It was a great start to the season for adventure racers Greg and Denise McHale, who just recently got back from a competition in Yellowknife.

Competing at the BHP Billiton Rock and Ice Ultra, Greg finished with the top time, coming in at around 29 hours.

This was the second straight year he has placed first in the Diamond Ultra category, a 225-km, six day/six-stage race.

The next closest competitor was nearly four hours behind Greg.

"I think that really it's a race that (Denise and I) have an advantage over the rest of the competition, just because we live where we do," he said. "It's obviously a good prize and that is certainly the reason why we go there to do that race. It's phenomenally organized, the race director does a great job, but really if I could be running in Mexico or somewhere this time of year, I would probably prefer that."

Greg's wife, Denise, also did very well, placing third overall and winning the female category with a time of just over 33 hours.

In previous year's this race didn't offer a separate division for both male and female participants, however that changed in 2009.

"My race was much different than Greg's because there was another adventure racer, ultra runner from Squamish (Jen Segger) that I knew would be very tough," Denise said. "So her and I battled out pretty much the six days."

Denise's close battle with Segger result in the two of them running together each day of the race, however the Yukoner managed to slowly chip away with her lead.

By the end of the first day she had a seven minutes lead on Segger and Denise said she continued to build on it over the six days.

"I just basically put a little bit of time on her every day, so I think I ended up about a half an hour ahead of her in the end."

Denise said the two ran together for most of the day, before she would leave Segger close to the end of each stage.

"We were fairly well matched, but I think I just had a bit more kick at the end," she said. "So I could manage put a little bit of time and I would drop her every day just at the end."

Coming into the ultra race, Greg assumed his closest competitor was going to be B.C. marathoner Jason Terauchi-Loutitt, who ended up setting a quick pace at the beginning of the race.

However, Terauchi-Loutitt wasn't able to maintain his lead and Greg managed to pass him on day one about four hours into the race. Terauchi-Loutitt withdrew from the race later that day because of fatigue and dehydration.

"After Day One I had an hour and half lead over the second place guy, so I was pretty comfortable right after the first day," Greg said.

Greg said both he and Denise are hoping to form another adventure racing team, but are having difficulty finding sponsorship in Canada.

"Obviously we want to race together because Denise is certainly in the top three females in the world in the sport and it's so unfortunate that you can't find sponsorship when you have that ability," he said.

"It's difficult that I may have to race with another team, but we are still hoping that we can find sponsorship and be able to race as a Canadian team."

He said until a sponsorship agreement can be reached, Denise will continue to focus on her running, while he might compete with American adventure racing squad Team Merrell.