Race Reports

235 posts

Biking for Bucks, Charity Style

Howy folks. Nope, I don’t have a huge exciting blog post for you, but I just realized I’m only a week and a half away from the CN Cycle for CHEO Tour, and haven’t gotten off my butt and started fundraising yet 🙂 Each year, I try to do at least one charity race. Normally, that’s the 48hour Quest for a Cure adventure race supporting the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation. Unfortunately, this year I’ll be in BC racing in another race at the same time, so I had to find an alternative. This year, I’ll be riding 70km in the CN Cycle for CHEO, in support of, obviously, CHEO, as well as Ronald McDonald House and the Candlelighters.

If you’d like to sponsor me (any amount would be greatly appreciated), just head on over to my personal donation page. Donations can be made in any amount, and you’ll obviously get a tax receipt (for amounts $10 and up). I know, it’s not exactly the same as suffering for 48 hours straight as I’ve done in the past, nor am I riding for days on end, but the cause is still an excellent one, and every penny counts. CHEO helps countless families every year, and they’re always looking for support. This idea was actually Jody’s, so I’ve let her get a jump on me in the fundraising, but she’s been mainly targeting the ladies, so fellas… why not sponsor me? 😉

Dangers of Cycling

Howdy folks. Catchy title, don’t you think? I had a whole host of other titles that I was throwing around in my head, but instead opted for the cold, calculated title that you read above. I figure that it’s gotten your attention, and that once again, I’ll be able to articulate just why exactly wearing a brain bucket is the way to go if you’re travelling under your own power on two wheels. To start off, let me assure you, the main protagonist in this story is not me this time. However, I was witness to some terrible misfortune, and have to let you all know the circumstances. I’m writing this in the basement of my dad’s place in Nova Scotia , enjoying the Easter weekend, and recovering from a fun 100km ride that I did with a group of locals from an old friends’ bike store in New Glasgow. Hopefully by the time I post this story, you’ll be able to check out both a map of the ride, as well as some pictures. There are no photos of the accident, and if you read on you’ll understand why that is.

Wrapping up the Winter Race Season

G’day mates! Cheerio from the land of cold weather! If you look outside your window at this moment (provided it’s daytime), you’ll probably say to yourself that winter is on the way out. Officially, we’ve passed the first day of spring, so this posting finds itself just a touch too late. My tale this time is all about the final race of my winter racing season. It was the fourth and final snowshoe race of the season. I’ve pushed particularly hard this winter in these races, as it was the first time in well over a year that I was able to run again, and I wanted to see if I was still able to push hard. The attempts have paid off, with my fastest foot races ever as far as pacing and effort. So yes, kudos to me :-). In this particular race, it resulted in a 3rd place finish, and clinching 4th place overall in the series. Before reading a little more about the race, you can head over to flickr to look at the pictures taken by a volunteer. Also, you can check out all his pictures here. Once you’ve looked at those, click on back and read the rest of my story.

A Little Winter Adventuring

Hey gang, sorry for the delay in posting any new stories to you all. I’ve been pretty wrapped up with the kitchen renovations and work, but fear not, the job is [finally] done, so I can get back to the business of entertaining you all with my fun stories. This will be another tale of a winter race that I took part in a few weeks back. In fact, it was my only Winter Adventure Race of the season, so I was pretty psyched about it. Admittedly, finding motivation to stay on top of my training has become rather tricky, so at a bare minimum, I figured that signing up for the whole snowshoe race series, as well as a winter adventure race would at least keep me in some sort of winter shape, rather than hibernating. To peruse the pictures that were snapped at this race, head over to the appropriate flickr folder, then come on back and read the story. I didn’t have my camera with me, as it was in the shop, but at least there were a couple cameras on course to capture some of the fun. I had my GPS on (with permission), but it somehow got stopped part way through the first section, so the map isn’t very interesting. However, read on for a brief synopsis of my fun race.

ActiveWeekend for ActiveSteve

Well folks, I’m behind on my posts once again. In fact, I’m about 2 posts behind to be exact. Things have been pretty busy around the old homestead, and I just couldn’t seem to find the time to get my thoughts in order. So, you’ll have to bear with me as I turn the clock back to last weekend first, then get to this weekend and fill you in on that. Both weekends saw me putting in some time in the great outdoors, not only training, but racing hard. Last weekend was the Canadian National Snowshoe champs, and this past weekend was the Raid Pulse winter adventure race. Both were great events, so they each get their own blog post. Now, recently, I’ve also been accused of basically writing War and Peace every time I try to put up a blog post, so I’m going to do my very best to be concise and to the point, rather than writing out the minutiae of the events. No promises though. Last weekend was also a poker night out of town at Adam’s in Embrun, so I’ll put that in this post as well. In the meantime, feel free to check out the pictures of the snowshoe race, and pictures of the poker night. Then read on for some details about both and see how I fared. Since you’ve all been so patient for the story, I’ve also pulled together a bonus map with some pro pictures from the race. Enjoy 🙂