Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

It's that time of year again where we get to celebrate not just birthdays and Valentine's Day, but also our wedding anniversary, which usually means a mini weekend break for a change of scenery during the long, cold winter months. This year, we tried so hard to find a mountain retreat somewhere at a reasonable price, but spending $300 a night to just sleep in a bed for a few hours seemed completely unreasonable, and we certainly weren't willing to spend that kind of money, supporting local or otherwise! In the end, we went back to our trusted destination - the Holiday Inn Express in Calgary. We've stayed here many times since leaving Calgary and heading back to visit, and being close to Fish Creek Provincial Park, having access to so many nearby dog parks, and being just an hour's drive to the mountains, it's the perfect location for us without breaking the bank. They are also very good in terms of accepting dogs, and as yet, we have never had a problem taking o...

February 20th, 2022 I haven't raced a half marathon for quite a few years now, and by that I mean a half marathon outside of the winter months, when weather conditions are far more favourable and one can actually wear singlet and shorts and a pair of road running shoes. But with a full marathon in my race plans for 2022, I wanted to do a half just to get my mind back into racing on the roads, and pushing the pace when there is no excuse to stop. Today I did the Hypothermic Half Marathon. It was the second time I had done it, and having "given up" a couple of years ago when I did from sheer boredom (yes, I really got bored running on the roads back then!), I kind of made myself go into today's race with a much more positive outlook. This past few weeks, I have been doing marathon paced runs, so I wanted to run the Hypo Half at my target marathon pace. This is currently around 7.30 minute miling, and whilst I still feel like this is a little ambitious right now, that pa...