Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

One of the things I missed when living in Phoenix was the changing seasons – the buds coming out on the tress whilst the spring flowers start to burst out of the ground, the summer blooms, lush green grass and leaves on the trees, being wowed by the colours of autumn when the weather starts to cool off and the leaves on the trees become vibrant golds and reds, and then of course the dark, cold winter months when everything hides away and all you want to do is sit in front of a burning log fire drinking a cup of hot chocolate. When signing up for the Rivers Edge Ultra, one of the things that appealed to me was the course description of woodland trails and running across farmland above the North Saskatchewan River valley, with a river crossing and a bit of scrambling thrown in for good measure. I’d looked at photos from previous years and the colours were breathtaking – I couldn’t wait to run those trails and experience the beauty of the fall colours whilst out there. Of course...

After Iron Legs I had a few easy days to recover but I'm now back into the flow of things with my training as I start to build up again for Javelina Jundred in just 6 weeks time. I've never really been a high mileage runner when it comes to ultra running. I remember doing a 100 mile week once - it was several years ago when I had a difference coach and I ended up feeling extremely tired with niggles starting here and there. We agreed to reign things back so I was averaging no more than around 60 miles a week - this worked perfectly, and it's the most mileage I'll do in a week even now, unless it's a race week and the race is 100k or more! Whilst my mileage may be low compared to others that are training for 100 milers or 24 hour races, I have always included a good balance of quality in my sessions. My current coach Adam is of the same mindset and he always includes tempos, negative split runs and progression runs in my schedule to get my body used to running...

Brandy came into our lives nearly 6 years ago and she has been - and still is - an amazing pup. We'd moved to Calgary earlier that year and having found work in the city, we felt guilty leaving Wilson at home on his own. We wanted a friend for him to keep him company during the day, but having been to a few shelters in the area, they refused to let us adopt a rescue dog unless we had Wilson castrated. We had no intentions of having him castrated - nor did we have any intentions of ever breeding him - there are enough homeless pups in the world without us contributing to the problem, and whilst we understood their reasoning, we also felt that they too were contributing to overcrowding in shelters simply because they refused to let perfectly capable existing, responsible dog owners from adopting. Wilson had absolutely nothing to do with the shelters, he never wandered and he never showed any interest in humping anything other than his big toy dog, but we accepted their decision ...