Runner Rumon Carter investigates the ups and downs of a race that dares to call itself Canada's Hardest 10K.

Competitive sport places a premium on being the best. It's a natural extension of our human fascination with superlatives and outliers. We're attracted to things ending in -est. The fastest, highest and strongest reach the top step of the podium. Claims to being "Canada's Hardest 10K" attract attention.

"Rumon," enquired IMPACT Magazine's editor in an email, "we're looking for a story on whether the Bear Mountain Resort 10K lives up to its billing as Canada's Hardest 10K."

Sounded painless, until: "And, to be clear, we're looking for a first-person account - we'd like you to run the race."

Oh, no.

You see, living near the race, which is held just outside Victoria, B.C., I'd heard the stories. Following its first edition, in 2006, a vocal group of runners responded negatively to the event, peppering online forums with stories of seared lungs and aching quads owing to the hilly terrain of the Jack Nicklaus co-designed golf course cart paths that make up the race course.

Worst of all, though, according to these offended runners, the course was so diffi­cult it left no chance of running a personal best time.

Not wanting to leave my impressions unfairly skewed before toeing the start line, I met with the race organizers, Mark Nelson and Nick Walker, on the night before last year's race at Jack's Place restaurant at the Westin Bear Mountain Resort, to get their side of the story.

Still looking bemused by the experience, Nelson described neglecting that first year to mention anything about the hilly nature of the course, promoting it simply as a 10K road race. It was a marketing approach not well received. "We received around 60 furious emails (after the race, from among 208 finishers), complaining about how hard the course was, and the fact we hadn't made any mention of it," recalled Nelson.

Like any good business owner, the race directors responded to the feedback from their customer base. "We figured, ‘Fine,' " recounted Nelson through a wry grin, " ‘you wanted to know it's hard - then it's the hardest 10K in the world!' " Mindful of the likely exaggeration in their adopted description, Walker and Nelson ultimately backed away from the "world's toughest" claim and settled on a narrower scope.

And so was Canada's Hardest 10K born. Or, at least, asserted.