Animal House II: The Tenquille Invasion
“Are you guys all from Whistler?” I asked. He finished chugging another Pilsner and shouted out: “Yeah buddy, how’d you know?” I smiled as a reply and kept walking, past the Canadian Tire Queen sized inflatable mattress floating in the lake with somebody passed out on top of it, the shotgun and shells, the brewery worth of beer cans, the frenzied pack of dogs, the bleary eyed girlfriends wearing swimsuits that might have originally fit them some time back around ‘95, the Brahs tomahawking hatchets at the nearest tree trunk as if training for Z-Day, wearing board shorts, 5 dollar shades and baseball caps with comedy sized flat brims (still nonplussed by the sticker) Yes, yes, we had arrived, along with approximately 60 other people, 3 babies, 10 dogs and 8 mountain bikes at the Tenquille Lake Recreation Site to bask in the glorious death throes of Summer, long may she rest in peace. Getting here had been no mean feat for our 2WD jalopy. It had developed a mean cough in its muffler somewhere along the 4WD section of the Birkenhead River-Tenquille Creek Branch FSR. As we crawled through the water bars, giving the belly of our steed a good scratch I thought the lady doth protest too much. Eventually though we realized that she was hobbling along slower than we could actually walk this road, so we parked about 3km’s back from the Trailhead. Indeed, we walked at the same speed or faster than other 4WD vehicles on the road, overtaking them at the waterbars. Do yourself a favour, bike the road. Unless your truck is seriously jacked, you will be crawling it. A bike would be faster on the way in, and way faster and more fun on the way out. We made short order of the trail itself. It looks like somebody is trying to reroute the old trail away from all the muddy sections that have become hilariously braided. This rerouting is creating a bit of chaos as there are now branches off the main trail everywhere. We talked to some guys who had tried to hike in the previous night, took a wrong branch, and ended up back at their trucks via a different trail a few hours later, wherein they decided to camp instead for the night. Another aside, cross to the other side of the lake outflow on the way in for the shorter and easier trail to the cabin. Over the weekend we summited Tenquille, Finch Ridge, Copper Mound and McLeod. All nice, hands in pockets, rambles in the Class 2 range. Views were pleasant. Some MTB’rs got heli-dropped onto...
Running the Arc’teryx Squamish 50 23k
Photos by Lesley Morgan Loree Photos by Lesley Morgan Loree On Saturday, the 10th of August, I ran in my first ever race, road or trail, the “Squamish 50” 23k. It’s called the Squamish 50 as the main race is 50 miles long, but they also offer variants of the course that are 50km’s and 23km’s in length. Spring, the other half of pebbleshoo, ran in the 50km, a mammoth achievement, and will be posting her thoughts on that also. If you’ve been following this blog you might remember I posted about my reasons to run this race back in January, you can read that original post here: Twenty Three Well, did I hit my goal of losing 23lbs in weight? No. I did not. I’m around 15lbs lighter. I guess something changed between writing that initial post and actually running the race. Weight loss is still happening but I don’t frequently monitor my weight so it isn’t like I’ve set weight loss goals and am keeping track that I’m hitting them. I imagined I might lose around 23lbs by the race simply by being very active. I guess my body is happy with its current weight and doesn’t want it to drop much lower for now. Another aspect is that I don’t like feeling hungry. It’s an unnecessary mental distraction. Since January and when I wrote that first post about signing up for this race I’ve been doing a lot more Skiing, Mountain Biking and Rock Climbing, as well as some Backpacking and Mountaineering. Primarily though, compared to the last 3 years, I’ve cut back on Backpacking and spent a lot more of the Spring and Summer Mountain Biking and Rock Climbing. Generally, when my body is losing weight quickly, I feel hungry. When climbing it made me feel weak and when biking it made me feel shaky. This wasn’t good. I decided that I’d rather feel satiated and enjoy learning to get better at these activities than spend time thinking about food I could be eating. It seems to be working. I’m eating enough and I’m still losing weight, it’s just very, very slow. What has helped is that rather than reducing the quantity of food I was consuming I’ve changed the quality of it. I’m eating a lot more organic fruits and vegetables. I’ve cut out a lot of dairy as well, I consume no milk anymore (replaced it with Almond milk), I eat a little cheese and yogurt and trace amounts of butter. I’ve also cut back on wheat, refined sugars and canned foods. You might have noticed above that I didn’t mention running as...
Good Days and Bad Days
So I should be stretching right now, but I wanted to write up a quick post while I am still sweaty and still feeling the sting of being slightly frustrated during my run. That’s right, today was one of those days with running. I think it’s important to talk about the not so great days, because it gives me focus to see what I can work on and helps me to remember that I am just human after all. There is usually a reason for the bad run - not hydrating properly, not eating adequately or eating at the wrong time, not getting a good nights sleep, along with a whole myriad of other reasons. However, the reason I bring this up is not to highlight the fact that if you run long enough you will experience those bad days, but to highlight the mental consequences of these runs. When all we look at is the achievements of other people it can be very inspiring; but it makes it hard to understand the process both physically and mentally of getting to that state. Which is why it is valuable to share when everything doesn’t just fall into place. This helps us to analyze the process, stop trying to explain away the poor performance and really learn from the mistakes which in turn makes us a better runner. Sometimes there is simply no reason for a bad run, other than the fact that it was bad run. I stopped trying to convince myself that running is always fun, it’s not. I stopped trying to convince myself that running should be easy, it’s not. That’s right, I said it. You are going to have the days where you don’t feel like running, where you don’t meet the distance you set out to or when you stop midway in a run and just turn home. But it’s ok! We are all living bodies and we are not some machine that can be turned on and off when required to work. It’s just a part of life and we are all subject to life’s little hiccups, it’s what keeps it interesting. Part way through my run today, I was feeling tired, my legs were heavy as lead and was I frustrated I couldn’t run up the hill that only last week I flew up. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths and reminded myself where I was. Opening my eyes I could see the sun stream through the giant pine and cedar trees, lighting up the ferns blanketing the ground below, the sweet scent of summer leaves in the air. I could...
My 3 Day Food Cleanse Experience
I recently started a new job working for an organic grocery delivery company. As someone who tries to be as active as possible and has a goal of running a 50km trail race this summer, I focus a lot on how I fuel my body, so organics seemed right up my alley as I truly believe in clean, natural sustainable produce as the best form of food. Fast forward to 1 month in at the new job and there was discussion at work about doing an office cleanse. I have never actually done a cleanse before and was intrigued at the thought of it. In the past I have read articles about cleansing and discovered that a lot of people spoke of a clarity of mind and intense focus that came as a result of doing a cleanse; this interested me enough to want to give it a try. However, I knew that I couldn’t do it for long as I didn’t want it to interfere with my training…I can’t run without food in my body! After talking it over at work we decided that we would all choose the cleanse of our choice, I opted for a 3 day juice cleanse. I made sure to research to ensure I was doing it right, such as drinking alkaline juices in the morning/evening and a juice with a higher sugar content in the afternoon. Recently my other half and I have been adding veggie juices almost daily to our diet (partly motivated from watching the documentary Fat Sick & Nealy Dead) so the thought of juicing wasn’t new to me; but could I do it for 3 days straight, that was the question. Here is a quick look back at how I did over those 3 days. Day 1: As a 1 cup a day coffee drinker it was a bit tough to start the day without a coffee and it was a Monday as well *ugh*. As I read when researching for the cleanse, a cup of hot water with lemon is a great way to stimulate the digestive system, flush toxins and re-hydrate you after an 8 hour night of fasting; so this is how I decided to start my morning. To be honest I actually felt a little bit queasy after this drink, but went ahead with making myself a morning juice. I was making a juice with mint so hoped it would settle my stomach a bit. Mighty Mint Juice 1 Lemon 1/4 Cucumber 1 Handful Chard 0r Spinach 1 Bunch Mint 1/2 Apple I left for work not feeling too bad, but my head...
Look how far you have come!
“Every pro was once an amateur. Every expert was once a beginner. So dream big and start now.” - Robin Sharma Sometimes it’s good to look back at the point you started from to appreciate where you are now. The other day on my long run I was thinking back to where I was, in regards to fitness and running, about 4 years ago. Back then I couldn’t even run 1 mile without stopping several times. Even 10-15 minutes of constant running felt like such a challenge. Running a marathon had not even crossed my mind and to be honest would have seemed like a pretty crazy idea at the time. Fast forward to today and I am running hours non-stop as part of a training program that will hopefully have me running 50km this August. Everybody starts at the beginning. This is so important to remember. When decided to get back into running I discovered a lot about myself and hit a few personal roadblocks on the way. Several runs ended in tears of frustration and utter disappointment in myself. All I could think about was why couldn’t I run faster, better, longer? I was pushing my body to try to do something I had not taken the time to train it to do and I was getting angry at myself in the process. “Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.” - John Acuff Today, I am happy to say that I have mellowed out quite a lot in my expectations of myself (notice I didn’t say completely mellowed out, of course I still have self doubting moments). Time (and inevitably getting older in the process), I believe, has a lot to do with this mellowing process. My focus has shifted from trying to be fast for the sake of being fast, to asking myself what I get out of running. Now it is more about the joy that it gives me, the personal satisfaction I feel and the feeling of solitude and freedom. “Set goals you can achieve, and do not fear walking or simply taking a day off from the sport if you feel you need a mental or physical break. Even at the top of my racing form, I walk steep uphills and take 5 minutes during a long run to enjoy the view atop a hill.” - Ultrarunner Nikki Kimball I have slowly discovered how to get my body to do things that I never would have imagined possible just a few short years ago. All it takes is time and a lot of effort! Never stop because you feel like you can’t...
