Tears on Mount Harvey
A few weeks ago we did a popular North Shore hike that we had previously done for the first time in 2011, Mount Harvey. It has spectacular scenery, on one side of the ridge the Pacific ocean with a chain of islands stretching out as far as the eye can see , and on the other side a sea of beautiful coastal mountains with no end in sight. But it wasn’t just the fantastic scenery that had me reminiscing on this trip. This years summit shot! View of the Lions Stealthy selfie The first time I hiked Mount Harvey I was training for my first road marathon. I was following a strict 5 day a week running plan and feeling the effects on my body and mind. I was feeling overwhelmed with the training and the physical toll it was taking on my body. It was important to me to still be able to train for the marathon and to also be able to spend time in the mountains, so I felt the need to always be pushing myself. That day in April 2011 proved to be the breaking point for me. The day prior to the hike I had run an 18km training run, which at the time was a long distance for me. I felt tired starting the hike, but felt pretty good, until we started the uphill section. I slowed down to a snails pace and Leigh shot past me, making his way up the hill. Looking up the steep incline,allowing the tiredness to weigh so heavy on my mind and body and watching Leigh move in a seemingly effortless way up the hill, proved to be too much. I stopped in my tracks overcome with frustration and feelings of not being able to continue. At that moment I felt so tired, so heavy with emotion that I could barely breathe. Leaning on a tree, out of sight of Leigh, I started to sob. I felt useless, exhausted and irritated with myself and my physical limitations. Feeling pretty sorry for myself, I said to myself, between sobbing breaths,“I can’t do this” “I’m too tired”. Taking in the view The smile before the meltdown Up, up and up It lasted a few minutes before I had to tell myself that no one feels sorry for me but me. I chose this and I can’t expect anyone to have sympathy for me. In my own words of tough love I needed to “suck it up buttercup”. So in that moment I had to make a decision, I wiped the tears from my eyes, composed myself and headed up towards...
Running Recap: Squamish 50 and Cap Crusher 13km
Ok so this post is well overdue, but better late than never! Here is a quick recap of some running fun I had 2 weekends ago. Leigh and I decided to charge in different directions the weekend of March 22/23. We both feel it is important to our personal and combined growth if we spend time apart in our chosen pursuits. What we learn separately we can share with each other on our next combined adventures. Saturday, March 22, I was signed up for the first of 4 Squamish 50 Orientation runs. I will be attempting to run the ultra distance of 50 miles(80km) on August 17th, which is definitely going to be the hardest thing I have ever done to date. Needless to say I do most of my training runs on the trails around Squamish, so I am quite familiar with the course route, but I still love attending the orientation runs. I get to run with friends, make some new friends on the trail and feed off of the general stoke of the day, which is usually very HIGH. It gets me excited to train! With a large group, of usually close to 60 people, there is ALOT of fun to be had on the trails. Plus these runs are almost like a mini race in themselves. Gary Robbins and Geoff Langford (directors of the Squamish 50 race) make sure to have the route marked pre-run with spray chalk and ribbons, making it almost impossible to get lost. They even have an aid station mid-run stocked with the usual goodies…cookies, salty chips, orange slices - it’s a veritable runners smorgasbord! The cutest Mascot ever! You will see Oreo at all the races. A veritable smorgasbord! So that Saturday, was no exception to the 5-star service all the runners have become accustomed to at these orientation runs. The morning started off chilly and we even had fresh SNOW! It was a large group of smiling, excited runners ready to hit the trails. I was excited to start that morning with 2 of my running buddies - Adam, who will be running his first 50km (so excited for him, he is going to crush it!) and Hailey(check out her page Run Like a Girl), who will be attempting to best her time from last year (I have no doubt that she will). Of course there was a lot of laughter, pre-run, run and post run that morning…runners are a crazy bunch of people…crazy good! Crazy good! Trail running is beautiful. Running through the lightly snow dusted trails was so beautiful. Winding through the forest, over the wooden bridges,...
Review: Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
In Run or Die, Kilian Jornet tells the story of how his passion for competitive running and wild places blossomed from being a child running in the hills around his home to a world-class record-setting ultra runner. In it he tells the stories of some of his most notable and personally rewarding feats. He tells it like it is, the ups and downs, the struggle and the pain. Despite the fact that he is performing seemingly superhuman feats you can feel a human connection to him through his passion and love for what he does. He describes in detail the search within himself for the age-old question of why? Why does he run? The overall tone of the book is one of inspiration. Just through describing his physical & mental ups and downs he captures the absolute essence of pushing the human body to its limit. He is trying to tell his personal journey and through it inspire others. I personally enjoyed this book for its honesty. As a person determined to try to push my own limits in running, I found the unwavering devotion to the the sport extremely inspiring. He never lost touch with his love for nature or the beauty of the mountains. It made me contemplate how fortunate I am to be able to move my body and be able to enjoy beautiful places along the way. If you are someone interested in feats of endurance or in getting inspired to push your own limits, then I would definitely recommend reading this book. It’s written by someone who just loves to run. It doesn’t contain a definite story line or the words of an experienced writer, but what it does contain is passion, dedication, suffering and a great love for running which surpasses the need to compete and rises into something much greater than just sport. “You don’t need to compete to be able to feel the intense emotion of finishing, the excitement of crashing through the finish tape. It is a happiness you alone feel as you experience that strength powering you to succeed.” ~Kilian Jornet~...
Get scared.
“Do one thing everyday that scares you.” Eleanor Roosevelt Last week I decided to accept this challenge. I chose to go trail running at night… solo. Now I love running trails solo, but have never ventured out into the night on the trails. I have journeyed out into early morning darkness, but that was based on the knowledge that the darkness would quickly turn to the lovely golden light that brings with it feelings of safety and confidence. This run was going to be very different, it was going to start in darkness and end in darkness. There would be no warming glow of safe sunshine, just the bubble of light cast from my headlamp. I tried to keep my focus within this little bubble of light, not thinking so much of what might be happening outside of it, what might be scurrying in the depths of the forest or peering at me from the darkness with vision more accustomed to nightlife. I left the house that night, reached the car and turned right back towards the front door, but just before I reached it, I forced myself to stop, turn the other direction and head right back to the car. “Just go!” When I actually got to the start of the trail and started running the first section, which runs parallel to the highway, the presence and light cast from passing cars gave me a sense of security. Somehow I convinced myself to just run to the top of the section, before it spit me into the forest. “Just cut it short it’s okay” I told myself. But the closer I got to top I couldn’t let myself be that easily persuaded, I knew I would regret not following through. So into the dark forest I went. Shouting and clapping as I went, I refused to look behind me, which I often do on trail runs during the day to make sure I am not in the way of oncoming bikers or faster runners. But this time I knew if I looked behind I would see only a few feet of light cast by my headlamp and then darkness. In all honesty the only fear I had that night was of large animals that may be roaming looking for a night-time snack, and I did not want to surprise anything that was out on the trails looking for food. My mind mostly turned to cougars which frequent this particular area of town. I had to keep telling myself that the only difference on the trails at night is the absence of light; there was nothing out to get...
The Runners High
“What the hell was that?” Breathless, I sat beside Spring as we got into the car. Spring spoke but there was a dull ringing in my ears that muted her voice. Eventually I heard her say “something got into you eh? You just took off, how long were you waiting for me at the end?”. We drove home and pulled into our driveway. Spring got out, she noticed that I wasn’t following and asked “Are you coming?”. I responded “In a few minutes”. I needed to understand what had happened. Where my mind had gone. Before distractions dulled this experience and reduced it to something imagined at a later point in the day. Like a dream, precisely like a dream to be exact, I needed to not let this memory fade into the ether now that I had regained composure, regained consciousness. I looked at the running app on my phone. I had run the fastest split time for that distance in my life, at least 25% faster than when I had ran the same trail and distance a few days prior. I rejoined Spring in our apartment; “I think that was it” I said, “I think that was a runners high”. This experience happened some months ago. In the period between then and now I have battled with whether I should write about it or not. I’ve written drafts of this post and then scrapped them. I’m skeptical by nature. I spend my leisure time in the mountains and take calculated risks. The key point is that these activities require me to be calculated, to evaluate the hard evidence, to mitigate dangers and to move safely through the terrain. There’s no room there for flights of fancy or the unquantifiable. I like the raw honesty of the wild and the trust I can put in those experiences. Rock is hard, Ice is cold and the Mountains are eternally indifferent. I’ve heard of climbers refer to being in “the zone” but it always sounded foolish to me. Nobody plans a trip and says “ok, when we get to the base of this climb we’ll enter The Zone and then climb effortlessly to the summit”. It sounds farcical. The sporadic nature of accounts about this heightened state of awareness naturally leads one to be skeptical. Yet I couldn’t deny my own experience. That state I was in while running was not normal consciousness, it was not a normal level of awareness. It was different. I’d read about the purported “runners high” before. It always seemed like marketing fluff to sell more race tickets or running shoes. Or just another way...
