Route

The course follows the official boundaries of the City of Ottawa as closely as possible. The perimeter of the city is large enough to enclose the areas of Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton combined! Natural and man-made barriers, as well as high-speed traffic, have forced us to take some detours, but for the most part we will be tracing the “heart” around the city. The course uses a mix of paths, trails, and roads. Some sections are paved, others not. A significant portion of the route is in rural areas with zero illumination beyond that provided by the sun and moon. Check out the 2025 map below, but keep in mind that it will be tweaked as the event approaches.

Team Composition

There are no team composition requirements. You can have as many or as few runners as you wish, and of any gender. We suggest teams of 6 to 10 runners. Note that while there is no maximum team size, we will limit any individual goodies in your team kit to 10. We also strongly encourage you to keep your team out there as a unit as much as possible; that is where the fun is really had. If you decide to roll in shifts though that is ok, you never actually leave town after all.

Distances and paces

You can decide how you want to split up the route. We've mapped out suggested segments that range from 2 km to 12 km, but you don't need to follow these, just the overall route. If you are going for the podium you will probably want to stick to shorter stints and rotate your runners at fixed intervals.

As a reference point, an average pace of 5:00/km will amount to almost 30 hours of running and see your team finishing around noon on the second day. We will provide a spreadsheet to help plan out your race based on the suggested segments, but you are free to develop your own tools to better fit your race plan.