Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

It's been over a week now since I represented Team Canada at the Backyard Ultra in Kelowna and I admit to still being a little bewildered by how well the race went for me personally. Of course, it was by no means a solo effort, and that sense of teamwork was faultless throughout the entire weekend. My original plan for October was to have a good race at the Grizzly Ultra 50km in Canmore and I was enjoying getting out on the trails in nearby Devon and the Edmonton river valley to get myself prepared. I knew I was being overly optimistic that the Grizzly would still go ahead, and it was inevitable that it too would become a victim of the Covid pandemic.  My training had been going well, I was starting to feel fit again, and when the announcement finally came that yet another race had been cancelled, I desperately needed something to fill that void. It was then that I recalled a friend asking if I had considered putting my name forward for the Canadian Team at the Backyard Ultra. ...

We've been so lucky with the weather this autumn - the sun has been shining, the temperatures have been well above the norm, and we've been able to enjoy running outdoors for much longer in near perfect conditions before the cold, wintry weather sets in. I've certainly taken advantage of things, and given that autumn is my favourite time of year, I've made time to fit in some trail runs out in Devon where the vibrant autumn colours look absolutely stunning. With no races to train for, it was fun just being there for the hell of it, although I will admit to putting in a little bit of effort on some of those Strava segments just to see if I could PR. A couple of weeks ago, there was an in-person race out in Devon - the Rivers Edge Ultra. I've done that race a couple of times in the past few years, but this year I had planned on running the Grizzly Ultra which of course got cancelled. The racer limit had already been reached at REU before the Grizzly had been cancelled...

A few weeks ago, I was meant to have been racing the 5 Peaks trail half marathon in Canmore but of course, as with all other races, it was cancelled several weeks ago. We had already reserved a camping spot at the Tunnel Mountain Campground  in Banff, and with Andy having already missed a couple of camping trips this year, we had no intentions of cancelling. Besides, we had also purchased some new camping gear, and we were both pretty keen to try things out. We arrived in Banff on the Thursday afternoon and were very happy with our pitch. It was spacious with a decent grassy area where we could pitch the tent and allow the pups somewhere comfy to settle down, and it backed onto the forest rather than having other campers peering at us from all angles. Once we were all set up, Andy lit the campfire and got to try out his new iron-cast  Dutch Oven which cooked our steak, sweetcorn and baked potatoes to perfection! With the sunset being shortly after 8pm, it was dark by the time ...

I usually use this blog to record my racing successes and failures, or to keep track of my training throughout the year, but 2020 has been a little bit strange and somewhat surreal to say the least. Looking back at my last post in January of this year, I’m almost inclined to say, “be careful what you wish for!” Yes, the year did get off to a positive start,   but my words of “ Compared to last year, I'm certainly not planning on racing as much as I did during 2019”, and “this year is going to be pretty quiet …” almost makes me wonder whether I have a sixth sense of some kind that, had I paid attention, could have predicted all of this! In all seriousness though, nobody could have imagined nor predicted how different things would be this year, and we’ve all had to adapt and change our daily lives to get through these past few months. I’ve held off doing a post for several weeks now – we’ve all heard enough about Covid and I really didn’t want all that negativity coming through on ...