Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

After last weekend's result at the Desert Solstice 24 Hour, I was expecting my next post to be positive, upbeat and feeling ready to tackle anything. Even yesterday's Turkeys on the Trail was tons of fun, and I was beaming with joy as I ran along with Wilson and Tillie on the short 5km fun run, whilst Andy sat waiting for us with Brandy who was still recovering from surgery. But if running for 24 hours has taught me anything, it has taught me that a lot can happen in such a short space of time. My joy and happiness at having our little family back together again and getting into the Christmas spirit was snatched away this morning, when I came down the stairs to be told that "she's gone". The shock, denial, heartbreak, confusion, and the immediate grief and sense of loss I felt in that few seconds hasn't yet subsided and I'm still tearing up and finding it very hard to come to terms with. Let's backtrack a little. Last weekend was awesome. ...

Life has a habit of throwing us curve balls and over the years, I’ve certainly learnt to adapt and to maintain my optimistic outlook on things. This generally happens when I’m in control, not that I’m a control freak by a long shot, but I do like things to be orderly and to be completed within a reasonable time frame. As soon as I arrived home from Javelina at the end of October, I knew that I needed to renew my passport as it wouldn’t have the full 6 months before expiry that is required to access the USA again in December for Desert Solstice. It was one of those things that I should have done during the summer months when travel plans hadn’t been confirmed, but with Andy being away so much and with having to deal with Brandy and Wilson’s regular visits to the vets along with a whole multitude of other things, I never got around to it. I applied to renew online which was meant to reduce errors and speed up the process – the average time quoted for renewal of a British passpo...

It’s 2 weeks since Javelina and I have to say that my body seems to have recovered ok and I was back running by the following Wednesday, albeit only 3 miles or so at an easier 9-minute mile pace. By the following Sunday, I was back up to 7 miles and having picked up the pace for a couple of miles mid-run, I was happy to see that I was running a relatively comfortable 7.35 pace. I’ve since received my next block of training from Adam in the lead-up to Desert Solstice 24-hour race on December 8 th and whilst the mileage is low, the intensity is high which will hopefully benefit me next month. Having arrived back home in Leduc just over a week ago, I was greeted with much colder weather and it is pretty much certain now that winter has finally arrived. We had some snowfall a few days ago and with frigid temperatures of -10 even during the day, it’s pretty slippery outside on the pavements. The cold weather really doesn’t bother me and I still run outside, but with some of my ru...

DNF - Did Not Finish - a phrase that for some reason makes some runners feel like a failure. It means you quit. It means you weren't mentally or physically strong enough to push through things when the going got tough during a race. It's even worse when you were well within the cut-offs, when you're not injured, or when technically speaking there was really nothing wrong with you and you could have continued if you were willing to push through several more hours on the trail, regardless of the continuous vomiting that is sapping every ounce of your energy and not being able to keep food or fluids down. Sure, the body will eventually sort itself out, but I like to run for the fun of it and when it stops being fun, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise, that is the time to stop. Let's go back a couple of months. I had a great race at Iron Legs. It certainly wasn't pain free, there were times when I felt dizzy and out of sorts and it got pretty...

This year has flown by and I can't believe that we are almost in mid-October already and that Javelina Jundred is just a couple of weeks away. It seems a little crazy that we've already had snow here in Alberta and yet I'll likely be experiencing temperatures in the 80's or 90's when I race in Arizona at the end of this month. Will I be prepared for the heat? I have no idea, but I do know that I am ready to deal with whatever gets thrown at me and will adapt to the conditions as I see fit on the day. My training for Javelina has gone pretty well and I'm feeling fit and ready to run 100 miles again. Even with the cooler temperatures and snowy weather we've had for the past month or so, I haven't let it deter me from running outdoors nor let my focus waiver, and I've actually had some pretty good sessions in recent days. The variety in weather has made it more interesting for sure, and having completed a 20 mile + run in blizzard conditions one...