2026 Season Recap: A Summer of Ultras

As if one ultra weren’t enough, Kyle Romans completed three ultras, a marathon, and a half marathon—all in a single summer.

From Triathlon to Ultra Running

Kyle began training with Team Triumph for his first triathlon and steadily progressed through the distances in our group training programs. In summer 2025, he completed his first full Ironman in Ottawa. IN 2026, he took a “break” from triathlon to support his beloved partner, Jessie, at the 2026 Ironman in Ottawa. Jessie, who also advanced through our group programs, completed the race successfully and enjoyed an outstanding season of her own. Together, they are a true endurance power couple.

Still eager to keep training, Kyle registered for two 80 km ultras and then reached out for coaching. At first, the plan seemed exceptionally ambitious, but together we set realistic expectations for both events.

Building Toward the Quebec Mega Trail

Kyle’s first tune-up race for the 80 km Quebec Mega Trail was the Ottawa Race Weekend Marathon. Because he had completed the marathon before, we treated it as a training race and an opportunity to practice pacing, nutrition, and hydration while adding sustained mileage. Ultra preparation is not about covering the full race distance in advance. Instead, it relies on gradually building back-to-back runs across trails and roads over several days.

Race Day 1: Quebec Mega Trail 80 km

Race day began with a 1:30 a.m. wake-up call for a 5:00 a.m. start. An early trail bottleneck put Kyle behind almost immediately. He narrowly reached the time cut-offs, leaving little time to eat, drink, change his socks, and restock his fuel. The pressure only strengthened his determination to stay on course and keep moving.
The challenges kept coming! He ran out of water, twisted an ankle after falling into a ditch, had bad blisters and spent four hours alone in the dark forest with only a headlamp. His mental resilience carried him through. He reminded himself that no one was coming to save him and that his only option was to keep moving forward.
Jessie’s support was invaluable. She met him at checkpoints and sent a steady stream of encouraging texts and updates. Kyle finished Canada’s most technical trail race in 18 hours 40 minutes, crossing the line just before midnight.

Race Day 2: Ultra Trail Mont Blanc was just 5 weeks later. Rest and recovery from a twisted ankle were the key. 

Here is Kyle’s race report: “The morning started with a 2:30am wakeup for a 5am race start. My typical race day breakfast of two plain bagels with cream cheese was derailed when I realized last minute that we had forgotten the cream cheese. I pivoted to plain peanut butter toast and bananas. My race nutrition mostly consisted of Naak bars, grapes, pop tarts, coke, red bull, and anything else I could stomach along the way.  The plan constantly changed depending on what I could stomach at any given time, but grapes were my saviour. 

The race start was a new experience as I've never started a race in the dark, only finished them. Headlamps on we started at the bottom of Tremblant Village and quickly made our way up into the forest. The first 18km were mostly flat with a large section on gravel path, this gave a false sense of ease, and I pushed the pace a bit. This wasn’t the best decision as the next 15km quickly made me realize what was ahead and had the first real climb, Pic White. This saw 619m of climbing in a 5km section straight up a ski hill with no shade. The next 10km was mostly downhill to the first crew supported aid station. After that was another brutal climb of 570m of elevation in 7km followed by another technical decent. At this point in the race, I started to feel a sharp pain in my right knee on the downhills. Luckily, around the 50km mark I met two guys from Montreal who were running a similar pace. 

We ended up chatting and decided to stick together for the rest of the race. The next climb was another ski hill which saw another 443m of elevation in 4.9km. We reached the last supported aid station at about 9:30pm and had one final climb up a ski hill of 513m in 4.8km. We reached the top just as it started to get dark and then had to descend back to the village in complete darkness. The last descent was brutal, and I could no longer point my right foot straight and had to have it almost at a 90-degree angle out to alleviate the knee pain. This was a challenge as most of the descent was straight down the face of a ski hill with little area for rest. I finished the race around 10:30pm, about 17hours and 20minutes after the race started. A personal best for this distance by over an hour!

This race didn't go exactly how I thought it was going to. The first 50km were great and I got my PR through that distance, the remaining 30km was brutal and frustrating. I knew I had more in the tank physically, but my knee had other plans. I was fortunate enough to finish the two ultras back-to-back but also finally realized it wasn't the best idea to do both. I should have listened to you! 😂As always, I finished and immediately said never again but now I can't wait for the next one!”

DEFYING THE ODDS

It is amazing how quickly athletes forget the pain! Kyle then went on to do the half marathon at the Army Run and finished this big season at the Manotick Backyard Ultra completing 54km! As I said to Kyle, now it is time to REST! I think he agreed. 

Congratulations Kyle on defying the odds and completing an incredible season of long endurance racing.

Coach Julia

Founder/Head Coach Team Triumph Triathlon Club

Certified Exercise Physiologist & Triathlon Coach

Ironman U Certified