Hundreds take to the East Coast Trail for annual ultramarathon

We are in the gut of KDVD on the beautiful wharf, and we are waiting for 207 trail runners who started out in Pooch Cove at sunrise, 7.33, to run 50 kilometers on the East Coast Trail and end right here in the gut. So we're hoping in about 15 minutes we'll see the first runner, and we'll be at it until sunset. It's a beautiful section of trail, very technically challenging as well, but we have a really special community of trail runners around us and even outside of Newfoundland but there's something special of sharing and commiserating in this personal challenge and throughout the day you're going to make new friends people to build you up people to look out for you and there's probably over 65 people volunteering at this event they're out on the trails they're cheering people out like those are the people this weather is not great for and uh yeah it's just a real community spirit that I think makes it quite special and it's also the end of the year for the trail running season so it's kind of like what you've been building up for all spring and summer. The first person comes in about five hours and then the last person is closer to 10 hours and we're gonna see a whole flood of people coming in at different waves and I'll be there to high five every single one of them. I had about a five hour effort on the ECT We had time covered about 50 kilometers in the mud and the slipperiness and yeah, a little bit of rain in there at the end. It was fun, fun in a kind of suffering way, but yeah, we put the effort out there and, you know, coming in first is just a little bit of icing on the cake. Yeah, I had a really great day. It was a little windy and wavy and the ocean was wild, but yeah, I thought it was great. What keeps you coming back year after year? Oh, the community. I think Don and his crew, they do such a good job with getting everyone together and some experienced runners, some beginner runners, everyone in between. Yeah, it's really special. How would you describe the trail running community here in St. John's and Newfoundland Labrador? I think it's great. It's growing. We need more women. Only 30% of the field today is women, but I think it's awesome. Very supportive and it's evident today everyone's showing up at the finish line.