March Training Update
A quick update on how things are going with training. Wow… March went by so fast, it’s now the middle of April and the big day is getting ever closer. Every morning, for at least the last 4 weeks , when I wake up the first thought that usually runs through my mind is how many months and weeks are left until August 10, race day! I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that my mind is so focused on the race. I have to keep reminding myself…. just breathe. I had a couple of weeks in March that I found hard to fit training in. There are so many things that I want to be doing and often running is pushed aside to make room for spending a weekend in the mountains. I want to be out rock climbing, biking, mountaineering and long distance running…but the weekends are not long enough nor do I have enough energy for all of these activities all the time. Really needing to centre my attention on getting my long distance runs in at least 3 weekends a month and saving one weekend for heading out into the mountains. Rock climbing and biking can happen during the week after work so I don’t have to worry too much about those. To add to my frustration I am still having difficulty getting up early to run before work. I need to be doubling up some days, even if it’s running 5km in the morning and another 5-10km in the evening. There is a big gap between the athlete I want to be and the athlete that I am right now. So my longest training run to date has been a 27km trail run with some decent elevation gain/loss. I even had enough energy afterwards to go for a little downhill MTB session with my other half. Feeling pretty strong lately (but have some niggling issues with my right hip and shoulder that I am trying to solve) and want to make sure I am able to maintain this momentum. My diet definitely is playing the largest role (and getting at least 7-8 hrs of sleep every night) in how I feel. I have been putting a lot of focus on eating more natural organic foods and really ramping up the veg & fruit intake. I have also been making sure to get a lot of very dense nutrient rich calories every day, with things like almonds, avocado, salmon, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds etc. In our house we also decided to cut down on dairy so we are only using Almond/Coconut Milk now...
“Great photos aren’t taken, they’re made”
I’ve seen the title of this post, a quote from Ansel Adams, come up a few times when reading about modern photography and it generally holds negative connotations as people assume it refers to excessive post processing and “photoshopping” to change the results in the image. This is not what Ansel was referring to. He was referring to the difference in the eye of someone who is, or hopes to be, a Photographer and an individual who is simply taking a snapshot. Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph. - Matt Hardy For the most part, I’d safely define the vast majority of individuals who own cameras as amateur Photo Journalists, in that they wish to journal the events and moments they experience so they use a camera to effectively do this. A turning point happens when you stop trying to catalog events as they happen and wish to create an artistic representation of what you are seeing. When you start to become an Artistic Photographer. When you stop merely taking a photograph of a scene and start making the photograph before you close the shutter. Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like - David Alan Harvey For me this has been a gradual process. I largely started out wanting to journal my experiences as they happened. Comparing my folders of digital images now I’m not really taking more images today than I was a few years ago but what I’m photographing has changed immensely. Going back a few years I can see that I would take photos as I moved, usually at eye height and directly at what I was looking at. I’d usually take one photo per view and move on. Now, I’m taking a similar number of photos but the content has been vastly reduced. I’m taking many pictures of a single moment, from different angles and heights, with different apertures, ISO’s and shutter speeds. The gap in time between my photos is no longer documented as I’m not concerned with simply journaling my experience but rather creating my own personal artistic representation of the experience. The difference between “Taking” and “Making” a photo you’d print and hang on your wall is subtle but the results can vary immensely. Making a photo could be as simple as dropping to one knee and using a different aperture rather than taking the photo from a standing height and using the auto setting on the camera. I don’t imagine that I’m an amazing photographer myself, but I make photos that I personally...
Need Less. Be More.
“What are you willing to give up?” That was the response Sonnie Trotter, a professional Rock Climber, gave in reply to the prosaic question from the audience that asked “How can I have a life like yours?” I was sitting in the back row at the ACC Clubhouse in Canmore, AB. Sonnie had just given a demonstration on a recent climb and opened up the floor for questions. When he responded I could tell from the slumping shoulders of the individual who had asked the question that it wasn’t the response he was looking for. Giving up stuff sucks, especially our comforts. But I do agree with Sonnie. If you want to wedge a new way of living into your life then something else is going to have to get shunted out in the process. I say I agree with Sonnie, but I didn’t choose to be this way, it happened rather organically as a result of wanting to need less when camping high in the mountains. The more I climbed and the tighter my shoulders got from carrying heavy and cumbersome overnight packs the more I analyzed the contents of them to reduce weight. I’m not a true Ultralight Backpacking follower, but I do believe an individual should be critical of everything that goes into their pack. I ask “Why do I need this item? Can I replace it with something else? What happens if I don’t bring it?” I got into a rhythm of doing this and over time it became natural. What started to happen though was that the principles from it started to bleed into my everyday life. So, I’ve compiled some advice below on ways in which you can start to “need less”. “Being more” will come naturally as a result. What happens when you need less is that you have more time and money to put towards the things you really want to do. Will it be easy at first, probably not. Will you eventually love doing it, I guarantee it. This list of advice isn’t conclusive and feel free to comment with your own advice. I might revisit the subject in a while if I make additional changes that I think are worth knowing. But anyway, here goes First, you need to understand your needs, then understand which of them can be reduced or removed. If you’re like me you’ll soon realize that many of your “needs” were actually just “wants” all along. The easiest way to start is with consumables. Personal consumables in my life are: Food & Drink, Gas, Toiletries, Electricity, Heating, Other Stuff. Food & Drink: - The number 1 piece of advice I can give everyone...
Ice Climbing, Canmore
Swing like you screw, kick like you poo. “I don’t screw like that” a girl replied cheekily from the back row of our Ice Climbing group. Our instructor, Carl, paused a moment, cracked a wry smile in response and moved on: “When you swing your Ice Tools get your hips in against the ice, legs extended and shoulders out, like you screw. When you want to kick, hang off your highest tool and get your butt out, like you’re going to poo and look at where you want your feet to go” We were on our second day of Ice Climbing instruction with Yamnuska Mountain Adventures near Canmore, Alberta. The previous day they’d given us an intro to Ice Climbing at the climbs Irish Mist and The Water Hole, today we were at Kings Creek to hone our technique further on some single pitch Ice. The snow gods had finally answered the pleas from Skiers all over the Rockies and on this day it was dumping snow after a rather long drought in these parts. Anything we put down on the ground for a few moments was soon buried under fluffy white powder. I imagined it might make for a rather miserable day of climbing Ice but it turned out to be one of the best. Kings Creek lies at the bottom of a gorge with steep rock walls on either side. As snow built up above eventually it would fall off branches, boulders and slopes when they could no longer hold the weight of it. It would cascade down, get funneled into gullies, gain speed, bring other loose snow with it and eventually reach the bottom where we were climbing. This made for an almost ethereal experience while climbing ice, which isn’t exactly the most normal activity to begin with. Snow cover Belaying in Kings Creek Kings Creek Climb As we climbed, periodically, these sluffs of snow would hit us in waves. It was like being suddenly shaken up inside a snow globe. You could only brace against the ice and hope your belayer hadn’t been buried below. As I finished climbing another line and shouted “Take!” to my belayer, I clipped my ice tools into my harness and lowered my hands to my sides. My hands started to ache, ache badly (In ice climbing this is affectionately known as the Hot Aches or the Screaming Barfies). I braced against the pain and resolved to stop over gripping my Ice Tools next time. I looked down and shouted “Lower” to my belayer. At that moment I could see a snow sluff from my vantage point picking up mass and momentum above and barrelling down....
A Woman’s Place Is On Top
The opening line of Arlene Blum’s book Annapurna: A Woman’s Place reads “You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few moments, then the wind blows your footprints away.” It’s a wonderful statement because it does not encompass gender or ability. There is nothing to be conquered, only moments to be experienced; it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman. This book shares the experiences of a group of women set out to push the limits that society, at that time, had placed upon women. High altitude mountaineering, still in it’s relative infancy, was having it’s limits pushed by some of the greatest climbers that history had ever seen, all of whom were men. Arlene Blum tried to be part of this exclusive group, at times successful and sometimes being defeated by traditional mindsets; she persevered to attain her dream and hold onto the hope that women could make their mark in this elite club. nothing to be conquered, only moments to be experienced After reading many books written by men it is so refreshing to read a mountaineering adventure from a woman’s perspective. I have read a lot of excellent mountaineering books written by men such as Ed Viesturs, Chris Bonnington, Jim Wickwire, David Roberts, Jon Krakauer, Reinhold Messner and found them very inspiring and well written. However, as a woman I always felt the tales told from the perspective of a man always lent towards the logistic side of the climbs, the technical aspect and the testosterone driven need for success. An estrogen driven adventure is very different indeed. It lends more towards the feelings and the sensitivity felt towards other peoples feelings. So many times throughout the book I could relate to the emotions being expressed, despite not being able to share the exact experience. Told from a woman’s perspective made it very relatable rather than just enjoying the book for it’s narrative quality and adventure. Arlene Blum told it from a very real perspective. I didn’t feel like moments in the book were ever skimmed over or not fully explored even though there were negative moments and feelings of absolute despair. There seemed to be a constant internal struggle within each of the women to deal with the fact that each of them was a woman climber. A constant struggle with wondering if they were fast enough, strong enough and good enough to be part of such a momentous and incredibly difficult challenge. feelings of absolute despair At one moment in the book,Joan who was in charge of calculating the rationing of the food was having difficulty doing the calculations, Arlene says “ …arithmetic is...
Sky Pilot: Why I Climb
Back in August 2011 I reached the summit of a little peak that sits only a handful of kilometers away from where I live. In a lot of ways this peak, outside of the scrambling and mountaineering community in and around the Southern Coast Mountains of BC, is largely unknown by most individuals. It was unknown to me also until one day I was flicking through the pages of my recently bought copy of Matt Gunns “Scrambles in Southwest British Columbia” in mid 2010. The name “Sky Pilot” instantly stood out. It’s a great name for a Mountain in my opinion and instantly gave the peak a mystique that drew me to want to climb it some day. In many ways climbing Mountains for me is an endeavour to get further away from the comfort and ennui of postmodernity at sea level. The closer I get to the sky above me, the less the trappings of modern life apply, the greater the viscerality of experience. To stand atop this Sky Pilot became a singular focus for me. At the time of discovering this Mountain I could barely hike for 3 sustained hours at sea level. I’d never carried an overnight pack on my back and the word “scrambling” was a manner in which I’d prepare eggs on a Saturday morning, not the homonym for a method to progress over rocky terrain. I knew I had a long way to go before I could hope to safely and enjoyably climb this mountain. An entire year went by. I hiked often and began scrambling to the tops of many peaks in the Ranges close to where I live. But, when I’d stand atop those summits, I’d always scan for the familiar shape of Sky Pilot on the horizon and imagine I was there instead. It is an odd compulsion to be consumed with thoughts about a jutting protrusion of rock and ice. I have spent many an hour trying to understand why some mountains can capture my attention so entirely while others, of no lesser height, difficulty or prowess go unnoticed. Certain mountains get imbued with a personality. I think most people that climb mountains regularly anthropomorphise them a little. They sit like foreboding giants with their shoulders curled away from us. We spend time to get to know their moods, when it seems these Ogres might allow us to reach their summit, and then, as we ascend, gain an intimate understanding about the mountain. Some are not ready to let their guard down and we must retreat, while others welcome us to their top freely. I wanted to get to...
