Racing

Greetings race fans! Well, I’m happy to be writing to you all about my most recent race experience. On an absolutely stunning summer day, I had the pleasure of racing in the National Capital Kayak Triathlon, one of many races going on at the same time at Mooney’s Bay. While this was a long weekend on the Ontario side, I unfortunately only had a regular weekend. As luck would have it for me though, Deanna decided to spend the long weekend with me, including the Monday holiday, so I had some excellent company, as well as my mini cheering section to watch me challenge the course. As some of you already knew, my ambitions were to actually win this race outright, but as you will learn through reading this post, I only managed to snag a second place on the podium, although there was indeed some slight controversy to this (as in, controversy between 1st and 2nd). To learn the whole story, you’ll just have to click that read more button and read on. Before that though, I invite you to check out some of the pictures that Deanna was able to snap on race day (as well as other pictures from the long weekend).

Welcome back race fans. It’s high time I update you all on my most grueling race accomplishment of the summer, and pretty much my racing career so far. Yup, I’m talking about Ultimate XC, a 3-day stage race that I did a couple weeks back at Mont Tremblant. Yup, Mont, as in mountain. That would play a rather significant role in how it all played out (successfully for this race!). Just to set the scene ever-so slightly, the race was ‘invitation only’, with credentials required. I almost didn’t get accepted. However, when the dust settled I managed to snag 12th overall in a very competitive field of tough athletes. Needless to say, it made me very happy. I have a few pictures to share with you (including some great race photos from lephotoshop.com, and obviously, quite a bit more to say about this doozy of a race. Read on friends!

Ahhh Adventure Racing. Probably one of the ‘fringest’ of the fringe sports, right? We toil in obscurity, with both the racers and the races themselves pretty much unknown. We train for hours on end in places unknown, be it the wide open roads or deepest forests or raging rivers. And what for? Well, the chance to take part in really cool events like the Wilderness Traverse, a new 24-hour adventure race put together by the incomparable Bob Miller. Yup, whether you finish or not is never certain when you start, but you can pretty much be guaranteed a good time. That brings us to this post, a brief tale about my teams performance at this race. I hadn’t done a 24-hour race in a couple years so I was pretty stoked. Read on to learn more about it, and don’t forget to check out the pictures I managed to get from the event.

Hello sports fans! I'm back to try and catch you all up on another of my recent weekend activities. This time, I'll be tackling what I did over the May long weekend. Originally, the plan was pretty simple. Race hard at the Raid Pulse 5-8 hour Adventure Race at Lac de L'Argile, then spend the remainder of the long weekend prepping my house for my housewarming party the following weekend. However, when I got an invitation to do some camping in Prince Edward County, I put the kibosh on the second part of my plan and decided the weekend would be about racing and relaxing! With that, I'll present you with a brief summary of both activities, which I've conveniently put into one set of pictures for you all to check out on my flickr page. I also put together a map of the actual race. No pictures on this map, but you can check out the terrain. After you've had a quick look at those, head on back for a quick report on the race and the camping.

Howdy race fans! Time to update you on my first adventure race of the 2010 season. The race in question? The Frontier Adventure Challenge 5-8 hour race held at Deerhurst Resort in the Muskoka region. Yes, the very same resort hosting the upcoming G8/G20 summit in June. And yes, it actually did have an impact on the race and the venue, which I'll fill you all in on in the coming paragraphs. Although this was supposed to be a 'short and sweet' race, you'll soon find out that my race was anything but. It was longish, and bitter-sweet. I did manage to complete the whole course, including the advanced section, but my placement was deep-sixed by a navigational error of my own doing. That's what I get for racing solo to really push myself I guess :-(. At any rate, I've got a few pictures from the weekend, but no map to share. Bill Young has some great race shots that he took and shared on Facebook as well. If you want the whole funny tale about my race, please read on. I'll *try* to be succinct.

Holy Cow! I now realize that it has already been three whole weeks since I ran the venerable Boston Marathon! I guess I've been putting off writing the blog post as I really don't know where to start and where to end with this post. Usually, I'll just go through the whole process of the lead-up, the race itself, then the post-race re-cap, but it just doesn't seem like going through the normal motions would do justice to what this race represented for me. So instead, I'll beg your indulgence as I wax a little philosophical about the entire 'journey', both my own as an individual, as well as my own as an athlete (of sorts). As I had already aluded to, there are some photos that you can browse at your leisure, as well as a custom map of the race from the day that I threw together. These sort of make up the 'tangible' of the race, but come far short of the actual story behind it. So, read on, dear friends, and maybe you'll get a little more insight into the entity known as ActiveSteve :-)

Howdy folks. Just a quick little note to say I'm sorry that I've been tardy in posting my full race report from Boston! It's hard to imagine, but it's already been 2 weeks since I crossed that one off my athletic bucket list :-) Sadly, still no post for you. I've sort of been waiting to get all my 'official' race photos that I paid for before posting anything. In the meantime though, you can browse through the set of pictures that I took myself while running the race. You can also check out pictures from touring around Boston. As a final bonus, you can even check out the map that I made of my run using my GPS and the pictures I snapped on the course. Hopefully those will at least tide some of you over until I can properly put the experience into words :-). Till then, thanks for checking in!

Wow! I've been so excited and happy with my result in the last Mad Trapper snowshoe race of the season that I couldn't find the time to blog about it! Can you believe that? Well, it's partly true. I thought about writing up the story Saturday afternoon, but that seemed too ambitious. Then, life got in the way for a couple days, but here I am to fill you all in on my winter race-season closing race. As some of you may have already looked at the pictures and/or read Mike's own race report, you've probably heard that I WON first place overall!! No joke! I've looked back on all my race results, and it turns out this is only the 2nd time I win 1st place overall in a race. Last time was in August of 2007! While some of the top guns were not present this time, it was still a hard-fought battle, and I invite you all to read on for the rest of my happy story.