In one shot Whitehorse's Denise McHale hit three targets.

Personal Best. Break eight hours. Break record.

McHale broke the 100-kilometre Canadian women's record with a time of 7:56:41, good enough for eighth place overall, at the I.A.U. World Championships in Gibraltar on Nov. 7.

Done and done and done.

McHale broke the previous Canadian women's record set by Ashley Evans (8:02:59) in Sacramento, Calif., in 1994, and clocked a personal best in the 100-km event, set previously at 8:15:59.

"That was one of my main goals,” she said of setting a new Canadian record.

"I knew it was quite an improvement I'd have to make, but I figured it was possible if

I had a good day, so that was my main focus, was to break that goal and maybe even break eight hours if I could.”

McHale competed in the 2008 I.A.U. World Championships in Italy, where she finished 23rd overall as the first Canadian women in roughly 8:32:00.

So what was the difference between 2008 and 2010?

"It's a lot more miles, and more focus training for this race in particular, because I'm usually adventure racing as well,” she said.

"And I just focused on running for the remainder of the year, and I think that made the difference, because I'm always running and biking and paddling.

"It's great cross-training, but it's tough to break that next level when you're doing so much cross-training and not focusing just on the running.”

The last time McHale ran 100 kms (or more) was at the Canadian Death Race in Grande Cache, Alta., last summer, when she ran 125 kms in 14 hours and 56 minutes.

Her final jaunt before heading to Gibraltar came in her record-breaking performance in the ultra category of the Klondike Trail of '98 International Road

Relay in September after running 72 kms in 5:28:00.

This year's world championships were "different,” she said, there being a five-km lead out followed by a 19.5-km loop of the same course.

"So that was a bit of a mental challenge in itself,” she said. "But you just focus on one lap at a time, and I was pretty focused on that time goal.”

Every five-kilometres the runners' lap times would appear on the board, thanks to technology: a chip in the shoe.

McHale said that gave her a good sense of how to maintain her pace.

"You had to play a mental game in your mind. It's a long time and it gets painful.

The first half isn't so bad, because it's just kind of like a long run; you're not actually running as fast as you would if you were running a marathon, so the pace is easier.

But you have to really be careful of your pacing because it doesn't matter how fast you run 70 kms if you die in the last 30.”

She started feeling her quads tiring after the first 25 km from running on pavement through industrial areas and downtown, she said, adding that she'd prefer to and has more experience on running on natural courses.

"So it's just a different mindset,” she said.

"Reasonably speaking, I felt pretty good. I mean, you don't feel good; sometimes when you look around you start feeling sorry for yourself, people walking and puking and crying; you kind of take stalk and go, ‘O.K., I don't really feel so great, but I'm fine.'

"Things are hurting, but I didn't have any injuries, it was just fatigue, which is going to be over at some point when you stop.”

The home stretch?

"Anything can happen at that point, so I figured that as long as I could maintain generally the pace I was running at I figured I was going to make it,” McHale said.

"You never know until the end. I went into the last lap going, ‘I know if I'm going to make it, I have to only run this last five km in under 30 minutes, which wouldn't be a problem as long as nothing happened.”

Then it was into the record books.

McHale led the Canadian contingent, and was followed by teammates Melanie Bos (8:41:19) and Dennene Huntley (9:04:44).

That support helped, she said.

"Everybody is very supportive of each other,” she said. "Running these five-km loops, you see your teammates a lot too, so you could offer each other support.

Towards the end, the support gets less enthusiastic, it would be a nod, because you didn't have much energy left anymore, but at least it's a nod and a half smile, because you know what each other is going through, you don't have to say much more,” she laughed.

Needless to say, the team was slow moving following the race, but managed a day trip to Morocco, and tours of Gibraltar and Spain.

She said she's going to take some time off to recoup mentally and physically.

"And then we'll see what next year will entail.”