Because all the cool kids are doing it...

HEy.

2012-02-06T20:51:00.001-08:00

Thanks for all your kind comments on the previous post. They are much appreciated and give us strength. The move is over. I would like to say it was a piece of cake, but it wasn’t. Not to diminish anyone else's shitty move stories, I have to say it really was an incredible hard few days. It was so cold out that day, that leaving the door open in our old house froze the water in the toilet tank in the washroom 18’ away from the door. this took only 3 hours of open door to do.

It’s been a couple weeks now and we are a lot better. We have a long way to go, but we are planning and living. Ever since we bought our first house 10 years ago, we truly haven't owned anything. As of a few days ago, we don’t owe a penny to anyone. anywhere.

It’s a good feeling. I’m not sure I understand it yet, but I am sure I will get used to the idea.

I have been writing all night, detailing the entire story of the last 7 years in all it’s awful truth, but I am not sure this is the place to publish it. I may someday, maybe soon. I’ll have to get clearance from the boss, as we have plenty of local readers, and there is a stigma… I get that but sometimes it can be a source of strength for people, to see that they are not alone in their struggles. that’s the reason i would post it, to show that we are human beings and we are fallible, but there are options and there is help.

I am running again, and I am back at my old gym too! 3 days a week, group trainer session. Feels good!

Take care. Goodnight.

by the way, this is what winter looks like here right now…

We are moving in a few days…

2012-01-11T22:46:00.001-08:00

It will be pretty emotional I'm sure. We built this house, it was to be our dream house. It was originally a house to make up for the fact we couldn’t have kids of our own. We were D.I.N.K’s (double income no kids). We were living a dream life in suburbia. We weren’t happy tho. We went through the motions of life, but all along we were missing something. Pugs! Now we were D.I.L.D.O’s (Double income little dog owners). That was good for a while. But still we were missing a part of our life and at the time we didn’t know truly how much. After a miracle pregnancy and the subsequent loss of that pregnancy and all kinds of alternate therapies, we chose private adoption. We spent oodles of money for them to tell us all the disastrous things that can happen during the adoption process, then jumped through all the hoops to be accepted into the program, so that some unfortunate soul could choose us to give her baby to us the day it was born.

We were all ready. We filled out our order for what type/kind/color/size/health etc etc of baby we wanted and then we waited. (if you ever want to go through a gut wrenching process, fill out a form that asks questions like ‘Would you accept a baby that has cleft lip/ FAS/ any health issues?’ or ‘ Does knowing the history of the father affect your ability to accept a newborn?’ or ‘What color eyes would you like your baby to have?’

Yeah. that was a tough form to fill out.

Anyway. We were accepted and had just paid our non refundable lots of thousands of dollars to start being presented to birth mothers who would ultimately choose us. (interesting fact, the average age of birthmothers giving up a baby in Alberta is 21) (another interesting fact, a birthmother has 10 days after giving up her baby to ask for it back, and the adoptive parent are powerless to stop this… can you imagine?) (another interesting fact. If the birthmother has any costs related to therapy or legal fees, as they sometimes go to court to try unsuccessfully to get their baby back after the 10 days, ALL costs are the responsibility of the adoptive parents. So we would have to pay her costs to battle us in court). Just goes to show how important it is to some people. however…

… We became the cliche. 3 days later Traci came running down the stairs, tripped and fell the last 4 steps and crying showed me the positive preg test.

Lucky for us Traci was considered a high risk of lots of things, so we were treated to plenty of ultrasounds. The most important one being the 7 week US where we heard his heartbeat for the first time… here is an excerpt from a private blog I had at the time…

I am having a hell of a time containing myself. both of us were feeling like absolute crap yesterday (maybe edmontonchuck rubbed off on us), but holy moly, when the doc fires up the doppler and she lets us hear our babies heartbeat, it's all good. In fact, it so good it's indescribable. for a moment in time, when we hear the heartbeat, i melt into a big warm puddle.
I am looking forward to holding my baby.

Then a month later this one…

Wow!!! What a rush!!! The tech told us:
"It is DEFINITLY a boy"
"His brain is symmetrical"
"His Heart has all 4 chambers, is inside the rib cage and is beating normally"
"His stomach has fluid in it, so he can swallow properly"
"His bladder has fluid in it, so his kidneys are functioning properly"
"His stomach is below his heart, which is normal"
"His spine is normal"
"Hands, feet, fingers, and toes are are normal"
"The umbilical cord is present and contains all 3 tubes"
"You have a perfect baby, congratulations!"
She was moving the US around and she goes, "look, he's rubbing his face" HE WAS!! it was really cool! He was moving like crazy, she had a hard time keeping up to him. She took 5 very good pictures of him, and when she was taking them, you could see that his legs were bent like he was crouching, than all of a sudden he kicked! wow.
We go next Wednesday to get all the results at the doctors and we will know more details, like the heartrate, the exact due date etc...
Cool.

So anyway, if you spend anytime here at all you know the rest of the story. We got Andrew out of the deal. We were asked if we wanted to go back into the adoption program but respectfully declined as we found what was missing.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the house. It was never meant to be what it became. Don’t get me wrong, I am going to miss parts of it, and we are literally leaving pieces of our hearts and souls behind (advice: never plant a tree in memorial in your yard to anything or anyone, and also, never give a tree for a present. Probably the saddest part about leaving is we planted a memorial tree to our unborn baby we lost and now we have to walk away from that along with a tree and lilac that my late grandpa gave us on his last visit here. But we do have pictures.)

It never became what it needed to become, and it wasn’t designed for a small family. the house we are going to is probably 200sq ft too small, it is a rental, but is in an amazing neighbourhood and I think is WAY closer to what we are supposed to live in, than the house we built.

For the first time in a couple years, after next Thurdsday when the new owners take possesion of the house we built, we can actually start to look forward again. to make plans to see new things, visit old friends, and spend some quality time with our families and ourselves. It’s been a long time since I had a day where I could go to work then come home and just sit and not worry about a multitude of things.

We are going to where we are supposed to be. At this moment. At this time.

Wow. This was going to be a blog about how cool the new ‘hood is… but I guess it needed be this… for lots of reasons.

One last thing. I love you Traci. I know this is an incredibly hard time right now, but by this time next week it will all start to be clear and the new awesome will start to show itself, but for now, I know what you are feeling like, I am right there with you, and my promise to you is, I am here. For whatever you need. (oh, yeah… go ahead and shop for the new sofa, i got you covered for that. we don’t need to bring our ratty love seat to our new nest)

PS to Traci, as of now, the ‘move rule’ has been invoked. (Move rule: Being that moving is incredibly stressful and terrible work, we are allowed to tell each other to Fuck Off, as necessary to alleviate frustration, without the other taking it personally)

Some day I may tell the entire story of 2011…

2012-01-01T00:10:00.001-08:00

…but for now, all I am going to say is, is I’m glad it’s over. I have been probably less than cryptic in here and if anyone even cared to try and read between the lines, you’d see that we were down for most of 2011. But just by happenchance while the calendar turns over to 2012, so do our fortunes and our outlook. 2012 brings great promise for a very happy future.

We are happy, healthy and a very strong family unit, ready to conquer the world!

In 2012, Hug a friend, tell your family you love them, do an act of kindness for a stranger and give your time or money to a charity that means something to you.

This was the last sunset of 2011 taken just a few blocks from my house. I don’t resent Sun V2.011, but instead anxiously await Sun V2.012 to shine warmly on us leading us to a better time in our lives!

Happy New Year Internet!! You mean a lot to me. Thank you.

2011 Year in Review.

2011-12-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

It pretty much blew. Happy it's over.

2012 can't come fast enough! Bring it on!!! WoooO!

Things are looking up...

2011-12-15T12:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a good day. That is all.

Fall from grace, Day 7, 8, 9 and 10. Santa’s in therapy…

2011-12-10T10:28:00.001-08:00

As I am an experienced viral video owner (pats self on back) I fully expected the utter and complete drop off of my popularity (well, my contents popularity). This years Teddy Bear Toss video went from 300 views on day 1 to 390,000 on day 2 to 100,000 on day 3 and only 4,000 on day 4 and 5. After all the attention the video gets, it is quite a letdown that it’s all over. Chucked to the curb, as they say.

To be honest, I am happy to have been the video selected for the Yahoo story that started it all, and that’s all. It’s fun.

Maybe one day I'll have a video that goes viral that is of me and some talent I have. This 15 year old kid in Winnipeg has done pretty good for himself, and will no doubt make a pile of cash from the exposure… Me and my video? not so much. I’m ok with that, it’s the teddy bear toss that people love, not my cinematic ability.

Cool beans of the whole process? Good Morning America’s email to me… then seeing it on there.

ABCNewsPermissions has sent you a message:

ABC NEWS

To:nzeller1010
MORNING,
WRITING TO YOU FROM ABC NEWS. WE'D LIKE TO SHOW THIS VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPP7iqMqd74 ON ABC'S "GOOD MORNING AMERICA". PLEASE EMAIL US WITH HOW YOU'D LIKE TO BE CREDITED.
THANKS!
JOHN SANTUCCI
ABC NEWS

Here is the link to the GMA segment…

The weirdest thing about the whole video viral business is the reciprocal hits my other videos get. Andrews Trail Running video went from 90 hits to 1300! Woo! (if you watch it, he really gets cruising at the 27 second mark…and his interview at 1:00 is a great if you are looking for some inspiration and motivation)

End talk of video viralness. (unless something cool happens with it)

StreakFail! and that’s ok!

Day 7, I ran, Day 8 i didn’t, yep my Strides Run Streak got busted. I layed down with Andrew and never woke up again. Missed it and just like that it’s all over. Day 9 I said Eff it, let’s keep going, so I ran. Day 10 I ran. So I have ran 9 out of 10 days in Dec. *WoOt*.

Here’s the best part. Me running everyday is slowly changing my choices in restaurants (I had a Cobb Salad instead of Fish and Chips yesterday) and it is certainly affecting my portion sizing. Thanks running, I remember you and how beneficial you are… glad you are back in my life.

Speaking of running back in my life, I have gone and done something really stupid. I registered for a 50km winter ultra. The Gord’s Frozen Ass 50 is the one I ran last year, but only did the half (25k). I fully plan to run the 50. Even if I am DFL. I feel like I am destined in life for a DFL. I will try to avoid it, but I have learned enough from my friends that DFL is still WAY better than DNS or DNF… I am excited. I ran the 25k last year in 2:51, so if I can do the second half in 4 hours, I’m good (I will pace slower in the first half if I am running the full).

I am hoping I get some support for my training. My Dad sponsored the race entry for me. DZell Excavating will be featured greatly on my training and race posts.

For all your Calgary Excavating, Post Holes, Site Cleanup, Grading, Loam, Gravel, Hauling and Snow Removal, Contact Dave at DZell excavating. 403-828-2147. Email Davz@shaw.ca, and on Facebook here!

The other support I am looking for is a Coach. Someone to design my plan and give me the accountability to the plan. I would also LOVE it if a nutritionist would come on board. It would be great to lose 25-30lbs before the race (totally doable), but any support would be appreciated. I can make it worthwhile for anyone who would like to jump on board. My google score for this blog is quite high and I have a very good Klout score. (it means I can help advertise your business if you want to help me get to the finish line)

Lego Advent Calendar update.

I guess if Lego put just regular Xmas items in there no one would talk about it nearly as much.

So After Santa was ordered to restore Xmas, he entered therapy to try and get his life in order. Things were going well. Turns out his big issue is with an axe wielding Northerner. It’s a long standing grudge based since China took over the Toy trade and it put local woodworkers out of business. Santa has been living with the guilt of the economic times and just lost it. Therapy has helped. He is now clothed. ( the last 2 days of lego kits were the weird bench, complete with coffee cup and the axe wielding eskimo dude…)

And one final bit of coolness. I received this email out of the blue…

Dear Neil,

I am writing on behalf of *omitted* Productions regarding your photograph the prairie (IMG_4507) from your Aug 30, 2011 post (Mother-in-Law visit and Instagram). We are working with the *omitted* Theatre company to do design for an upcoming theater production and are looking for images that we can use.

Our intention is to use the image as a projected backdrop during the play. Hence, if you own the image, we would like to ask your permission to use and if necessary, purchase this image to use for the production. If the image needs to be purchased, please also let us know how much it will cost to use for this purpose.

Thank you, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

I checked it out and it’s legit. FYI the photo in question is this one…

We have my Company Xmas party tonight out in Banff, the house has shown 4 times in the last 2 days with 2 of them being 2nd showings. We can only hope to come back to an acceptable offer… would be really nice to be done with all this stuff…

Seeya later!

Day 6, a tidy little 5k and Santa freaks out and ruins Christmas...

2011-12-06T22:15:00.001-08:00

I ran a nice little 5k. Strides run streak intact! Woot! Day 1, 1 mile was really hard, this was the same hard. Makes me happy.

Lego advent calendar yielded a Xmas tree! Yeah!

Santa (while serving his minimum security sentence and on light labour duty) snapped when he saw the tree and chopped the sonofabitch down!!! Poor frosty the snowman was collateral damage.

That is all...

Day 5, I am flirting with fame. Again.

2011-12-05T22:08:00.001-08:00

But before that: I got home and I tell Traci, “i’ll get supper started” she replies, “Don’t you have to run?”

Yeah! Thanks Honey! Strides Run Streak intact! So I ran. 2 miles tonight. It was nice to hear my garmin beep 3 times (kilometers) for the first time since the Stampede road race in July! 5 days in and it’s all starting to feel familiar. yay. Oh. My advice for the day is. In the winter, running gear straight out of the dryer rock!

Ok, so last year, I shot a video at the Calgary Hitmen Teddy Bear toss game. You saw that on the last post. Last year It was picked up by Puck Daddy Blogger on Yahoo, then picked up by Yahoo main page. I then had 700,000 hits in the next couple days, and countless emails.

Fast forward exactly 1 year

Ditto. same thing has happened.

Puck Daddy wrote basically the same story, but more of an update from last year. They picked my video again. Boom, viral video. I thought the warm fuzzies from the story and video would be all wore out, but as it turns out, nope. People love flying bears. The comments this year are as heart-warming and funny and asinine as last year! Man there are some weirdo's out there… but most are awesome. Here is what my inbox looks like right now…

When a video goes nuts like this, you only get updates on hot count totals every 12 hours or so, so for all day it registered as 314 views. I anxiously awaited the update and this evening when it finally refreshed, it hit a disappointing 11,500 views. Well, oh well. it is truly an old story.

About an hour later it re-updated. 115,700 hits. I am right now the #1 trending video in YouTube! Woot!

Ok, I'm good now. It is also trending now on YouTube and ESPN emailed to ask permission to use the video in all their shows and affiliates (inc ABC I would presume) so keep an eye out.

Fun stuff.

But now the most important news. Day 5 of the Lego Advent Calendar. A wall.

boooooo! it was the stinking second wall of the police station. I am going to be pissed if the next 2 days are the other 2 walls. Anyway. I figured out a storyline that fit.

They got caught after their brazen jailbreak but copped a plea deal. They ended up doing 2-5 in a minimum security prison. They have a pretty slick life with sofa, fireplace, a cat, hotdogs, baguettes and a big box of puffs kleenex… they do have to keep their hair bic’d to the wood. And Santa still like to lounge nekkid.

That. is. all.

Till tomorrow.

We ended up with a LOT of snow! Dec 4, Streak intact! And Jail!

2011-12-04T23:18:00.001-08:00

I ran at the crack of 11:30 this morning. It was a nice looking day, but the snow was deep enough to add a high degree of difficulty to the run. I got my mile in, but just barely. I did take the camera out today for some self-love. (Not sure if that’s the right term. Is it?)

Dubious looking start to the run… Feet are warm and dry tho!

Look out! Freight train coming!

Vivobarefoot Neo Trail action shot. It’s amazing how warm and dry my feet are at the end. my ankles were wet, but I wasn’t wearing socks… so there.

I almost ran past this un tainted pathway. I decided to challenge myself. A challenge within a challenge really! (Strides Run streak) I wanted to see how straight I could run. I focussed on a tree at the end of the park and started running.

Meh. I give myself a B+. I think the curve of the earth played a factor.

I really wouldn’t want to run in deeper snow without snowshoes, but on the other hand, I felt about 8 years old running with abandon. It was good overall. Well, another day down. So far it’s 4 more days than I ran in November. (4)

Day 4 Lego Advent Calendar. Yep, some of you may have seen it coming. Jail. So the criminal was put away, Santa got bail (Rudolph has connections in Bail bonds) and the cop was relaxing.

Big mistake copper!! Santa showed up and busted out the crook! How will this story play out? Stay tuned for Day 5 of Lego weirdness!

Andrew and I took in the Calgary Hitmen Teddybear toss today too! here is the crappy video from this year. I posted it directly from my Iphone.

and here is the awesome video from last year. How do I know it is Awesome? 759000 people say so! Haha!

Dec 3. Another run, another storm, another weird Lego advent surprise…

2011-12-03T23:38:00.001-08:00

Was going to run in the morning, but by the time Andrew got up and we got to Soccer, it ended up too late. DW had to get to her craft fair in Airdrie and Andrew and I had a sausage party to look after. We got Traci set up at the fair, said out goodbyes and headed out to CrossIron Mall. On the way there Andrew decided it was time to fill me in on our plans for the day.

Daddy, first. *pause* we will go to the end of Big Iron mall and look at the big fish in the fishing store. Then we will go for a walk in the mall and go to the food court and I will have Chinese food with chopsticks. Then we will go to toys and us to look at what I want Santa to bring me for Christmas. We won’t take much time for this because we need to head home to take a quick rest before we find the lego parts from last years calendar. Then we will… Well that's about it.

Is that a good plan Daddy?

Yeah. the mall was pretty fun. Can you tell if he had a good time? He looked at the balloon making guy and told him he wanted a Green Puppy.

Meanwhile, outside it started storming. A pretty good blizzard. I hadn’t ran yet. dang. Oh well, a Strides run streak challenge is a challenge!! My mom came over to sit with Andrew and put him to bed so I could drive back and pick up Traci. After I found out there was another travel advisory to where I needed to go to get Traci, I was motivated to get out there and run, so I could take my time on the road.

It was pretty freaking snowy. I loved it. Actually for about the first 200 feet I wanted to go back home, but after that it was really good. I always liked running in winter. As a gear junkie, it’s prime time! I am still amazed at how good my VivoBarefoot Neo Trails are in the snow. All my other minimal shoes start cold in the winter, but these, sockless, seem to be the perfect temperature at all parts of the run. My feet finish dry too!

It was pretty evident that I was going to be the only knucklehead running tonight.

Went for 1mile and did 1.5 again. I. just. felt. like. runnin.

Advent calendar. Day 3.

A cop with some ~~s&m~~ handcuffs came out as our surprise today. I though naked Santa from last year adds a little some- somethin to todays image. Man does that cop look smug. Maybe because he just came off a successful tour with the village people.

OK, so as you all know, we are as poor as folk right now. Well, we needed a second vehicle as the cube we were driving was given back. Well, I decided we should go to the Auction to see what that was all about. We liked the idea of it, so I went back and bought a minivan for $1900.00. Pretty good deal.

Pretty good deal, that is until we took it to the mechanics shop and found out it needed $7000.00 work just to be safe on the road. Well, since we’ve been going through tons of financial shit lately, I just chalked this up to ‘what the hell’ and we’ll figure out what we need to do later. I couldn’t really deal with this punch in the gut at the moment. I carried on with that day. As it turns out later on that day I am at one of my vendors offices on work stuff. I overhear a conversation about a guy who can’ get rid of a free vehicle. I jump into the conversation casually and ask what kind of vehicle it is. A 1999 Oldsmobile silhouette minivan.

Really? I ask. Yep, he says. It needs a starter, and a few other things, but I think I'll give it away to the kidney foundation.

Can I have it, I ask? The guy says sure. I go over the next day, load it onto a trailer and take it home. (oh yeah. I guess I should tell you, this free van is Identical to the one I bought at auction)

Yep. Now I have 2 vans. That day I jack up both vans in the driveway and swap starters, and the 2nd, free, van starts right up! Woot! I take it for a drive and yeah, this van is pretty nice! It has a grinding noise from the engine, but I quickly diagnose the noise as a drive axle CV joint, or the hub bearing.

I tore down and re-assembled a 1969 volkswagen a few years ago, so I had some knowledge of cars, so I decided to attempt the repair myself. I went and bought the parts and in about 3 hours I had the work done and a really nice driving van.

Moral of the story? Be nice to everyone as Karma is watching and will pay you back when you most need it.

Another quick story about recent car repair. Our 2004 Buick Regal that we bought new, started having strange problems a couple weeks ago. Minor things like…

…when you turned the left signal light on, the engine shut off.

Oy… that was annoying. So, what the heck, no need to panic. I consulted the internet and it had all my answers. It was the ignition switch in the steering column. Ok pretty simple right? Well, kinda.

It was a little dicey taking apart so many parts of the dash, and I relied on some common sense and plain ol’ good luck to figure everything out. I pulled out the part that was supposedly the culprit and headed down to AutoValue. They have the part, and he quoted me $199.00. Dang, I told him. I can get that part for $125.00 online, inc shipping.

Without missing a beat, he says “Well. the best we can do is $134.00”

Really? I thought to myself. If I don’t ask, you just automatically take an additional $65.00 from the unwitting?

What I said though was. “ok. thanks.”

It was the right part and the car was put back together and running nicely about an hour later. So between the van and the car, doing the labour myself saved us well over $1500.00 in work.

*wOoT*

anyroad… I digress.

Traci’s craft fair was part of Festival of Lights in Airdrie. So I took these shots with the iPhone while I waited for her to finish up.

Goodnight!

Drove to Edmonton in a frozen windstorm. came home. ran.

2011-12-02T22:14:00.001-08:00

Yeah, the out and back business trip was no fun. I heard on the radio that travel between Red Deer and Olds was not recommended. I had just gone past Red Deer.

Had to go to the ‘Chuck’ as we kindly refer to Edmonton. Business. Went well.

The drive up and back was not fun. Lots of ‘oh shit; moments when i didn’t know of the surface tension between the tires and the road was enough to counteract the 100km/hr (60mile) cross winds combined with the very icy surfaces. Lots of people found out that it wasn’t enough. So many people in the ditch. The province installed a post tension barrier all the way from Calgary to Edmonton, dividing the opposing lanes of the freeway. I am pretty sure it saved lives today. Especially here. This bog boy was JAMMED into the wires…

There were a lot of big 4x4’s in the ditch too. I think these good ‘ol boys think they are invincible…

nope. There were actually 5 of them jammed backwards into the ditch here.

Coming home was WAY more scenic, but 10x more treacherous. At a few points we were down to a 5 minute mile, just hoping to stay on the road. These Big rigs sure had a rough ride too!

Oh, By Scenic, I mean like this…

These are taken with my iPhone 5.

Anyway, I made it. Hopefully next Friday's trip is easier. I got home, went right upstairs, got changed and went for a run. Strides Run Streak is intact. 2 days in a row. I went 1.5 miles and felt energized. I slowed down and enjoyed the run. Yesterday I ended up with coughing fits for a couple hours, as I tried to run my pace from 6 months and 25lbs ago. I slowed down, enjoyed it, and went further. Didn’t plan to, I was just enjoying myself so much I extended it.

Oh, and on the second day of Lego Advent Calendar, my true love gave to me…

A Catapult to go along with our ever so popular Christmas character, the Hipster Cat-burglar. Well, I guess we found out what the white thing was from yesterday. Ballistics. So Christmassy don’t you think?

Anyhoo. Tomorrow I will be running in the morning as Andrew and I have a Sausage Party weekend. DW is selling her custom Jewellery in Airdrie at the Festival of lights.

Fun!

Dec 1. I went running.

2011-12-01T22:49:00.001-08:00

It was just a mile, but it was an amazing~~ly hard~~ mile! I am participating in Strides Running Stores' Run Streak on facebook. I think it’s the perfect piece I needed in my life right now. at. this. moment. There is absolutely no chance I would have gone running if I hadn’t joined the challenge. *WooT*

Thanks VERY much for the awesome comments on yesterdays blog.

Alanna: Yes, one day you can make up that sign for me that says ‘GO LADYSLIPPERS!!’

Jamoosh: uh. depends if it’s race day or not.

adena: he cracks everyone up. Thank you!

Jeff, Elle, Caroline and Janice: Thank you so much! Caroline did YOUR wish for strawberries come true?

That is what I missed the most. You bloggers know what it is to have such good virtual friends…

Going back a smidge. I am in the most recent copy of Impact magazine, wear testing a couple pairs of shoes for their trail shoe review issue. I got a pair of VivoBarefoot Neo Trails which I LOVE. I will have a pair of regular Neo’s as soon as I can afford them, as I need a casual everyday shoe. The Trails have a very aggressive lug that isn’t conducive to grocery shopping (I also want to preserve the lugs at all costs, this shoe is truly amazing!). I ran in them tonight in the sloppy messy snow and was thoroughly impressed! Just RUN is what they beg, leave the grip to me, you just keep running they say to me!

I also reviewed a pair of Brooks Cascadia. I didn’t mind them for a full on shoe. They aren’t wide enough for me, and that was a bit of a show stopper. My pair is a very bright green, not black and pink.

It is very humbling to be included in this testing program with these other testers… check it..

Thanks very much to Impact Magazine for inviting me to participate! I appreciate your support and love your magazine!

Lastly. We bought the Lego Advent Calendar this year again. Last year was our first year enjoying the daily Lego surprises. If you’ll recall, there was some real weirdness on about day 19, where naked Santa showed up in the shower.

This Advent year just started today, and I thought, since I was going to daily blog the Run Streak, I’d also update you with the Lego Advent surprises. And not to disappoint or prove boring, they start the Festive season with a…wait for it… A hipster catburgler. Complete with a sinister smile, missing tooth and what I can only imagine is a rock for bashing windows in. (or a go mug). Can’t wait for day 2.

Seeyou tomorrow. I have to go to Edmonton early, but will be enjoying an evening run again!

Hi.

2011-11-30T23:10:00.001-08:00

I’m Neil. Remember me? I was once a good (i think) blogger. I really enjoyed blogging, but that was when life was easier. It became not easier when we finally decided to close the landscape company. There are lots of things that happened since February when we closed the company, most of them really tough. My family is fine. We are relatively healthy, relatively happy, but from there things have been hard.

We are still attempting to sell the house. It’s been 7 months and almost $100,000.00 in price reductions, and we are still no closer to selling. Well, I shouldn’t say that. We sold the house, but the buyer turned out to be an absolute fucking nutjob and after we bent over backwards to meet his demands, he still found a way to back out of the approved contract.

Anyway. Our life has been a series of mad panic house cleans and layers of de-cluttering for buyer showings, and we really haven’t lived in our own house for the past half a year. It really really sucks.

I try not to complain. I ended up with my old job back selling office furniture to the big energy companies in Calgary, so that was nice. I never burned a bridge in my life and it paid off when I called my old boss, and in 3 minutes I was hired back. The job is not easy, but comparably to running a failing company, it is a cakewalk. I go in every day thanking god I had the opportunity to return to a place where I know I can succeed and they want me there as a member of their ‘Family’.

We have had to ‘restructure’ our financial position in life, and that has all been ok, but the sale of the house finalizes everything and pays everything off, so it is pretty painful to not know when that will be done. The first time we were told we were receiving an offer (it turned out to be a terrible offer) I broke down. I thought everything was going to be over and the wave of relief that came over me just dropped me like a rock. 3 hours later it was back to the burden placed back firmly on our shoulders, but for a brief few moments I could see a light. I know everything will end soon, but it really can’t come soon enough.

With that off my chest. I am moving on.

I signed up for a running streak challenge. Strides Running store in Calgary decide to put this on and I am in! I have to run at least a mile every day in December. I will finish off the challenge at Martin Parnell’s first anniversary race on Dec 31st with a nice easy 2.5-3 hour half marathon. I am not trained at all, but I will complete that, just to celebrate the fact that I can. Because I still can, and I will. Simple.

What else:

Andrew is an amazing boy. here are a few of his recent isms.

Daddy, I want you to teach me how to limbo.
Standing outside the bathroom door, talking to me in the bathroom “Daddy, how long does poop take?”
To himself – “It’s amazing what a 4 year old can do”
When he sees the first star and makes a wish – “I wish for a big bowl of strawberries”
After tasting my ice cream “Daddy, your ice cream is good, but mine is TASTY”
About the future “When I get old enough to drive, I am going to get a blue pickup truck so I can take Nan to get her groceries”
Daddy, can I get a 4 piece apple with skin on. No wait, with no skin. No wait daddy, with skin.
*farts*, Daddy, that was my butt-flapper

Oh yeah. Also, we had a big breakthrough. He sat on Santa’s knee for the first time (willingly). We were at my company’s Christmas party last weekend and he made up his mind that he was going to do it. So as we are watching other kids get called up he leans over to me and whispers “When is Santa going to say my name"?. I reply “I don’t know son, are you on the good kid list?”. In the softest and saddest little 4 year old voice, with the makings of a tear in his eye, he says almost inaudibly “I. don’t. know”.

Well, you should have heard the groans and awws from the people around us who heard him… and a few ‘NEil!’s… thankfully he was called up right away and all was good.

So. In a nutshell. We are blessed. The shit we are dealing with, only relates to money, and apparently they are making more. I am choosing to restart life again so that when the house sells and we get to be burdenless, that I am well equipped to excel in all my fitness and family adventures!

One more note of housecleaning. I owe a number of you some blog prizes from way back. You are going to get your stuff, not sure exactly when, but I have the list and will follow through when I can. Thanks for not hating me. ( I hope you don’t hate me)

I think I'll document the December running streak, so you’ll see me here. but make sure you come hang around facebook, twitter and Instagram with me. I’m still there.

www.facebook.com/NeilZeee
www.twitter.com/neil_zee
Instagram @nzeller

Oh, thank you to my Darling wife Traci for putting up with me, standing by me and being my best friend. You and Andrew make it all worthwhile.

AND, i still take cool picture with my camera. Some of these are with the Iphone… Crazy huh? (I am really jonesing for a Canon T2i, in case you have one that you don’t use and want to send it to me)

The boy loves singing…

Well, what do you think? Ever have incredibly intense life changing challenges? Ever dealt with stress so strong you think you might explode, or burst into flames on the spot? I think we are to go through this stuff, so that when we come out the other end of it, we appreciate things more.

I am starting to understand the difference between quality of life and standard of living and how those to things are not actually connected. They can both exist at the same time, but they certainly don’t depend on each other.

ok. enough.

bye.

1st Annual Run/Walk Marathon, Half Marathon, 10k, 5k, 2.5k Celebrating the 1 year Anniv of MQ250! in Cochrane, Alberta

2011-11-23T21:10:00.001-08:00

Please bring your friends and family down to Cochrane Alberta on Dec 31 2011 for an amazing event with Martin Parnell, the man who ran 250 Marathons in 2010. This event will celebrate the 1 year anniversary of his 250th Run. There is a Marathon, Half Marathon, 10k, 5k, and 2.5k. Have a look here for my quick blog from last years amazing finale!

You can be home by 4 and ready to party, knowing that you have taken part in a very worthwhile event to finish out 2011.

See you there!

Simplify…

2011-11-07T23:04:00.001-08:00

I need to, so I am getting rid of my BarefootNeilZ facebook fan page. If you are on there, and don’t follow my regular page, make sure to request me and I'll ~~probably~~ accept!

Here is my my personal facebook link. https://www.facebook.com/#!/NeilZeee

In the meantime. Enjoy some more photos from my Instagram @nzeller

Hey… hi

2011-11-04T14:58:00.001-07:00

Still addicted to Instagram… @nzeller is my user if you want to connect over there.

I took this pic yesterday with my iPhone and is posted at my Instagram page…

I’m over at Instagram lately.

2011-10-24T23:11:00.001-07:00

Hey, Hi! how are you. so much happening here and no time to write about it. When I do get the time, the posts will be EPIC to be sure.

In the meantime, I have been hanging around Instagram. If you have an iPhone, go download the best app in the world (it’s free) and look me up. I am @nzeller. Instagram is like twitter, but you say what you need to say with pictures instead of words. You know me and pictures, right?

Like this…

Take care my friends. I’ll be around again soon enough, don’t forget about me.

Harvest Half Marathon Calgary, Oct 1st 2011

2011-10-01T21:47:00.001-07:00

I got involved with this race for lots of reasons last year, and took it on again this year.

Harvest Half race results are here

I am drawn to this race. It is very grass roots. I think mostly I like it because there aren’t really any rules in the organizing group. Everyone in the organizing committee and volunteer group get to find the part of the race that fits them. No one asks you to do anything you don’t want to do (or at least they know how to get you to do what they want you to, and make it so you are really happy about it).

A couple months ago, I sent an email to the org that said I’d like to start a facebook page for the race.

Ok...

...was the answer. So I did. Now, I am sure I got more out of the page than they did. I say that because I loved watching the online Harvest Half race community grow, all the while I was meeting more amazing running people, who I had the pleasure of meeting today! It was great to meet all of you! The last few days were pretty cool to see runner take a degree of ownership of the page. It was their place to go to feel like a part of this race, to get information, and to talk about achievements, fears and ambitions! Race day, today, has been a blast. So much race love!

I have a bit of a confession. I kind of purposefully avoided the volunteer table, because I didn’t want to be assigned a marshalling position. It’s not that I wasn’t willing, or wouldn’t have been happy out there, it’s just that I wanted to hang around HQ for the day. Just like I love to soak up the race atmosphere when I run races, I wanted to experience the same thing from the organizational side of things.

Mission accomplished. I was even able to make myself useful, while staying at the start finish line and seeing how it all works. I made friends with the finish line photographer, the timing crew, the title sponsor people and many of the other volunteers. I was able to help dismantle the race packages of the folks who didn’t show up to race (have you ever done that? Bought a bib, then just never showed?). I know there are plenty of people who would have taken their place in a heartbeat, and I felt a bit bad that we couldn’t accommodate them.

Pause: Some housekeeping. Here are all the links with all the background on what this race is too me.

Why I volunteer for the race
My 2010 Harvest Half race report
My follow up to the 2010 Harvest Half race report
My 2009 Harvest Half race report

Ok, I'm back.

I got to see the start of the race. Wow, is that anticlimactic. Takes about 90 seconds and 800 runners are cheering and running. Then gone. Silence. Nothing.

Now what? Heh, I understood what happened in races, but it felt really strange. Oh well, thankfully there are really fast runners in this race.

The first runner came in in 1:22 I think. DFL came in in 3:37. DFL once again was freaking awesome. I have the pleasure of knowing the DFL’s from the last 3 events I volunteered at. DFL at the Calgary Marathon was Paul. Today he ran the half in 2:01. I am friends with the DFL at the Calgary 70.3, and I met and have enjoyed the conversation on facebook with DFL for this race!

For me, seeing these amazing people finish last with grace and style, it makes me scratch off a fear from my life. I always worried about stepping out of my comfort zone and pushing into a new level, for fear of failing. I equated failing with being last, or not being able to finish. I believe now that failing would be to never try. How on earth can I know what I can or can’t if I don’t try. And what else these amazing people teach me it that, no matter what, I CAN finish! Today’s DFL was worried we were going to close the course down on her, not that she wouldn’t finish. I have been involved in all of the DFL’s I speak of, in pretty important ways. DFL at the Calgary Marathon, I kicked off my shoes, and ran backwards down the course until found my bud and ran him in the last 800 meters. At the Calgary 70.3, I had a radio and a truck. I was on the radio, letting the org know where run buddy was, and I delivered her friend to her in the truck so she could run her in! At this race, I assured her on facebook that we would have the timing mats down for her when she arrived.

I am a pretty lucky guy. I had a bud ask why all my friends are the ones finishing last. I replied, I know a lot of people in the running world. That’s what the running world is all about for me. The people.

It’s the people that do it for me. It takes a certain type of person to be a runner. An honest type of person. I always say that running exposes you. You can’t lie about your abilities and then fake it on the run. So the people who run, start with a degree of vulnerability that translates into honesty and open conversation.

Anyway, I am rambling. It has been many days and weeks since I have really written anything down here of substance.

People asked me why I wasn’t running this, my favourite race. I told them I wasn’t trained. That is true, but the real truth is I am pretty embarrassed with how I have let myself go over the past year. I just couldn’t bring myself to run the race in the ‘condition’ I am in. It would be like running a lie.

I like the fact the running world accepts me anyway.

I like the fact that I can still be important to a race like this, that I can make a difference for someone, maybe help them have a good, possibly great day. I put in a solid effort today, trying to be the best I could be to anyone who needed my effort. I think I did ok.

I am in the poor physical shape I am in for lots of reasons. Lots of reasons that are sloooowly going away. I may write about them one day.

At next years race I will race it, a healthier, happier me. I will still give myself to the race, but I will also take from the race. I will take from the race a measuring stick. One that will give me a benchmark. I have my benchmark now, from this year, so I can now measure accurately.

I may lean on some of you though, so be warned. I may ask you how you did it, what you are doing an d who you are doing it with (stop it) The last time I did it, it was on a diet plan. I don’t want to go on a diet plan. I want to eat less and exercise more. But I need specifics. Especially about the food.

So, well. That was a different race report. Ok. Bye.

Andrew is a freakishly good trail runner…

2011-09-29T07:41:00.001-07:00

So, what got me back on the trails recently, is that I am wear testing some trail running shoes for a magazine. I’m not sure why, but I invited my son out for one for the runs on Monday, and he did amazing. Yesterday we went out again and I got a video of him.

We did 2km of trails. I let him lead the way and he just motors along. pushes hard up the hills, careful steps down the slopes and quick and smooth on the bendy flats. There are a few precipitous slopes along the trails and he is very aware and cautious to not make a mis-step.

This kid just gets it. And he’s teaching me a thing or two about it too! He is 4, by the way…

If you weren’t up at 7am in Calgary this morning…

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you missed this…

I don’t even know where to start…

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Too many crazy good pictures…

To all my running friends. I’ll be running again soon. My Sweet wife and my incredible boy have been my priority for the past few months, along with getting my career back on track after the failure of our landscape company. So we have been spending time in places like this. Enjoy the photos, take any you want for personal use, let me know you did.

The generator room at the top is the size of a house! Look at the full size man door at the base… These turbines are HUGE!

#Calgary #WorldRecord Attempt Netball #Volunteers Needed!

2011-09-12T11:30:00.001-07:00

Remember the guy who ran 250 Marathon runs last year? Yeah, Martin. That’s right. He raised over $285,000.00 in that time too!

Well, he needs a hand. Can you give him 4 hours anytime this weekend? To qualify for the World Record (61hours) they have to follow some pretty stringent rules. One of them is that they need witnesses to document players that come on and off the court.

Just think, you can sit with a pen and paper, a tasty coffee and be able to watch a group of really cool and fun people playing a game I have never really heard of! Fun!

Ok, so there is a signup sheet, but being it covers 3 days, I will let you know right now that the times they need help are in the middle of the night and early mornings and they are 4 hours slots. Please contact Martin directly of you can help at martin.parnell@kidsucan.ca

Here is the Netball Alberta Website Record Attempt info.
Here is my blog link to Martin’s 250th run last year!

So, please help him out, have a little fun at it, and be a part of something really cool!

Here are the intrepid record attempters!

Wordless Long Weekend…

2011-09-05T22:09:00.001-07:00

As always, if you like a picture, feel free to click it then right click to save. I always have a hard time setting my work desktop background. Let me know which ones you like!

Mother-in-Law visit and Instagram

2011-08-30T22:06:00.001-07:00

I’ll start with Instagram. I love it. You all know I am a fan of taking pictures of stuff. And Iphones. Well, Instagram takes those 2 items to the extreme. Ok. Here’s what you do. You take a photo with your phone(or load a photo onto your phone), then you apply a format to it. Most of the formats are antique looking.

Yep. We spend thousands on high tech devices with multi-mega pixel resolutions and the change it into this.

Yes. That is the desired result.

And this too!

These were both taken within the last 2 weeks. Yep, like I said, I love it! BUT, it’s more than just picture sharing. It’s actually another form of social media. Did you know you can follow me? Yeah, I’m @nzeller on there. look me up. (oh, but just to warn you: the app is only available on Iphone and there is no corresponding website or software. Just an app. but a cool app.

So download the free app and look me up.

Ok. Now. The Mother-in-Law came for a visit from Pennsylvania. No no. it’s not bad. We get along fine. besides she doesn’t come to see me as it’s all for the Boy. She was here for 5 days and it was non-stop fun with Andrew. I busied myself in work and hobbies, even getting a little 5k run in with Happy Dan.

On Sunday tho, I committed to touring the family around. We decided on Drumheller and the Tyrell Museum (Dinosaurs).

We were up and att’em by the stroke of 10:30 so out the door we went. Tim Horton’s for breakfast and a Coffee first, then onto the open road. It was a absolutely beautiful day with temps over 30c/86f (as hot as it gets here), and little to no clouds or wind. We took a longer route to show Granny one of our favorite places, Rosebud, and then made a quick stop at Horseshoe Canyon for her first glimpse of the Badlands that are the amazing landscape carved by the Red Deer River.

First the prairies.

Then on to the Badlands only 15 minutes further down the road.

Pretty cool. Just a small offering of what’s ahead though.

We headed down into Drumheller. The town that was built by coalmines, but now survives as a Tourist center/ Farming supply and um… well that’s about it.

Just west of town is the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology. This is the place from the outside.

And this is the place from the inside.

Does it make you want to go? It’s a pretty incredible place. Even though it was REALLY busy, we just puddled through. It’s kind of like Ikea where you follow a predetermined route, but you do have the opportunity for many small side tours and there are lots of places to just sit and look around.

Below is a pretty cool picture. I take the Canon DSLR and get it propped up nice and secure against something, turn the flash off then just take a picture on Auto. the shutter stays open until it gathers enough light to produce a decent picture (all of the Dino shots are taken this way). Well in this one, Traci is taking a pic with her moms flash camera to the right of me and so is another person to the left of me shooting as well.

So, Andrew and Granny get set. I shoot my picture and the shutter stays open for 3.2 seconds. This 3.2 seconds is enough to get a sort of decent shot of the dinosaur. BUT. in that time, Traci has taken her flash picture resulting in the sharp, but ghosted image of Andrew and Granny. Also, about a second or two later the person to the left of me shoots a flash photo as well, getting a ghostly image of Traci to my right and a nice clear shot of the guy on my left. ALSO, you can see where the other guys flash picked up Andrew as Granny was putting him down. Very cool indeed.

I love photography. My advice to anyone wanting to get awesome shots? Shoot lots, then shoot some more! I took about 200 pics in 4 hours on this trip. Some suck, most are ok and only a few are really cool.

Like this one.

And these ones.

Spent the rest of the day driving around looking at stuff… home by 6 to have my Mom over for her birthday Cake!

A good day indeed.

Test post with blogpress

2011-08-28T00:00:00.001-07:00

I may get to blog more if this works well! Do you mobile blog?

My goal is to race all the CRR XC winter races

2011-08-23T23:13:00.001-07:00

Is is too soon to talk about winter? The Harvest Half Marathon is on Oct 1st. That is less than 6 weeks away. 2 years ago during the Harvest Half it snowed.

Well. This is what we have to look forward too… soon… gaaa! It was 85f the other day. That same night it dropped down to 34f. And then back up to 85f. Crazy.

photo by Dawn (PinkChick)

I AM actually looking forward too it!

Also, I took this video tonight. The boy loves to dance when SYTYCD is on. He is getting pretty good at mimicking the dancers, especially at the end of this video…

So anyway. I hope to be back regularly blogging this fall sometime. We are good, just really busy. Once the house sells, we will be less busy. So there’s that.

In the meantime, I am active over in:

Facebook: Barefoot Neil Z
Facebook: Harvest Half Marathon (I am the admin)
Twitter: Barefoot Neil Z
Instagram: nzeller

Well that’s all for now, Hi to all my bloggy buddies! Just so you know, I take a look at all your blogs from time to time, I miss you all and will be back soon! Take care! Here is a couple pics from our camping trip last weekend!

Wordless Calgary Storm Photos! Aug 15, 2011

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Dead F’n Last!

2011-08-05T22:42:00.001-07:00

I mentioned good run buddy in the last blog post. She was the last person to cross the finish line for the Calgary 70.3. She didn’t make the official finishers list, but the race org placed that big ass belt buckle medal around her neck when she crossed the line – because she fucking deserved it!

Every BIT of it!

What would you do? Have a read at her own race story. I have a feeling there is a lot more emotion under these words… Let me know what you would do in this situation.

This is the email I received from her today.

Hey Neil,

I’ve been meaning to thank you for your motivation during the race on Sunday! I’ve been a little busy this week, but I decided to write a race report. I wanted to send it to you so that you know how my race experience went. I didn’t make the final cut-off time but I finished the entire distance and learned a lot about myself and what it takes to complete something so challenging. Thanks for being there and being a part of my day. True friends are the ones who give you their strength so that you can take it and carry on.

Thank you!

(name withheld)

P.S. If you feel so inclined, please feel free to take an excerpt from my report for your blog. We all get motivation from others and you never know who might take this and pay it forward J

Calgary 70.3 July 31^st, 2011 – A Great Personal Achievement!

My day started off quite well with a nice relaxed swim, I didn’t have trouble adjusting to the water and only had trouble sighting with the sun straight ahead. I had some trouble with my goggles part way through the swim so I stopped there, but afterwards just tried to keep an even and relaxed pace. Staying on course was difficult as the buoys were so far away. I’m sure I swam extra distance. I exited the water later than I had hoped to, but still made the cut-off time which was my main goal anyway. Total swim time 1:06:59.

Wished my T1 could have been a little faster, had I not decided to put on sunscreen or visit the outhouse but I felt both of those were important at the time! T1 time 10:31.

Once on my bike I felt comfortable. I felt some fatigue going up Grand Valley Road, for some reason I don’t like riding on that road much, as I think because of the pebbly road quality I don’t “roll” very well – so the bike is more effort on that road. I tried to make up for it on Horse Creek and found I was in a good rhythm, passed about 4 or 5 athletes and was happy with 2:02 across the half-way timing mat. The hill out of Cochrane took more out of me than I expected. I started to get very worried about making the bike cut-off and even started preparing myself for being told I couldn’t continue. But decided I wouldn’t deal with it until I was there. Average 22.4 kms/hour which I was happy with considering it included the hill. Total bike time 4:11:23.

Once I made it into T2 I felt very tired and wondered if I could continue. I headed out on the run and hoped my fuel in the last 10 minutes of the bike and powerbar at T2 would help me. Just as I was started to get my legs I saw Neil! He ran some strides with me and gave me strength to carry on. I told him I felt “done” and he asked what I was going to do. I said I was going to keep going. He said “atta girl” which was so encouraging! I wonder though if he thought I was nuts. (ed note: to be honest, I didn't know what to think and I was worried about her) About 4k into the run I felt disappointed and defeated. I looked down at my Garmin and knew that if I could only keep this pace (9:45/km average pace) I wouldn’t finish the race in time. The finish line area was only steps away (ed note: the diabolical run course that passed the finish line at 4k and 17k) and I was the closest to quitting anything I have ever been. Then a girl jogged passed me and started walking immediately in front of me. I decided to just keep walking some more, and went down the Weaselhead hill. I jogged as much as I could before my stomach would complain and I had to walk. The girl in front of me kept doing the same. My disappointment turned to aspiration, that maybe I can still finish this, even if it’s just for me. I jogged and walked the remainder of the race and half-expected them to pull me off the course at some point. But it just wasn’t in me to quit after I had come that far. The race took me longer than I expected or hoped for, but I just couldn’t quit. I passed through the Team TriLife aid station and they told me not to give up and to push through everything. Once I reached the top of the Weaselhead hill again, I was tempted again to call it a day as the finish line area was again only steps away. I saw my coach and she let me know the finish line had closed officially, but that she knew I could run the final 4k. After 113.3k, what was another 4k? I knew my husband and best friend wouldn’t mind waiting just a little longer for me. And I knew I owed it to myself after all the training. 1k from the finish line, a truck involved with the race stopped and out jumped BFF! I was so happy to see her, and I saw that our buddy Neil had dropped her off. What amazing friends! BFF ran with me for a bit and I just enjoyed her company rather than check my watch for how far it was to go. Around the corner was DH and he gave me so much strength to make it to the finish line. And I also wonder if he thinks I am nuts. (ed note: probably)

I crossed the finish line and I think it was somewhere between 8:45 and 9:00 for my total time. I wasn’t an official finisher by the Ironman cut-off time but I covered the entire distance. The volunteers presented me with a finishers medal, stating that I was a finisher just like anyone who completed the distance. I still felt disappointed that I didn’t reach all my goals…….except for the most important one: to finish. I am very happy that I finished something I started. If I could do this, then now I can learn from it and use the experience to become a better triathlete. I know what I need to work on, and that means I have new aspirations and goals.

So? What do you think? I am pretty sure my relatively fragile ego wouldn’t have let me cross last. I think I may have taken the DNF… but who knows.

This is the actual race course. Down the path, over the bridge way down on the right center, over to the far side and back…

Calgary 70.3 Ironman Volunteer Report

2011-08-01T23:14:00.001-07:00

All in all a super fun day…

Calgary Ironman Website
Calgary Ironman 70.3 Results here.

Traci dropped Nathan and I off at the Truck rental place at 4pm on Friday then we took the 2 mini Hinos up to the North side of the city to load up the aid stations. That went pretty well, and armed with our experience from the Calgary marathon volunteering weekend, we took the trucks home, confident we were ready for Sunday morning.

I got up at 4:30 on Sunday morning and put together some water bottles and snack, and by 5am I was out the door heading to North Glenmore to set up the aid stations. Nathan was already there when I arrived right at 5:30 and Doug (run captain) had the last few items for the trucks. I was able to find a coffee at the T2 admins station, so that helped, and then we were ready to go. Aid station 2 was just a few meters from the start finish line as is was a pretty diabolical out and back run course that had the runners passing the Run finish twice before mercifully crossing the finish on the 3rd pass.

Great for spectators, suck for racers. It was the worst later on in the day as it was so hot and the last 1/2 of runners had to deal with that heat head on. I walked over to this area later in the day and just couldn’t imagine running past the finish while having 4 agonizing km left to run yet.

I took a few shots of the start of the day and our drop offs. We don’t have to set the stations up, just deliver them to the right place. These folks have the unenviable task of getting the T2 drop bags in the right place. As this is a point to point race, the racers have to rely on the volunteers setting up the transition here.

What a typical drop off looks like. Tables, garbage pails, cups, water jugs, Drink mix, gels, shade tent, sponges, cookies, first aid kit, and on and on.

Nathan in his mini Hino! lookin’ good!

After dropping off AS 2, I was walking back to the truck and saw my shadow in this beam of sunrise. Cool huh?

Doug mentioned at one point how the main group of volunteers were all runners, and that helps when explaining things like route planning and general race setup. He entrusted me to set up this tricky part of the course. There is a traffic lane on the left, and a 2 direction run course on the right with 3 separate entry and exits in this area. I got a gold star for this.

After we set up the North side, we hopped in the 2nd truck and set up the South side. This photo out the window of the truck shows the general scenery of the run course.

We were done our drop offs with plenty of time, so we stopped for an egg mcmuffin and another coffee, so that was good. We got back to the other side with about 45 minutes to spare until we had to report to our intersection for our marshalling duties, and ended up shuttling a few people to their locations too. It’s not illegal in Canada to move people in the back of a 1 ton cube van… is it?

Volunteer Steven was waiting around for us when we arrived, and after the first of many cone placement adjustments, we settled into a very long day of traffic control. Our corner was probably the most tricky one as it was only 600 meters from the start and finish line and actually crossed itself. T2 and the run start was down the road on the right, while the finish was down the road to the left. Steven spent the day telling the runners coming from the start that they were to stay to right and yield to the finishing runners, Nathan hung around right at the crossover and ensured the runners went the right way and I spent the day down the road warning the runners that they had to go through the cone chute and take the left road. I made sure I spoke loudly, clearly and with as few words as possible, knowing that some runners may be operating on less than a full brain tank with only 600 meters left in this tough race. I am sure they appreciated the gesture.

Just to put a fine point how awesome the venue here is, there was a deer that spent most of the day crossing over the course in front of runners, pleasantly surprising most, and startling some!

Being here early has it’s advantages too. We had a visit from this very curious little fawn and its Mama before the runners came through.

So, we were pretty amazed with how quickly the lead male runner was upon us, but it was pretty slow for a while after him. The first few pro guys were there and gone, but then we had a pretty long wait until the women. I think for me it proved that I should stay a mid pack runner. It is very lonely at the front. (like I have the option, haha!)

All I can really say about being out there all day is that every one who passed by us were inspiring in a thousand different ways. There were racers who were relaxed, struggling, in pain, funny, appreciative, quiet, slobbering, grunting, run farting (you know, step-fart-step-fart), walking, swearing, laughing, shuffling, eating, and generally showing the distance they had already covered. I haven’t been around triathlon before and I kept reminding myself that even though the racers were in the first 600 meters, their demeanour was well earned over the previous 57 miles.

Here are some pictures from the day:

Toward the end of the race, once the bike course was closed and no more runners were starting, I took a walk over to the edge of the valley rim and took this photo. Its the weaselhead bridge and is part of the race course. some people don’t appreciate it as there are pretty significant hills to scale, but I have raced and ran this route many times and the scenery and general awesomeness of the area make up for any hill here.

After heading over to the southside to pick up the aid stations there then dropping of the first truck for unloading, we walked back to the second truck and finally got to see someone cross the finish line. note the time. Talk about guts. There were 5 other runners out on the course still and we got to see and encourage each one. The run course had been closed for some time by then, but the race org let them finish, and even provided them with support in the way of a sweeper bike person, they left the roads closed past their permit, and left the clock running right until the end. One of my good running friends happened to be the final runner across the finish line, and I am so proud of her for her fortitude and sheer will to finish this race that she started so many months ago. I imagine she is disappointed in the finish time and by being last and the fact she didn’t get an official time, but I am sure in the next weeks and months she will take great pride in this race, and how she kept moving in the face of so many obstacles. I do know for a fact that there are a great number of people in Calgary that are so proud of her. I know I am!

Pretty tired, Nathan and I went out and picked up the last 2 aid stations, got all the stuff back to the clean-up area, turned in our radio and took the trucks back to the rental store. Traci was there to take us to Nathans truck and then it was home time. I was feeling pretty good, enjoyed a nice supper, but fell asleep for the night with Andrew at 8:30.

The day couldn’t have gone better. I had great company all day, made some new friends, gained a great appreciation of a sport I really still don’t understand, and felt good about helping out. One thing I did different this time around as opposed to the Calgary Marathon day was I wore minimal shoes. At the Calgary Marathon I wore my NB 1063’s and almost couldn’t walk after being on my feet all day. This time I wore the Merrell Barefoot Trail Gloves and came away with nothing more than really stinky feet. I was sockless for the day, so you can imagine how stinky the ol’ dogs would be after 12 hours in 30 degree heat all day.

Good times. Congrats to all the racers, Congrats to the Org for a fantastic event, Congrats to all the volunteers.

Next blog, I answer your questions…

Foran Grade Hike, Kananaskis Country

2011-07-30T23:59:00.001-07:00

Don’t forget, I nominated myself in the Q&A game, so go there and give me your questions.

Ok, since we have had very successful hikes in the last few weekends, we were looking for something a little more challenging, just to see what we could do. The route is actually 3 trails, to make the full 8km loop, that gains 250m/ 820ft in the first 3km to the top of Foran Grade, then drops the 250m in the next 1.5km, then another 50 or so on the Sheep trail on the way back to the car.

I’ll tell you what though, the Sheep Trail scared the shit out of me. There were a few places that had a bit of grass (maybe 6-10 feet) at a 30deg angle, then it was a 250’ drop straight down to the river below. I carried Andrew through this part. At one point I looked at Traci and said, ‘Jeez, one slip to the right and you’re not coming back’. We will take the road next time. Hike Alberta Blogger describes it like this:

This section of the trail involves walking along the precipitous canyon walls of the Sheep River. I would suggest returning on the road in slippery conditions

I can’t imagine being on a horse here… freak me out.

Anyway, back to the rest of the hike. We are getting pretty good at climbing. Just a steady pace, hold hands with the boy on the steeps while he sings us up the ups with various renditions of the ABC’s. The Trail starts on a really nice looking mountain meadow. I have a thing for mountain meadows. I dunno, I just like them.

The wildflowers are if FULL force right now… literally billions of them on this hike. (i brightened this photo up a bit, fyi)

Almost a cliche of a trail…

About an hour in, we crossed over the top of the ridge (not at the top yet by far) and we see our first glimpse of the view we are going to be enjoying for the next 1/2 hour or so.

A bit farther up the trail and it’s almost like we hear that angel music when this comes into view. We are just so lucky. There are some more pictures of this area, mostly from the road below from when we camped in Turner Valley on July 1st weekend.

Can you tell we are in the rocky mountains? This is a blown down trees roots. No soil, just rocks!

When we reached the peak, we were kind of shielded from the really nice view down the valley toward the mountains, but to my surprise, looking back toward the prairies we were able to see Calgary!

Here it is zoomed in to the towers downtown…

So, so far we have heeded the advice of the hiking guide books and bloggers and have not been sorry yet. What I mean is, most hiking guides will tell you the best direction to enjoy the hike to the fullest. Well, this one was no different as the drop back down to the road was a lot steeper than the way we came up. It doesn’t look like much difference, but the steeps were pretty severe at times.

4k in and still enjoying the hike!

This is the official end of the Foran Grade Trail, it now picks up the Windy Ridge Trail back to the highway about a km from here. We stopped a few times on the hike, to eat our snacks. I think Andrew like snacktime the best, but when I asked him tonight what his favourite part was, he simply stated ‘getting to the top of that big mountain’

It’s very lush up there this time of the year and some of the open meadows have grasses as tall as Andrew.

This is looking back up at the ridge we just traversed. You can’t actually see the top from this photo.

Once we crossed the highway, we picked up the Sheep trail. It covers a total of 44kms from one end of the Sheep River Valley to the other and is used as connectors for many of the ‘inland’ hikes. This photo shows how close to the canyon wall the trail was. It was also this point that Andrew ran out of gas. With about 2kms to go on relatively easy trails, I carried the boy. We moved quickly through this portion of the trail, as I was wigged out by the cliffs, but as soon as we exited into some nice meadows we took some frequent breaks. Each time when we got moving again, Andrew would start walking on his own, but after a few steps he would walk out in front of me and ask to be carried. That was fine. He was THAT tired too as he fell asleep in my arms as we finished up the hike. After our final break, we headed up a steep but short hill, and spotted a trail marker. Traci says ‘ How much farther?’. I pointed to the left and said ‘ Not too much father as there is our car!’

So, cheers all around, cross the road to the car and WOOT! we were in the Air conditioned comfort of the Nissan Cube.

We have started a bit of a tradition, in that after our hike, we find somewhere to cool our feet off. Normally it’s a river or creek. We were close to the Sandy McNabb recreation area, so we ended up heading down there. Well, some of you have followed me enough to know that I seem to be around ‘emergencies’ a lot. Today was no different. I’ll let my Facebook postings tell the story.

And just to paint the picture, this is a shot of the river where the incident happened. The river is down a bit since then, but still… yeesh…

I’ve nominated myself for the Q&A deal.

2011-07-30T08:44:00.001-07:00

So ask me anything.

Wait. What?

I’m Neil. I used to blog a LOT.

You’ve never heard of me?

Well then, should make for some interesting questions.

Also, for those of you sweltering in the south and east, a little something for you. Click it and make this pic your background image and it’s guaranteed to cool you down.

Race pics and Google+

2011-07-18T22:32:00.001-07:00

I found a couple ok race photos from the Red Deer Half Marathon Weekend! How’s that for pretty good form in the second picture! The rest of the pics sucked ass.

Also, I’m over at Google+ now too, so feel free to add me to your circles! Boy, it really looks and feels familiar, but I can’t put my finger on why.

AND, I am considering giving up running for a while. I mean, I want to focus on general fitness and weight loss for a while. I’ll keep runs in my repertoire, but they will be mainly for cardio bits in my training routines. I also want to take advantage of every opportunity to go hiking with my family and having long runs on the weekend will get in the way of that. I’ll see how I feel after a month or two and make some decisions then. I am only registered in one more race and that isn’t until Oct…

I told Traci I was craving another hike…

2011-07-17T21:18:00.001-07:00

so we went!

We just headed the 1/2 hour to Kananaskis Country past Bragg Creek and figured a nice little 5k loop on the Diamond T Loop would be good. It was! We spent more time hiking and less time sitting as there wasn’t much in the way of scenery, so before we knew it the 5k was up. It was pretty hilly with a few long ups, but boy we are glad we did the trek counter clockwise as the downhill off the mountain was relentless and doing it the other way may have killed us.

I wore my Vibrams today and regret it a bit as I had a couple painful steps onto sharp rocks on the steep downs. I have been having a great time in my Merrell Barefoot Trail Gloves up to now but they were still soaked from the river walking I did yesterday, so I figured I’d try the Vibrams. I knew it would be fine unless we go into any rocky sections and for the most part it was ok. There were just a few areas that were touch and go. There was one rock I stepped on at one point that almost took me out… eeee youch..

Lesson learned: dry the Merrells overnight.

Expanding on that, the Merrell’s have been amazing as trail hikers. I go sockless and I have enjoyed every step in them. I am confident in the grip (especially downhill!) and when they do get wet there are no issues with my foot slipping in them or anything. I can take on any terrain, footing and surface. They are even stylish at the grocery store!

On the way out we stopped for a Lime Margarita (non alcoholic) Frappe for the boy. He enjoys them. Can you tell?

We can’t keep him interested in anything, anywhere for more than 20 minutes at a time, but when we hike, he is good for… well… as long as we hike. He just loves it! we pack granola snack, fruit chews, beef jerky, rice crispie treats, water and trailmix. We hike to the top of something, then we sit and have a snack! He enjoys the rest. He says he gets pooped out, then when we finish the snack and he is ready to go, he declares himself ‘Pooped up’ and is ready to go again. The other cool thing he does for us is sing the alphabet song on steep ups. That gives us all the energy we need to make it to the top!

He loves the scenery, he loves the flowers, the trees, the water, everything. It’s something we can do as a family, and do it for MANY more years. We figure there is some overnight back country camping trips in our future too!

Here are some highlights of the hike today.

From the summit… That’s the road back to reality…

Helicopter pad for the forestry rangers. Chopper came and went about 5 times while we were hiking…

Here he is demonstrating ‘Pooped out’. It took 2 packs of fruit chews to get him ‘Pooped up!’

The sights and smells of all the wildflowers are incredible!

Oh yeah, yesterday we were in the final 100 meters or so back to the car and were walking along the river when I looked out toward the water, and over on a log there were sitting a couple people. One you could tell was a guy, and sitting next to him was what I though was a younger guy or boy with his shirt off. I thought it was kind of weird when the guy reached over and grabbed at, what would be his chest area. The person without the shirt turned a bit and sure enough I got a peek at some boobies. It was a naked woman, and the dude was playing with her boobs. I said to Traci, ‘That Chick’s naked!’. She looks over and kinda gasps, and just then they must have heard our bear bells and she covered up with a shirt.

That’s it! bye!

Super Saturday hike

2011-07-17T09:29:00.001-07:00

Another great hike. This new hobby of ours is getting addicting! Enjoy the pictures.

Harvest Half Marathon–Why I volunteer…

2011-07-16T08:58:00.001-07:00

So, I first ran the Harvest Half in 2009 and decided I really liked it. I put it on my calendar for the next year. Within that year I became Barefoot Neil Z, and I started to become more involved in the Calgary race scene.

For the 2010 race, Traci and I got very involved in helping organize some of the volunteers for the race as well as helping out on race day. You can read all about that day here. All the while we were helping in real life, I was also building my social media knowledge and learning all about things like Twitter and Facebook. Since then, I have stayed in touch with the race organizers, and finally a couple months ago I asked if I could build a Facebook page for them.

The resounding answer was YES!

So I did. Now why would I get involved with this race, and not the countless others that I run? It’s because the race org team are some of the most amazing people I know. They took over this race 5 years ago as a way to honour their fallen friend/ daughter/ mother/ sister/ aunt, Tracey Flagg. Tracey was 38 years old when brain cancer took her life.

I met most of the family last year and the rest of the organizer team as well. All I can say is, what a dedicated bunch. They are not professional fundraisers, nor are they pro race organizers. Did you know that none of them even run? That’s right. They all believe so strongly in their cause that they organize this event, without the love of running that draws most of us to our passion. You can tell they care deeply, just in general, by the comments from people who run the race. It’s nothing but love at this race.

First of all, the race is run on one of the most scenic urban routes you can find anywhere. secondly, it’s on the first Saturday of October, so the weather is usually crisp, but very runner friendly. And third, the volunteer corps are friendly and helpful at every turn (no pun intended).

This race sells out every year, usually about 2 months prior to the race. Cool thing is, there are no hard rules about bib exchanges. If you can’t run, the org will transfer your bib to a person who can. This group is all about fundraising and supporting the Flagg family, while putting on a great race. They aren’t fans of doing the bib exchanges, but they will.

So. Most races have facebook pages for advertising to get entries. Well this race doesn’t need that. Why on earth would I want to administer a page then? Well, because I want to help them raise money and recruit volunteers. Like I said, they are some of the nicest people around, and it’s easy to get involved in their event.

Ok, hold on to your hats. This race, in the past 5 years, with 800ish runners per year, has raised over $440,000.00 for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

wow.

The second reason I wanted to run the FB page was to help recruit volunteers. As a pretty active FB user already, it’s easy for me to carry on a conversation that hopefully will get people interested in the race, as well as the cause.

Lastly, I want to give a place where registered racers can come for information. I will provide timely reminders, weather reports and whatever other info the Race org would like me to pass along.

On top of all this, I have fun chatting with racers. What better way to do that than as an admin of a race FB page! Please feel free to relate your Harvest Half stories here, as well as post your photos and link your race reports…

So now, here is what you should do: First off, register for the race. Do it soon though. It has only 350 bibs left as of July 16th, 2011. Secondly, donate to the cause, thirdly, Follow us on Facebook! While this is a local race, feel free to follow anyway, even if you are from out of town. I promise to be mildly funny and somewhat engaging! And, we’ll try to give away some cool stuff away, including a bib or two to our race.

Fourthly (sp?!) VOLUNTEER!

And lastly, thank you to the sponsors! without you, we are nothing!

Donations

“I smell wieners” and the 2011 Stampede Road Race

2011-07-10T22:45:00.001-07:00

Results for the stampede road race will be here.

I got a last minute bib for the Stampede Road Race. I sent out a FB request and sure enough the internet came through! I was at the reg table at 7:15 and there was a bib with my name on it waiting for me, and after a bit of socializing I was at the start and running at 8:00!

Here is my Garmin stats from the race.

Here are all the race photos from the race.

Here are the shoes I wore at the race

Yeah. I couldn’t find my garmin. I forgot my Camera BATTERY, and I didn’t wear shoes. So I don’t know what my time was and I have no photos. This was as light as I have ever ran. My whole kit was shorts, long sleeve tech shirt, BondiBand and sunglasses. Yeah, I didn’t even use a water belt this run relying solely on the aid stations. I did ok at using the water stations as I would slow down, get a good drink and then get going again. But there was an Aid station at the 9k mark where I grabbed a cup and as I was trying to finish strong i just kept running hard. I was breathing pretty heavy and when I went to take a drink I inexplicably snorted almost all the water up my nose. There was a split second where I thought I was drowning. Turns out you can snort an entire cup of water and still finish the last 1k of a 10k fairly strong.

Today wasn’t about anything but getting out and racing again. Did I ever tell you I love racing? It’s the people that I appreciate the most. I stood around the start line chatting with Darren and Dawn, and low and behold there is a guy in Vibrams standing there. I say “Wow, what weird shoes”. That’s start’s a long convo about all things Vibram, and many others chime in from around. That’s the best part about barefooting. I get to meet TONS of people. Standing behind me as it turns out is a guy in Huraches. That’s a first for me and I was actually surprised how thin the sole was. We chatted for a while and I found out he runs barefoot too, but not this race. He found me after the race for a photo op that he said was going to be on Facebook! Too funny. Who does that? Take all kinds of photos of people they don’t know and post them on Facebook… ahem…

All in all it was a great race. Sub 1hr I think. Best part was it wrapped up a very successful week of exercise. I ran Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with an awesome Hike on Saturday and the race on Sunday. A very good week indeed. I am sore, but a good sore.

As for the hike, building on the awesome time we had out in the Sheep River Valley last weekend, we decided on a bit more of an ambitious hike. We spent some time on Friday getting Andrew kitted up with a new backpack and setting ourselves up so we could enjoy a day of whatever came at us on Saturday.

We got out to K-country at about noon and decided on a test hike around a nice little pond. We were only a few feet from the car and Andrew was whining about the weight of him water bladder, which I thought might be the case. We went back to the car and pulled out the bladder, and then he was fine. So in my pack was about 20 lbs of clothes, safety gear and water, Traci’s pack had 10lbs of food and water and Andrew carried about 11 oz of pretzels, oreos and wholegrain nachochips.

He was pretty happy.

The test hike went very well, so we headed off to our final destination.

I messed up and left our trail map at home, but after a bunch of driving around and some pre-hiking we ended up finding a trail sign that showed we were on the right path.

This was what the first km was like. mountainy meadows with a couple stream crossings. *Side note: Traci was hiking in her brand new VivoBarefoot Neo’s. She loved them! They performed very well.

Once we left the flats the trail was very vertical. In the next Km we gained 800’ of elevation to the top of Ford Knoll.

Traci took her socks off at one point and found the new Vivo shoes were more comfortable without the socks. Andrew asks to take his shoe off, and then tells me to take a picture.

Ok.

Here is is marching on! He did amazing. He walked every step of the hike. We are so proud of him. He sang songs, Wooted and was generally awesome.

Here is a short video of him taking the lead on the trail for a while.

We crested the top and stopped on the trail for a nice lunch of granola snacks, beef jerky, fruit chews and oreos. Andrew had a nice treat of a couple apple juice boxes. On the way back down we were treated to some amazing views. The first photos are taken from down there. We were very happy to be up there.

Traci wanted me to carry this out and put it in our yard. I thought it made a better photo and left it there.

The flowers were very nice with lots of Fireweed, Blackeyed Susan and Alberta Wikd Rose. I sure wouldn’t want to be on these trails later in the summer when the wild strawberries are ready as there were at least a million blooms and the bears are going to be VERY happy with the crop.

Andrew does his best Hero shot.

But can’t keep a straight face!

We were on the last steep down and Traci says “I smell wieners!” heh, that was kinda funny. We were very close to the campground and sure enough the smell of hotdogs was wafting into the woods. Must drive the wild animals nuts.

So then Sunday morning I ran the race and when I got home we packed up and decided to try and find the best playgrounds in Calgary and in the process found some really nice spots we never knew existed. It was a great weekend.

Andrew layed down and was sleeping in about 2 minutes tonight.

We are planning more hikes. We have all the safety and comfort gear we need since I kitted up last year for this epic run. All good stuff. Can’t wait to see what happens next weekend!

Wordless Weekend… Turner Valley and Kananaskis Country Camping Canada Day Weekend...

2011-07-03T22:55:00.001-07:00

If you want a picture, just click to enlarge, save then let me know you did. If you are going to make money with it, I’d like a cut without having to sue you. Have a GREAT day!

K-100 Relay Race Report, Part 2. The rest of the story…

2011-06-29T00:17:00.001-07:00

K100 Race results are here

Part 1 here.
Part 1.5 here.

Everyone seemed like they had pretty inspired runs, But first:

Here I am running near the finish line of leg 4. Dude, I am a person, not just a pair of bare feet…

Notice I am on the road side of the white line. I ran there whenever there weren’t cars coming toward me as it was clean with no little rocks. I would usually run ON the white line in other races but there was a pavement seam right there and it was very unsure footing. Thanks to Leg 10 Dan for this photo. I only met him for a couple minutes total, but he seemed like a nice guy.

When I finished, I got a ride back to my car with Kraig, and then I went and stood in the river for a while and reflected on the run.

Once that was over I headed back a ways down the road to the Highwood House (a gas station) for some beef jerky, BBQ chips, ice cream sandwich and a G2. Once back on the road I bumped into the clean-up crew doing the same Job I had during the Calgary Marathon. I stopped and helped load a few tables and then continued on my journey back to the race course.

Once I got changed and had an old spice deodorant bath, I headed up the highway to see if I could catch Clint on his tough Leg 5. He was probably 2/3 of the way through his run when I got there and was able to get a ‘few’ shots of him. He ran the 17.54k leg in 1:36. I pulled up beside him and told him I thought leg 4 was probably tougher. He grunted: Yeah, probably. And just kept chugging up the hill. That leg sucks. Most teams save their ~~stupidest~~ ~~most gullible~~ best runners for this leg as it is pretty insane.

1476’ of elevation gain on this leg in 17.54kms. wow.

He is smiling! It was a pretty inspired run. He did complain quite a bit about where Dan parked the car after he finished (half a click back up the road).

I carried on up the road, stopping and taking pictures, noticing everytime I got out of the car it was getting colder. When i got to the summit it actually started to snow a bit and the wind was just bitter. There was lots of snow on the ground still and everyone was bundled up in blankets and whatever articles of clothing they could find!

Clint finished in typical strong fashion and handed off the race to Joel.

It was a little disappointing to me (and probably the leg 5 runners) that leg 5 didn’t finish right at the summit. I am sure it’s race logistics, but it was the leg 6 runners who get to crest the pass. It’s pretty neat to see runners topping out on the highest paved road in Canada. Remind me why we do this again?

Oh yeah, right. This is why we do it…

Joel is the youngest member of our group and therefore gets leg 6. 9kms straight down. 1200’ elevation loss. Hang the Eff on!! I drove down the hill, stopping for photos every now and then, but mostly watching the various downhill styles of each runner. From balls out run as hard as you can, to leaning back and braking with each step (ouch), to completely uncontrolled Phoebe style to light and quick and seemingly easy. Joel ran it great and seemed in great shape at the end.

This is my 3rd favourite shot from the day. The first was the one in part 1 - Joanne and the Horses. Number 2 is coming up.

Joel finished strong. The leg actually finishes with a nasty little uphill which I understand tends to claim runners more than anywhere else on course. After trashing your quads for an hour, that little up is agony!! ~~Joyce~~ Jackie was ready and gone like a shot on leg 7. This is a long 18km leg with a real variety in terrain.

Dean and Joel! Congrats on your runs! I spent quite a bit of time with this Father and Son running duo, and I appreciate the support on this day. Thank you!

Here is ~~Joyce~~ Jackie running happy. Unfortunately she konked out at the 10k mark with some Stomach problem, so Superhero Clint stepped in and finished the leg.

This is what ~~Joyce~~ Jackie had to say about it.

My story is short: DNF. Had to quit at about 10 km due to stomach issues :( Clint and Dan fought over who would get to finish my leg, but Superhero Clint won out and ran the balance of my leg for me (altho I did finish the worst part - the 3k hill!!!)

Great support from my teammates (Neil included). Next year, I WILL beat Leg 7!!!!!

I didn’t know any of this was happening as I decided to do a little sightseeing and relaxing before my stint as support for Susan. I drove around just looking and sitting. I thought I should head back down to see what was going on and when I ran into Clint and Dan ( ~~Joyce~~ Jackie hadn’t bonked yet) and I realized that leg 8 may have a forced start. This put me in a little panic when Clint said, YES it is is and it’s in 15 minutes.

Suck-o. I hopped back in the car and headed down the road. I didn’t know how far I was away from the transition but I knew it was still pretty far away. What I realized is that Forced starts kind of jam up the support vehicles and people in general. I had to park WAY down the road and RUN to the crowd.

I had never met Susan before. I was frantically running in and around the crowd, looking at bibs. I thought I found her when I spotted the a bib that was partially covered by her jacket but the last 2 numbers were correct. I stood right in front of this lady and said, Are YOU Susan?… nothing. I was like a foot away from her and I Said, HEY, Are You Susan!?, she kind of looked off into the distance and didn’t respond.

Not Susan. However, to my chagrin, the announcement comes over the loudspeaker “30 SECONDS TO THE FORCED START”

Damn. What do I do now… I KNOW. So I jog about 50 yard down from the crowd and I start to scan bibs as they run by. Sure enough I spot the RIGHT bib and start running beside her, and introduce myself. Susan was cool. Id’ve been all panicked and worried, but she was unphased. We made a plan for support and I headed back to the car. I had the GU, but for some reason I didn’t have any water. Was I supposed to pick up water somewhere, was there a support package that I missed out on? hmmmm…

So… over in the ditch was a table with big jugs of water. I looked around in my car and I decided to rinse out one of my GU bottles and go fill it up. I got back to the car and mt common sense finally kicked in and I headed over to the store (the transition was right across from the 1 store in the valley) and bought 2 bottles of water. I just couldn’t offer her water from a bottle that had already been used (by me) in this race… Simple for some, big deal decision making for me…. yeesh…

Well, I pulled out and got into line with the masses of cars. When I finally caught up to Susan, she was ready to shed her jacket. Just as I got back into my car and pulled up the highway again, it just started to POUR rain. ahead it was like watching a frogger video game as support teams crossed over the road to get jackets back to thier runners. Susan was having none of that, she was warmed up and kicking ass!

Look how happy while running in the rain. Great attitude!

Here is my second favourite photo from the race… Looks fake, except for the runners…

This was the reality for the entire leg as support groups leapfrogged each other for the duration of the run. Compounding the issue was the fact there were additional forced starts in the next two legs and teams were trying to get their runners to the start areas. I was parked at one point updating facebook and twitter (just got service back for the first time in 9 hours) and BANG BANG, theres a loud knock on the passanger window. I peed a little. It was Clint dropping off the support car sign and safety vest as they went by to go drop off Dan at leg 10 start. Kraigs yellow Jeep is up in the line of cars as he was headed to leg 9 start.

Right here Susan goes running by and says “It’s one of those days! I just beat my 10k PR!!” Yeah! Way to go! I think the race adds a bit of go juice to your Mojo when you are part of a cool team! Don’t ya think?

Susan ran with this group of 4 ladies, and during the last support spot I told her to lose these chicks, time to break out! She replies: No problem, i’ll be able to out kick them, no problem!

She was right, in the last 2kms she pulled out a lead of at LEAST 300 meters! Nicely done. She tagged off to Kraig in a torrential downpour and we headed back to pick up her car. I dropped off Susan and then headed home. just like that. It was over for me. home life called and I was more than ready to get back to my DW and DS. I started at 1:30 am and it was now 6pm and still an 1:15 from home.

That was it for me. I did get a report from Dan and Kraig. Here are their storys.

Kraig said:

Man this was a busy weekend. Just got back to Edmonton at 11:30 last night. It was great meeting everybody though. Can't believe how much fun it was. Right now all I want to do is go run it again.
As for my leg; 'It was wet.' Crap now I owe Susan some money. How much was that again? Five bucks a word? Jeez, Dan I might need your help with the math on this one.
The first km was pretty wet but it cleared up fast. It was a good time for the rain actually because the first 2k or so was just a bike path with no hills. Then we were guided off onto 200m of shale under a bridge that I think Neil would have hit his head on. Man was it low. Quickly changed over to mulch though and stayed flat until about the 4k mark. Right after crossing a small bridge over some rushing water we headed (what felt like) straight up for 3k. The trail was basically damp/soft dirt with oddly place rocks and tree root protruding everywhere. After that it plateaued for 1k and everything went crazy muddy and swampy. I just left the rushing water down below but somehow it made its way up the hill. Then there was another 1k up with patches of wet and dry spots. Followed by 2k down where the random rocks and tree roots got worse. Another flat 1k as we crossed a river and made our way around a small parking lot. At which point we had another 1k up but this one was worse than the others and everyone else began to walk. Then the last 500m was flat with plenty of water to clean oneself off for the finish.
Um... Man that was long winded. Don't ask me to write stuff cause you'll get a story. This was me trying to keep it short.
In the end I ran the 12.5k in 1:18:23. Ignore the fact that Dan's leg was 5.5k longer and I look pretty good. :)

Dan said:

Great to have met you.......you are right, the whole thing was a blast (except Leg 10.....lol)

Leg-10 - basically an 18km out and back leg - Started at the Nakiska Ski Resort, first 3km through the forest downhill....a bit muddy and the trail was very "rutty"...afterwhich the trail turn to rock and points what seemed to be loose shale, following power lines for another 3km...then the ice cold creek crossing, about shin deep (very refreshing....not). Another up and down non-stop climb to the turnaround point just to do it all over again. Except this time the end bit was changed so that we could enjoy a 1.2km direct Ski slope climb out of the woods to the ski lodge.

All in all....a very challenging course....worst for me was being a sea level creature from TO...the constant up and downs at altitude took its toll on me....and I blame Clint the Anti-Christ for that part......also and VERY important....I wore trail shoes (based on the recommendation of the guy working the pool area at the hotel....not a good idea...) and now I have a hole in my foot (happy to send a pic for effect if you need it....) also blame Clint the devil for that.....

But in the end...it was an absolute blast.....getting to meet most everyone was very cool and made the experience a lot of fun.

Final time for the 18km - 1:18:56

Thanks team! It was a blast!!

A little housekeeping before I continue on the 2011 K100 Relay Report.

2011-06-26T22:13:00.001-07:00

I swear in this post… It makes a point. It’s the F word and the S word. Deal.

1. First. Sorry about all my poor grammar. Even for me, the last post makes me look like a blogtard. I've since gone through and fixed all the ‘you’ that should be ‘your’ and all the words that my mind said, but my fingers forgot to type.

2. HUGE apologies to ~~Joyce~~ Jackie. In my defence, I never spent that much time with her, but I did spend the entire day calling her Joyce to everyone else. They all must have thought I was a moron.

Jackie, Did I call you Joyce to your face? I hope not. If so, I am sorry.

I hope I can make it up to you by NOT mentioning that you DNF’d leg 7 with a case of ‘Bad PB Sandwich’ Stomach.

It’s especially bad since we have a friend in common on FB who we both post comments to. Where were you when I needed you Facebook Friend Suggest? Hmmm? Anton Krupica should be my Friend and not ~~Joyce~~ Jackie? Did you also notice that on the way to the race I made Twitter friends with her, and STILL got her name wrong all day!

Anyway.

3. I want to yammer on about my experience at the race. All the training woes aside, I loved all of it. It’s a little nerve racking (sp) running on a team that you never met before. My personality enables it to look easy, but have visions of high school all over again (hey guys, whatcha talking about? Hey guys, maybe I can come along this weekend, oh you aren’t doing anything this weekend again? oh, ok… )

Turns out everyone is pretty awesome. Even Clint, Dan and ~~Joyce~~ Jackie, who were nice enough to humor me as I ooohed and aaaahed about the course. Probably a few eye rolls at the expense of this noob, but I can take it. Get to know me and you’ll realize I ALWAYS ohh and ahh about cool shit.

I met Dan briefly. Apparently he had an epic hard run in Leg 10. I hope one of my teammates, or Dan can fill me in on the details so I can tell the internet. I did enjoy Kraigs company for a good part of the day and I did see him get the hand off from Susan, but still need his report. Dean and Joel were cool (Father and son). Dean has organized this team for a few years, and Joel is a sacrificial lamb that runs Leg 6 each year (1200’ of elevation drop in 9kms, he is young and recovers in a couple days where the rest of us would be broken for weeks). I had the pleasure of supporting Susan who is a pretty cool chick. You’ll meet more of them in Part 2 of the Race report. Anita was great and ambitious and ran a really tough leg.

Edit: Dan reported on his Leg 10. I have a bit of a hard time feeling bad for him. He ran a 18k muddy hilly trail in 1:18. I will include his email in Part two of the race report.

Ok. I was really upsetting myself over this run. It a really big all day commitment (weekend for some) that you really can’t take lightly, competitive or hobby runners. It got to the point of almost bailing altogether, but my nature wouldn’t allow me to do this. So what did I do? I decided on a ‘Fuck it’ attitude and just decide to let the chips fall where they may.

I committed fully to the run, to the support, and to the event. I think that was the key. Fuck it, I am going to leave at 4am and get there for Joanne and Daren. Fuck it, I am going to restock my amazing photo supply with pictures of this run and the scenery surrounding it, Fuck it, I am going to run the shit out of my leg and if I collapse trying, so be it. Fuck it, I am here I might as well enjoy myself.

Success on all fronts. It was pretty cool. I don’t spend entire Saturdays away from my family much, and that was in the back of my mind too. Traci is a stay at home mom and has full time ‘with child’ job. She loves every minute, but relies on me to enjoy some ‘Sausage party’ bonding with the me and the boy on the weekends so she can have some quality quite time (or just work on the laundry with out the ‘Why’ machine under foot all the time). I figured I was out there, might as well give my all to the event.

Speaking of the event again. The team concept is pretty foreign to a runner for the most part, but you can tell a lot of the teams have been doing this race for a LONG time and really enjoy this day to the fullest. I spoke to a woman at one point who has run all the legs at least once and is now on her second go-round. You can tell the ones that make this one of their annual goal races. They are the ones who dress up, travel together in a van, cheer relentlessly for anyone running (and cheer harder for those who are walking), the ones who paint their support vehicles and honk at everything! Teams like these ladies.

It was cool because later I had them as a cheering squad! Barefoot rules. You can be a slow, out of shape runner, and still get an entire race of people cheering for you. I smile and say thank you and tell them to google Barefoot Neil Z as they might be on the internet that night!

Check out this video I made of the start, middle and end of my leg. The group above actually made up a cheer for me.

4. My feet. My feet are great. 14kms, no matter the hills, are just fine. 14kms for me now is very doable under any circumstance, as this race proved. Even though it was uphill for most of the leg, it was still just 14kms. Remember back on May 1st? I ran 31kms barefoot, so this was nothing. That was my mindset, that it’s only 14kms and I can do this in my sleep. People are still amazed by my bare feet too. The most common questions was “Don’t your feet hurt?”, nope, its everything but my feet, haha. I guess people are amazed still, especially when I do out of the norm races like this one. Many of the main races in Calgary, well they kind of expect me there now…

It surprises me a bit, still that people are surprised with my barefeet. I guess I may be the only one who follows it. Like really, if you didn’t barefoot yourself, why would you pay attention to any media on it. I like that I am still a novelty, I have met the most amazing people because I run sans shoes.

5. I blame the running room for my lack of training commitment. If they were a little more open minded to my desire to inspire (hehe, it rhymes), I would still have a club to run at in south Calgary. It’s just very inconvenient to head into the city from the far out there suburbs for a 1/2 hour run with a different group. When we sell the house and move into the city again I think that will all change. I get MANY options of running clubs/ groups. Now who wants me, and do you have an indoor running track that allows barefoot? (MRU, Oval) . I will qualify tho, that getting kicked out of the RR is what launched this mildly popular blog and all the good stuff that came along with it…

6. Thanks you so much to GUEnergy who sent me a big bag of GU gels for everyone on the run, and for that matter, thanks to everyone who supports my running, especially my family. Couldn’t do it with out you. Tuesday is Traci and my 14th anniversary! Love you Sweetie! Here is one of her favorite photos I have taken…

7. VOTE FOR ME! I can win cyber cash! If you like the picture, go to this Fathers Day facebook contest at PlanetGear.com and click VOTE! it’s easy, so do it for me!

Kananaskis K100 Relay Report

2011-06-26T08:51:00.001-07:00

Scenery and K-100 Photos overload warning. K100 Relay results will be posted here.

I went to bed Friday night at 8:30 and woke up at 1:30. Couldn’t go back to bed. I talked to myself on Facebook for a while, got myself together then at 4am I headed out.

I drove the 70ish kms to Longview, just enjoying the peace and quiet, and tying to think about the day ahead. I had no idea what I was in for but couldn’t wait to find out. I had to take a picture of the little town of Longview from the hill above town just so you could see how rural the start of this race was. Remember, it was 5am here and still quite dark out. I used a long exposure with the camera held steady on a fencepost to get this shot.

Longview had quite the day Saturday. The K-100 starts here, the Enbridge Ride to conquer Cancer comes through here and the Make-a-wish motorbike rally also makes a visit!

The K-100 race has 3 staggered starts. Most of the Teams start at 6am. We are the slower runners. In an effort to get everyone off the 100 mile course in 14hours they have forced starts on some legs, as well as these staggered start times. The next group starts at 7am and the speediest groups starts at 8am. Heck those guys could have started at noon as we first saw them by leg 3. They made up a 2hour delayed start in the first 5 hours of our run.

The start location is nice. There is a grassy park where they let you pitch a tent for the night. (however, it was VERY cold that morning… brrr to getting out of your sleeping bag…)

A better shot of the start banner and the race route off in the distance.

Joanne was Leg 1 runner on our team. Daren and I saw her off, as well as the rest of the 6am runners. (about 180 total to start.) The race has 2800 runners total.

267-1 – Wade. I met him at the start line. such. corny. jokes. he was a blast, I hope you all finished strong! Wow was it was still really cold. Like 5c cold. (40f)

As soon as the runners left, Daren and I went for breakfast. If you are ever in Longview, don’t overlook Heidi’s Food Saloon for your meal. The breakfast was fantastic!

The course does a quick loop in town then heads out on the highway toward the mountains.

So, each team is allowed a support vehicle, which has access to the runner at all times. Whatever they need, however many stops the runner wants, the support vehicle can provide. The other vehicle is the shuttle. The shuttle isn’t really policed. Most of our team drove ourselves out to the race, and we looked after each other for going back and retrieving our cars at the end of our legs. And while we always had 1 support car, there may have been 3-4 of us in our own vehicles on a given leg. (also, you may not have to run until hours later, but it’s still great fun to watch this race, so there are a lot of spectators just cheering!)

Joanne was the benefactor of my very happy camera trigger finger, as well at the morning light…

I think this picture should be on the cover of something, somewhere… You take enough shots in life and sometimes you get lucky… This is photo 33,409 in the past 2.5 years with my Canon DSLR. This is one of probably only 50 that I am really proud of. Funny thing is, it’s framed this way to cut the dude out that you see in the photo above…

And some other random shots from the leg. Yeah, this is all just leg 1!

Joel (leg6), Dean (getting ready to run Leg 2) and Kraig (not running until leg 9) were at the leg 1-2 transition. Nice to meet you.

Joanne finished strong (not her fastest, as she was still feeling the 80k race from a week ago) and Dean was off to complete his leg. The next two legs were dominated by a very difficult wind.

I am positive I am the only one who saw this little bit of scenery. Can you guess why?

I know you calf hurt like a muther*****r Dean, but you powered through Leg 2 like a CHAMP! Way to go. Doesn’t look like it here, but the wind was brutal too.

I headed up to T-2 to find Anita. Remember, a bunch of us had never met as Clint (leg 5, superhero) put together this team from his cyber friends on Facebook and the Runners World Forum. The core of the team were Dean, Joel, Dan, ~~Joyce~~ JACKIE and Clint, the other 5 were cyber noobs.

Hi Anita! Anita is a relatively new racer, and had the worst wind on Leg 3, but she did amazing!

Typical transition scene.

I caught a couple awesome tag-offs.

Including Dean gently sending Anita on her way…

There she goes! She took off like a shot!

Here she is smiling (faking it?) out on course.

The prairie highlands started to give way to a more alpine scene and we started to really gain altitude.

So the next leg is mine. I took the time to do some course reconnaissance and I almost wish I hadn’t. It was pretty scary for me. my goal, based on no facts or experience whatsoever, was a 1:40 in the 14.1kms.

Ok, just so all of you know, since I completed this race without croaking or my legs falling off, I can tell you that I never ran one step since the Red Deer Half exactly a month ago. For lots of really good reasons. for the past week, I have been feeling bad, including a pinched nerve in my left hip and a bit of a tweaky knee, which I blame both on my new job, having to wear dress shoes and sit at a desk for extended times. I posted on Facebook that I was injured and that implied that maybe if someone stepped up, that they could take my spot. No one did.

Good freaking thing.

I loved every minute of this day. Even the crazy uphill leg I agreed to run. Remember me telling you how hard and hilly Red Deer Half was? Yeah. Not so much.

There is an education in running if you are willing to put yourself out there and try new stuff. 810’ of elevation gain, 300’ elevation loss. The downs were nice, but they really weren’t long enough to gather myself before the next up. And the first 4km were really hard. Just sayin. The perspective is really weird as when i wasn’t going up one of the steeper ups, the flats really looked like downs… a real mental oddity.

Happy and nervous at the start.

Biggest reasons for the eventual awesomeness of my run?

1. There were groups of support teams that I would see 5-6 times during the run

2. My support. Thanks Kraig!

3. Other runners. All supportive.

4. The thought that I would let my team down if I fail.

When you are running a mountain relay in your barefeet, you gain some attention. It was ALL good! Thanks to everyone who cheered me up this big effin hill! If you see yourself in any of these pictures, feel free to click, right click and save the picture for yourself! I had a few people snapping pics, and one person goes “Hey! are you the one writes the blog?” cool.

A tiny bit of downhill to finish was pretty nice!

I finished in 1:44, 4 minutes off my not fact based finish goal estimate. I am intact, uninjured and almost apologetically happy. My hip actually feels better than it did before. I did have a really wicked calf cramp after the run when I took off my calf sleeves. made me swear.

When I went back and got my car I took some time to take a couple shots of my leg…

I think you’d all agree that I was the big winner, right? I’m still in awe that I got to run this race…

I’m going to stop now and publish this part of the race report. It will get WAY too long and picturesque for 1 post.

But I will leave you with a teaser of part 2…

Prizes

2011-06-23T22:43:00.001-07:00

I owe a few people apologies. I must pull together their prizes and send them (from a contest a long time ago). You know who you are, I’m very sorry, I've been a bad blogger lately.

I also have to award a pile of prizes from the Virtual Marathon.

I’ll do that this weekend. But you know what else? Everyone who wins a prize will ALSO get a Cool kids Run Club shirt, yep… There will probably be 10-15 shirts heading out! AND I’ll award an extra shirt to everyone who leaves a comment here.

And why am I so jealous of not winning a contest I wasn’t even allowed to enter?

Fathers Day in Photos… And all about Geocaching!

2011-06-20T21:52:00.001-07:00

The boy has graduated from point and shoots.

Here is the shot he took

We started our day by doing some shopping. I needed some parts for my awesome Nitro Truck, so We ended up at PM Hobby Craft. There was a demo days for some rock crawler RC trucks and they let Andrew drive one. He was grins from ear to ear. When we checked out they were giving away free t-shirts and hats to all the Dads! Yay!

A couple more stops and we were headed out of town trying to chase the few blue patches of sky we could see. The end goal of the day was to find a nice spot for a picnic. We were a few miles out of the city and as soon as I turned on the Geocaching app, we had quite a few treasures to search for in close proximity. We started with a success.

The first score is deep in those bushes. It’s always an adventure…

We like all kinds of caches from long hikes to roadside attractions. This rock was significant for some reason, and a good place for a quick roadside find!

The best part about Geocaching, aside from the quality time with my family, is we don’t have to be anywhere in particular. The playing field is ‘Anywhere in the world!’ So, we spent the day chasing the the sun. Anywhere we could spot a patch of blue sky was the direction we would go. Cool huh?

Think he enjoys this?

We struck out here, but the scenery was worth it!

He found one. It’s a very convincing fake rock! You can actually buy containers from www.geocaching.com that are pretty unique. We have found fake sprinkler heads, fake bolts in a park bench and all manners of cache containers. Pretty cool. The more obvious the location, the more camouflaged the container typically.

Andrew and I walked up to the top of this big hill and looked around. We started back down and all of a sudden he heads back up to the top and says, ‘come take a picture of me daddy!’

Ok!… wow! Probably in the top 5 awesome pictures I have taken of him…

So. Geocaching. Are you curious? I found out about this hobby by reading camping blogs a few years ago. Basically it’s a high tech treasure hunt. Users of the website www.geocaching.com register a user name, then look up local caches. More on that in a bit.

Where do the caches come from? Anyone, really. I could place a cache somewhere. The stipulation is it should be close enough to your area that you can maintain it if it gets ‘compromised’ somehow. It could get waterlogged, or accidentally damaged, most of the time, people who find the cache will report it on their log report online that it is in disrepair. Caches can range in size from just big enough to hold a tiny little piece of paper to print your name on (bring your own pen), to very large storage bins, full of all sorts of stuff. The stuff in the larger containers usually contain items for trading. Cachers will drop a trinket or toy into the cache and remove another one of equal or greater value. We let Andrew do most of the trading. At some finds it’s a very important decision as what to pick. His favourite yesterday was this: A tiny little frog eraser. It really amazes me the items he takes, as it usually bypasses the bounty of toy cars and mini hockey sticks, instead choosing really unique items…

To the right in this photo, in the trees is a film case cache.

The next best part of Geocaching is where it takes us. We have seen more awesome parts of our province in the last 2 years, than we have in the previous 10, and that is saying a lot. Not to mention all the historical areas we are educated about through our awesome hobby.

This is a map from the Geocaching website of the area we explored yesterday. It is about 40 miles wide by 25 mile high. Not too big an area, however you get the idea of how many caches are available to be found. You could spend weeks searching in just this little area North of Calgary and still not get to them all. Every little dot on the map you see is another cache, there are literally hundreds to choose from. The red circles are the ones we found or attempted to find. The photo above and below the map were taken at the circles at the top of the page. There are almost 1.5 million Caches placed around the world, and over 5 million registered cachers…

This young group of longhorn steer snuck up on us while we searched for another cache. They seemed very curious but friendly.

Now, we use the Iphone app, just because it is the easiest for us. It is less accurate than say, a Garmin device as the Iphone uses a ‘software compass’ which means you have to be moving to get an accurate reading. A garmin device uses a hardware compass and will give an accurate reading even if you are standing still, which is better for stopping and gathering your bearings when in thick brush or tough terrain. The Iphone uses the geocaching website for all it’s data, so no need to preload any maps or caches, while a regular GPS needs to be loaded with info from your computer prior to setting out. When we started out with this hobby, we used the FR305 running GPS. It was very accurate and worked like a charm. The only drawback is you don’t have a choice of map views, or additional info that the Iphone provides (such as hints that sometimes are needed for a successful find. Hints we have appreciated like ‘Look up’…). We are going to start using both. The Iphone for all the general info, and the FR305 for the accurate and final approach at the cache site. If you have a GPS device, you can check it’s geocaching rating here.

Here are the links to the reviews of some of the popular running GPS devices

Garmin FR305
Garmin FR310XT
Garmin FR201
Garmin FR405

And your vehicle GPS device can be used as well! TomTom!

TomTom One

And then of course there are the Devices that are MEANT for this type of outdoor pursuit. This is the most popular Geocaching device on the market today. I will have one like this, one day…. one day.

Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx

All in all, it’s an incredibly fun hobby that anyone, of any fitness can partake in! What are you waiting for? Get out there!

And if you want to know more - Here is the full story straight from the website… (there is SO much more to this hobby that we don’t even scratch the surface, what with multi caches and travelbugs…. and on and on!

The Game

What is geocaching?

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

How is the game played?

At its simplest level, geocaching requires these 8 steps:

Register for a free Basic Membership.
Visit the "Hide & Seek a Cache" page.
Enter your postal code and click "search."
Choose any geocache from the list and click on its name.
Enter the coordinates of the geocache into your GPS Device.
Use your GPS device to assist you in finding the hidden geocache.
Sign the logbook and return the geocache to its original location.
Share your geocaching stories and photos online.

There are many other levels to the game. Keep reading the guide to learn more!

What are the rules of geocaching?

If you take something from the geocache (or "cache"), leave something of equal or greater value.
Write about your find in the cache logbook.
Log your experience at www.geocaching.com.

What do I need to go geocaching?

The only necessities are a GPS device or a GPS-enabled mobile phone so that you can navigate to the cache, and a Geocaching.com Membership.

Where are geocaches located?

Geocaches can be found all over the world. It is common for geocachers to hide caches in locations that are important to them, reflecting a special interest or skill of the cache owner. These locations can be quite diverse. They may be at your local park, at the end of a long hike, underwater or on the side of a city street.

Are there different types of geocaches?

Yes. There are currently over a dozen "cache types" in geocaching, with each cache type being a different variation of the game. See the full list of Geocache Types.

How did geocaching start?

It's a very cool story, actually. So cool that it deserves its own page.

Ok, what else. Oh yeah, the K-100 relay on Saturday. Should be fun. And I took this photo in our backyard today, beautiful Solstice sun, while POURING rain!

Desktop Wallpaper

2011-06-17T18:22:00.001-07:00

For you.

Click to embiggen, right click to save.

hey,

2011-06-11T17:45:00.001-07:00

how are you?

good.

pretty rainy out huh?

yeah.

you been running?

yeah a little. you?

no.

really? no running?

nope. not since the Red Deer half.

gawd dude, aren’t you supposed to be training for the K-100 leg 4?

yeah. work has been so ridiculous busy.

really? like how busy?

well. to cap off a incredibly silly week, I had to finish a Tender document on Friday. I took home the work on Thursday night but ended up falling fast asleep with Andrew at 8:30.

uh oh. were you late with the bid?

nope. I woke up at 1:30am Friday morning and started my day. I turned the bid in at noon Friday, 2 hours early.

wow.

yeah, it worked pretty good. I felt pretty fresh working in the wee hours of the morning and ended up having time for a hottub at 5:30 before heading into the office.

nice.

but i really started to fade after lunch. problem was I had a weeks worth of work to try and catch up on, that I pushed aside to work on the tender.

sucks.

yeah. sucks.

geez, how big of a tender is it that you spent so much time on it?

it came to 1.95 million dollars.

holy shit. that’s a lot of desks and chairs!

yuh huh!

So that’s what I’ve been up to.

You?

My Calgary Marathon Volunteer Experience. and LOTS of pictures…

2011-05-31T23:01:00.001-07:00

The Aid Station… Came out of nowhere. More on that in a bit.

I got up at 4am, and went out and fired up the big 5ton truck. I had nightmares about waking up late and the marathon not having 5 of their aid stations. Like seriously, they let me take the truck home. How much would that’ve sucked if I don’t show.

I got there right on time at 4:45 and Nathan showed up shortly after, we picked up some final instructions and we were off. Our task was pretty easy since Dad was such a taskmaster when we loaded the truck, everything was right at hand.

I owe a huge thanks to Nate for answering my call on Facebook to come out and hang with me all day. For those of you who follow along on this blog, you’ll know I used to plow snow for a winter living (a very entertaining snow plowing post here), and Nate just happened to be my boss. He is also an aspiring triathlete, having completed 3 Tri’s to date. After hanging around the marathon on Sunday, he has now put the marathon in his bucket. (insert Top Gun soundtrack here –>> ‘Nate, you can be my wingman anytime’)

Dark out.

This is Barrie, moving very fast. Barrie’s claim to fame comes from last years Calgary Marathon when he had his radio on the wrong frequency while he was sitting in his vehicle, in the middle of the race course, while the elites were bearing down on him. People were freaking out over the radio and he was just enjoying a quiet moment in his car. Barrie is passionate about the race and they are lucky to have him.

The course changed a bit from last year, so I was surprised where the 2nd aid station was, but had no trouble locating the 3rd one. These 3 big dudes were sitting in a car at the AS location, and as we got out of the truck, they got out of their car. Uh-oh.

Turns out they were the Aid Station captains. Phew… We unloaded in record time. Thanks guys. Also, when we picked up this station later, it was the neatest and cleanest of all the sites. Great job!

We also had to drop off at the 10k AS as well as Station 14 which was the last one on the marathon course.

I worried every time we pulled away from the equipment that when the AS teams got there, everything would be gone. Thankfully there were cops and city workers all over the place, and nothing was taken.

As soon as we finished we headed back to the Start line so we could soak up the atmosphere. I’ll be honest, I was really missing the run. All the energy and anticipation, the huge crowd. I did the second best thing I could think of, and that was to take pictures.

Here is one of my favourites. You’ve been in this moment, haven't you? does it make you feel awesome? Give you butterflies?

So for the start of the Marathon and Half marathon, I found a perch above the crowd and fired away.

“who are the first timers in the half or full?” the announcer asked…

So they were off. I did see a few run buddies…

Darren wins for happiest to see me…

Tracy complained on facebook that I posted a pic of her as she waited for the PoP. I dunno. It’s a pretty good photo…

Finally got a good one of Joanne. She is a reluctant ultra marathon champion. She runs a couple thousand kms a month, it seems like.

Her dude Daren is running the 10k today.

I don’t know who this guy is, but I have a crush on his physique. He ran the 10k in about 32 minutes… And for the Canadians (more specifically the Saskatchewanians) reading this: Is the lead bike dude wearing a Pilsner Shirt?

Ok, I got some cool shots of the 10k too!

So, after hanging around the grounds for a bit, enjoying a coffee and taking some ‘assignment’ photos for CEP Compression Canada…
Kip won the 10k. again. in 30:08 a CR.

… we headed back to the truck to go pick up stations 1, 2 and 3. The runners were long gone by then so it was pretty quiet out there. All the stations were pretty much tidied up, all we had to do was dump the gatorade jugs and tie up some garbage bags, and toss everything back into the truck.

As we approached the #3 station, the city workers were opening the streets and picking up all the cones, I noticed a course marshall just kinda hanging out, but didn’t think too much of it.

As we parked and picked up #3, she just kinda walked by. I asked her if she was marshalling and she said yes. Turns out she got a ride out to her location but didn’t have a ride back. We were about 8km from the finish line. She was going to walk. I offered her a ride and she accepted. We got everything loaded and headed to the 10k AS.

We got to the 10k AS and since we weren’t in any hurry to get any further (AS 14 was 4 hours away from teardown) we just kind of took out time loading while watching the half and full runners on the other side of the road.

So. It’s pretty warm for Calgary standards and everyone is looking pretty beat. Where we are parked is the 38km mark for the full and the 17km mark for the half. Needless to say, they looked thirsty.

So.

We had cups
We had Gu gels
We had 30 gallons of water
we had sponges
we had buckets
we had garbage bags

I poured a couple cups of water and handed them out. I poured a couple more cups and handed them out. I poured a bunch of cups and the lady that we were giving a ride back to the start line handed them out. Nate started handing some out too.

I remembered we had the cases of GU in the truck and so I grabbed those and we had them available for the runners too. nothing formal, just a quick “Hey, you need a GU?” When I said that, I heard someone from the peanut gallery yell out “Hey, can we have some too?”. I looked up and there on the pedestrian overpass, spectating, were 2 guys. I replied, sure, come get some. They asked me to toss some up to them and didn’t want to as it was quite a ways up there, and I didn’t really feel like it. So, the two guys came down to the truck. Little did they know they would be pouring water for the next 4 hours…. LOL.

This is is Steve A. He was the pour master.

Stan K. is the bringer of the cups. He also kept me in sponge water.

Yani, the lady we kidnapped, was the watermaster. She stood out there in the sun, wearing the safety vest, actually looking like the only official person in our little gang, for 4 hours, making sure every runner who wanted water, got water. She was interviewed by a media guy at one point too. He asked her, do you think you’ll volunteer for this race again? her response was awesome. “No, I'm going to RUN it!”… She isn’t a runner, and this was the first race she ever volunteered for!! haha, she had no idea what she was getting into…! I asked her at one point, Were you supposed to be somewhere today? Do you have kids? She says, ‘Kids?, I have grandbabies!” That was a surprise. I took her for in her early 30’s….

Nate spent the entire day, a ways up the road offering up Mint Chocolate Gu.

The other person on our team was Dave K. He was just photographing some of the runners and got caught up in the conversation and banter we all had going on. All of a sudden I see Dave way down the road with a garbage bag picking up cups and GU packets. Then he is going back and forth returning sponges too. He did this for the duration of the race too!

I handed out water and sponges.

I can’t say enough about our ‘Team’, but thank you doesn’t seem to do it. You guys made a good day into a GREAT day for me. It was SO much fun to be a small part of the Marathon Support team.

The race org people stopped by a couple times, and at first they were like “what are you doing?”. To which I replied, “Is this ok?”

Um…. sure.

So we carried on. I sent an email to Org today sort of explaining myself and the response was: The Marathoners probably appreciated the water at 38.

Cool.

So much fun. I recommend it HIGHLY! If you run races, please give back in the form of volunteering. A rule of thumb is Run 10 races and volunteer for 1. You don’t have to go to the extremes like I did as ALL volunteer positions are needed and appreciated. even an hour here or there helps… Although the marshall on the motorbike has a pretty cool job… Bring your own bike I guess…

I did end up running on Sunday. I found my good buddy Barefoot Paul as we were cleaning up AS 14. He was running along in pretty ok shape, but hurting like he just ran 39kms.

When we got back to the finish area with the truck, I took off my shoes and socks and went out to find Paul. I found him with about 800 meters to go, and ran with him to the finish. Blows me away how good of spirits he was in after 6 hours of running. I really enjoyed that bit of running. I had kind of scouted the last bit of the course for him and helped him pick the smoothest line for his feet. He finished with a very impressive kick and proudly received his medal.

When I got back to the truck, most of the equipment and all the garbage had been offloaded, so all that was left was to return the truck!

So there you have it. My Awesome volunteer experience, complete with Rouge Water Station story. I wonder if any of the runners thought it was weird to have this ‘Extra’ station.

Awesome.

Would you rather...

2011-05-31T15:04:00.001-07:00

... Look at lots of photos on my main blog as I currently author, OR would you rather click through to a picture service like Flikr or Picasa to see them? (or is the web albums I keep in my facebook good enough?)

And i feel bad because some hater clicked on YOU SUCK twice in each of the last few posts. It is haters? Or do they hate running and volunteering.

(edit) Nevermind. I changed it.

Calgary Marathon Photos, From my Volunteer Experience…

2011-05-29T22:30:00.001-07:00

Go over to my Facebook Fan Page, Like me, then check out the album! Like I said, it was a pretty amazing day…

So Much to say about the Calgary Marathon…

2011-05-29T18:31:00.001-07:00

…And my volunteer experience.

I met so many amazing people today.

I get in trouble for trying to hard some days. But not today. We (I) set up a rouge aid station on the race course with the supplies we were picking up from other stations. Nate and I had picked up a Course Marshall who was going to walk back to the start/finish line (8kms), and we offered her a ride as we were headed that way. 20 minutes later she was handing out water to thousands of runners. She did this with us for the next 4 hours. There were 2 guys up on the pedestrian overpass that were cheering on the runners. They came down and helped pour water for the next 4 hours. The guy who was taking pictures near us just started picking up garbage and returning sponges. He did this for the next 4 hours. Nate was up front handing out GU’s. He did this for the next 4 hours.

It was truly a special day for me. I will have plenty more to talk about in the next couple days about all of this.

Here is our band of Outlaw Aid Station Personnel. I’ll introduce you to each of them in the coming blog posts.

And here are 3 of the 250 some photos I took today. ALL are amazing. I’m not sure how to select just 30 or 40 for the blog…

This one over exposed, but with a little tweaking turned out very cool.

This is how happy people were to see us at 38kms… Good to see you again Ron! I saw Ron run by at 38kms during the Red Deer Marathon last week. I was standing in the Red Deer River at the time icing my legs after I finished the Half up there.

Calgary Marathon, Volunteer Edition. Part 1

2011-05-28T20:27:00.001-07:00

Left the house at 9am, went and picked up my dad and we headed over to pick my giant truck. We are headed to the Calgary Marathon Race site to get loaded to deliver Aid Stations in the morning.

I really dig driving big trucks! Can you tell?

We headed down to the race site to get set up with our equipment and supplies for our assigned Aid Stations. I got the 10k Station, and Marathon Stations 1,2,3 and 14. We start at 4:45 Sunday morning and because we have the first 3 stations we GOTTA BOOGIE!

Waiting for our spot to load up.

A few of the fearless leaders! I have been around a few organizing committee's and this group is a good as I have seen. Working hard and having fun! What more can you ask for?

The logistics to pull off a race this size is mind boggling.

48 tables
25 trash cans and 125 garbage bags
72 cans of Gatorade mix
1000 Gu’s
20 giant Gatorade barrels
300 sponges
first aid kits
etc etc

My home for the better part of Sunday.

Everyone worked so hard! And smiled the whole time! It was a fantastic group effort.

These guys did most of the heavy lifting. I would almost like driving the Gator better than the truck… Almost.

This is the start line tomorrow. I can’t wait to see it with thousands of people! ! (the pink bug has a for sale sign in the window. Anyone want the phone number?)

Don’t forget the Km markers!

I will have PLENTY of photos from behind the scenes tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Red Deer Half Marathon Weekend…

2011-05-24T00:34:00.001-07:00

Results for the Woody’s RV Marathon, Half Marathon (and 10k) are here.

And the free photos will be here. Apparently Fleetfeetphotos.com took over 10,000 at the race.

First things first. Thanks SO MUCH to the race crew, volunteers, and spectators at the Race. Best race yet for all of those things. Big race support in a pretty intimate setting. Red Deer just jumped up a LONG way in my ‘like’ scale based on the parks, paths and people I experienced this weekend.

THANK YOU!

Ok, on to the weekend.

I booked this race WAY back when I was debating whether I was going to run Vancouver or Red Deer for my first marathon. We remember how that race went, right?

Well, I am still under trained for these races, as my life hasn’t slowed down at all. The good news is, in about 10 days I'll be able to close a very stressful chapter from my recent past and I'll be able to get back to training and writing about training. Can’t wait. I miss the internet. I still love every minute of racing. Every. minute. Up here in Winterada, it is getting closer to that day we call summer, so the leaves have reluctantly started to come out of the trees. This weekend last year I was whacking the trees in my backyard so the snow didn’t break them to bits.

We hooked onto the camper and went up to the Lions Campground in Red Deer for the weekend (btw, we won’t camp there again. The site was nice enough, but we were constantly harassed by a staff member for really trivial things, plus at one point I was in the bathhouse taking a shower when this guy and his wife come in and starts spraying antibacterial foam all over the washroom. I yell out, ‘HEY I’m in the shower here’, he says ‘I know” as the cleaner is flowing into my stall, he just keeps working away. we called him the campground Nazi.)

We love to camp. In fact, it’s our favourite thing to do as a family. We tend to rough it. looks like a tough time hey?

So Friday was a blur, basically just chucking our stuff in the truck and camper and zooming up the highway to make sure we got a spot in the campground. We did, then we ended up in Walmart and Safeway for the better part of the afternoon getting groceries and supplies. That was pretty much it for Friday. Pretty early to bed.

Saturday, we got up at a little before 9am. Thankfully Lisa H posted on Facebook that the family run was at 9:30, not 10:30 like I originally thought. We put our running gear on and headed out to the school where the start line was. But not before Traci took a huge digger over the dog fence we put up for the donkeys. She’s ok tho, bruised, but un-phased after a short timeout, and we made it to the start line in time.

Andrew was READY!! he did so good. Until…

He spotted the mother of all playgrounds. We spent a good 15 minutes here, then found a shortcut back to the finish line.

I was lucky when we got back as this guy dumped all the coffee stir sticks onto the ground, but I had just finished mixing my coffee. Then he dumped his own coffee out by accident. I made some comical remark then left.

Finally got to meet Lisa H. Facebook is very cool. I meet the best people there, then they talk me into running their races, then get to meet them in person and find out they are just as cool in real life. Thanks for the awesome race! Maybe next time we’ll have time to go for coffee and chat some more.

The rest of Saturday was spent doing normal camping things as shown in the following pics. (notice barefoot Traci Z in one of the following pics?). We are going shopping at Gords this week for a pair of lighter more minimal shoes. her cushioned shoes are killing her…

Had Taco’s and red velvet cake for pre race supper. Drank a bunch of water and headed to bed. The alarm went off at 5:45, I ate a multicolored cereal breakfast and had some more water. The night before I wrenched my back a bit and it was bothering me so I popped a couple Tylenol. The race start was only 3km away from the campground so I decided to walk. Turned out to be a good time to test my new Vibrams, complete with the nitrous bottles in the heel. They worked great and I was at the start line in record time.

Pretty nice for right in the heart of the city…

This is a portion of the race course. I have to admit though, that I couldn’t get to the start line soon enough and actually had to take a dump in the forest down there. My Apologies to all of Red Deer, but I did walk WAY into the bush, went off the trail into very rough shrubbery and I did bury my… well. you know. This was a first for me. I was very proud as you can imagine.

Sure is pretty though…

Of course Joanne and Daren are going to be there. They race EVERYTHING.

Great to see you both! Hey, guess what!? It’s time to go race! As walked over to the bag check, I got to give my favourite answer to one of the many questions I get at every race. At this point I am still wearing the Vibram’s. A guy looks and says “You aren’t going to run in those are you?”

“Nope I am not” and I took them off.

Ok, Let’s race!

The guy in the red was a real pecker.

Here is David! He walked up to me before the start and just says “Hi Neil”. I don’t recognise him as he has shaved and is wearing a GoPro camera. David is at all the races too. We ran together for 17kms. Thanks so much for the company David, that was just what I needed today! He rant he full, and rocked it!

Here is the result of the GoPro he is wearing. He had it set to take 1 picture every minute.

Here is my start line video. My feet are in this video.

About 1200 runners total, so it was a bit of an accordion to start, but we were going steady as soon as we crossed the timing mat.

The next picture shows the surface for much of the race. I have to admit, I’dve been better off in this race wearing my 5’s, but you know me. Always one to look for more Barefoot education. About 80% of the race was old, rough asphalt, there was a km or so of path gravel and the rest was new asphalt and a stretch about 200 meters on new glorious city sidewalks. The other bad thing about racing in a very treed route in late May, is Trees are dropping really sticky piles of tree crap. I found myself trying to scrape off sticky gunk much of the time.

That said. Most beautiful race course I’ve ever raced on. So un real. The gravel section was an actual island on a pond. the rest of the race followed all the ups and downs of Red Deer’s amazing pathway system. I will come back next year. I will wear minimal shoes.

Ok, for the birders out there. I was fortunate to spot the very rare mid-Albertan red beaked Shrew. I pointed it out for you here. Do you see it there in the woods? look closely.

Did you see it?**

Ok, ok, ladies. I am an equal opportunity blogger. Here is a 60+ year old fella who spent the entire weekend in his Speedo (seriously), but mercifully put on a pair of regular swim pants when it started pouring rain this morning.

So, not too many more picture by me. I had a hell of a time with my Gel-Bot strap and spent multiple minutes fiddling with it until at 18k I threw the whole thing away. After that my hands were free and I snapped a couple photos nearing the finish. I was using the Gel-Bot for the first time ever, as I left my new (and old) Nathan Belts at home by accident. Big whoops by me…

This was the nice downhill finish (for shod runners, the rough pavement was just the cherry on the uncomfortable cake that was this race as a barefooter) I was able to sprint a bit at the end to avoid being chicked.

Now this series of shots were taken with David C’s GoPro. He was nice enough to send me the raw images… these show the race course very nicely too

Good form! And THANKS Gu Energy! this has to be one of my favourite race images ever! Just sort of embodies everything doesn’t it?

The gravel..

The gravel on the island.

As we were running here this guy comes up from behind and kind of runs beside me and behind David. I ask, Are you trying to pass?

He replies: No, I am just running beside you so that if you step on something and veer off toward the water I will catch you like your own fairy godmother.

I say: Thanks!

I finished the race in 2:17:xx, which is very slow for my standards. Heck I did a 2:18 in a blizzard a month ago and a 2:01 last November. I attribute this time to A: the surface and B: my lack of knowledge of the course. It was WAY more hilly than I expected and I went out for 15kms at a sub 6ish/ minute pace. I also spent a lot of energy in full Ninja mode on the gravel and rough surface. The final 3km were really slow with a bit of walking. Still, I loved it. I choose to do this, so I have no regrets about any choice I make to race, barefoot or not…

The scenery was so nice, I later on Sunday took Traci and Andrew to see some of the areas of the race course that I really enjoyed.

Then we ate! YUUUUM!!! I love race day feasts! especially camping!

The next scheduled race for me is the K-100 relay, and next weekend am volunteering for the Calgary Marathon Weekend. Should be fun. I’ll be taking LOTs of pictures of behind the scenes stuff for sure…

Technorati Tags: Red Deer,Half Marathon,Barefoot,Camping,GoPro

** I took the picture only for the purposes of this blog. I am always thinking of your entertainment… and besides, she’s the one who wore the buns 1 size too small…

Well over a year ago I ran barefoot for the first time…

2011-05-17T23:50:00.001-07:00

I can’t remember the exact day, and I didn’t write about it (that I can find, but remember this blog has been scrubbed of all things Running Room, so there may have been a mention in one of those posts).

Regardless. I thought it was the Book ‘Born to Run’ that stoked my barefoot fire, but it wasn’t. The book just stoked my fire to run. You know. Running in general. You know how I know that? because of this.

Friday, March 26, 2010

I just finished…

… the book ‘Born to Run’ By Christopher McDougall. If you haven’t read it… do. I wish it hadn’t ended. It made me appreciate running in a way I hadn’t ever before. Even before I finished the book, when I was only part way through, I found myself liking running more and more. Lots of my running friends tell me (and I used to say this as well) ‘I most like the feeling of satisfaction I get at the end of a run’. While reading this book, I found myself enjoying the act of running more and more. My run last Wednesday, which I hope is a sign of things to come, was my most enjoyable run ever. I concentrated on running ‘easy’ and ‘light’, as the books reluctant hero Cabello Blanco (White Horse) puts it, and it really was just that. For me, it doesn’t mean there isn’t effort, as there is still lots of effort, it’s just that my mind tells me that what I am doing is good and honest and I am free to be myself. This alone makes the effort seem easier and lighter, if not incredibly worth it.

So now, at the end of a run, I am pretty sure I am satisfied at the effort and all the things it is doing for me health and mindwise, but I am at least as much sad that the run is over. I am incredibly far from ever being an elite athlete of any kind, but this thing (running) is just getting started for me. I was a passionate runner before reading this book, but it sort of gave me permission to really love it.

Thanks Mr. McDougall for a great book!

It doesn’t matter if you are old or young, big or small… Let’s go for RUN!!! *woot*

I think it was actually Barefoot Josh that peaked my interest. I was reading Running Down when I came across this crazy and funny barefoot dude in North Cackakalacky that shucked his shoes, and he wrote about it in a way that made sense.

So, well over a year later, Thanks Josh! I will be running my 4th barefoot half marathon this weekend at the Red Deer Marathon, and I couldn’t be happier!

BondiBand, Ryders and YurBuds…

2011-05-14T20:00:00.001-07:00

So I’ll start at the top and work my way down. This is a series of posts on the gear and fuel I use to run…

BondiBand website
BondiBand Facebook

I sometimes feel a little ladylike in my fascination toward the good ‘ol headband. I bought my first couple of BondiBands at the Calgary Marathon Expo in 2010 and now I have a whole stable of them. I actually think I look pretty cool in them, but the best part is the fact that I NEVER have sweat in my eyes anymore and I am salty dog to be sure.

You get the picture. For $8.00 each, you really can’t go wrong. The do what they say. Stay in place and wick moisture away. I think I look like a very stylish boy runner in them. Especially the ones with the Oriental letters. They may say “you suck at running” but I don’t care, they look cool.

Ryders Website
Ryders Facebook

I think I received my first pair of Ryders about a year ago too. In fact I am sure it was a year ago. I was sent a pair of Hex Ryders to try after I asked for a pair for a contest giveaway. Ok, so a year later and they have a couple scratches on them, but to be honest I have beat the shit out of them. Bottom of the Gym bag, from the car dash to the car seat to the car floor. In my jeans pocket. They are still in good shape, but for the price I went ahead I got myself another pair…

I totally think I could rock these AWOLS…

Or maybe not… These didn’t do me any favors… good thing they have TONS of styles…

You know why that’s ok? Because they are $35.00. The optics are great, they are light and they don’t fog up any sooner than my $200.00 oakleys in –35c weather. So they are scratched. Now what? Um, set them off to the side as an emergency pair and get myself a pair of Ryder Drills. So good. $35.00 and I wear them every day. Running, to work, just hangin. They just work.

Yurbuds Website
Yurbuds Facebook

I don’t run that often with music. I am chatty charlie on the run. It’s sort of a condition of employment when you run without your shoes, that you are available for all the witty retorts needed when hearing all the ‘fun’ comments from the peanut gallery. “hey, you lost your shoes”… “Yeah, the guy who stole them is just up here, c’mon let’s get him!” .. hardeeharharhar.

The biggest reason I didn’t run at all with music is I hated earphones. I tried at least 4 different styles and just couldn’t get any to work. When I received my Yurbuds, I was amazed at how they were comfortable right away. I went on a 10k training run, with music (actually, I listen to dirty podcasts on the run now) and was pleasantly surprised that I never reached up once to adjust them. Good stuff. Sound quality is not compromised at all either.

There are times since that I have ‘hooked’ my headphone cord and the yurbud held fast! No annoying ripouts on the run! They really work that good. I have heard that over time they somehow lose their effective holding power. I am sure like any well used piece of running equipment, they will need to be replaced from time to time. For about $30.00 you get the custom fit, waterproof covers and a set of earbuds. Can’t go wrong with that can you? I was a little disappointed in the Laptop size box they showed up in, but otherwise have no complaints. My wife always said I have small ears, and you know what they say about small ears….

Small Yurbuds… what were you thinking? I am a size 6 Yurbud btw…

Next time:

GU, Nipguards and BodyGlide… Bet you can’t wait…