Race Reports

Welcome back, sports fans! I’m happy to report that ActiveSteve has had another successful racing weekend out in the snowy hills in Quebec. Yup, this was the second of four snowshoe races that form the Mad Trapper snowshoe series. This time, I was racing the “hilly” course, which was about 10km of pristine trails with lots of ups and downs. The weather once again was pretty much ideal for a race in the snow, albeit a bit cold. For those who don’t care to read the entire post, my results were pretty much exactly as they were last time, with me coming in 5th place overall, although at least this time I didn’t have to run it out with a competitor at the last second. I brought my camera out, but sadly, the batteries weren’t charged up, and I only got one shot of me at the finish. Luckily, my friend Andrew had his too, so I managed to steal a few of his shots to add them to a folder of winter pictures that I put up on flickr. In order to make up for it, I created a map with my GPS. Of course, it’s not quite as dramatic as when I make the map with pictures, but at least you can see where I did the race, and get an idea of the terrain. Once you’re done getting through that stuff, read on for the whole story.

Howdy to all and happy holidays! For the first time in a while I finally have a story that I’m happy to share with everyone. Yes, as you can see by the picture, and maybe guess from the title of the post, I’ve finally gotten back onto the racing scene by propelling myself with only my legs 🙂 Yup, for the first time since September of 2007, I’ve RAN in a race. Not only did I run though, I ran hard. I ran to the point that I could barely breathe anymore. That’s how hard I ran. And it felt great! Mind you, I wouldn’t say that I’m at 100% yet, but it was nice to really open up the tap and see what I could do. Of course, this wasn’t just any running race. No siree, this was the first Mad Trapper snowshoe race of the 2008-2009 season, of which there are 4 races, all of which I’m pre-registered for. Feel free to head over to flickr and check out the pictures that I took from the event. None from the race course sadly, but I was a little pre-occupied. In case you have ADD and don’t feel like reading my entire post, I came in a very respectable 5th place overall with a time of 1hr12mins. for the 10km course. As a comparison, the last time I ran this same course (in the snow), I had a time of 1hr32mins, and was in 14th! Yup, shaved off 20 minutes!! For the full story, please read on.

Hello my friends, thanks for tuning in for another chapter in the ActiveSteve life story, as laid out before you all on the world wide web. This story is about a fun race that I volunteered for last weekend, the Frontier Adventure Racing season-closing Fall Classic, which was held in the whitewater region of Ontario / Quebec, and more specifically, hosted by Esprit rafting. The race was a 10-14 hour race, and the host site is about 2 hours away from Ottawa. Although I would have preferred to actually race in the event myself, I just didn’t have the training under my belt. What’s that? Why didn’t I say I couldn’t due to my knee? Well, you’ll just have to read on in order to get the full story, won’t you? Before you do that though, have a look through the pictures that I posted up on flickr, and take a peek at the custom map that I made through the course of my volunteering.

I’m baaack. Yup, for all of you folks who have been waiting with bated breath for news of the latest actions of one ActiveSteve, here I go again. You’ll note that I’m using the vernacular ActiveSteve rather than current usage (in)ActiveSteve. There’s good reason for that, as will become apparent should you choose to read this post in its entirety. Not only have I decided to get a little bit of running in on the side, I’ve also taken up more active volunteering activities, such as the weekend long staged Raid Pulse adventure race up at Lac de L’Argile. I volunteered at another adventure race a couple months ago, but this one was a multi-stage event with a full day of racing on Saturday, a night stage in the middle of Saturday night, and a full day of racing on Sunday. I knew that this time, Thierry would be giving some more active roles than I had the past weekend at the 5 Peaks race, so I had to be in top form. It was a total blast, and read on to find out all about it. I’ve also treated you to a custom map from the event, as well as a collection of images on flickr. Enjoy, then follow the ‘read more’ link.