Happy News Years!

So after catching up with some old friends in the city on New years eve. I took the starting line to my first ever Ultra Marathon. It was the Club Fat Ass 50km. I had my eye on this race for a few years and thought this would be a good year to give it a shot. I was not really ready to run the whole 50 km's but i thought i would see how far i could get. I have run a total of 9 marathons in my life, my first one was over 20 years ago, and all of the others have been as part of an Ironman race, so it is a bit different. (IE includes alot of walking.) And here i was lining up to run even farther, in the middle of winter no less. And for all of you out there that think i am crazy, one guy decided he wanted to run it twice for a total of 100km.

My plan was to have my Mom meet me at the half way point, and if i felt ok i would keep going. The route Started in Stanley park, basically following the seawall, but on trails up above the cliffs. It was interesting as i had never ran these trails. Once out of the park, it followed the seawall to burrard street bridge, then back down to the ocean, and followed the coast all the way to UBC. Here it followed the trails out to 41st and Camoson, where it turned around and went back the same way. The weather was wet and cold. It was about 6C and rained the entire time. On the way out everyone was trying to dodge the puddles but on the way back in it didn't really matter much. After my first 10km, i pretty much knew i was not going to make the whole 50km, so i thought 30 km would be a good run to bring in the new year. I figured i could turn around at 15km, make it back to the finish, and watch the winners come in. After a quick call to my Mom to let her know i was not going to make it to see her,(Thanks anyways Mom!) I made it all the way to Spanish Banks, and when the course took off into the trails of the endowment lands, i turned around. While on the way out there were a few people to run with, (a total of 106 started the race) but on the way back there was nobody. The rain still poured, the wind picked up at the top of the Bridge, but i was still enjoying my run. I made it back to the start just over 32km in around 3hr 40min. Not the fastest time, but it was the longest i had run outside of an ironman in 20 years, so i was happy. It really made me appreciate how good shape most of these trail runners are in.

The winner of the race was Dave Papineau. he set a new course record of around 3hr 50 mins. Dave and i lived at the old Kappa Sigma Fraternity house together back in our UBC days. I had not seen Dave for quite some time, but back when i knew him, i was the skinny fast guy and he was the big rugby player. My how times have changes. He told me how only a few years ago he got more serious about his running, and now he is winning races.

So maybe there is hope for me after all. 2010 is the year for me to get much more serious with my training. While i don't expect to win any races this year, i hope to do complete and compete in several big races. Next up... the Diez Vista 50km race on April 10th. This time i will be ready for the whole 50km.

Go Jump off a bridge!

Of all the crazy things i have done, i have never tried bungee jumping. When asked why not, i always said i didn't want to pay money to do it. Well that excuse finally went away when the great guys at Whistler Bungee offered our staff at Coast Mountain Photography a free jump. They ended up hosting about 20 nervous photographers. I shot video of most of the jumpers, then handed the camera over when my turn came. It was starting to get dark so the video is pretty grainy, but i think it speaks for itself. All i cared about was not screaming like a little girl. As i jumped, i kept wondering when i would reach bottom, it seemed to last forever. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a bit of a scare.

PS - I think my scream was quite manly!!!

1 down and 99 to go.

So today was the start of the annual Slowtwitch.com 100 runs in 100 days challenge. The goal of this challenge is to lay down a solid run base by doing volume through frequency. I figured it would be a great way to build a solid base for the Transrockies. Each run has to be at least 30 minutes to count, and as long as they are separated by at least an hour, you can log double run days by running twice in one day. I am aiming for at least 70 runs in 100 days, but we will see if i can make 100.

Speaking of the Transrockies. They just announced a new category for mixed teams with a combined age of over 80, so Gabi and I have a better chance of placing higher in the race.

Nikon Vs Canon

Ok another one for all the photographers out there. In honor of the start of a new season at Coast Mountain Photography, where we have a new crew starting up in a few days, i thought i would post this video i found. Sorry to those of you who just don't understand, it's a photographer thing.

First day of skiing!

Ok, so I realize so far almost all of my posts have been about running and training, and very little about photography. So here are a few shots from today. The snow has been dumping for the past week, and today Whistler broke the record for the most snow ever in the month of November, and it's only the 19th. Yesterday I went up Whistler Mountain with Peter Smart of Extremely Canadian Ski Clinics to shoot some stormy powder shots for Whistler Blackcombs Website. Pete is a great model, as he know the mountain better than anyone, and has years of experience skiing in front of the camera as well as being featured in a few Warren Miller Ski movies.

Here is one of the images on the WhistlerBlackcomb.com homepage, followed by a few others taken during the same run.

It's Official - I am a Fat Ass!

Well I finally did it. After years of procrastinating i finally became a Fat Ass. Yup, i joined the club. I know, many of you have secretly called me a fat ass for years but now it's official. Club Fat Ass is a grassroots sports club that host trailrunning and other active lifestyle events for fellow members. Once a member, all of the events are free to join. I have been thinking about joining for a while now, and thought this would be a good way to meet some fellow runners and get some good training in while during trips to the city.

On Saturday, Nov 14th, i took part in the Sweet Go Deep trailrun in Deep Cove. It was a 20km race over some pretty technical terrain. I met up with about 14 other club fat ass members in the parking lot in deep cove, and after some introductions and group photo we were off. Being a grassroots event, there were no trail markings of any kind, just a description you could print out of the course. I realized quite quickly that this would be more challenging than i thought. We began with a steep climb up some steps then what some people were calling the seymour grind. The lead group of 4 runners quickly disappeared in front of me, so at the first intersection i had to take out my directions. Luckily fellow runner Jonathan Weresch was nearby. He quickly helped me with some route directions for the next little bit and we were off. The route followed the Baden powell trail for the most part, home of the infamous Knee Knacker run. It was my first time trail running on the north shore, it has some great terrain, but there is one small problem, it has alot of climbing. My GPS told me i climbed a total of 13000 ft in under 12 miles, and it sure felt like it, but i think that is way off as GPS elevation accuracy really sucks. After about 4km in we stopped to check a map on the trailhead. Jonathan and i both agreed that we we map people and not instruction people, as we were having a hard time following the route instructions. but he had done the race before so he knew where to go. He pointed it out on the map and it all made sense. As we climbed the next hill he slowly pulled away from me, but i figured i was good. unfortunately i apparently can't tell the difference between a right and and left, as i went the wrong way at the next intersection. i went down old buck instead of up. Unfortunately the route descriptions seemed to still make sense as i was on the right trail just going the wrong way. After another mile it started to snow/hail. and at this point i realized i was no longer on the right path. i knew i could find my way back along the route, and with the snow coming down, i thought about turning back, but i found a trail marker for the Old Mushroom Parking area, which i recognized as being part of the course, so i kept going. I was almost up to the My Seymour Parkway road/ picnic area when i ran into Jonathan again. Turns out i was climb the trail the the race went down. i probably missed about 1km of the total route.

I stuck with Jonathan for the rest of the way as we made our way past Mystery falls, then down a Mountain Bike trail called Dirty Diapers. This got pretty slippery, and very technical. At this point we were joined by Philip Waters, and the three of us made our way through the rest of the course. At each trail intersection we had to stop and try to figure out which way to go. If i had one recommendation to the event organizer, it would be to try to include a map of the route. I know this is not very easy, but with more and more people with GPS running computers, maps should be a bit easier to create. I will post mine below, but it will of course show the wrong way. Anyways after a long climb back up to the trail i went took the wrong turn unto, we were on our way back. It was mostly all downhill for the last 6km so i was able to pick up the pace for a few miles.



Kinda interesting but a bit disturbing story on the way back to the finish. I had to take a pit stop at an outhouse, as i was leaving and started to head back down the trail i came across another Fat Ass. Only this one was not a runner. Right in the middle of the trail was a woman squatting with her pants down and her naked butt staring right at me. In fairness it wasn't really a fat ass, but she could have at least done it a few steps off the trail. or perhaps used the outhouse that was 100 ft away. Oh well!

As i came back into Deep Cove the trail started to get a bit more crowded with a lot of hikers etc. i took a side detour to the lookout and realized how high we had climbed. I crossed the finish line in 3 hours 25mins with a total Distance of 11.9 miles. After the race i joined a few other CFA runners for the apres party at Mosquito Grill in North Vancouver. The restaurant provide some free Beer and draw prizes were handed out. I received a free subscription to Trail Running Magazine!

So event though i got lost, i still had a great time and would like to thank the event host Cheryl, for waiting at the finish for us. Sibylle for the great draw prizes and Jonathan for his help out on the trails. Can't wait for my next event coming up on New Years Day where i will try my first 50km Ultra run.

New Toy for my Running

So somehow my TransRockies teammate accidently ordered 2 running computers instead of 1. So i am now the proud owner of a Garmin 310xt GPS watch. I was planning on getting one eventually, but this was just a bit sooner than expected. It was a killer deal though.

Being a GPS device, it tracks both my distance and speed, all of my split times as well as tons of other features. And the best part is after i finish a run, i can download the details to my training log for further analysis. Soon i will also be able to track my Heart rate as well. Then all i will need to do is to figure out what to do with all of the information it gives. In the meantime, it allows me to output my running routes out to Google Earth, so here is whare Gabi and i ran today. Just under 20km in about 2 hours.



The watch was designed for the triathlete in mind, as it is water proof and has some great features for cycling as well. But i am really looking forward to using up on Whistler Mountain this winter, to track how far and how fast i am Skiing Downhill.