From Winnipeg to Québec: Three Half Marathons in Five Days
After finishing a full marathon in each of the 50 U.S. states, I needed a new challenge—or at least a slightly less deranged version of one. That led me to a goal of running a half marathon in every EU country, which I wrote about a couple of years ago. The short version: the rules are loose (unofficial and Strava-tracked runs count, not just organized races), which makes it far more practical—and cheaper—than trying to find an official half marathon in, say, Luxembourg on the one Saturday a year they hold one. The DIY approach lets you design your own route, run on your own schedule, and treat the whole thing as an adventure rather than a logistics puzzle.
My friend Mel—who has also since completed marathons in all 50 states—was inspired by the idea and applied the same concept to her birth country of Canada. One evening over Spanish club dinner, she made her pitch: three provinces, five days, three half marathons. She laid it out like she was presenting a business case, including all the reasons about how fun it would be.
“Well, why not?” I eventually replied. It turns out I didn’t need much convincing.
I had already checked British Columbia off the list, having run DIY half marathons in Vancouver twice in April en route to and from southeast Asia. Manitoba, Ontario, and Québec would be three more provinces. In any case, I figured that three half marathons in five days would make for excellent training.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
We flew separately from Denver to Winnipeg, our flights landing within fifteen minutes of each other. From the airport, we walked over to the Mainstay Suites and promptly crashed. Mel, ever the optimist about early mornings, set an alarm for 5:43 a.m. By 6:00, we were out the door.
Mel had the window bed; I had the sofa bed. She reported that a storm had rolled through just a couple hours earlier. The evidence was all over the ground—puddles everywhere—but at least the rain had moved on by the time we laced up.
I had mapped a route that would swing us back toward the airport, where there was a Winnipeg welcome sign that Mel had earmarked for a photo op, and then east and south past a stretch of big box stores toward the Red River, which we would follow downtown before turning around.
The Red River, it turned out, was more a rumor than a presence on our run. We were always separated from the water by at least a house or two, catching only fleeting glimpses of a river that, for the record, looked significantly more muddy than red.
The neighborhoods themselves were pleasant enough—a mix of modest cottages and older homes with more character than the cookie-cutter subdivisions that seem to be eating the suburbs of every North American city. We looped around the Parliament building in downtown Winnipeg, which made for a satisfying turnaround point—dignified, photogenic, and conveniently located at the halfway mark.
On the way back, I spotted an Audi TT coupe—a hardtop cousin of my TT roadster—parked in front of an elegant home.
And then, in what I can only describe as a very Canadian moment, a family of ducks decided to cross the recreation path directly in front of me, requiring a brief, unscheduled stop.
I would occasionally get a stretch ahead of Mel, but always kept her in my sightlines and doubled back a few times to make sure she didn’t end up getting lost through unfamiliar suburbs with nothing but puddles and big box stores for company. We both finished under two hours—my time was 1:52, Mel’s was 1:56.
Sudbury, Ontario
The Sudbury Rocks Half Marathon was the centerpiece of the trip—an actual organized race, complete with bibs, chip timing, and the added pressure of knowing your result would be permanently enshrined in the results database. And unlike our DIY efforts, we were racing, not just running.
It turned out to be one of my best half marathons times ever on a non-downhill course—which is saying something, given that the elevation profile resembled a saw blade, and I will be 51 years old in a month. Full details are in my Sudbury Rocks race report.
Final time: 1:34:30.
Témiscaming, Québec
After Sudbury, we drove two and a half hours east to Témiscaming, a small town just over the Ontario-Québec border. The instant we crossed into the province, every road sign flipped to French-only—a reminder, as if one were needed, that you have left one Canada and entered another.
We stayed at the Auberge Temrose and ate dinner at their restaurant, conducting all exchanges with staff in French. It was good practice; I had not spoken French in about a year, and the rusted machinery of my subjunctive needed some exercise.
If Winnipeg was flat and Sudbury was a sawtooth, Témiscaming was something else entirely: a relentless, hilly course that seemed philosophically opposed to the idea of an easy kilometer. Mel had mapped the route, which took us through town and then up a long gravel climb that felt longer with every step.
From there we made our way to Lake Jadot on a recreation trail, which was a genuinely lovely stretch—the kind of scenery that makes you briefly forget that your legs are working much harder than they would like to be.
Then it was uphill again on a major road with at least a white-painted shoulder to run on, followed by a mercifully long descent that let us bank some time back.
We still had a 5-kilometer out-and-back through a neighborhood not far from the hotel to round out the distance. The “out” section was entirely uphill. Mel was not particularly appreciative of that discovery. But it did mean the final couple of kilometers were downhill, and I finished my 21.1 km just in front of a Hong Kong restaurant. That felt very appropriate, given that I had been in Hong Kong just the month before, and that it’s the city where my mother was born.
Mel came by a few minutes later, though she had to run all the way back to the hotel to complete her 21.1 km—the discrepancy in our distances owing to all the times I had doubled back to check on her. My finishing time, not counting stops, was 1:57; Mel’s was 2:06.
We treated ourselves to a hearty breakfast at the Brasserie Temrose afterward, which I think we had more than earned. Then we drove four hours down to Toronto, caught our respective flights back to Denver the next day, and quietly reflected on the fact that three half marathons in five days is, objectively, excellent training—even if nobody had explicitly signed up for a training block.
My results in 2026 have been better than I might have expected given that my training hasn’t been the most regimented (though consistent) this year due to all the travel I’ve been doing. Apparently the speed I’ve built up over the years has decided to stick around—and at distances like the half marathon, I can still run times that I never could in my twenties. No complaints.
With British Columbia already in the books (twice, in fact), this trip added Manitoba, Ontario, and Québec to my tally—four of Canada’s ten provinces. I’m not yet fully committed to running a half marathon in all ten; completing one in every EU country remains the higher priority, and my 50<4 project higher still. But I’ll keep it on my radar. Canada keeps finding ways to make a compelling case for itself.