works of wanderlust

Category: running & adventure

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

  • My Winter Runs Need to Get a Grip

    Sunday Run Day and for the first time in two months I took part in a group run with a small cohort of friends.

    Our locality has been on pandemic-related lockdown since late November, and all my runs have been solo. But COVID-related hospitalizations have been down. New case numbers have been declining. And the doctors say we can ease gently away from some of the stricter restrictions… like avoiding all non-essential personal contact. In other words, we can run together again.

    Of course, it also happens to be that we are in the middle of winter. In the middle of a cold snap. In the middle of temperatures averaging minus twenty and offering up moderate quantities of snow.

    Over a series of early morning text messages we pushed our usual eight-thirty meetup time by a couple hours to tempt the sun’s generosity. Also, given that it’s been months since we’ve seen each other in person, it was decided that a location more interesting than the regular high school parking lot was on the table for debate.

    Luckily I never take my grips out of the backseat of my truck in the winter, and when we converged in a river valley parking lot to engage the single-track snow-bound trails therein I easily added some necessary traction to my street sneakers.

    Some winters I splurge and buy myself winter trainers. They are extra grippy and have a bit more insulation. It makes it necessary to get out into the rough for longer, colder runs for a season or two … y’know, to justify the cost.

    But in a pinch, a pair of, wrap-on traction grips will substitute.

    We ran.

    Into the trails.

    Across a bridge.

    Into a meadow.

    Up and down, left and right.

    Between towering poplar dusted with snow.

    Eight kilometers later, twisting and turning through trail packed by a hundred other feets and a few dozen fat-bike tires, threaded between fresh knee-deep snow, we had logged the first group run of 2021.

    I missed those.

  • Gear: Garmin Fenix 3

    I’ve owned and used my current GPS watch for the better part of four years.

    But before you read this know that the Fenix 3 is far from the latest model of Garmin’s multisport watch. Also know that I’m not a “latest and greatest” kind of guy, usually sticking with the “tried and true” until I absolutely need an upgrade.

    Still, of the three models I’ve used, the Fenix has by far been my favourite.

    It’s climbed mountains.

    It’s competed triathlon.

    It’s logged half and full marathons.

    It’s plotted a thousand and more runs, rides, and other sports.

    It’s been a couple years since, but I used to get pulled in to our local running clinics and asked to give a talk for new runners about effectively using technology while running.

    Watches, apps, software, etc.

    When I started this there were only a small number of sport tracking watches on the market and I could easily answer the question of “which one should I buy?” Today there are multiple brands and as many as a dozen current models per brand. That’s a tougher question.

    I look for a few simple things, and would want similar features in an upgrade:

    Fast start-to-running time. From when I turn on the watch outside to when I can start running needs to be quick. Pre-pandemic, when I still ran with a sizable group, there was a clear difference between the good watches and the cheap watches. Solo, this just means waiting around on your own to start. In a group, it could mean the group is waiting around on you.

    Connectivity with my phone. I used to need to plug in my old watches to a dock and upload the tracking files to a computer. This was only something I could do at home. The Fenix has let me upload wirelessly via my phone, which is not only precious ability on those Sunday morning runs sharing our route over coffees, but while traveling the world has let me log hikes and walks and races long before coming home to rest.

    Long battery life. The photo in this post was taken while backpacking near Lake Louise, Alberta, on a day hike circumnavigating Mount Skoki. If I recall, this took about six hours with breaks. I had used the watch in the days before on our fourteen hour ascent up the mountain and on another six-plus hour hike. A cheap watch will get you through the four or five hours of a slow marathon. A better watch will take you up an all day mountain climb.

  • Maybe It’s Cold Outside?

    It’s Sunday Runday, and I’m going to stay in and ride the stationary bike.

    I woke up and looked at the temperature as I was letting the dog out at 6am. It was twenty degrees below zero with a brisk wind.

    Also, it snowed. Snowed lightly covering up the layer of glassy ice covering a double-digit percentage of the sidewalks.

    And… whimper, whine, whimper…

    The truth of it is I wouldn’t have run today anyhow. Injury happens. It happened to me. And even little blips, like when you slip and slide on the ice (but don’t fall) and crank a muscle in your lower back and no matter how much you stretch it and work it there is a angry little knot there that is going to take a solid week to go away before you can stand up one hundred percent straight again. Oh, and don’t muck with back injuries.

    It’s Sunday Runday, and it’s my double-excuse day.

    Too cold.

    Too injured.

    Too much of an opportunity to get on the bike and do some low impact cross-training instead of running outdoors in the ice and snow and wind and cold.

  • squall

    Inverted silhouettes of trees in the fog.

    as the door clicked shut
    my headlamp broadcast a stark beam
    slicing a path through the winter dark

    as I took my first steps
    my watch reached skyward for a signal
    tracking my pace across the icy walks

    as I started to run
    my face caught the sudden rush of wind
    sensing the winter air stirring ahead in the park

    as I felt the sleet
    my skin braced to the bluster crescendo
    wincing at sudden needles of assaulting ice

    as I turned back
    my heart sunk at the lost moment
    pondering my fortunes timing for not departing earlier

    - bardo

    I set out at about 730pm last night for a short evening run. From the time I shut the door to the time I warmed up my watch and started running, a rare winter storm, a blustery squall, had descended upon us and the still evening streets turned to sleet-pelted wind tunnels ... all without warning. It was all I could do to retreat back to the house as I was hammered with sleet.

    I have reserved some space on this blog each week to write some fiction, poetry, or prose. Writing a daily blog could easily get repetitive and turn into driveling updates. Instead, Wordy Wednesdays give me a bit of a creative nudge when inspiration strikes.

  • Iceland: Chasing Waterfalls

    I snapped close to ten thousand photos over the course of not-quite-two weeks travelling around Iceland in 2014, and disproportional number of those pics included waterfalls.

    for whatever one photo is worth:

    Skógafoss is a huge waterfall on the Skógá River in the very southern bulge of Iceland. It was one of the first big waterfalls we saw on our trip along the ring road of the island and notable not just because it is an impressive waterfall, but having climbed up the slick and narrow path to overlook the crest I saw something even more interesting.

    A trailhead.

    On my visit I wasn’t carrying much more than a camera bag, but others sharing the trail with me were lugging much more substantial loads. Backpacking gear. Obvious overnighting equipment. Crampons. Warm clothes. As I turned to climb back down after snapping my photos, they were hopping over a low barrier and setting out on a serious backpacking trip.

    The Fimmvorduhals Trail (as I researched later) is one of many incredible adventures in Iceland. From what I can tell it is part of an extensive hiking and backpacking network in that country and people come from all over to walk them.

    To be perfectly honest, until I saw those people trekking outbound from where we had stopped for a tourist break, it had not occurred to me that there might be some seriously awesome backpacking to be had in Iceland. We were going to explore by car with the family including my (at the time) seven year old and her grandparents.

    To be even more honest, it hasn’t left my mind as a backpacking trip I’d love to take on. Sooner than later. Had there not been a global pandemic, it was actually an idea I’d floated with a friend for this upcoming summer to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. It inspired me to see those people setting out, and a pang of jealousy has always stuck like a splinter in my brain that I got back into an SUV and drove on while they set off into the wilds for something far more epic.

    This picture, then, as simple and beautiful as it looks is actually hiding a personal point of interest for me: it’s the trailhead of one of my bucket list hikes.