It was a disappointing conclusion to this past weekend's Lost Souls 100 Mile Race for Yukoners Denise McHale and Shelley Gellatly, but not because of their time or placing.

The disappointment came as a result of organizers deciding to stop the Lethbridge, Alta. ultra race, nearing its final loop, as a result of heavy rainfall, which was making the course difficult to run.

"It was a little bit of a letdown," said McHale, who competed in the 100 mile race for the first time. "It would have been interesting to see what happened, but sometimes that's the way life goes."

The Lost Souls race began Friday morning and consisted of three loops.

The prairie course played to the strengths of both Yukoners and included a number of hills of varied sizes.

Perfect weather highlighted the start of the race, making for some great running times, which were posted by the very competitive field.

Both McHale and Gellatly found themselves right where they wanted to be and were feeling good heading into the last loop.

The pair were on pace to finish as the top female competitors and break the 24 hour mark, which would have been a race record in the women's category.

McHale had even managed to catch up to the top three runners, who were maintaining a pace that she was more than comfortable in matching.

However, the ideal conditions didn't last and at around the 12 hour mark the clouds began to roll in. It wasn't to long after that the race's first storm began.

At times, the rain was so bad that participants had to literally get down on their hands and knees to make it up some of the steeper hills.

After the second heavy shower started up, the race was called off. The timing came just as McHale and the other three top runners were getting back to the starting point to begin the last loop at around 11 p.m.

This has been a frustrating season for McHale, who is on the very competitive adventure racing squad, fittingly named Team Peak Adventure. This year, an injury forced the squad to pull out of the Primal Quest, which is one of the most competitive adventure races in the world.

When Team Peak Adventure pulled out of the Primal Quest, on day five, they were in hard fought battle for second place, nearing the end of the race.

McHale, who was recently selected to represent Canada at the 100-km world championships in Italy in November, said she was looking forward to competing at the Lost Souls race for the first time.

"I was kind of looking forward to getting over the Primal Quest disappointment and just doing my own thing and hoping to have a good run," she said. "I can only think that somehow these things happen for a reason. I am happy that I felt strong and having a good race up until that point, so that gives you some confidence."

McHale has already started training for the 100-km world championships and said she hopes to finish in the top 20 at the competition.

Gellatly was in fifth place when the Lost Souls race was called off and was on pace to break the time she posed in 2007. In 2007, Gellatly finished at just over the 26 hour mark, which was the fastest in the female category.

She said she was looking forward to taking part in the 100 mile race again.

"It's a really nice race," she said. "It's well organized and the volunteers were great, so I was pretty keen to go back and try and do a better time this year."

Gellatly, whose pace slowed as a result of the rain, didn't have too many regrets about the race being called off.

She said if she wasn't going to be able to meet her goals there was no point in continuing the race.

"I would had to have a perfect race to beat 24 hours, so it was like going from the perfect conditions to the worst conditions," Gellatly said. "If I had never done the race before I would have wanted to finish it, but I didn't want to leave having had a worst experience than last year. I know now that I can probably beat 24 hours. That was a huge confidence builder whether I actually finished the race or not."

Gellatly said she was proud of how both she and McHale did.

"It was really neat to be down there with some other people and doing so well in the race," she said. "I was quite proud of that and I thought whatever happened we still did really well and that was pretty cool."