Photo TR

85km, 16500ft ascent and descent, all on some very stout terrain. Here are a few pics from our trip.

Trail Running Photos

I have been logging a solid amount of training time over the last few weeks, 3 days on and 2 days off. It seems to be working well, except on the "off days" I am usually working 12-14 hours climbing trees, slugging wood and dragging brush. I guess I could count that work time as training as well.... Hmmm.

I have a two handful's of adventure and racing planned for this year most of which will start in June and carry on until December. More details on that list coming soon.

Here are a few photos from a rainy trail run this morning. All the images are shot with the Fuji x100s.

Happy Trails!

North Rim and Long Range Traverse Gros Morne National Park

Here is a pic of the 3 day route that Eden and I completed last summer. If you are a good hiker with strong navigational skills then this route is attainable in 3 days. If you would are planning on doing either the north rim or long range and want some more info or beta on or route choice, let me know. We were told that the north rim was horrendous tuck bushwhacking, we experienced max 70-90mins of tuck.... We also chose a completely different route then the park suggested. I found the north rim to very enjoyable and the wilderness we were immersed in was amazing!

Spring is here!

Here are a few photos from my new Fuji x100s camera. I am super excited that spring is officially here!  Hopefully it is a great season filled with many hours of riding, running, hiking and climbing.

A new chapter

I live close to the big city of Toronto and sometimes it is a real drag seeing the urban sprawl that is the GTA. With millions and millions of people focused solely on working, getting to work or resting from work. There is some much more to life then busting your butt all the time and never taking time to enjoy what we are so fortunate to have. Often, we focus on what we want next, thinking that by having that next thing, be it a new tv or fast car that our lives will be any better then if we did not have that or those items. I am not immune to that mentality, it is in our society and is ingrained in us from the minute we have any introduction to technology. Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone, my computer and cameras, but in reality they offer not happiness but only communication to a technology/ industrial driven world. Because of this I am trying to make a effort to slow down and enjoy life, not things. Go for a walk, run or bike ride without your phone or ipod or whatever. Talk to people around you, go for a tractor ride with the local farmer who helps in the production of our taken for granted food. Lay down in that grassy field, take your shoes off in the pond/creek/lake and feel the mud and rocks between your toes. The point is that we are losing track of everything around us that was here before us and because of or silly selfish ways may not be here after us.

I am no better then the person next to me nor are they better then me. This summer and hopefully continuing after I will take a honest effort to be whole and grateful for everything we have around us. In the last month a few major changes have happened in my life. The cool thing is that they are all great  "moving forward in life" type of changes. I was knocked over the head a few to many times with a billboard trying to direct me in a certain direction. It took a few good hits before I realized what was happening... I took a small leap and followed that left fork in the road of my life. I don't hope that I chose the correct option, I know that I did. Anyways I am going to keep this short and sweet as my dog is rolling around in the grass right now and from this computer it looks rather fun. I think I may go join him... Ha.

Great Range Traverse (winter version)

Saturday we hiked/ snowshoed/ climbed and glissaded the Great Range Traverse in the Adirondack's. Here are a few of the stats and some photos from the trip.

Team: Ryan Atkins, Matt Farquharson, Keith Iskiw and myself.

1) 38.89km

2) 10978ft elevation gain

3) 4200 calories consumed

4) 12hr 5 min 58 sec total time

Snowshoe Raid 2013

The week leading up to this years Snowshoe Raid I was medium worried about the lack of snow and I figured that if there was no snow that we would probably just be racing with trail runners.  I arrived in Collingwood Friday night and was all set for the 3ish hours of fun that was going to be had the next morning. There was roughly about 10cm of snow and with that it would not be wise to use snowshoes and a better choice to use my Salomon Snow Cross winter kicks with small grippy spikes in the bottom. They would in the end be a great choice for the conditions that day.

The morning started off as usual... Sort of. I was at the sign in point where we pick up our maps for 830am and started to plot my course. I was without my racing partner Ryan Atkins as he had ended up putting his car in a ditch 20min outside of Collingwood. Thankfully he and his passenger were left unscathed and after a hour of digging with the snowshoes they had in the car being used a shovels they finally emerged from the snow drifted in ditch. Ryan arrived at the sign in 10 min before we were to depart for the bus to head to the start of the event. With some last minute cramming and course plotting we caught a ride with Kelsey to the start of the race.

The race started just after 11am and over 100 teams set out on a course to find as many checkpoints as possible all within a 3hr time limit. Each checkpoint is worth a varying degree of points and for every minute that you go over the 3hr time limit you are deducted 10 points per minute. Our goal was to hit all the checkpoints and hopefully clear the course within the 3hr limit. Ryan and I were lucky to have Kelsey run along with us for the first 90min of the race as he was going to take some candid photos of us racing! We were set a quick pace from the gun and we both felt really good and were stoked to be out running through the forest on a uber fun course.

We were pushing hard and towards the end of the race heading into the matrix we could start to feel the punishment from checkpoint 160 which was placed as a out and back, except that the checkpoint was at the bottom of the escarpment. It was almost a 200m descent to punch the card and then to turn around and go straight back up the escarpment. It was a great leg and lung buster! We hit the matrix with 20min to tag all 5 of the points, punch out of the matrix at the top of the hill and then descend down to the finish. We knew time was going to be tight and that we we would probably miss the time cut by less then a minute...

We barrelled down the hill at full speed, finding the odd spot of snow that we could slide down. We punched our time card only 56sec over the time limit. We were greeted by a cheering crowd and treated to some great treats! After a cool down walk we headed back to the chalet were we would indulge with a burger and fries!

We managed to pull off the big win this year, finding all of the checkpoints and only penalized 10 points for arriving less then a minute over the limit!

It was a fantastic course and always exciting to see tons of people out enjoying the outdoors running through the forest!