Greetings race fans! Well, I’m happy to be writing to you all about my most recent race experience. On an absolutely stunning summer day, I had the pleasure of racing in the National Capital Kayak Triathlon, one of many races going on at the same time at Mooney’s Bay. While this was a long weekend on the Ontario side, I unfortunately only had a regular weekend. As luck would have it for me though, Deanna decided to spend the long weekend with me, including the Monday holiday, so I had some excellent company, as well as my mini cheering section to watch me challenge the course. As some of you already knew, my ambitions were to actually win this race outright, but as you will learn through reading this post, I only managed to snag a second place on the podium, although there was indeed some slight controversy to this (as in, controversy between 1st and 2nd). To learn the whole story, you’ll just have to click that read more button and read on. Before that though, I invite you to check out some of the pictures that Deanna was able to snap on race day (as well as other pictures from the long weekend).

Good day friends and followers of the world! Just thought I’d pop on here and give everyone a bit of an update on what’s been new with me. When last you checked in, I had been racing my brains out in my toughest 3-day solo race yet, with great success! So since then, you probably think I’ve been training hard and getting ready for the next challenge, right? Well, not really. Instead, I declared July to be my month of relaxing, enjoying life, and spending time with the people that really matter in my life :-) Yup, that’s right, the lazy days of summer are well and truly here. To those ends, since UXC, I’ve had a great long weekend for Canada Day (Pictures), including some aerial park fun at Camp Fortune (Pictures. I’ve also got my music fix at both Ottawa Bluesfest (Pictures) and Toronto Beaches Jazzfest (Pictures). Wanna hear a bit more about them, as well as what else I have in store? Well, read on dear friends, otherwise, this opening paragraph and pictures gives you a pretty good idea what’s been going on!

Welcome back race fans. It’s high time I update you all on my most grueling race accomplishment of the summer, and pretty much my racing career so far. Yup, I’m talking about Ultimate XC, a 3-day stage race that I did a couple weeks back at Mont Tremblant. Yup, Mont, as in mountain. That would play a rather significant role in how it all played out (successfully for this race!). Just to set the scene ever-so slightly, the race was ‘invitation only’, with credentials required. I almost didn’t get accepted. However, when the dust settled I managed to snag 12th overall in a very competitive field of tough athletes. Needless to say, it made me very happy. I have a few pictures to share with you (including some great race photos from lephotoshop.com, and obviously, quite a bit more to say about this doozy of a race. Read on friends!

Ahhh Adventure Racing. Probably one of the ‘fringest’ of the fringe sports, right? We toil in obscurity, with both the racers and the races themselves pretty much unknown. We train for hours on end in places unknown, be it the wide open roads or deepest forests or raging rivers. And what for? Well, the chance to take part in really cool events like the Wilderness Traverse, a new 24-hour adventure race put together by the incomparable Bob Miller. Yup, whether you finish or not is never certain when you start, but you can pretty much be guaranteed a good time. That brings us to this post, a brief tale about my teams performance at this race. I hadn’t done a 24-hour race in a couple years so I was pretty stoked. Read on to learn more about it, and don’t forget to check out the pictures I managed to get from the event.

Hello friends far and near. Prepare to read another self-serving blog post from your humble narrator, me, ActiveSteve! I’ll keep it short and sweet, as there isn’t all that much to say on this one. As my blog post title implies, I recently celebrated a birthday, and yes, it was a milestone of sorts. While I will definitely agree that I am a year older, the jury is definitely out on whether I’m any wiser :-) Being wise sounds a lot like being responsible though, and that certainly isn’t my modus operandi now, is it? As my birthday weekend was sandwiched between 2 races, I decided that I’d take advantage of the timing, and host both my house-warming, and birthday bash! Food, friends, fireworks and festive libations! I didn’t take too many pictures, as my hosting duties precluded such frivolous behaviour, but I did snap a few, and you can check them all out on my flickr page. For a few more deets, come on back, and click ye olde ‘read more’ button!

Hello sports fans! I'm back to try and catch you all up on another of my recent weekend activities. This time, I'll be tackling what I did over the May long weekend. Originally, the plan was pretty simple. Race hard at the Raid Pulse 5-8 hour Adventure Race at Lac de L'Argile, then spend the remainder of the long weekend prepping my house for my housewarming party the following weekend. However, when I got an invitation to do some camping in Prince Edward County, I put the kibosh on the second part of my plan and decided the weekend would be about racing and relaxing! With that, I'll present you with a brief summary of both activities, which I've conveniently put into one set of pictures for you all to check out on my flickr page. I also put together a map of the actual race. No pictures on this map, but you can check out the terrain. After you've had a quick look at those, head on back for a quick report on the race and the camping.

Howdy friends! Have you been missing my posts? Well, I guess I've been too focused on living life, training, racing, settling into my digs, and getting a year older lately rather than sitting down at the keyboard and spending hours trying to chronicle all the afore-mentioned things. However, I've decided that it's well overdo that I fill you in on some of my latest exploits, so what I'm going to attempt to do is polish off four blog posts in fairly short order, with various degrees of detail. The point of this post will be to fill you in on a crazy little training weekend that I spend a few weeks back up at Mont Tremblant in preparation for Ultimate XC. After spending the weekend previewing both the paddle and the bike, I can definitively say this will, by far, be the hardest solo endurance race I have ever undertaken. 60+km of kayaking including whitewater, 60+km of trail running with EXTREME altitude gain/loss, and 100km of intense mountain biking with more of the same altitude gain an loss. Honestly, I'm pretty daunted by the task, but also very much anxious to try it out. I've posted pictures from the weekend, as well as tried to throw together some custom maps of the bike and paddle (GPS died during day 2). Read on for a little more insight into the weekend.

Howdy race fans! Time to update you on my first adventure race of the 2010 season. The race in question? The Frontier Adventure Challenge 5-8 hour race held at Deerhurst Resort in the Muskoka region. Yes, the very same resort hosting the upcoming G8/G20 summit in June. And yes, it actually did have an impact on the race and the venue, which I'll fill you all in on in the coming paragraphs. Although this was supposed to be a 'short and sweet' race, you'll soon find out that my race was anything but. It was longish, and bitter-sweet. I did manage to complete the whole course, including the advanced section, but my placement was deep-sixed by a navigational error of my own doing. That's what I get for racing solo to really push myself I guess :-(. At any rate, I've got a few pictures from the weekend, but no map to share. Bill Young has some great race shots that he took and shared on Facebook as well. If you want the whole funny tale about my race, please read on. I'll *try* to be succinct.