September Madness

Back by popular demand is another blog post. Actually, nobody asked for another blog post, but I know some people check out my site on a regular basis (hi Dad).

This past month has been extremely taxing, physically and mentally. It’s pretty safe to say September 2014 was the busiest month of my life. During the first and second week of the month, I travelled out to Toronto for Field Training Camp; went to Chuck E Cheeses for lunch, and saw a Blue Jays game. I’m no regular fan of baseball, but the experience was neat, and the Blue Jays won, bonus!

From Toronto, my next adventure took me to Boston. Boston is one of the coolest cities I’ve been too. My limo driver was a crazy hard core Yankees fan and adored Jeter. He literally talked about Jeter for 20 minutes, and the ride was 22 minutes. The one take away I have from Boston is how many runners I saw prowling the streets at 9pm. Literally, it was like the Eau Claire Speedway during lunch. Just seeing that amount of people getting in the daily km’s at night got me pumped up to participate in Reach the Beach.

From there, we headed up to New Hampshire for Reach the Beach. Now, if you have not done a Ragnar event, or a multi-leg relay race, I highly recommend it. Over the span of 26 hours and 26 minutes, we covered 200 miles of pure pavement pounding. All of us ran 3 legs each; mine coming around at 6pm, 3am, and 11am. Yes, I had to run a leg at 3am. That will be the first and only time I run a 32:45 10k at 3am. That whole race will be an experience I will never forget. My diet consisted of Cliff bars, Air Heads, Skittles, and G2 (that’s how elites get fast). Our team ran really well too. We were a mixed team from RR head office and NB head office, plus a future olympian from Guelph.

5 days after Boston, I was back on the road to Vancouver for some family time. During that visit, I had the opportunity to run from Coquitlam to Port Moody and up Heritage Mountain. For those that don’t know, I lived in Port Moody for 11 years; attended school at Heritage Mountain Elementary. This run was special, as it brought me back home. Growing up, we ran laps around the school field to see who could run the most km’s. It’s funny how 12 years ago, those hills felt like mountains, and that lap felt like a km, when in reality, it is literally a 450m lap with 5 metres of elevation gain.

After Vancouver, the road took me back to Calgary/Edmonton/Canmore. These past couple weeks have been filled with events and a lot of work; averaging out 50-60 hour weeks. Work is important to me, and I love my job. Work has taken over my life, and any free time in the day is consumed by logging in those intense km’s. The olympic dream is still on my mind, and slowly but surely, I’m getting in better shape. I think it would be so cool to be ranked high in the Canadian running field, while being unsupported, and working full time. A lot of athletes work hard to get sponsorships, fame, and money; while I work hard to be the ultimate underdog. Social life has definitely dwindled down to merely nothing, but one day, all this hard work, dedication, and persistence will stack up and burst me through the bubble. The secret to getting fast: eating a ton of Stoked Oats and blasting Linkin Park.

Oh yea, if you’re still not on Strava, I suggest you get it, ’cause there’s one Libre (Nacho) that you need to follow.