Category: running & adventure

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

  • The Mystery of Big Island (Part Two)

    Almost three months ago to this day, readers, I introduced you to a local puzzle that I was hoping to solve. Big Island, to catch you up, is a modest chunk of river valley wilderness with a backstory that both intrigued the explorer in me and piqued the curious pathfinder that lives in the uncaged corners of my soul.

    I live a short(ish) walk from the winding North Saskatchewan River, a silty mountain-fed prairie waterway that snakes its way across the province and bisects the city in which I live.

    If you recall, the city leaders have built policy around the idea of preserving what they term a “ribbon of green” that is our river valley. They do this as a system of trails and public parks rivaling the accessible and recreational natural areas of most cities around the world. In fact, many locals often use the comparison to NYC’s Central Park of which Edmonton’s river valley is approximately twenty-two times the size, but spread across nearly fifty kilometers of riverbanks. Of course, preserving a public green space in the middle of Manhattan is a whole different scale of forethought compared to us just avoiding putting some suburban houses on the unpredictable steep cliffs and sandy soil sides of a prairie river, but don’t say that too loudly if you come to visit our river trails.

    I’ve had it in my head to explore south of this preserved system and beyond the city borders, particularly so when I learned that a few kilometers past the so-called “end of the trail” is an oxbow formation in the land, a place where the river once sharply bent and carved off a little bubble of land but has long since shortcut and left a quasi-island nestled into the edge of the same river valley.

    I’ve got maps and diagrams to explain all this in part one, and it is where I also explain that this little oxbow island, named Big Island, has a long secret local history and is now slated to become officially protected with a provincial park designation.

    All this, and yet no one really knows how to get there.

    Of Adventure Runs

    Having discovered that such a mystery exists, I got it into my head to find a way to visit.

    This past Wednesday evening I proposed an adventure to my running crew. Each Wednesday over the summer, after all, we meet to do an exploration run of some bit of local trail that few of us have previously visited. I asked, with couched expectations, if anyone was interested in trying to find a trail to Big Island.

    There were five of us who broke from the even, clear asphalt shortly after seven that evening, and climbed into a narrow stretch of single-track trail leading into the river valley woods along a route I’d often seen but never travelled.

    The heat was still lingering with a sweltering, humid hot that made the rolling trails even more of a challenge than they should have been. Yet, the rough trail, unchecked by anyone but the more hardcore of local adventurers, was mere scrambles of dirt and roots and bits of low vegetation swatting our ankles as we ran by trying not to trip or stumble down a steep bit of path and often grabbing onto trees or branches to keep from a fall.

    This path towards Big Island was not well-worn.

    And in fact, this turned out to not be a path to Big Island at all.

    With our phones in hand we plotted our location in the GPS map comparing our real time adventure to a satellite map of our intended destination. We estimated that at our nearest we were merely five hundred meters away from the shores of Big Island. But the path degraded into near non-existence, become a dense shrub-lined fox run at best, and at worst an anthill-infested maze not intended for a bunch of ill prepared runners in running shorts on a weekday evening schedule.

    We turned back, unable to reach our destination on the first attempt, everyone a bit disappointed but beyond fine with the adventure and attempt. Meanwhile I secretly plotted how part three of this mystery might unfold. Someday.

  • Gear: Skin 4 Hydration Vest

    As the summer runs get longer (and hotter) I’ve picked up a new bit of gear to assist with the ever-present runner’s dilemma: hydration.

    I don’t think I need to write too many words on the subject of why water is important to … um … being alive, but certainly the effort of carrying enough fresh water (or other fluids that both fuel and hydrate) on a long distance run is a complex challenge for anyone who is out there on the trails.

    Water, of course, is heavy and clumsy.

    A bottle in the hand is something that needs to be carried, balanced, and on the trails two free hands are more useful than one might realize. On a short run taking a small bottle along is just fine, but an hour into a longer run the last thing I want to be carrying is a half-full plastic bottle that’s sloshing around in my hand.

    I’ve used water belts in the past, but sloshing along with a couple plastic containers on your hip is a moderate inconvenience. And I have yet to do a race a not see multiple dropped belt-bottles littering the course, usually in the first five hundred meters of the race when someone’s carefully planned hydration plan is now just garbage and an obstacle for the next hundreds of people who run by.

    I’ve tried a couple hydration packs in the past, the key differences from a hydration vest being the kinds of shoulder straps and the location of pouches. A pack is basically a light backpack with a water pouch. And my biggest problem with my previous pack solution was that usually within ten kilometers into a run I was running with my thumbs hitched up under the thin straps to limit the whole apparatus from that chafe-inducing jostling that was already well underway.

    Last week I pried open my wallet and ordered myself what is probably the sports-car-equivalent of hydration solutions: a Salomon Skin 4 Hydration Vest, a snug fitting, light-weight, multi-pocket four-liter backpack-slash-vest designed to hold water bottles, a water bladder, gel packs, cell phones, car keys, and whatever else a distance runner might need quick access to while on the trails.

    The new pack arrived yesterday and I wore it for our regular Wednesday evening adventure run.

    The advantage of this pack, or so the logic of the purchase goes, is that it is snug. I have no honest comparison, but I assume it’s a little like wearing a sports bra overtop of a running shirt. This tight fit is both deliberate and a feature. It keeps the whole system from moving, shaking, jostling, and rubbing, and is meant to wear comfortably and securely for hours of running while keeping the hands free for trail navigation.

    Our adventure run took us deep into some rolling river valley trails, the kind of terrain where your legs are slapped by branches as bumble through the trails and as you scramble up over steep dirt paths, grabbing onto tree stumps and protruding roots. I only carried a bit of water, as it was a short sub-ten kilometer run, but a set of car keys, my wallet and an iPhone tucked neatly into the pack and

    … well … success!

    I barely noticed the pack after the first few minutes.

    A better test will come this weekend, as temperatures creep into the mid-30s Celsius and our distances move into the longer-than-a-half-marathon slogs through that same heat. I can’t say I’m not nervous about both the heat and the mileage, but at least now I’m pretty certain I won’t die of thirst.

    *This is gear I've purchased for myself and not a paid endorsement of this product.

  • Double Tap, Catching Up

    Sunday Runday and today I didn’t.

    I woke up nursing my second dose vaccine hangover, and feeling as tho I had just run a half marathon. The crew was due to run at least that much, so it didn’t take much convincing to ping everyone and let them know I was going to bail out.

    Of course, the problem with skipping a long run as your running partners keep the training schedule, is that there’s really no such thing as catching up. You either run or you don’t. You either train or you don’t. Outside of the racing, the only measuring stick is the one you hold up to yourself.

    In other words, I fell a little behind today, but got a bit ahead of that pesky virus.

    Hopefully I feel a little bit more like myself tomorrow.

  • Local Wayfinding

    We often joke with the running crew that among the group a few of us seem to have GPS chips in our brains: we’re really good at find routes and getting un-lost.

    But for those less gifted in the skillful navigation of unmarked paths, finding one’s way through the trails and wild spaces of the city can be a unique challenge and intimidating enough that some might choose to stay home rather than attempt it.

    This is why I’ve been delighted to see some new wayfinding signs appear on the paths near my house.

    Just a few weeks ago we ran by some concrete footings that were being installed for these new trail markers. I went for a walk this morning and a new trail marker with some basic navigation and trail information had been installed.

    Clear maps.

    Simple icons.

    Distances and destinations.

    Signs like these make it more clear that these spaces are meant to be explored and enjoyed, a symbol that is not always clear to everyone who lives here. Some people may be intimidated by the ribbon of asphalt that disappears into the trees. Still others may be newcomers to the city or even the country and not understand that trails like these are meant for all to enjoy.

    Wayfinding serves many purposes, but even for those of us who have built-in navigation instincts, they make these natural recreational spaces easier to enjoy when everyone can enjoy them together.

  • Social Distances

    Sunday Runday, and that familiar epic-tired-queezy feeling is settling in for the afternoon, and I don’t remember if it’s a good thing or the part of the long runs that I didn’t like.

    I hadn’t run more than a dozen kilometers in the better part of a year, certainly not over the winter, and during the heights of restrictions I was dutifully cranking out a ten klick run to keep up the milage, but last week we topped out at sixteen and this morning someone suggested adding a few more onto that.

    Nineteen kilometers of river valley trail later, I’ve showered, eaten lunch, and am sipping at a big glass of ice water, but still: Epic-tired. Queezy. So familiar.

    The restrictions opened up a little more this past week and we were able to be even a little more social running these longer distances, gathering in as big of a group of friends as I’ve been around in months, even if it was just ten of us in a parking lot lacing up for a long trot through the trails and trees, across bridges, and down winding, root-tangled dirt paths.

    Those kinds of distances evoke post-run feelings that I haven’t felt in almost a year. I have these people back again to urge me further and faster. So we do.

    But right now I think I might need a nap.