festival. There’s going to be onsite camping. The Reesor family have an amazing menu set up for us, a pancake breakfast and meal the night before. We really just want it to have a festival feel to it and let people experience a great race, but also a great time at Reesor Ranch.
Registration for the Reesor 50 is open via Race Roster.
