Our very best wishes of good health to all of you during this difficult time. I hope that the summer months allowed you to pursue some fun new adventures and fitness goals, despite the noticeable absence of a racing season.

We know it's been a while since our last newsletter update, and wanted to reach out to let you know where things are at with Storm. It's obviously an understatement to say that it's been an extremely unusual and challenging year for participatory events, but in the spirit of our tagline of 'keep moving forward' we have remained focused on planning for what comes next. If there were to be any silver linings to this past season, we'd see them as:

Given these two points, we are thrilled to announce that the Haliburton Forest will be the host of the 2021 event, scheduled for September 24-26.

This amazing 100,000+ acre wilderness area near the southern boundary of Algonquin Park has been beckoning us since we first moved Storm to the Haliburton region 3 years ago. With over 100 lakes and over 400km of trail and backroad winding though it, the Forest is without question the perfect venue to celebrate 20 years of Storm.

All of the details, including distances-per-discipline for each of the Hike, Trek and Trek Elite races, are now live at www.stormthetrent.com

Yep, September 24-26. For nineteen seasons we've consistently hosted either immediately before or after the May 2-4 weekend, but that just doesn't seem feasible at this stage. If we are to realistically plan for 2021 in any shape or form, we know that it will at least need to be later in the season. Fortunately, with this later date comes some benefits:

Our final course-testing session took place the last weekend in September, and we can confirm first-hand all of the above to be true. The Forest is a pretty spectacular place to be at this time of year, and we are REALLY lovin' these new course layouts! We'll have 4 months more than usual to gush on and on about them though - for now let's just cover the basics...

Yes. While it's a bit unconventional, the 'Trek Elite' advanced course will be hosted on the Friday of race weekend. The Saturday 'Trek' course and Sunday 'Hike' will remain as per usual, but with a series of staggered starting waves.

This all of course is to ensure that we can comply with provincial or local health authority regulations that may still be in effect come next September. It's a fluid plan, and will of course evolve should the situation change.

To be transparent around the other safe-racing protocols and procedures that we'll have in place, we've now created a dedicated page on the Storm website. You can review them at www.stormthetrent.com/covid, and we welcome any questions that you might have.

Given the unusual benefit of an extra 4 months before Race Weekend, we've held off on the re-opening of registration, which in a normal year would already be launched by this point. Stay tuned for an announcement in the coming months, which will include details for those teams that opted to defer their entries to 2021.

If you aren't certain which of the options you chose or was chosen for your team back in May (we know - there have been a LOT of cancelled events this year!) please do feel free to contact us at info@stormevents.ca