Category: running & adventure

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

  • March Melt in the River Valley

    So desperately am I looking forward to two things: being able to travel further than my neighbourhood and the now-six-month-old puppy being able to tackle a long hike.

    Adventure journal.

    The spring is being generous to us this year.

    Last year (and I remember this specifically because it was the first couple weeks of local lockdown and I was keenly aware of the weather and the time I spent outside because of being stuck at home) we had a slow, wet March melt.

    The snow lingered. The ice slipped up the sidewalks. Regular dustings of snow teased a late spring.

    And I didn’t yet have a six month old puppy who needed long daily walks.

    I live in a city of almost a million people, but I doubt more than ten thousand of them delve very deep at all into our local wilderness.

    The local municipal government made some smart decisions a number of years back and created a kind of zoning exclusion to private development along the river. There are some houses and properties grandfathered in, but for nearly fifty kilometers of river it is managed wilderness, threaded with asphalt paths, single track trails, foot bridges, parking access, picnic areas, and boat launches. The single connected system has been calculated to be twenty-two times the size of Central Park in New York City.

    And we live a ten minute walk from any of about six nearby access points.

    I Took the Afternoon Off.

    The dog needed a long walk as much as I did.

    We slipped into one of the lesser known river valley access points, the kind where you step onto a gravel trail between some houses tucked into the back corner of the neighbourhood, then your take the left fork away from the main trail and out into what seems to be a small strip of unused agricultural land, follow a narrow single track trail into the trees and then wander your way down a moderate descent to the main asphalt path.

    I’ve walked (or run) it a hundred times.

    It was new territory for the pup.

    And I was being cautious, of course.

    The pup is still not fully grown, and she’ll always be somewhat small. Evidence of coyote scat leftover from the winter was all over the place. I’ve seen the wild hounds out there a few times, too. She wouldn’t make much more than a snack for one of them, though they’d be fighting me tooth and nail to get ahold of her. Fortunately they didn’t seem to be lurking nearby and are generally timid critters. We’re going to have an encounter eventually, though. It’s their habitat and I built my house on it. But it doesn’t mean we don’t keep a couple pairs of eyes and ears on alert even when we’re enjoying our walk.

    The ground was squishy and the air was fresh.

    As I said he March melt has been particularly generous to us this year. The temperatures were in the mid-teens and the wispy clouds let enough sunshine through to make the day more than enjoyable, particularly after that long, long winter.

    But mounds of unmelted snow still huddled in the shady bits.

    And the ground was soft and soggy where drainage was less cooperative.

    The mud caked on my pant cuffs and also in the tuffs of fur around the pup’s ankles.

    We trekked down through my familiar route, into the valley and meeting up with the trail where more people had the same Friday afternoon idea as I.

    Five kilometers later we had circled back to the house, both tired but refreshed from the spring air, and had a small collection of photos to swipe through as we dozed together on the couch.

  • Gone Fishin’ (Part Zero)

    A lot of my story-posts begin with “back when I was a kid” because back when I was a kid we did a lot of things that were low-cost, time-burning ways to entertain kids in the local wilderness, a lifestyle that appeals more and more to me as I get a bit older.

    So it should be no surprise to say that back when I was kid we frequently went fishing…

    … and I’ve been thinking about that lately.

    As an adult I’ve let this once-hobby lapse a little bit.

    Well, a lot, to be honest.

    In fact, it’s been three years since I bought myself a sports fishing license, a permit to drop a hook for non-protected fish species within the provincial rivers and lakes (excluding National Parks!) I haven’t made it a priority.

    Also, as my wife reminded me when I told her that I was planning on putting a little more time and effort into fishing this upcoming season, the last time I went out I broke the tip off my fishing rod. So, technically, I’ve had no license nor a functional fishing rod.

    This morning I changed that narrative and dropped some money on my fishing plans making it all official.

    First, fishing Licenses for the 21/22 season went on sale at 9am, and I’m now legal to fish in the province of Alberta, from pulling a pike from the mud-hued river that is a thirty minute walk from my front door to snagging a rainbow trout from any deep lake in the foothills of the rocky mountains.

    Second, a fishing rod repair kit should be arriving via Amazon Prime delivery by Saturday afternoon and I can spend a few minutes (or maybe hours) making sure my old equipment is closer to prime condition for some spring and summer angling.

    More camping. More outdoors. More rivers and lakes. Less computer screens. As much as I’ve enjoyed this past winter, spring can’t come soon enough.

    Now if I manage to catch anything, I suppose the biggest question will be what’s the best cast iron pan for frying up some fresh fish, huh?

  • #RunClub : New Season, New Plans

    Sunday Runday, and for my #RunClub approaching spring is usually a time of ramping up our training, distances, and intensities for all those summer races.

    By mid-March of 2020 we were swimming in a kind of moving goalpost of uncertainty. Races were being cancelled without much warning. There was always a sense of… well, we’ll see how things look in a month or so.

    As mid-March of 2021 approaches, nearly a year into the local reaction to the global pandemic, our uncertainty is a lingering aftershock of the past twelve months… mixed with hopeful optimism… sprinkled with a dash of we’re all kinda used to this now, right?

    Last summer our “coffee club with a running problem” moved our weekly meetings to the parking lot of the recreation center (closed to general access) where we had been meeting to run for nearly a decade.

    A club that was usually twenty to thirty members strong, accustomed to weekly Sunday morning takeovers of the local café, found itself instead quietly gathering in lawn chairs over asphalt drinking take-out coffees near the bumpers of our vehicles while we observed social distancing rules.

    Then winter hit.

    ….and the deep, dark, cold lockdown happened.

    Me out there running solo was a thing for at least three months. Coffees were virtual, hugging a mug at home and staring into the familiar glow of my iPad for a visit via screen. It’s only been in the last couple weeks that the weather has cracked through the zero degree barrier and made resuming the coffee club meetings in the local parking lot a real possibility.

    Which is the noteworthy thing about today, I guess.

    This Sunday last year was normal: races being planned, training being sorted, coffees being shared in close company.

    Next Sunday last year was when all that normal-ness shattered.

    We sat in our lawn chairs in the parking lot this morning after a ten klick run, wrapped in blankets and huddled in hoodies, sipping take-out coffees. It felt normal… which is the strangest part, because it still is so not normal.

    A new season of not normal.

    And I don’t know how to plan for that.

  • An Intro to Running with Dogs

    Another Sunday Runday, and for the last couple weeks one of my small run crew cohort has joined us on the trails with her faithful canine running partner. A two-year old collie, her human leader (one of my long-time running friends) has spent a lot of effort training the dog on harness and leash to run at a steady pace beside her.

    Which reminded me…

    A couple months before I kicked off this blog we welcomed a new addition to our household. The pictured pup is a little more than five months old, a Miniature Australian Shepherd, and full of spit and fire.

    I’m hoping she’ll be a runner some day.

    I’m hoping that this spring we’ll find out.

    It was specifically one of the questions I asked the breeder: How will she run?

    Oh, she’ll keep up with you. She’s not short on energy.

    All that said, we’ve done some quick sprints on our walks to give her a taste of moving faster than a stroll, but five months is too young to properly begin distance training with a dog.

    Most online research I’ve done on this topic suggests a puppy should be at least six months old to begin a proper training program, and (not coincidentally) her veterinarian just happens to be one of my running crew so I’ll be getting proper professional clearance before we begin.

    Still, running alongside a well-trained running dog this morning got me itching for the spring thaw… just in time to start thinking about how to introduce my favourite energetic pup to my favourite outdoor sport.

  • Overnight on Public Lands

    The province where I live currently has over eleven thousand square kilometres of public lands that are available for a variety of recreational activities, including cross-country skiing, backpacking, and overnight camping.

    Sadly, much of that land is at least three or four hours of driving away… so nothing is close enough for a quick weekend getaway, at least not without some substantial planning.

    With everyone sticking closer to home due to lingering travel restrictions, it seems like a lot of the so-called official campsites are (like last year) likely to be booked up quickly by the RV crowd. We enjoy our share of backpacking, though, and it seems like it might be the summer to jump with both feet into the backcountry, random, boondocking-style of camping and see where that takes us.

    I thought it would be useful for both my readers, and my future self, to write a post where I compile some resources and thoughts on the topic.

    Resources

    Public Land Use (an Overview for Alberta, Canada) is the official government website detailing many of the places, rules, and parameters of those who choose to stray from the well-travelled path and forge their own adventure.

    Alberta Parks Random Backcountry Camping is a guide from another branch of the government with some more plain language guides, rules, and hints for where and how to camp outside of designated campsites.

    Beginners Guide to Public Land Camping is an adventure blog where they have already done some resource gathering for this topic. I’m not necessarily saying go there and check their list first … but I did.

    How to Camp Respectfully is another blog-like site with a great run down of how to get away from everyone else who is trying to get away from it all and find some backcountry camping solitude with respect for the land.

    Permits in 2021?

    I'll continue to add-to and update this post as I do more research on the topic.