ActiveSteve

Team Hyper-Active Gets Physical

Time for another race report for all my faithful followers! This time, I’ll be filling you all in on the Raid Pulse spring adventure race. This was a 6-8 hour adventure race being held in an area I’ve not previously raced at, Notre Dame du Laus, which is about an hour and a half from my place in Quebec. I’ve been attending Thierry and Annick’s races for many years now, both in teams, as well as solo. For this particular race, Deanna and I were actually racing together as a team! So far, we’ve raced together as two solos traveling together, and as solos on our own. This would be our first race as actual, bona fide team-mates! We were both looking forward to it. For a glimpse into the race through pictures, have a look at my folder on flickr. There are both pictures that I took, as well as pictures the race photographers grabbed. I was shooting a bit of video as well for another reason, which I’ll get to after the break.

Technical Two-Wheel Training

Hello adventure-loving friends. I have a really short and sweet blog post for you all. Between training, racing, and general fun-having with Deanna, it’s a wonder I ever find any time to try new things around here. However, much like trying my hand at snowboarding this winter, I have also decided it was high time to pick up a new summer activity as well. Any guesses? Well, I suppose the picture sort of spoils the surprise, doesn’t it? Yup! Motorcycle riding! The idea has been percolating in my noggin for some years now, but upon learning Deanna was also keen on the idea, we went ahead and pulled the trigger on this new pursuit. And as with all my activities, I don’t just dip my toe in the water, I dive right in. Before the snow had even fully melted, I had a helmet, jacket, gloves, and even secured my first motorcycle! All without even knowing how to ride a motorbike. For some pictures of my new ride, as well as some shots of me in training, head over to my flickr folder. Then, read on for a very brief summary of the process of getting my licence in Quebec, and where I’m at.

Tale of the Tape: Tactical Triumph

Ahhh, Adventure Racing, the sport of kings. Well, perhaps that’s too glorious a title. More fittingly, I suppose it would be the sport of fools. Still noble in the king’s court, but for different reasons. After all, we spend countless hours training in a multitude of disciplines, spend countless amounts of money on equipment and race entries, all in order to suffer countless injuries and endure pain in races where the outcome is determined by much more than the money and training invested :-). In this post, I’ll take you through my first adventure race of the season, the 2011 Frontier Adventure Challenge 8 hour race that took place in Huntsville. As the title implies, I had a tactically (and physically) very strong race. Unfortunately, as is often the case in AR, it was all for not, as a bit of difficulty in the last section took me from 3rd place overall to a ranking of 66th!! And that is no indication of a tight race with everyone jostling for the finish line. This is all about strategy, tactics, when you got to the finish line, and how much of the course you completed! Parsing how that ranking was calculated, as well as the full story of my race, which I contend was one of my strongest ever in spite of it, is what this blog post will be all about. Read on for the whole story, and don’t forget to check out some of the shots from the weekend as well. No GPS race map to share, so I went old school and snapped photos of map!

A Little Sinful Spring Fun

Greetings friends. So have you figured out what this post will be about yet? Well, here’s a hint; normally what you do there stays there. Yep, that’s right, I just got back from spending nearly a full week in Las Vegas. The occasion for such frivolity? Well, I was actually on the company nickel for this trip. I was attending the 2011 National Association of Broadcasters conference. Sound dry to you? Well, apart from the yearly CES show, this is one of the biggest conferences in the states. Estimates pegged attendance at over 90,000 people. How insane is that? In a word: insane. I was the only attendee from my work, and unfortunately, I didn’t know a single person at the conference. I know a fair number of people in the telecom industry, but not the broadcasting space. As such, this wasn’t going to be the typical Vegas trip. In spite of that, i managed to do some fun things, and will tell you about those things. Also, I took a few pictures while there, which I’ve split into two sets: Natural Fun, and Hotel and Conference pics. After you’ve checked them out, read on for the rest of the post.

Spring is Here, and the Sap is Flowing!

Hey gang, just thought I should check in with everyone and let you know what Deanna and I have been up to. As you are all aware from the last post, the winter race season was over, so now I’m sort of in between races and events, and focussing on training and also just trying to have a good time. With that in mind, I figured I’d write a quick post about a trip to a friend of ours’ sugar shack a little over a week ago. Deanna had never been to a sugar shack, and we decided that we’d go for the full-on authentic experience. It was made doubly a good idea by the fact that we were hosting Deanna’s sister Cheryl with us for the weekend! What exactly do I mean by the full-on authentic experience? Well, read on and find out. Here’s a tip though: there were no tourists, we had to hike in, and we were even put to work! To see pictures of our little visit to Mike Caldwell’s Ark, and his very own sugar shack, head over to the flickr folder chock full of maple syrupy goodness. Aftwerwards, click through to read the rest of my little story.