works of wanderlust

Category: running & adventure

My sport involves feet and trails and moving one quickly across the other.

  • That [insert adjective here] Guy

    Earlier this evening we went for a winter holiday walk with a small group of friends. A couple streets tucked away in various places around the city decorate to the nines and attract curious light-lookers to wander and glimpse the decorations.

    It wasn’t my idea but I organized it.

    I organize a lot of things for my group of friends.

    Without asking how would
    people describe you in 2021?

    I’d describe myself as mostly modest, but if you asked a dozen or so people who like lacing up and running local trails all year long I think they’d probably describe me as the guy that keeps it all together.

    It’s a small thing. I set up run plans. I plot summer adventures. I make sure there are occasional social events. I’ve organized snowshoe outings. I’ve ensured that numerous beer nights have seen maximum raised glasses. I have everyone’s birthday in my calendar.

    Small things. Itty bitty. Clinging firmly to a tiny group of friends and holding it all together.

    Small, but maybe important. At least that’s how I’d like to think they’d describe it.

  • We Interrupt this Training Plan for …

    Sunday Runday, and I woke up to a skiff of fresh overnight snow and a minus twenty world out my front door.

    Yeah, you read that right: -20C. (Not even mentioning the “feels like” -33C wind chill estimate that accompanied the forecast on my weather app.)

    As I was eating my breakfast, one of my running partners (who is a government meteorologist) texted me at 7am with the (I assume) professional advice of “stay warm, I will not be out this morning…”

    And then I did the thing I’ve done too often this past year and a half…

    What do you wish you’d done
    less of this past year?

    … I tried to get out of my run.

    Sure, it was the coldest day of the season to-date, and sure, I’ve been feeling a little lazy since slowly nursing a sore heel back to health.

    But the last twenty-one months has been full of countless excuses to curl up in a ball on the couch and ignore the realities of life, the universe and everything. Who hasn’t wanted to do exactly that? Sometimes multiple times per day.

    This morning as I looked at the outside temperature, as stuck my barefoot out the back door, as I let the dog out at quarter past six in the biting cold, I immediately started thinking of additional excuses to stay home in my pajamas and curl up on the couch with a coffee and Netflix … y’know, instead of doing a training run.

    I didn’t stay home.

    I wanted to bail.

    But the text message thread the followed left me feeling guilty that one of my other partners had already left his house and was en route to our meeting place. I complied. I layered up in my warmest gear, dug a fuzzy buff and an extra pair of wooly mittens from the cupboard, and made my way in my truck (switching on the 4×4 for the treacherous roads) over to the nearby parking lot from where we usually leave. Nine klicks later of slogging through the cold and snow and wind. The sun was barely cracking the horizon and as it lifted over the frosty treeline just to the side of the path a beautiful winter sunrise cracked a bit of the cold and offered a hint of apricity against the brutal, biting freeze. A cold run. A run at the limit of my cold threshold. Weather that literally hurts. We ran for nearly an hour with frost clinging to our lashes and ice crusting on the brims of our toques.

    I wanted to bail, bail like I’ve done a few too many times this past span of time, but this time I did not. I ran. I froze. I kept running. And ultimately I returned to the warmth of a hot cup of coffee and some good conversation. But I wanted to bail nonetheless.

    In 2021 I wish I’d done a little less of that wanting to skip the things that used to be the highlights of my everydays, runs, and adventuring, and getting out and about. I know there have been great excuses, often even mandates and strict rules enforcing those same reasons, but I wish I’d had less opportunity to slip into whatever pattern it has created for me and left me thinking first of a reason not to do something than the former excitement that launched me off that couch and into the world.

    I don’t know for sure how to do that less, but I think it’s worth aspiring to.

  • Them Feets

    Sunday Runday, and I didn’t.

    For a whole week I’ve been sidelined by a heel ailment that I’ve self-diagnosed as a touch of plantar fasciitis, or runner’s heel.

    Them feets!

    The thing is that I’m supposed to run a half marathon in a little more than a month.

    The thing is that I need to keep in half marathon shape while not exacerbating an injury that could take a couple weeks to recover.

    Them feets!

    The thing is I’m a stubborn guy and I’m having trouble sitting it out. Resting. Healing.

    I have a stationary bike in my basement tho, so while my running crew plodded out on the winter trails I descended to my little exercise space and spun out twenty klicks of aerobic fitness.

    Them feets!

    Then I met the runners for coffee where we can actually, finally, go inside and sit for a bit at the local recreation centre, proof of vaccination required, and all in all not quite back to normal, but close enough.

    The countdown is on to race day and I’ll cross that finish line, hell or high water. Right now, tho, it might be with a limp rather than a leap.

  • Three Cheers for Traction

    Having run for well over a decade in the ever changing seasons of the Canadian prairies I have fought many battles with the hardened warrior otherwise known as winter trail conditions.

    Ankle-deep fresh snow. Ice-slickened asphalt. Road slop like oatmeal or worse, dirty slush.

    It is only November yet already the paths have become an assortment of challenging terrain …

    … except that back in the late summer I bought a pair of trail shoes.

    They haven’t been a perfect winter shoe, but they have made tackling the traction obstacles a formidable challenge rather than an impassible barrier. Unlike my summer sneakers or even previous winter runners I’ve owned, there is a remarkable surefooted stability to be found even in deep snow and icy patches on the sidewalks that I’ve struggled to find elsewhere. I’m sold, and even pullover spikes or other traction offerings that I’ve used over the years don’t seem to fall into a comparable classification as having tested my trail shoes through the abrupt arrival of winter weather this past week.

    So I ordered a second pair yesterday.

    Kinda. Sorta. Almost.

    The summer version, which I own, is a light and responsive shoe meant for muddy paths and navigating narrow gravel trails.

    The winter version, that second-ish pair now en route to my house, is a waterproof, insulated version of the same shoe but with grippier soles designed to take on those cold and epic winter conditions and a warmer approach to footwear.

    Ice and snow will become far less of an excuse this winter.

    I mean, I say that now… ask me again when it’s dark, icy, and minus forty degrees outside this January.

  • Sky Light, Sky Bright

    A few nights ago (back when I was still wallowing in the afterglow of a turkey dinner and mentally preoccupied by an upcoming puppy surgery) I was laying in bed, reading, when my phone buzzed on my nightstand.

    “Northern lights are aglow tonight if any of you are still up.” One of my running crew posted on the group chat.

    I rushed to the backyard and did not see this.

    Instead, I saw the wisps of some green light over the tops of the trees in my backyard and the roofs of the houses that back onto ours. Hints. Not actually anything worth remarking upon.

    I was already settled, garbed in my pajamas, and tired … so I went back to bed.

    When I woke up the next morning another running friend had shared the included photo on the group chat. He lives a few blocks away from me, but apparently has a much better northern view.

    I was in the backyard tonight again for a few minutes, looking upwards and hoping that the northern lights might make a reappearance. All the night sky had to offer me though was a few bright constellations. Cassiopeia. Ursa Major.

    But no more northern lights.

    Alas, earlier this week the solar winds crashing against the atmosphere offered us a one night show … and I missed it.