Solo Camping with my boy Wilson :)

The first time I camped under canvas was way back in 1973 - I was just 6 months old, and I apparently slept much better in a tent than I did in my cot back home. Even now, all these years later, I find sleeping in a tent extremely relaxing, and I generally have a decent night's sleep.

Last weekend, I headed off for another camping trip, this time at Long Lake, which is about two hours drive from home. The plan was for Wilson and I to do a walk-in camp for the weekend, whilst Andy stayed with the girls and kept them entertained in our absence. 

I was going to be using just basic gear, and my accommodation would be a tarp which I would be making into a tent. I took everything in my backpack just to test things out for future backpacking trips, whilst Wilson would be carrying some of his own stuff in a little doggy backpack that we had recently purchased for him.

The weather for the weekend looked to be warm and dry, although it was expected to get close to freezing point overnight,so I was sure to take my warmer sleep bag, whilst Wilson had his own to keep him warm throughout the night.

The pitch turned out to be quite spacious, and we did a decent job on setting up the tarp tent. Sure, we were crawling in and out on hands and knees, but there was plenty of room for just me and Wilson and our gear.

We had a pretty relaxing day, just enjoying each others company and having a couple of hours walk together, and when tea time came, I cooked up some chicken kebabs on the firepit. I wouldn't say they were a complete failure, but there's certainly room for improvement for next time!

As night time came, so did the unexpected rain, so Wilson and I made tracks into the tarp tent to snuggle down where we'd be warmer and dryer. It was actually really cosy and warm  inside,  and I happily snuggled up with Wilson and had a beer and block chocolate before bedding down for the night.

The rain came heavy for a good hour or so and there were pools of water collecting on the footprint inside. A couple of spiders and beetles decided to join us but we weren't too concerned about sharing, given the amount of space we had.

We fell asleep quite easily, but around 3am, something woke me up from my slumber. My heart was pounding but as I finally came around, I realised that Wilson didn't seem.too bothered bu the sounds, so I figured it was nothing threatening. I lay in my sleeping bag listening to the noises just a mere 20 metres or away , and it was then that I realised it was the deer rut, and a couple of stags were likely locked in battle fighting for their mate. It was quite the sound and reminded me of the early morning call from the elk on the Mogollon Rim down in Arizona, when I did the 100 Mile Mogolllon Monster trail race.

Come morning, the sun was shining brightly, and the dampness from last night's rain was causing steam as it dried out in the sunlight. It was definitely chilly once we had crawled out if our sleeping bags, but a hot cup of tea and bowl.of porridge soon warmed us up, and we sat around for a while, just enjoying the stillness of the early morning and admiring the vibrant autumn colours that were further enhanced in  the sunlight.

Wilson and I had another awesome morning together, playing with sticks and having another little walk, but we couldn't stay all day as we had a rendezvous point to get to for our ride home.

We quickly packed things away, and once done, we made tracks home, thankful for a fantastic weekend and ready for more.

I had of course missed Tillie and April very much, so for the past few days, they've both been having extra belly rubs and puppy snuggles. We've also been out not once but twice this week for a run altogether. I love running with all three pups together and they truly are the best running buddies I could wish for - I know for sure they enjoyed it :)

Of course, the camping trip was captured on video and you can join us on the trip by visiting my YouTube channel here.

Next weekend I have a 50k trail race that I'm doing which will also involve camping at the race venue. It should be another great weekend, so I'll be back again in the next few days to let you know how it went.

For now, happy camping, happy running, and keep on smiling and having fun. Until next time ... :)

Birthday Parties and a 50k Pizza Party :)

 It's been another fun weekend, and whilst our next camping trip isn't until next weekend, I've still managed to get outdoors and do some if the things I love to do. We also celebrated a fellow Youtuber's 40th birthday, and it was great to finally meet them and put faces to names we only ever hear in a video.

It started with a lovely walk with the pups at the Terwilliger dog park. This area is great for walking the dogs, with tons of trails and wide open spaces, and a couple of doggy beaches alongside the river which is certainly the main attraction for Wilson, Tillie and April.

Dog park fun ... Wilson and Tillie :)

Dog park fun with April! Beautiful autumn colours :)

We were there for a good couple of hours again whilst the three dogs had a good swim and a play, explored the woods and got excited when spotting the squirrels, and of course socializing with all the other dogs and tiring themselves out. It's definitely their favourite dig park, and seeing them looking so happy certainly put  a huge smile on my face.

I took them for another good walk later that afternoon as we were heading out to a birthday party about an hour's drive from home, so we wanted to be sure they were fed and walked and ready to sleep whilst we left them alone for the evening.

The birthday party celebrations were for Steve who has a very successful YouTube channel. We've been subscribing for the past 4 or 5 years, and with being a fellow Albertan, it was a no-brainer that we would go to his birthday celebrations when he put out an open invite to his 500,000+ subscribers!

The event was held at a pub out in a place called Onoway, and we had a great night mixing with all the other fans, and getting to chat to Steve and "Beautiful Wife", "Crazy Neighbour" and Mike, who had helped to design and build the boat for the project they're working on.

Crazy Neighbour and Mike, alongside the infamous boat :)

The entire "Camping with Steve" gang with yours truly :)

Getting to see the old converted school bus and the boat in person rather than through a TV screen was pretty impressive, and we sure had lots to talk about with them.

We didn't get home until close to midnight, and I was doing a 50km event the next day which was due to start at 7am. I'd promised a friend I would be there and I wouldn't dream of letting anybody down, but I was a little concerned about how sleepy I would feel having hit my bed at almost 1am and knowing I had to get up at 6am!

My alarm did wake me up at 6am, but I just didn't want to get up. It was still dark and it sounded like it was raining, and my eyes still felt sore and heavy. I sent a quick message to say I would be there to start an hour after everybody else - it was an informal race with no real set rules, and that extra hour snuggled up with the pups made a huge difference.

I grabbed some porridge for breakfast, made up some Tailwind for the run, and by 8am, I was starting off on my first loop of the local lake.

The event had been arranged by some friends, and thanks to their generosity and that of the event sponsors, we had pizza ordered for afterwards and a pretty cool and great quality event shirt.

The event had been dubbed "The Telford 50 - the Neverending Loop", simply because the loop around the lake is 10k, and we would have to do 5 laps to the finish.

Everybody else had already completed their first loop when I arrived, so I was running solo and basically trying to catch them so they didn't have to wait too long for me at the finish.

The weather was cloudy and cool but otherwise great for running, and I settled into a pace of around 8.30 miling. I didn't expect to maintain that kind of pace, and was just hoping to finish in around 4.45.

The first lap whizzed by and I was feeling fantastic, and as I came to the end of the lap, I caught the other runners finishing their second lap. They were still 10k ahead of me, so rather than run with the group, I said a quick hello to everybody, explained I didn't want to have them waiting too long for me at the finish, then put my foot down and ran lap 2 at a slightly faster pace.

Start of lap 2 and feeling good :)

A coyote decided to heckle me on lap 2! :)

The remaining 3 laps went by in pretty much the same vein, although partway around lap 3, the wind picked up and the heavens opened, and we had a deluge of rain that last for a good hour. My feet were soaking wet and I thought I could feel a blister forming but given it was "only" 50k, I didn't bother attending to it and just carried on putting one foot in front of the other.

I was surprised at how consistent my pacing was, and I was still hovering around the 8.30 minute miling mark. Having gone through half way in 2 hours 16 minutes, I would have been happy finishing in around 4.40 to 4.45 as I figured I would no doubt slow down in the closing miles. And yet my consistent pace kept me on schedule for a sub 4 hours 30 minute finish, so I readjusted my goal and tried to keep things going. 

I'd been drinking Tailwind for the entire time and it tasted so good which told me that my body definitely needed the salts, and I had taken a couple of gels at the end of each lap just to keep those energy levels going. Other than that, I didn't really bother with anything else, and it seemed to be working perfectly. I was feeling quite warm despite the rain and cooling breeze, so I was sure to keep drinking when I could, taking a short walk break every couple of miles to make sure I was able to get something inside of me.

Coming into the final lap, I had 55 minutes to complete the 10k to get under the 4.30. I was still running well, but that 8.30 pacing was starting to get a little more difficult, and as I approached the boardwalk just a mile or so from the finish, I did have 8 minutes remaining. I tried to pick up the pace, pushed hard and was so, so close, but the final hill meant that I missed it by just 15 seconds. I was still very happy, and I have to say that a finish time of 4.30.15 in those conditions on an undulating course gave me the confidence I needed with the Grizzly 50k being just 4 weeks away.

The organisers of the event had arranged for pizza to be delivered afterwards, so I hung around for a while munching and chatting away with everybody else whilst waiting for a friend to finish the 50k. This was his very first ultra and despite being plagued by injury leading into it, he did absolutely amazing and finished in a shade over 6 hours - a performance he can certainly be proud of given the circumstances.

I was surprised how good I felt after the run. I was expecting my legs to feel tired if not achy, but having done a 1-hour time trial this evening with the aim being to run as far as possible within the hour, I was very happy and very surprised to have ran over 13km or 8.14 miles for an average pace of 7.22 minute miling. The legs felt strong and I felt relaxed, and my Garmin told me that I had improved my lactate threshold on tonight's run. It was a good feeling, and I must say that it did give me another boost of confidence that I am starting to get back some fitness and consistency with my running again.

The Grizzly 50k is just one month away now, and I do have a couple of longer runs planned between now and then, including another 50k. I was going to do this solo, but the scheduled date is the same as the Rivers Edge Ultra, so I decided I would do the run with some company and registered for the race. This will be my third time doing the 50k at REU and I'm looking forward to hitting those trails once again, and enjoying the colours of autumn. It will be a training run and I certainly shan't be racing flat out, but I'm still hoping for a good one so that I truly do feel prepared for the Grizzly a couple of weeks later. And it is very likely that this year we will camp out there on race weekend, and will be sharing a video of how things go.

Next weekend we are off camping again at Long Lake so watch out for that video too! We have lots more fun adventures planned over the coming weeks, and we will be sharing videos on my YouTube channel, so please do keep checking back to see when they are available, or even better, subscribe to the channel!

Until next time, happy trails folks!

Crown Land Camping and Abraham Lake

We've been talking about "wild" camping in Alberta for a while now, but we've never really known where we could legally camp, nor which areas of the province fall under public lands aka Crown Land. Official campgrounds are always fully booked months in advance, and being spur of the moment people, we don't always like to plan out our lives months in advance, preferring instead to live from day to day and have fun along the way.

A couple of months ago, I was chatting with my boss at work, and he mentioned that he'd been out to Abraham Lake on a long weekend, and whilst he'd not camped out there, he  did say that it was public land and you could camp there for free.

I'd heard of Abraham Lake but hadn't really done much reading about it. I knew it was out near Nordegg on the road to Saskatchewan Crossing which sits on the Icefields Parkway, but other than that, I didn't really know much else about the area. I also wasn't sure how comfortable I would feel spending a night under canvas on a non=monitored site - I had heard and read horror stories about raves on some of this land, I'd heard that they could be dominated by large groups that seemed to think they owned the land and nobody else was welcome, and I admit to being somewhat apprehensive every time Andy said we should go camping on a weekend on Crown Land - I didn't want to put us at risk, and I am terribly protective about the dogs and really didn't want to encounter any trouble that could bring harm to any of us.

I jpined a Facebook group that was specifically for Crown Land camping in Alberta, and having read through several posts, I started to feel far more at ease - I wanted to try things out, but the timing just never seemed right. Abraham Lake featured quite a lot in the group discussions and photos kept appearing that made it look very appealing, and when we did a search of YouTube videos for the area, it was sold - we would at some point be heading out to Abraham Lake for a camping trip.

This weekend was a long weekend, and whilst having a walk around the Terwillegar dog park in Edmonton with the pups, I asked Andy if he fancied going out to Abraham Lake later this afternoon. The weather looked to be good for the next few days, we could make it a minimalist camping trip and just do a quick overnighter to check out the area. He thought it was a great idea, and a few hours later, we were all packed up with the three pups and we hit the road for a 3 hour or so drive out to the mountains.

We had no idea what to expect. It was a long weekend and could well be very busy, we would be arriving when it was going dark, and we had no idea how to access the random camping sites, nor even how to find them. If all else failed, we decided we would just sleep in the car, and make the most of whatever we could find once we arrived.

The drive wasn't too bad at all, and having stopped off in Rocky Mountain House for a coffee and a donut to tie us over until our arrival at camp, we made our way along backroad that would take us through Nordegg and to the lake. We had been this way when visiting Chungo Creek Outfitters Cabins back in February but it had been snowy back then - now it was late summer, and there were so many deer alongside the road, some of which decided to cross at the last minute and had us slowing down to avoid hitting them.

After Nordegg, the mountains start to become higher and much more rugged and the scenery really was stunning, and as the sun was starting to set, we arrived at the edge of the lake. For the next while, we saw lots of trails heading off into the trees, and it was pretty obvious that folks were down there camping and it looked so awesome!

WE decided to continue driving until the satnav told us we had arrived, and it all seemed so easy when it announced our arrival and it was right beside the parking lot and a dirt road, clearly marked as public access land and the location where we would camp for the night.

The area certainly had a fair few people camping there despite there being no facilities, and we were lucky enough to find a spot right on the lake shore with a mound of grass where we were able to pitch the tent. Within 30 minutes, the tent was up and we were relaxing around the campfire with teh pups, whilst looking up at the skies above and admiring the Milky Way and all the other constellations. With no light pollution, the sky looked amazing, and we could have sat there all night looking up and being mesmerized by the sheer beauty and expanse of it all.

One thing that struck me was how quiet everything way. There were people nearby, and those that we encountered all smiled and said hello, but nobody was playing loud music, nobody was shouting or talking very loudly, and everybody there seemed to have a respect for the wilderness and just being outdoors. It was so, so different from the organised campgrounds, where groups of friends or large families frequent and they are extremely noisy - we were pleasantly surprised and thoroughly approved of how things were panning out.

We eventually crawled into our sleeping bags, three little pups snuggled up beside us, and we drifted off into a blissful sleep whilst listening to the waves of the lake lapping against the shore.

At some point in the night, the wind really picked up and it felt like the tent was going to take flight. Sleep became a little more fitful at that point, and when daylight came around 7am, I got up to assess the damage, The tent pole had certainly taken a beating but everything was good otherwise, and we were looking forward to a nice relaxing morning surrounded by the mountains and knowing that on this campground, there was no need to be packed up and gone by 11an,

I sneaked in  a little 5km run with Wilson, and then after breakfast, the pups had a good play and a swim in the lake. I was still taken aback at how quiet and calm everything was - nobody was up stupidly early, and there really was a sense of calm and relaxation amongst everybody. We were loving it, and for sure, we knew that we would be back for more of the same in the not too distance future, including during the winter months when I was hoping to do a video for my YouTube channel.

We finally packed up around 2pm, not really wanting to leave but we had only intended to do an overnighter to check things out for future visits. I also wanted to record a quick short for my channel - see it here  - so we had a drive alongside the lake to check for other camping areas and were really happy with what we discovered.

It was a great  weekend mini-break and I am so glad that we made the decision to just do it. I can't wait to go back in the winter months to check it out again and to do a wild camp out there in the snow!

 

We didn't get home until late on Sunday evening, so of course I ended up not doing the 25km trail run I had planned, so today - Monday - I headed out to Devon again to get it done. The Grizzly 50km is only 5 weeks away and I'm at the key stage in my training which will hopefully mean a good run on race day.

Today's run was awesome, I felt fantastic, and whilst I am still huffing and puffing up those hills, I am starting to feel much stronger and faster which will hopefully mean I won't struggle too much next month when I finally race!

It's been a great long weekend what with finally getting to do Crown Land camping, and then a good long run and I shall be going back into the office tomorrow with a smile on my face, knowing it has been a good, productive couple of days.

Until next time - happy camping and happy trails to you all!