This is the annual fundraiser for OUTRace – with pizza!
About the Event
Date: April 18, 2026
Start Time 9:00am
Dufferin County Forest
937513 Airport Rd, Mansfield, ON L9V 0W2
Your options for the 2026 Spring Warm Up:
Building on the success of last year’s Trails North Workshop Days, N89 will be hosting our first trial running clinic day of the season in conjunction with The Spring Warm Up. Best of all, it’s totally FREE with sign up for the Spring Warm Up event.
Runners will have the option of running the approximately 9km loop on their own, as many times as they wish in the 6 hour time window (9am to 3pm), or take part in 1 of 2 shorter guided trail runs that will include some tips on tackling hills (both the ups and the downs), and some general work on pacing. OR, you can do a bit of both!
After the run, for those who wish to hang out a little longer, we will have a short Coach-lead discussion and plenty of time for Q & A, in which we encourage everyone to share their experience and expertise, not just the coaches. It’s your time to gear the conversation in what you want to discuss in order to have your best season on the trails. All this over pizza, of course!
The Location & 9K Lap
The venue for 2026 Spring Warm-Up will be Dufferin County Forest – Main Tract, Upper Parking/”Field” Parking (937513 Airport Rd, Mansfield, ON L9V 0W2). The route will be almost all single track trail. We cannot promise ice or snow – that’s up to mother nature!
Aid Station
Water, sports drink and snacks. Water jug at an unattended aid station at the 5K point, so bring a water bottle.
Post Run
12:00-1:30 PM: Lunch (staggered pizza delivery)
2:00 PM: Prize draw at the Forest Parking Lot.
Fees & Prizes
Fee
$43 + HST.
Deferrals and Refunds
There are no deferrals or refunds for this event, please plan your participation carefully.
Supporting
100% of proceeds will be directed to OUTRace (The Ontario Ultra and Trail Race Series)
Prizes
Grand prize and some spot prizes.
Grand Prize
One person who has paid entry to the fun run will be eligible for free entry to OUTRace events. The winner does not need to be present at the fun run during the draw and can pay the difference to run races longer than 56K. The prize is not transferable.
More information
For more information about OUTRace, contact the series coordinator, coordinator@outrace.ca
Registration
Run Recap
All the trails, pizza and not-so-gentle breezes!
It was a bumpy road, but in the end the Spring Warm-Up this year was a success! The preceding weeks had brought ice storms, wind storms, thunder showers and some cooler-than-seasonal temperatures. The net result was we needed to change venues (the trails around Dunedin were devastated by the ice storm), and find a new pizza place (Pizza Perfect in Creemore had closed over the winter). Fortunately our amazing friends down at MOC had been busy in Dufferin County Forest clearing single track, and the good people of Maple Grove Farm Market have just about the best pizza north of Hwy 89!
39 brave souls came out to tackle the course and support OUTRace in their annual fundraiser for this year’s awards. Hot, beautifully roasted coffee (a miracle in a venue without electricity) was supplied by the good folks of Believer Coffee. A few helped hold down the tents that threatened to fly away not once, but twice! In spite of the wind, the weather was warm(ish) and perfect for running.
The delivery of pizza was met with enthusiasm and we sat around the warming station swapping summer run goals! One of the topics that came up was the Utopia Backyard Ultra – our inaugural Backyard that’s connected with Laz Lake of Barkley Marathons fame. Part of the Warm-Up was testing out our new timing system to ensure it clocked the laps correctly (thanks to the tough group who clocked 30k+ with 3 laps!).
While we’ve been super stoked about this new event since last year, we realized that people didn’t have a good understanding of what it was about. The TLDR is this: starting on June 27th at 7pm, runners will start a 6.7km loop that they must finish in an hour. At the top of the next hour, 8pm, we’ll ring the bell and they’ll go again. This continues until we have only one runner left, who must complete one last lap. One finisher, everyone else DNFs. It’s not a difficult course, so this is a true race of endurance and pacing. It’s going to be awesome, check it out!
Lastly, Connor of Spooky Light Studios and Andrejs Cifersons caught the shots below to commemorate the first N89 Spring Warm up! We’re so fortunate to have this team for all our events this year.
It was a bumpy road, but in the end the Spring Warm-Up this year was a success! The preceding weeks had brought ice storms, wind storms, thunder showers and some cooler-than-seasonal temperatures. The net result was we needed to change venues (the trails around Dunedin were devastated by the ice storm), and find a new pizza place (Pizza Perfect in Creemore had closed over the winter). Fortunately our amazing friends down at MOC had been busy in Dufferin County Forest clearing single track, and the good people of Maple Grove Farm Market have just about the best pizza north of Hwy 89!
39 brave souls came out to tackle the course and support OUTRace in their annual fundraiser for this year’s awards. Hot, beautifully roasted coffee (a miracle in a venue without electricity) was supplied by the good folks of Believer Coffee. A few helped hold down the tents that threatened to fly away not once, but twice! In spite of the wind, the weather was warm(ish) and perfect for running.
The delivery of pizza was met with enthusiasm and we sat around the warming station swapping summer run goals! One of the topics that came up was the Utopia Backyard Ultra – our inaugural Backyard that’s connected with Laz Lake of Barkley Marathons fame. Part of the Warm-Up was testing out our new timing system to ensure it clocked the laps correctly (thanks to the tough group who clocked 30k+ with 3 laps!).
While we’ve been super stoked about this new event since last year, we realized that people didn’t have a good understanding of what it was about. The TLDR is this: starting on June 27th at 7pm, runners will start a 6.7km loop that they must finish in an hour. At the top of the next hour, 8pm, we’ll ring the bell and they’ll go again. This continues until we have only one runner left, who must complete one last lap. One finisher, everyone else DNFs. It’s not a difficult course, so this is a true race of endurance and pacing. It’s going to be awesome, check it out!
Lastly, Connor of Spooky Light Studios and Andrejs Cifersons caught the shots below to commemorate the first N89 Spring Warm up! We’re so fortunate to have this team for all our events this year.
