Mount Washington Photos

The next day after the Yeti, Kim and I did some downhilling on Mount Washington before heading back to Victoria. It was an absolutely gorgeous day with unlimited visibility in almost any direction. Here's a taste of what you missed!

Kim at the summit with Albert Edward in background (top right)

Looking out at Strathcona Park (Albert Edward top right)

The Golden Hinde is the Tallest Mountain on Vancouver Island

You can see it just left of centre in the background

More views of Strathcona

The dome summit of Mount Washinton


The mainland Coast Mountains
From mountain, to valley, to ocean, to mountains!

TNO

Pushing It At The Yeti - Mount Washington Race Report

Lining up for my first ever snowshoe race, and the first Yeti of the year, was a bit stressful. I was just not looking forward to redlining it for two 5km laps in the snow. After a race the previous weekend, and a week that included some ultimate frisbee and a hard speed workout, my body was tired of pushing it. I was actually feeling pretty good and had I been lined up for a 40km event or a long outing for fun, I would have been more than up for it. I tried my best to do a little warmup and before I knew it, it was all go.



The Yeti's are great winter events put on by Marc Campbell. Dave Howells was the course designer who packed down some sweet singletrack through the deep white stuff up on Mt. Washington. I was pleasently surprised to see so much singletrack as, being my first race, I envisioned much more groomed trails.

While you all race individually in the Yeti, there all also team categories where the top five team members times (including at least one female) are averaged to get a team score. My adventure racing teammate and friend Gary Robbins recruited me to join Team North Shore Athletics (NSA) to try and beat out the strong Team Helly Hansen Vancouver Island. This was going to be a close battle.

The 5km loop consisted of alternating short and doubletrack trails with a steep doubletrack close to the beginning in order to spread out the competitors. Close to the end, you hit a nice windy singletrack climb that than descended in long switchbacks down to an open finish line sprint. Read this a super fast and fun. What a sweet day too!

Downhill to the finish

I had been warned before the race to slow it down on the first lap as snowshoeing will really take it out of you and, if you're not careful, you might bonk hard on the the second lap. I took the advice wisely and just went hard enough to hold on to my spot. I had Justin Mark and Jeff Riemer of Helly Hansen Vancouver Island in my sights and waited for the open double track of the start of the second lap to close the gap. I caught both runners and held on to Justin until the first climb of the second lap started. This is when the Yeti started to hurt. That neon Team NSA vest/dress hurt as well!

Starting to hurt - 2nd Lap

When we hit some doubletrack, Jeff Reimer put on some steam and ended up passing me for the next long singletrack section up on the plateau. Shortly in, I pulled out a gel and tried to recoupe some energy. The gel really helped and suddenly I was feeling really good. I was right behind Jeff, who was going a bit slower than I would have been otherwise, but there was no way that I could have passed in the soft snow on the outside of the track. This would be my only complaint for this race. Tasaka, you should sponsor a MOMAR passing lane! I held on until the last doubletrack came before the downhill. I made my move, and caught up to Justin. I was still feeling good at this point and when we hit the downhill, I kept making sure that I didn't go too hard and bail.

A sweet shot of the final downhill

Just before we hit the bottom of the run, Justin took a hard faceplant into the snow. I slowed up to see if he was ok when he told me to go. I pushed to the finish and came in behind Gary in a solid 6th place overall.

After much anticipation, the team results came through. It was extremely close but our Team, NSA, managed to beat HH Vancouver Island by 2 seconds!!!

This was a great event that had a fun course and was enjoyed by all. Some awesome costumes out for this event as well. I you happen to be over in North Van over the next couple months, definitely check these out!

Special thanks to Kim for moving all over the course and taking some awesome photos!

TNO

PIH Pioneer 8km Road Race

This past Sunday, I attended the first road race in the Frontrunners Island Race Series. These are well put together events put on by various clubs on the island. The first race was put on by the Prairie Inn Harriers (PIH) of which I am a member and do regular training sessions with. Held in Central Saanich, the weather was overcast with sunny patches and the temperature was perfect for an 8km sprint.

While these short distance races are definitely not my focus, I'm starting to see why so many people get into them; they gauge your fitness over time and allow for a fair comparison. In trail runs, courses get changed, and the weather can greatly affect the times due to excessive mud or slippery rocks. Also, time is less important than placement. On the road, time is the important factor and road conditions are only minor issues as times will not vary greatly because of them.

Last year, with limited training, I pulled off a 30:00 time in the same race. I was happy with my result but I knew that I could easily beat that time this year. It was time to find out.

With over 500 people at the line, the race started without a hitch and soon I was red-lining it through Brentwood Bay. As the course is slightly downhill for the first kilometer, it is easy to get ahead of yourself and before you know it, you're running way faster than you should be. Knowing this, I went out strong but really tried to gauge myself once the course levelled out. I was with a small pack of runners at this point which was being separated by a larger group ahead. This gap between the groups was getting larger and I soon realized that the pack I was in was just not going at the speed I needed to go. I pulled away and tried to catch them. Unfortunately for me, the distance had grown too much and I was now in no man's land running into a headwind. In hindsight, I should have pushed the pace sooner and caught the group. Always in hindsight.

Pushing for the next Pack

I ran by myself for the rest of the race with only of couple of positions being exchanged. The last position change hurt the most. The finish is slightly uphill to the finish shoot. I had a racer on my back (who had been there for the last few kms) and a racer just in front of me. The racer behind put on a sprint, I soon followed and we both passed the guy in front. I didn't have enough left and ended up losing the sprint by 1 second. However, it just so happend that he was in my age category and I was dropped out of third place to fourth!

I came away with a decent time of 28:30; 1 1/2 minutes faster than last year and exactly where I was aiming. While my back half was slower than the front half, I still felt that I had a solid race and am looking forward to beating (no, crushing!) this PB next year!

Now, I just need to find out how to take another four minutes off to rival the leaders! ;)

TNO

Forbidden Snowshoeing

Holy Shhhhhhheeeeeettttttt!!!!! Look at that snow!!!!

I haven't experienced snow like this in a long time. With over three meters of white stuff and with more than one meter dumped in the last three days, it was hard not to be steller conditions.


Kim and I had a 'plan' for the weekend which was basically to go up island and find snow. We weren't disappointed. After the road up to Mount Washington was closed due to too much snow, yes, that's right, way too much snow, we headed up to the Forbidden Plateau which is an old ski hill that has been shut down for years. With snoeshoes on, we headed out on both Saturday and Sunday for some hard work and great fun. I now completley understand how dangerous tree wells can be (as heard in the recent story about the skier who died in Revelstoke). We not only fell in some (only up to our chest) but found some that were easily three meters deep! Go in the wrong way with no one to help you out can prove to be deadly. So, get out but go with someone.

Look at the snow cover!!! There's a two meter snowsicle on top of that one tree!

It's been dumping heaps of powder all over the place so if you haven't been out yet, do not hesitate and get out there! Check out Gary's blog for some great videos of some backcountry ski touring he's been doing.

TNO

New Years on Pender Island

I usually don't do too much for New Year's but this year was super fun. Kim and I rented a house with several other friends on North Pender Island for four days up until New Year's day. Our plan was to kayak over so we loaded our gear up and set out from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal area. However, once we hit the crossing to Portland Island, the wind was foul, there were white caps everywhere and the forecast was for gale force winds in several hours. We had checked out the weather but figured we'd still have enough time to make it across before the weather got too bad. Since we were both just not having fun and didn't want to encounter and serious problems, we quickly decided to turn around, load up, return home, swap our paddle gear for bike gear, and make it back to catch the Pender ferry. It was a bit of a rush but we managed to catch it with no problems. On the ferry ride over, the winds had actually dimished substantially but we were still both happy that we made the decision as it could have really turned nasty. On the coast, you really can't take chances when it comes to the water.

After arriving at the house, we were in for a weekend of fun.

Disc Golf!

Pender has one of the best disc golf courses out there with 27 holes, technical terrain and lots of trees and obstacles. Beer on the course wasn't mandatory but preferred by most players. The player with the worst tee shot also had to down some fireball. Good stuff.

Sailing in Swanson Channel

A bunch of us went for a nice sail to drop off a friend in Swartz Bay. The wind was blowing through Swanson Channel allowing for some good upwind speed with minor jibes and tacks. The return sailing allowed us to put out the spinnaker and cruise at a solid 8 knots. Was a good time.

When I wasn't drinking, playing disc golf or rocking out on some guitar hero 3, I was out running. I got in two solid runs with the second one covering a good 25km over both North and South Pender Island. The highlight was definitely Mount Norman Park as the view from the top of the grind was great and the singletrack down the backside was well worth the climb. There was another trail that I hit up called the William-Wallace trail (I'm pretty sure it was this but maybe I got Braveheart in my head for some reason). Anyway, this trail was sweet. Nice twisty singletrack with a good amount of elevation. Well worth it.

My Reward - View from Mount Norman

For New Year's Eve, Pender Island held a Latern Festival that was filled with fire twirlers, giant puppets, some shows, a kayak ballet, and lots of characters on tall stilts. It was a neat event.

Pender New Year's Latern Festival

The 'Old Year' Puppet

This last puppet symbolized the old year. He walked out to a dock on the water which was released to float away from the shore. As this happened, paper latern 'balloons' were released into the air and ascended into the sky. The old year was over and 2008 had begun.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

TNO

Day of Four Peaks

Ok, theses weren't huge peaks but a fun day nonetheless. It was Christmas Eve day and Kim and I wanted to get in some good hiking. We didn't have a plan but ended up moving from peak to peak and covering some good ground. We started with Mount Douglas, headed to the Observatory hill (which I had never gone up before), Lone Tree Hill, and finished with Jocelyn Peak in Gowland Tod Provincial Park overlooking Finlayson Arm. What a gorgeous day too; Christmas Eve day and almost could have been in shorts.

View from Lone Tree Hill - Mount Doug centre with Observatory Hill to the left

Gowland Tod Trail - Mount Finlayson in Background

Jocelyn Peak - Malahat in Background

Joceyln Peak - Looking Down Finlayson Arm

If you've never been to Gowland Tod Park, I would highly recommend it.

Cheers,

TNO

Party Time!

Whew! It's been awhile since I last gave an update as I've been too busy having fun over the holidays, new years and into 2008. Here's some updates.


Kim and I held a Christmas party just before the actual 'Christmas' and had a number of friends and co-workers over to celebrate. Lots of good food went around and we had tons of fun playing recycled secret santa, charades, and the infamous 'box' game. I'm not sure what the last game is officially called but here's how it works. There's a present that's wrapped in several boxes and wrapping paper. Everyone gets in a big circle and a pair of dice is rolled in a clockwise direction around the group (we used large foam block dice). Whoever rolls a double gets to put on a santa hat, put on some oven mitts, and try to hack, stab, and unwrap their way into the present using only prescribed tools; we used a bike pedal wrench and some flip-grip pliers although some other favourites are barbaque utensils or a pizza cutter. Basically, the cruder the tools the better and the person cannot use their hands in any other way (ie: they can't hold the box with one hand). While the person is hacking away, the dice are continually rolled by the group and the next person to get doubles gets to take over. Sometimes you get to really work at the present while othertimes a double is rolled very soon after and you lose your turn before you even start. It's a pretty fun game and brings a lot of energy to the group. The person who gets at the gift first gets to keep it.

Mike Sanborn - Winner of the 'box' game

RAID THE NORTH EXTREME Coming to Global!

Canada's premiere wilderness expedition adventure race, Raid the North Extreme, arrives in an unusually urban location this January - your television set!

The one-hour High-Definition feature broadcast will air on Global TV across Canada on Saturday, January 12 at 9 p.m!!!

This six-day, non-stop, 500+km expedition race features coed teams of four from around the globe facing the challenges of nature, team dynamics, sleep deprivation, and gear failures as they bike, trek, paddle, portage and navigate the wilderness around BC's North Coast - Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii. Nearly thirty teams of four from across North America, and from as far as Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, blew away their physical and emotional limits during Raid the North Extreme.

As Gary Robbins of Squamish-based Team Helly Hansen/MOMAR said after the race, "Raid The North Extreme is a genuine expedition style race and they practice exactly what they preach: Real Wilderness, Real Navigation, Real Freakin' Tough...OK I made that one up, Real Adventure".

Canada's top adventure race organizers, Frontier Adventure Racing, in partnership with ATV Productions of Vancouver, had a vision to take adventure racing to new heights on Canadian television. Using boat, ferry, helicopter and aircraft support, along with caffeine and bug nets, film crews captured the action, the drama and the emotions as teams traversed the incredibly rugged northern BC terrain.

This broadcast is a first in Canada. Never before has the mystique, intensity and human drama of this incredible sport reached Canadian homes on a national network in prime time. Following the Canadian broadcast, the show will air in the US on PBS, will be seen on menTV and the Extreme Channel, and will be available for purchase on DVD and on iTunes.

Here's your opportunity to share your passion for adventure racing. It'll be a cold dark night in January - what better time for friends, food, drinks and some great adventure on TV?

It's surprisingly easy to organize a full-on pub night screening. Call up a few sports pubs with good AV equipment (a big screen, or tv's throughout the place), and ask what they can offer if you can bring 30-40 people there to watch a sporting event. Most will offer up free apps and a drink per person at the very least. Make a call to your local sports/outdoor store and offer a partnership for some prizes - they'll promote the event for you, too. Send out invites to everyone you know, post the event on Facebook or evite - then just show up and have the pub turn on Global that night. Parties at home are just as good, but more work. Or if you have money to burn, rent a hall or auditorium and make an event of it!
We'll help you make it happen. Just let us know about your party plan, and we'll send you tips, a poster, and an "RTNX Party Package" with prizing and an RTNX 2007 Buff.
Let's get all of Canada watching Adventure Racing on TV, and create a new wave of excitement about AR for 2008!

Check out the RTNX Facebook group for news about parties near you.

TNO

Stratford Visit

Man I miss the snow.

While I have been in Victoria for over three years now, I still have a strong attachment to my former home in Stratford, Ontario. People like to complain about the snow since it slows down the business machine and it doesn't let you drive as fast but if you know how to enjoy it, it's pretty awesome. Living in Victoria can be hard at times since we basically have two seasons: raining and not raining; while it's never really cold in the winter, it's never really hot in the summer. The contrast is so little compared to the cold -30 days in the winter and the super hot and humid summers of Ontario.

Fortunately for me, we got a good snowfall in Victoria two weekends ago but I spent much of it driving to and from Seattle to partake in the BEAST race. So, I booked a plane ticket and was exited to visit my family back in Stratford and enjoy the crisp cold air and the good ol white stuff hung on the trees.

I brought my running gear and was determined to wonder through the back streets of Stratford in search of old memories.

The weather was perfect for snow; about -3 to -5 degrees and about 4 inches of snow. I went on two ~15km runs with the highlights being the lake run, queens park, and of course, the beautiful cemetary and old grove park.

I had the trails to myself as most people in town don't go out much once the snow hits. The differences in people's lifestyles at home versus the west coast is evident. If I was in the greater Vancouver area, there would be lots of people out enjoying the snow whether it be cross country skiing or running (no mountains to climb in Stratford :) ).

Instead, the only people I saw looked at me with a crooked grin and asked if it isn't just a bit too cold to be out running.

They don't know what they're missing :)

Check out these photos I took from the plane.

Mount Baker in the Clouds

An Ocean of Clouds

Alberta Badlands

Vancouver

Howe Sound

Fall BEAST Videos

Here's a of video of the crazy weather we experienced on the way down to Seattle and one video during the race. For some reason, the downloaded video is much darker than the original. I'll have to figure this out for the future. Enjoy.



Snowstorm!




Running to the finish with one control left to go.

Fall BEAST

We survived!
That's right, we survived the Fall Beast. I say survived because it was one of the harshest racing weekends I've yet had to endure. I talk here of not only the race itself but the drive to and from the race. It just so happened that a winter storm decided to show its head and start puking huge flakes of snow on the way down to Seattle.

After a windy crossing on the BC Ferries boat, I arrived late at the Tsawwassen terminal where Gary was waiting for me. We loaded my gear quickly and were off in blowing snow conditions. It didn't take us long to discuss whether or not the race was even going to be held if the snow continued. We budgeted for a least a 1/2 hour at the boarder crossing but were not going to be suprised if we had to wait for several hours; this has been due lately to the savings-crazed Canadian shoppers tring to save a buck in the US (by spending an entire day of their lives driving and spending money on gas!). I wasn't too concerned but Gary has an issue with not getting aggressive back to the US boarder guards whose job it is to make you feel like shit. So, with a plan to just be calm and be non-reactive we pulled up to the booth with no line-ups.

"Where do you live?"
"Squamish and Victoria"
"What do you do for a living"
"I manage an Athletic store"
"I do consulting work"
"Where are you going?"
"We're doing a race down in the Seattle area"

At this point he looks at the bikes on the car as it's puking snow and freezing cold, looks at us, smirks, and says
"Have a nice time" as he hands back our passports.

Whether the boarder guards were just too reluctant to get out of their booths or not, in less than five minutes, we were across the boarder and back on the road. Gary couldn't believe it. Maybe my calm demeaner is rubbing off on him :)

The weather from here was just constantly changing. At one point, it was snowing hard, the road was full of snow, and the lanes went from four to kind of three to basically wherever you wanted since you could no longer tell where the lanes were supposed to be. We counted no less than 10 vehicles in ditches and several more that simply pulled off the road and gave up. Luckily for me (who's from Ontario and who knows how to drive in a multitude of conditions), it was great to have someone at the wheel who I was confortable with (Gary is a skilled winter driver who comes from the far reaches of a place called Newfoundland). Unluckily for both of us, we were surrounded by complete winter newbies who were out to kill us. We went from travelling about 50km/h in these conditions to suddenly going into rain and no snow at 120km/h in under 5 minutes. The weather was all over the place.

After a few wrong turns and a trip to the 'Supermall', we made our way to Colin and Connies' place right close to the race site. I had sent out a quick e-mail to Eric Bone (the race director) about a place to stay and within a couple of hours, had a place all lined up. We had briefly met Colin and Connie at the Squamish MOMAR during our Baja presentation but didn't know it was them until we arrived. They set us up for the night after hanging out and partaking in some good dark beers. We couldn't have been happier and were flattered by their generosity.

Gary, me, Connie and Colin

It wasn't much of a surprise at this point that the rain turned to snow and the race area was covered in inches of the white stuff by morning. We weren't even sure if the race was going to go ahead but we still prepared like it was and headed to the race start.

It started to rain.
At this point, I think both of us were hoping that it WOULD be cancelled so that we wouldn't have to go out into the wet and snowy conditions. Gary, who is sensitive to the cold, was not looking very anxious. Fortunately for us, lots of other crazy adventure racers had showed up and quickly changed our minds into thinking that going out into slushy snow and rain to do a race was a completely normal and ok thing to do. The race was definitely a go. Team Dart/Nuun members Ryan Van Gorder and Aaron Rinn came out as part of a teaching type position for newer teams. I think this is a great idea and way to help teach new adventure racers and hopefully rub off some of their years of experience to them.

Eric Bone - BEAST Race Director

I should note that the Fall Beast isn't really a big competitive race, so Gary and I really treated it as a good training session and a wake-up call to get on the training program. It was definitely a hard cold weather training session.

The course was comprised of two back to back mountain biking legs (with a check-in at race headquarters after each leg) and then an orienteering foot course. In order to prevent bike congestion at the start of the course, Eric had us run a small loop to stretch out the teams. We hit the bikes in first and pretty much kept this spot for the entire race. We were both pretty cold at first but quickly warmed up. Ok, most of us warmed up but eventually our extremities (particularly our feet) became blocks of ice attached to our pedals that we could transer energy through. We both had our Helly Hansen waterproof jackets, which worked awesome in the conditions, but Gary didn't bring a shell pant which enabled the blocks of ice on his feet to move up to his knees similar to the freeze over in the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' except in slow motion.

We hit the second mountain bike section and actually started to have some fun in a good singletrack section of the course. It was challenging to ride everything with the conditions how they were and we also had to fight through vegetation that was bogged down over the trail from the snow fall. We were essentially clearing the trail for the rest of the racers.

Once we entered the transition and put on the running shoes, I knew that the next 45 minutes on the feet was going to be painful. Running out onto the orienteering course, we both couldn't feel our feet and I ended up slipping several times on the snow due to having no foot awareness. Some early bushwacking warmed us up and after a few more checkpoints, I could finally feel most of my toes. We got all the checkpoints without issue and made it to the finish line happy but cold, extremely wet and with a unstoppable desire to get into dry clothes as soon as possible. It was great to see Colin's team come in as the first co-ed team (2nd overall) and it was great to see so many people come out in such unfavorable conditions and push themselves.

After some quick goodbyes, we were back on the road heading north to Canuck land. As we drove off, we were passing some of the course that we had just been on and all the snow had melted already. Basically, the race was held in the worse possible conditions and once over, everything was simply just wet.

Soaked and Frozen

We faced pouring rain and hydroplaning on the way home, had a quick stop for some Mexican food in Bellingham, and hit the boarder with a longer but equally uneventful crossing. In typical Canadian fashion, as soon as we hit the boarder, the snow had returned in full; it couldn't have been a better sterotype.

Thanks again to Colin and Connie for their hospitality and to Eric Bone and the Team Mergeo.com members who helped make another Fall Beast a success.
Also, a big no thanks to whoever made the BC Ferries bomb threat and screwed up the schedule so that I was an hour later in getting home.

TNO