10-day road trip the Monarch Ultra team took
in the fall of 2018. It was meant to test out the
4 ,300-kilometre route designed by Williams,
who spent countless hours staring at street
view images on Google Maps.
“I had a very vague set of parameters. We
were starting in Peterborough and heading
south to a butterf ly conservatory in Mexico. So
I went into Google Maps and hit go,” he says.
From there, the real work began as Williams
examined every road suggested and made alter-
ations to make sure the route was safe enough
to run on.
“I had initially tried to avoid cities, but we
realized going through some of them would
help us get a little more publicity,” he says,
adding that the route includes trips through
Toronto, Detroit, Little Rock, Ark., and both
Dallas and San Antonio in Texas.
“What we’ve done is create 438 segments of
10 kilometres,” Williams says.
While the rest stops will be 10 kilometres
apart, the segments themselves will be either
50 or 100 kilometres, and since the Monarch
Ultra is more of a relay than a race, runners can
register for as many segments as they like.
The road trip in 2018 was meant to fine-tune
the planned route, but it also served to test out
the resolve of James, Williams and Fuentes andtheir belief in the project as something much
more than just organizing a long run.
They launched a Kickstarter campaign to
help fund the trip and the filming aspect of
the Monarch Ultra project, raising more than
$30,000.
The 10-day road trip reinforced a few things.
First, that the three organizers can get along in
tight confines for an extended period of time,
which will be important when they spend nearly
two months together during the actual run.
Second, that the planned route will be an ever-
evolving beast.
“In 4 ,300 kilometres, who knows how many
construction reroutes there will have to be, but
we’ll deal with that as they come,” Williams
says. “It’s going to be a dynamic thing.”
Finally, it reaffirmed what the Kickstarter
campaign had told them: that the Monarch
Ultra was something many people wanted to
believe in and support.
“We talked to runners and conservation
groups along the way and everyone wanted to
help,” Williams says. “It reinforced that we’re
doing something good and right .”
Even the Mexican government is on board,
offering to provide a security detail during the
two weeks it will take for the race to reach its
final destination from the U. S. border.“You end up
surrounded by
millions of
butterflies and
you can hear them.
I’m hearing
impaired and for
me to hear that
was amazing.
It was reassuring
that we’re doing
something special.”
CLAY WILLIAMS,
MONARCH ULTRA RUNNNERBELOW AND OPPOSITE
Carlotta James running near
Peterborough Ont., the start
of the Monarch UltraRodneyFuentes50 Canadian Running September & October 2019, Volume 12, Issue 6