winter

A warm welcome back to you all. I'm back from another epic odyssey over the past weekend. Although the Canadian Ski Marathon is not a race, strictly speaking, I'm still putting under my 'race' cartegory. This is mainly due to the fact that there are strict time cut-offs, which mean many skiers don't actually complete the entire 160km distance. Ergo, it is a race against the clock in my mind :-). I also wish I got paid to race, because I would have gotten overtime. Over 20 hours outside in the bitter cold, and up at 3am and 4am! Seems like more 'work' than my job! At any rate, it was an amazing event, and I hope you'll all read on for my personal take of the entire event. I covered it for Get Out There Magazine as well (videos appended at end), and took a bunch of pictures. Should give any skiers out there a great idea and reason to try the CSM next year!

Hello friends! I figured I had better get cracking on my latest race report. After all, another race is looming large in a day or so, and every weekend until March is booked with races, so I'm in peril of starting to fall behind once again! We can't let that happen, so here I am to fill you all in on the Bushtukah Mad Trapper Night Race. This is one of the funnest, social, yet hard races of the winter season that I always look forward to. As you have probably pieced together using your powers of deduction, this race takes place under the cover of darkness. As with all Mad Trapper races, we find ourselves out at the Ark. However, to pick our way along the race course, we all wear headlamps. Race start is slated for 6:30pm, and that's pitch black! As a result, this is one of the first races in a long time where I have absolutely no pictures or videos. Gets to be a lot of work to do that, so this race I was focusing on just racing hard. If you'd care to hear how that went for me (no spoilers this time in my teaser), click on past the link and read the full post.

Another week, and another race report for my loyal readers! This past weekend, I headed off towards Kingston (home of the Tragically Hip, in case you didn't get the title reference), for what I think was my shortest race ever, but a great time nonetheless. I was there to do a video race review for Get Out There Magazine of the Dion Snowshoes Frontenac Park Snowshoe Race. A mouthful, isn't it? I've done plenty of snowshoe races in our area as part of the Mad Trapper Snowshoe series each year, but this was the first time I ventured out of town to try my luck elsewhere. As it turns out, this race was also a qualifier for the Snowshoe Running World Championships for this year! That was part of my motivation to tackle this race. I secretly hoped I'd be in the top 3. Have a look at the pictures I posted on flickr, then click on past the link to read the rest of my thoughts on this well-run family-organized race.

Good day to you all. As the title implies, this post will be another race report. This will be the final report for the 2010/11 winter race season, and I won’t have any more race reports to share with you all until my next race, the Frontier Adventure Challenge in late April! Till then, guess I’ll focus on my training and make sure that I take good care of all the nagging little aches and pains properly in order to be ready to storm into the 2011 summer race schedule! The final race in this season’s winter race schedule was the 4th Mad Trapper Snowshoe race, which was coincidentally also billed as the Canadian National Snowshoe championships. So do I have a new title to add to my resume you may be wondering? in a word: no :-( It really wasn’t my day, but I’m okay with that, and plan to tell you all about it after you head over to flickr and check out my little folder of pictures from the day.

Well hello there everyone! Seeing as I’ve finally gotten caught up on all my race reports for the past little while, I guess I can take the time to write up a post on something other than hard physical activity. Let’s start with a little question for everyone. What is the single best thing about winters in the Ottawa / Gatineau Region? Well, I’d say just the simple fact that we have them! Yup, there are so many fun things that we can do even when the temperature drops and the white stuff flies around. With that in mind, I present to you this blog post, which is meant to share a few of the things that Deanna and I have been up to over the past couple months of winter wonderland weather. Between Gatineau Park, weekend guests and the yearly Winterlude, we’ve been outside quite a bit.To see a bunch of pictures from our various winter outings, check out some of the pictures that I’ve posted to flickr. For more of the gory details, just read on my friends!

Welcome back to another race report. This was a tough one, and one which required me to try a new skill the night before the event! I’m talking of course about the Gatineau Loppet, a 50km cross-country ski race that I just completed over the weekend in the classic category (as opposed to skate skiing). The real challenge in this year’s race was the crazy weather that we had in the days leading up to the event. In spite of the crazy conditions, I had what I would call a successful race, and was very happy to cross the finish line. The best part of the event was that once I completed it, I was able to say I was now 40% of the way to my 2011 Rudy Award. Yup, event number two is in the bag, and the next 3 events will be in MUCH warmer conditions! Obviously, I wasn’t about to tote a camera around with me on the course, but there are a few pictures from before I started, as well as some thumbnails I grabbed from the ZoomPhoto page. To see all the pictures, check out the folder on flickr. After that, click on back and read the rest of the story.

Good day friends! Well, I’m starting to feel better about this whole blog post thing now. I’ve almost caught up to my race reports with this posting. As the title implies, I’m going to be talking about the 2011 Winterlude Triathlon in this post. This event is the first official qualifying event I have to do this year in order to get a Rudy Award! Many of you have probably heard me talk about it in the past, as it is something I’ve always planned on doing. So what is it? Well, basically you have to complete 5 events in a calendar year: the Winterlude Tri, the Gatineau Loppet (53k ski race), Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour (360+km in a weekend), a full 42.2km marathon, and an Iron-distance triathlon. For me, it’s never been about the events themselves, but more about the timing of some of the events. After all, I’ve done all those events before, and do long adventure races and multisport events as well. So I know that I have it in me. For pictures of this year’s Winterlude Tri, head over to my flickr page. Afterward, come on back for more stories about it.

Welcome back to another exciting chapter in the winter racing saga of ActiveSteve! I’m finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as blog posts go. I’ll only be a couple posts behind once I get this one polished off for you all :-). Let me start by saying I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting races. Although this was actually just another snowshoe race, there was a slight twist on the topic this time around. Mike decided to turn off the lights on us, and make this a night race! Any of you who have raced or trained at all in the dead of night will realize that this has the potential of completely changing the way things unravel. Mountain biking is particularly challenging at night for example. With that in mind, I was pretty excited to try this race with a big headlamp strapped on my head. On account of the darkness, and the fact that my primo photographer Deanna was also racing, there aren't many photos taken by us. However, fellow race-goer Jess Madott did provide some, that I've put in a folder on flickr! However, read on for a synopsis of the events that unfolded before, during, and after the race.