No ultramarathon at Forest this year

By Darren Lum

Published Sept. 1, 2020

While some running events such as Minden’s Highland Yard or the world-renowned Boston Marathon have gone virtual due to the risks associated to COVID-19, others have been cancelled for the year, including the Haliburton Forest Trail Race.


An online post by race director Tegan Legge on July 15 to the Haliburton Forest Ultra website announced the cancellation of the 2020 Haliburton Forest Trail Race.
“The crew at Haliburton Forest and our incredible team of race organizers are sad to announce we will be cancelling the Haliburton Forest Trail Race 2020,” she wrote. “As you can imagine it was a very tough decision for us to make. We thank everyone that reached out through Facebook, email and messenger to provide feedback.”
Legge said runners were understanding, supportive and most have deferred to next year.
“We were all sad to cancel the Haliburton Forest Family Reunion, as the racers call it, but we will be back next year to keep our running family safe,” she wrote in an email to the Echo.
Legge said even without a race there have been people coming to camp or stay in the Forest’s accommodations and explored the trails on their own.


If there was enough interest by runners to come the race weekend, the Forest posted online that it would have water bottles at the six aid stations from Friday night to Sunday afternoon along the traditional race route. Routes would not be marked and runners would be required to navigate on their own.
The demanding trail running event, which includes various distances such as the epic 100 mile distance, a 50 mile, 50 kilometre, 26 kilometre and 12 kilometre, was to have taken place in September.
On average the event has drawn about 800 runners, their family and supporters over the weekend.