Race Reports

Brrrr.. It sure was cold out there this weekend! To enjoy the cold weather just a little more, I had to take part in my third race in as many weeks. Yes, it was time for the second race in the 2007 Mad Trapper showshoe racing season. To make it extra fun, it was the dreaded ‘Hilly’ course. Two laps each consisting of 5 kilometers of hills, hills, and more hills. Luckily, with every up there comes a down, as you can see by the picture at the right. I’m a big fan of running downhill, not so much of running uphill. Of course, given the terrain, I didn’t really have much of a choice. Also sadly for me, I was having an off day. I’ve already accepted that, so to save you any great suspense… I didn’t win 🙁 In fact, I only came in 14th place. I believe that’s my worst finish yet in a Mad Trapper race. So, let’s go back to the start of the day and review the events of the day, shall we?

Welcome to another exciting chapter in the ongoing stories of Team Hyper-Active! How do you describe an event where you drive twice as long to get to it as you do participating in the actual race? Well, after leaving Friday afternoon, returning Sunday night, recuperating for almost a day, and now sitting here to write out my thoughts, I’d say it was awesome! I’m speaking of this past weekends’ convoy to the Mansfield Outdoor Centre for this year’s edition of the Salomon Adventure Challenge Winter Adventure Race. For this race, Team Hyper-Active consisted of me (naturally), James Galipeau and Sophia Tsouros. We were also joined for the trip by the threesome of Carl Buchmann, Steeve Lavoie and Anne-Marie Moisan, racing as Team NexxGen AR. Just to keep it extra fun, we also dragged along three other Ottawans (Pete, Melanie and Jill) to join in the fun. This was destined to be a grand adventure, and we figured the best way to kick it off would be to travel all together from Ottawa to Mansfield, a 5-6 hour trip depending on conditions. The following is our tale.

Welcome back to my first official post of the racing season. I’ve been putting off posting in any great detail lately because things have really been up and down for me the past few weeks. Since being told that I have a recurring injury, I’ve been doing my best to recover from it and strengthen my left leg. I thought things were going great, and was about to post to that effect last week when BAM! I relapsed quite badly and was told once again not to run. Not a good prognosis, given that I was slated to not only run, but race, in three days’ time. To remove any suspense, I did indeed race, but tried to go easy on myself. I grabbed 5th Place in the male category, and the rest of the details will follow below.

If you’ve been paying attention to my blog, you will have noticed that the Mad Trapper snowshoe race was actually not listed as my next upcoming event. As a result of my injury, I had removed it from my ‘official’ events stream. However, after a few good weeks of recovery, I registered anyway (actually, I registered for all 3 events!), hoping to go for it. Training runs with Grant and alone had been going well, with fairly little pain coming back. However, after a full training week, and seriously upped mileage on my feet, the pain eventually came back strong. The only way to lick it is to rest more. So, I’ll do more biking, swimming and weights, but less running for the remainder of January. But enough about that, what about the race, you ask?

Welcome back friends. This post is to let everyone know that there’s a new force to be reckoned with in the adventure racing world of the National Capital Region! Yup, the smiling people you see before you make up the new face of Hyper-Active for the coming year (at least). From left to right we are: Steve, Anne-Marie, Carl, and Steeve. Steeve and I have raced together throughout the past year, and have been looking to grow our partnership into a full-fledged team. This is actually something that I’ve been trying (more or less unsuccessfully) to do for a couple years now. The idea is to get a group of like-minded people to train and race together. That way, we can grow as a team, and get stronger as a unit.

Racing with different people all the time may be fun, but the problem is that it doesn’t really let you develop a team persona. By joining with a few other people, we’re hoping to lay the foundation for a team for years to come. Knowing each others’ strengths and weaknesses really helps bring you together. Steeve was really pounding the pavement, and found these two great people to sign up for the challenge 😉 Ultimately, we’re still on the lookout for a couple more people. The nice thing about having more than 4 of us is that it would allow us to race in more events. When one person can’t go, another could fill in. It would also give us the chance to (possibly) have a support crew built in to the team. To those ends, if anyone reading this is interested in signing on, let me know.