Before many Edmontonians got out of bed Thursday morning, hundreds of soldiers were racing through the river valley in a gruelling event.
About 250 Canadian soldiers started the annual Mountain Man competition at 5 a.m. Thursday at Hawrelak Park.
The event involves a 32-kilometre race, carrying a canoe for 3.2 kilometres, paddling for 10 kilometres and another 5.6-kilometre run, all while wearing a 15-kilogram backpack.
“Any race like that has a physical and mental component to it. So not only do the soldiers have to undergo several months of physical training but they also have to be mentally fit and prepared for this race,” Lieutenant Colonel Heather Morrison said.
The participants are from Edmonton, Wainwright and Manitoba, and range in age from their 20s to their 50s.
Most soldiers finish the race between six and seven hours. The fastest time in the event’s history is just under five hours, according to Morrison.
“It reinforces the requirement for soldiers to be physically fit for operations. In addition to that, because it’s an endurance race, they have to be very mentally fit, and that goes into the readiness of our soldiers to go overseas and to do domestic operations,” Morrison said.
The Mountain Man started in the 1980s in Calgary. It moved to Edmonton in the 1990s after the brigade that started the event moved to Alberta’s capital.
Comments