Hamilton runner prepares for gruelling NYC 'ultramarathon'

Andrea Sloan likes to go out to her mom's placein Grimsby for dinner on Sunday nights.

On foot.

From central Hamilton.

And that's just a warmup. Sloan plans to run nearly seven times that distance June 20through all the boroughs of New York City.

A 160-kilometre race begins and ends in Times Square. It's called the Great New York Running Exposition.

Sloan,44, is uncommonly bold and self-confident.

She rememberstraining for a marathon a few years ago when rain forced her inside for a run on the treadmill. A television documentary about the "toughest footrace on Earth," the Marathon des Sables, caught her eye.

"I thought, 'I can do that,'" she said.

Sloan signed up andlearned how to run down sand dunes. (She says you lean forward, rather than brakingto keep from straining your muscles). She ran the race in Morocco in 2008.

Her challenge next week has a decidedly more urban feel than the deserts of North Africa. Sloan and a friend from Burlington, Tim Nelson, are heading to New York City.

They plan to run thebetter part of 24 hours straight.

• How to run 160 km really fast: Hamilton's ultramarathon man

Running3.8 marathons in a row

The race's distance of 160 kilometres adds up to3.8 marathonsback-to-back.

"I'm hoping I can do 8 kilometres anhour, depending on how lost I get and how far off-course the bathrooms are," Sloan says.

The runner is forgoing wine and coffee this week andpreparing her body to start the run on June 20 at 5 a.m.

She says she'll load up with dehydratedsteak bites and maybe some hard-boiled eggs. Jolts of protein willaugment what she'll get at scattered aid stations during the race.

Another favourite mid-run treat are cold perogies.

Training with mild concussion

Sloan fell on a night trail run in January and chipped her knuckle, split her chin open and gave herself a mild concussion. Most of her winter training was on a treadmill while she recovers.

In the months since the injuryshe's been running in Red Hill Valley, Sulphur Springs and doing "hill repeats" on Hydro Hill in St. Catharines.

"My training is about 80 per cent where I wish it would be but I think I am in a good position to finish the race," she said.

'It just never entered my head that I couldn't'

Now a hearing instrument specialist in a Dundas clinic, Sloan studied Chinese medicine in Germany and worked as a UN security liaison for minority politicians in Kosovo.

She says the intensity and adrenaline of that work comes in handy now.

"You had to be able to stay up for long periods of time," she says.

Twelve years ago, she moved back to Canada and wanted to make friends without going to bars. She joined walking groups at the Running Room.

One day she saw an ad to run a marathon on the Great Wall of Chinaand signed up. She switched to running groups at the Running Room.

Again with the self-confidence.

"I'm not exceptionally fast," she said. "It just never entered my head that I couldn't."

We'll follow Sloan'sprogress next weekend; follow CBC Hamilton on Facebook and Twitter for updates.