230 Kilometers of Rockies, Under an Eclipse
Harry Marshall ran the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper in 30 hours and change, through a freezing thunderstorm and a full moon.
The Icefields Parkway is the most beautiful road in Canada and most people see it through a windshield. Whistler's Harry Marshall ran it. On August 27 he left the Lake Louise park gates and reached Jasper 30 hours, 2 minutes and 31 seconds later, taking the fastest known time from Samuel Dickie's 2020 mark of 31 hours 38 minutes.
The route covers 230 kilometers and more than 2,200 meters of climbing, and the Rockies threw everything at him: heat and dehydration early, then a thunderstorm 40 kilometers in that left sheets of ice from freezing rain on his jacket. A six-person crew in two vehicles met him roughly every 10 kilometers. The last 20 kilometers of pavement broke his legs down to a power hike, and another storm rolled in at the finish.
"Best part was running through the night under a full moon and seeing the partial lunar eclipse." Harry Marshall to Canadian Running.
Marshall started running after losing his brother and then his mother, and every project since, from a year of daily 5Ks to seven marathons in seven days, has carried their names. Full story at Canadian Running.