Racing

219 posts

Foiled by Past Lessons

The Start Gate

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.

Crossing One off the Racing ‘Bucket List’

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 🙂

Apologies for the Delay

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!

Mad Trapper Finale: Showdown in the Snowshoes

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.

ActiveSteve Tries Something New

Good evening sports fans! Well, a few days have passed since my last race, so I figured that it was time to fill you all in on my latest athletic endeavour. It was a doozy for me, and something completely new to me. What was this feat you ask? Well, how about the Gatineau Loppet? And what is that you might ask? Well, try on a 53km classic ski race that attracts an International field of competitors for size. Yup, it was certainly a crazy pursuit in my mind, but something I wanted to try my hand at nonetheless. Also, this was a necessary component if I plan to get a Rudy Award this year. Of course, that plan may be dead in the water, but at least I would give most of the races a try. If you’d like to, you can look at a few pictures from the event that I took, although none from the race course itself. After that, come on back for a more detailed account of my day in the snow!