Howdy folks! Hope everyone is going okay during this delightful cold snap that we seem to be suffering through in Ottawa. Must say that I’m not a huge fan of trudging to the bus stop every morning in what seems to be lower than -15deg C weather! But I digress, this isn’t the place to discuss weather, is it? You undoubtedly are tuning in to read about my latest racing results, right? Well, at least that’s what I’m here to write about. Quite a treat too, as this was my first ‘required’ event for the Rudy Award that I had planned on nabbing this year. However, that seems more unlikely now, given that I’m probably trading a ‘required’ event to do a 24 hour adventure race instead. What can I say? I know where my priorities are. Fun first, results second! At any rate, I’ve already paid entry for a few of the other events, so I’ll do them and race hard 🙂 To see some pictures from before and after the 2010 Winterlude Tri, you can check out my set on flickr. Not too much excitement there, but at least you’ll see how the transition area was laid out. Now onto the story!
Racing
We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog posts from Africa in order to bring you the latest race report from ActiveSteve. It’s been a pretty hectic weekend out in the frigid Ottawa region for me. Although the temperatures barely rose above -20degC all weekend, it didn’t keep me from skiing, snowshoeing, skating, and just generally making the most of what we get here in the winter. It was also my 2010 race season opener, taking the form of a 10k snowshoe race. This was the 3rd of 4 races put on by Mike Caldwell as the Mad Trapper snowshoe race series. The course for Saturday was the ‘combined course’, which meant one lap of the infamous ‘hilly’ route, and a 2nd lap consisting of the ‘flatter’ route. There were actually a few tweaks to the course, which made it more like 9k, but it was still plenty challenging. I managed to capture some pictures and a couple videos, which I’ve posted on flickr, but not many. For the full details of how it went down, read on friends.
Hey gang. Thanks for tuning in. I’m going to write a quick blog post about the race that I just finished a couple hours ago. Normally, I’d drag my heels a bit, but given that I’m heading out of town soon, it’s probably better that I just get this done right away, don’t you think? Plus, it’ll be a little shorter than my normal race stories 🙂 Of course, I’m talking about that venerable racing tradition, the Mad Trapper Snowshoe race series opener! Today was set to be the ‘flatter’ course; a test of strength over a course of 9.2km (two loops of 4.6km). Of course, ‘flatter’ by no means implies ‘flat’, it was a lot of slogging up and down minor hills. For the full quick dump, read on. You might also want to check out a few videos [update: There is now a huge gallery of shots from the race from the photographer up] from the day capture via Andrew Cameron’s helmet cam. Pretty cool footage I must say!
Wow! I can’t believe I’m finally writing this blog post. In truth, this one has been quite a while in the making. In fact, I’d say that it’s been in the works since I first started running many years back. So what am I talking about here? How about a Boston-qualifying marathon time of 3 hours and 10 minutes? Although this post is mainly about my race, don’t think for a moment that a marathon is limited to the 42.2km that you need to run. In truth, a marathon is a journey that starts long before the starting pistol is fired, and requires sacrifice, perseverance, and dedication. In the spirit of that, I’m going to have to ask your indulgence in my post as I’ll probably wax a little poetic at times about how I got to this point. As my title implies, I had to complete this journey over the weekend on my own. That unfortunately meant that my usual race photographer wasn’t with me 🙂 However, I did manage to take a few pictures on my own, but nothing from the race. I also had my GPS with me, so I put together a nice little map of the day that you can check out. Afterwards, wander on back and read the rest of my story.
Hey kids! Got another little race to write about for you all. On October 17th I got to take part in the 5 Peaks Trail Race taking place at the Ark, Mike Caldwell’s property near Low, Quebec. I’m most used to racing on snowshoes out here, but any time of the year, this is a great place to get some of the lead out by pushing myself to the limits. This was my second trail race with 5 Peaks during this summer season, and I had my eyes on possibly trying for a podium finish. But then again, what else is new? If you’re not shooting for podium, you’re not really racing are you? Ha ha. Short of giving it all away, I’ll let you know I finished just off the podium. Unfortunately, the other unfortunate part of this race is that I have no pictures from the event, or even a custom map to share. So all you have to do is read the next few paragraphs to get a sense of the event.