biking

Let's just clear the air here once again people. There is no such thing as an EASY race. Nor can there be a 'relaxing' race, or a 'fun' race. You are either racing, or you are participating. Why don't I know that by now? As you are probably aware, last year I participated in the 'Full Challenger' version of UltimateXC. 3 gruelling days of racing, starting with a 67km kayak leg, then a 57km trail run, capped by a 100km mountain bike leg, all of which took place on and around Mont Tremblant. It was probably the toughest race I've ever competed in. But a great venue and event, so I wanted to come back. However, I opted to race in the 1/2 Challenger version, so a 'mere' 21km paddle, 21km run, and 50km mountain bike. My logic was that it would give me more time to just relax and enjoy the resort village. Ha! I fooled myself. This was still a tough race, and thanks to good friends and competitors, a hard fought battle for the podium. Curious about the whole story? Glad you are, as I will fill you in on all the gory details after the break. Before that, why not have a look at some of my pictures from the race as well?

Welcome back to another report from me, Activesteve, on my latest exploits. This time I'll be covering a little cycle touring that Deanna and I did with a group of friends last weekend. The tour? Rideau Lakes. The distance? 370km over the course of two days. Biking from Ottawa to Kingston, and then back again. Yes, it's a lot of time in the saddle, but with good weather and great friends, it really doesn't feel all that bad. And luckily, we had both those ingredients with us on the weekend. I've done the tour once before, but this time, we were a different group, and took a different route. Read on for the whole story, and don't forget to check out the pictures that I snapped along the way!

Hello everyone! Just thought I’d take the chance to write a short blog post on something that happened to me recently which highlighted to me exactly how terrible the Gatineau health care system really is. Luckily, I’m okay, and am glad that’s the case, as I’m about to spend the next few paragraphs venting on the shortcomings of having moved my health care from Ontario to Quebec, or more specifically from Ottawa to Gatineau. The picture that accompanies this post at least gives you an idea what happened. You can already imagine if that’s what happened to the bike, I must have taken a bit of a beating right? Well, read on for the sordid tale, as well as the follow-up that it entailed. I promise I won’t ramble on too much :-)

Good day friends and followers of ActiveSteve! As has been my theme as of late, this post is coming to you all just a little bit later than I would have wanted it to. In fact, I'm going to detail for you all an event I took part in a full 3 weeks ago! Yikes! Where does the time go, right? Well, in this case, my time went into a Toronto trip, and preparations for a Timmins trip, as well as my continued string of focusing more on having fun rather than telling the world all about my exploits :-). So, what event am I referring to? It was called Velogaroue, and was a 2-day staged Mountain bike ride through Gatineau Park. Note I said ride, not race! Yes, that's right, it was a social thing through and through, and I wanted to make the most of it with the fall colours. It was the inaugural year for the event, and one of the big goals was to raise funds for a charity, whichever charity you wanted. I chose to support the Ottawa Regional Cancer Center, as I didn't take part in the annual adventure race earlier this year that normally benefits them. For the full story of the weekend, please read on. Also, you can browse through some pictures I took of the weekend, as well as click on over and check out a custom map that I made of the whole ride!

Howdy friends! Have you been missing my posts? Well, I guess I've been too focused on living life, training, racing, settling into my digs, and getting a year older lately rather than sitting down at the keyboard and spending hours trying to chronicle all the afore-mentioned things. However, I've decided that it's well overdo that I fill you in on some of my latest exploits, so what I'm going to attempt to do is polish off four blog posts in fairly short order, with various degrees of detail. The point of this post will be to fill you in on a crazy little training weekend that I spend a few weeks back up at Mont Tremblant in preparation for Ultimate XC. After spending the weekend previewing both the paddle and the bike, I can definitively say this will, by far, be the hardest solo endurance race I have ever undertaken. 60+km of kayaking including whitewater, 60+km of trail running with EXTREME altitude gain/loss, and 100km of intense mountain biking with more of the same altitude gain an loss. Honestly, I'm pretty daunted by the task, but also very much anxious to try it out. I've posted pictures from the weekend, as well as tried to throw together some custom maps of the bike and paddle (GPS died during day 2). Read on for a little more insight into the weekend.

Howdy all. Just a quick little blog post to let you know what I got up to on my day off for Remembrance Day. Yup, I’m one of those lucky federal employees that gets to take the day off. Now, I realize that the main reason anyone would have the day off is to take the time to think about the sacrifices that the men and women of the armed forces have made to ensure I can continue to enjoy my freedoms. Well, rest assured, I did honour them in my way, and in fact had several moments of silence at 11am. However, I did also get to enjoy a beautiful summer-like day and spend over 4 hours biking in Gatineau park. This post will be short and sweet, just wanted to fill you in on the day. Read on.