I’ve known Benja and his family for six years, and I’ve just been down visiting them in Punta Arenas, Chile, for a couple of weeks. Benja had already done his Strait swim before I arrived. He trained for this crossing for a year, both in the pool and in the river in Valdivia, where he is studying marine biology. The narrowest part of the strait is in the far north, starting from Punta Delgada on the mainland, about 5 km across to Bahía Azul, on the island of Tierra del Fuego.

Currents are strong throughout the Strait, but especially here at the narrows, so the timing of his crossing was very important: aiming to swim at slack current. But the Patagonia weather is wild! You can predict the tides weeks or even years in advance, but you never know what the weather is going to hand you. Fortunately, his chosen day of January 8th was relatively calm…  so he, accompanied by his trainer and family, set out. And his crossing went perfectly. As Benja explains it, before he knew it Tierra del Fuego was right in front of him. His crossing time was just over an hour (1:01:35, to be exact), a new Chilean record.

I arrived a month later, and met Benja’s friend Bárbara, who did her own crossing of the Strait while Benja and I were out at San Isidro Lighthouse (further south along the Strait) for a week. While we were there, Benja and his friend Jonas plunged into the Strait for a training swim without wetsuits, Benja staggering out of the water clutching his frozen head as soon as they were done, while Jonas lolled around in the shallows like a seal. Then Benja’s friend Carolina came out for a visit, and the two of them went out for a swim. With only one pair of goggles and one swim cap between them, Carolina had to wear a diving mask and Benja did his best to avoid the brain-freeze this time with a plastic bag and piece of cloth wrapped around his head.

Bárbara completed her swim while we were away – second Chilean woman ever to have swum the Strait. Benja and I returned to Punta Arenas to congratulate her. (Bárbara, who is a South American open-water swimming champion, had also just swum across from the mainland to the outer coastal island of Chiloé the week before). She did her Strait swim on February 13th, in a time of 1:24 (the strong current meant she actually swam an extra two km) – second Chilean woman ever to swim Magellan Strait, and the new Chilean female record holder.

Bárbara and and I had several days of overlap in Punta Arenas, staying with Benja and his family, and I sure enjoyed getting to know her. Here is a little video I shot of the two of them on one of their training swims (runs 1 minute 15s):

Later, the three of us went to the local pool together (yes, I will go swimming if the water temperature is acceptable…) They attempted to teach me flip-turns (which I did not master) and how to swim front crawl backwards (which I did master!) among other useful things (such as how to sink and crawl like a crab on the floor of the pool, and how to blow bubble rings from the bottom, two of Benja’s specialties). And, upon leaving Punta Arenas, Bárbara gave me a Chile swimming camp, which I now wear with pride, and which will always make me think of these two: inspiring swimmers and wonderful friends.

I am such a wuss in the cold water. But these cold-water addicts have really motivated me. I have a decent wetsuit, and I live just a 10-minute bike ride from Tonquin Beach. The nearest public swimming pool to do laps in is 125 km away… Of course I should train in the waters at my front door. I don’t really have any excuse, do I?

I am not saying I am going to do it. But I am seriously thinking about it.

Ha! It says that Lima is "the best airport in South America". Ha! I say again.

OK, I thought I’d be fine for my travels back to Canada because I would not pass through Santiago de Chile (airport affected by the recent big earthquake); my routing was Buenos Aires – Lima – LA – Vancouver. Especially after checking in in BA: they gave me my boarding passes right through to LA. All seemed good.

Then I got to Lima where, upon disembarking, the screen showed my 1:05am flight, at Gate 21, to LA (along with a whole bunch of other LAN flights) as “Delayed”. So those of us with the same connection lined up and waited patiently…  I heard the Australians in front of me being told that the flight was now going at 5:40am, but then the agent told them to be at Gate 21 at 12:30am. So the flight is going? Hmm.

Then it was my turn. The agent told me the flight was delayed til 5:40. I told her then I’ll need her to revise my connection to Vancouver. “Connection?” she said. “In that case,  you go on this flight, departing at 1:05am. Be at Gate 21 at 12:30.”

“So my original flight is going, after all?” I asked.

“No, it is a different flight,” she responded. Just with the same flight number, time, and gate. Hmm, very strange.

So we board, and wait. And wait. An hour passes, then close to another. Then the Captain comes on and says that the airport is closed for scheduled maintenance (it is now 2:10am, which is actually 4:10 am for me, Buenos Aires time) and we will now depart at 3:30am. Fortunately there is an empty seat beside me (why were they trying to boot people off this flight then, if there was room? another hmm). At least I am able to doze a bit.

An announcement wakes me. It is the Captain. My watch says 6:22am and we are still on the ground. “We are very sorry, we have exceeded the crew’s legal work time and we must leave you now. This flight is cancelled. Please disembark and follow the ground crew’s instructions.” Looks like I am staying in Peru. I set my watch to local time, 4:22am. And this is where the real fun begins.

The mob at the unmanned immigration booth, 5am.

OK, so we get off. People are already pissed off (we’ve been sitting on the plane for 4 hours now – you’d think they could have seen this coming a bit earlier?). Some are yelling at the LAN

staff, who are simply telling us that we must pass through Peruvian immigration, that they will get us a hotel, and that at 2pm tomorrow they will have information about the flight. 2pm!! There are several hundred of us – it is clear that we are not going to be in any hotel room for hours yet.

I have to decide upon my strategy. Go it on my own and try to rebook my flight (at 4:30am? I don’t think so) or follow instructions. I abandon the crowd, who are stalled at the arrival gate yelling at Claudia, the LAN staff person.

I get to immigration, along with the dozen or so others who elected to follow instructions. But there is only one booth – and no one is at it (the airport is closed, remember? no inbound flights). But we line up politely anyway, and try to keep our spirits light and make jokes about how ridiculous this is (remember, we’re all kind of giddy for having been awake for 24 hrs). I make friends with an American named Mike, who was on the coast in Peru when the tsunami following the Chile quake hit. He’d seen the videos of the Indonesia tsunami, and knew what to do when the bay in front of his beach-house suddenly emptied.

Claudia tries to figure out where to lead us.

So we wait and hope. Eventually the angry crowd joins us, still yelling at Claudia as they approach. And they are not in the mood to make an orderly line-up, so they crowd in front of our straight little line-up, forming a mass mob in front of the one unmanned immigration booth.

Then Claudia shows up and calls in Spanish for anyone who is in transit (people like myself, who boarded in another country and did not visit Peru on this trip) to go with her. I try to help the English-speaking people understand what she is saying, so they know whether to go or stay. I explain to Mike “I have to go with her. You have to stay.” I wave to him above the crowd as I am whisked away “I don’t know which option is better! Maybe I’ll see you again!” and the 16 of us who boarded in Buenos Aires follow Claudia.

OK, now here is where my memory starts getting fuzzy. By now, I am dehydrated (remember, they’d taken my water bottle? which I was going to fill before getting on the flight to nowhere) and just trashed. We wind around corridors and passages and through metal doors and glass doors. Eventually we get to a different, bigger, immigration area.

Trying to convince Customs we're here. 6am.

The customs official cannot deal with us, though. We have no “arrival” flight number for our form. So they argue with Claudia for a while, checking out the computer screens which, according to the customs official, prove that our flight is not here and therefore we cannot be here. We try to convince him of the evidence

before his very eyes (us!). The chief flight attendant shows up and tries to explain that we are really here. The immigration guy finally wraps his head around what has happened – supposedly the LAN people are supposed to fill out some special card when this happens – and eventually he stamps our passports.

So that is immigration – then customs. But no bags. Claudia takes us to international arrivals, where we wait a while at one carousel, then are herded over to another. The Australians are really thirsty, too, and asking for water. Although there are vending machines there, none of us has any Peruvian money.

So, after no bags appear anywhere, Claudia takes us over to national arrivals – I think it is like 6am or so local time by now – where it seems that some of the people who had boarded the flight in Peru have already picked up their bags. And there is Mike! We greet each other like old friends.

We know our bags are in there. 7am.

But alas, the door guards will not let us in, because we are coming through the out-door and not through the in-door (and there is no way we can backtrack through immigration to get around to the in-door). So we all fight and argue, but to no avail – the door guards believe that, since we have come in from Buenos Aires, our baggage can not be in the national section – even as we see other people from our same flight coming out with their baggage. So we yell and argue and threaten to bust through the door (I am quite ready to go through with it by now). The Australians are calling for water – one of them is feeling sick – and Mike needs medication from his bag. The chief flight attendant shows up, and then even the captain. I use my best Spanish: “Please sir, can you help us get our bags? We’ve been awake for 24 hours now, led all over the airport, and no one will help us.”

7 hrs later, some now in wheelchairs.

He smiles sadly. “I am in the same position. Just trying to get my bags, like you.”

The door guards insist that our bags can not be there – even though we knew that is not true. So eventually Claudia leads our group back to customs. An elderly woman who cannot walk any more is put in a wheelchair. I say goodbye

to Mike again, and we go back into international baggage claims, where our bags – of course – are not.

Back in the international area once more, people line up first at one place then another – I’m not sure why, we are just following one another around in a daze by now. The Australians have managed to change some money somewhere, and are slugging down bottles of gatorade. I am so thirsty; I find myself staring at their red gatorade sloshing back and forth in the bottle as they gulp. I am going to fall over. I have to turn away.

Claudia is out in the middle of the empty baggage claim room talking to someone, and my head temporarily clears enough to wonder what we are lining up for – if she isn’t even there. I stagger over to her. “Claudia. Our bags are not here. Better we just go to the hotel, ¿no?”

She agrees. So she herds us all up again – or what is left of us – and here is where the only good news of the tale comes. The hotel is right here at the airport, the Ramada Inn. No waiting for transport. Right next door where we can walk across the driveway and deal with bags, tickets, whatever, all by ourselves in the morning. Oops, I mean afternoon – it is already 7:45 in the morning.

No longer sure why we're lining up. 7:45am.

OK, the story could go on and on (and it has)… it’s now midnight and I’m writing from the Ramada Inn – yup, now over 24 hours in Peru. Almost all of that spent in line-ups at the airport today. I supposedly have a “confirmed” flight out at 3:40am (“confirmed” in the Latin American sense of the word). So I’m sitting in the hotel restaurant, trying to celebrate this unexpected visit to Peru by sipping on their national drink. When life hands you a bowl of lemons… make yourself a pisco sour.
Salud.

Epilogue:
I ran into the captain again on the elevator on the way to catch that “confirmed” flight. He tells me the delays were all on the Lima end. They took so long to load the luggage there that they were not done by the airport’s scheduled 2-3:30am closure (which makes sense why our rescheduled flight was for 3:40am, so as not to risk getting affected by that again).

So we boarded again… sat on the tarmac for another 2 hours again (I watched the luggage loaders sitting around, joking, getting in a fight, then making up and joking around again… but loading very little luggage, for most of those 2 hours). But finally we took off!

Once in LA I found out that the LAN people had mistakenly rescheduled my connection for the following day… so I spent my whole connection time there in a line-up trying to get them to swing my connection (and luggage) on to that day’s flight. And Wednesday night, after 4 days of travelling, I finally made it into Vancouver.

This whole thing is strange, though. Sure, part of it is the problems at Lima’s Jorge Chávez Airport. LAN tells us that the problem is because of the Chile quake, that they don’t have the planes. But that is not right – we had a plane, we were on it for 4 hours. And this issue of saying my 1:05 am flight was not going, then all of a sudden “another” flight with the same number, departure time, and gate was going – and then it didn’t go after all – is all very strange. There is something that they were not being straight with us about, something very strange about the whole affair…

OK, yes, it is the peak of summer, but this is Patagonia. Unfortunately, you can’t tell in the picture how windy it is! Not only is it high-latitude (53-54 degrees where I was, in and south of Punta Arenas – roughly equivalent to the latitude of Haida Gwaii/Queen Charlotte Islands). But in addition, the plate tectonic accident that has placed Antarctica symmetrically over the south pole (for now, anyway) means that, unlike in the northern hemisphere, the winds that swirl around the globe in the latitudes 50s, 60s and 70s are unimpeded by any continental mass here in the south.

The south tip of South America is the first point of land that juts down and intercepts these winds (check it out on a globe – South America’s southern tip is something like 1000 km further south than either Australia or South Africa. Sorry I don’t have a globe on hand to verify my figures, but something like that). That’s why southern Patagonia is so windy, and why the ocean currents are so treacherous.

So, I have been offline for a while. Over the next two weeks I’ll catch y’all up on the interesting places I have been to. I am officially down here to report on an adventure race, Xtremo6000, which is part of the Adventure Racing World Series and which will take place later this week in northern Argentina.

But I decided to take advantage of being flown this close to Patagonia by grasping the opportunity and heading down to visit my dear friends in Chilean Patagonia. I met the Cáceres Murrie family back in 2004 – they run a wilderness lodge at Cabo San Isidro lighthouse, the southernmost inhabited point of the American continent, on the edge of Magellan Strait. The Patagonia Expedition Race finished there a few years back – I was reporting on that race and, while waiting for the teams to come in, we all became friends. In particular, Benjamín and I really hit it off (he was 14 at the time), with our common interests in learning about gathering wild foods and trying to figure out how to make serviceable objects from found items, e.g. making urchin-catching spears (erizeros in Spanish – we don’t have a word for them in English) and weaving baskets out of the native reed junquillo.

Benjamín is now 20, and going into his third year in marine biology. (He’s also an amazing swimmer… more about than in an upcoming post). My visit coincided with his summer break, so we headed out to the lighthouse (or faro) with plans to hike to Cabo Froward: the southermost point on the American continent. Benjamín had some guiding obligations first (tourists who had come to hike and kayak from the faro) so I hung out with him, enjoying the hiking and kayaking and doing some photography.

By the time he had finished up his guiding obligations, Benja had a friend arriving back home in Punta Arenas (another champion swimmer, more about her coming up too). So we did our 4-day hike to Froward in just two days (i.e. 60 km of rough terrain: irregular coastal rock shelves, wet and spongy peat bog, and steep slippery rainforest trails in less than 36 hours!… carrying 4 days of food with us). There were 4 river crossings along the way – and we hit 3 of the 4 at high tide, forcing me to swim (Benja is used to cold water; I am not!). Out backpacks were stuffed into big garbage bags – as heavy as they seem, they still float!. We lucked out with the two sunniest days of my whole visit for the trek, and by the next morning we were back in Punta Arenas. (More on that coming up too… especially the dolphins leaping joyously at the bow of the zodiac).

So I’ll be posting more about the whole trip over the coming weeks – photos and words both. But the summary is…. a few days in Buenos Aires, overcoming the jetlag while taking in the tango scene, then 2nd a half weeks in the far south of the continent, then this coming week at Xtremo6000 adventure race (daily “live” reports coming on SleepMonsters, if you are interested).

It was a sad goodbye to everyone this morning… I’ve shared so many laughs these last few weeks, both with Benja out at the faro, and with the whole family, Pato and Ángela and their sons and all of their many friends. It’s tough when you have such good friends who live so far away… and you just never know if or when you will ever see them again.

OK, please check back over the coming weeks… for more about the faro, about our hike, about some amazing swimmers, about Andean condors, about Buenos Aires tango, about adventure racing…. lots coming.

“But does it really matter, if I recycle?” Sharleen asks.

This is a big question. And my answer is YES it matters!

Our environmental problems are overwhelming. So overwhelming. And, once you start to grasp the overwhelmingness of it all, it’s really depressing. So people tend to focus on the positive – even if that positive is not actually representative of the big picture. It’s something to clutch at. Because the reality of the negatives – the very major changes we need to take make in in our lifestyles order to ensure that our planet is liveable for humans in the future – are mind-boggling.

So, instead, people focus on the positive things that we can do – things that, on the scale of the problem itself, actually have neglible impact – to the point that I think these “false-positive” messages are really damaging. Because now we can justify our consumption by letting ourselves believe that we are doing our part:
- oh, it’s OK if I consume manufactured single-use items that were transported to my home using greenhouse gases because I recycle them (consuming more greenhouse gases)
- and I can fly around the world because I’ll buy carbon credits to offset the fuel burned on my behalf (usually “credits” for projects e.g. tree-planting, that would have gone on anyway)
- and it’s OK for me to keep using energy because we are moving towards alternative sources – technology will save us!

Sorry if I sound cynical. I am. I am starting to feel that this whole feel-good thing about recycling is a huge fraud, perpetrated (by whom? I don’t know) to make people feel OK about consuming single-use items. Recycling used to be only the final last-ditch option of the three R’s:
1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle
Now, recycling seems to be a source of pride. Look at the big pile of single-use items items I have at the bottom of my driveway this week! See what a good environmentalist I am?

Recycling is still throwing something out – and burning more fossil fuels as those items are transported back to the plant and remanufactured into another single-use item.

This is especially poignant right now, as it was just announced that there will be no more recycling of newspapers in BC. Newspaper for recycling will now be shipped to the US or to Asia! How can we feel good about that!

I am not for a moment trying to claim that I lead the perfect model life in any way. The way our society is structured now, it is impossible to – you’d have to truly eject yourself from society (which I am actually considering doing). But there is not enough room in the Canadian wilderness for 34 million homesteading hermits, so even that is not a feasible large-scale solution either (and even less so for most other countries).

What my mission is, at the moment anyway, is to try to encourage others to cut down their consumption. Of what? Of everything. It is very hard to remain in society yet cut your consumption by 100%. But it is quite feasible for most people to cut consumption by 10 or 20%. Rather than me cutting down by 100% just to make the point – if I can convince ten people to cut down their consumption by 10%, the net effect on our planet is the same as me taking the 100% eject-myself-from-society extreme route. So I encourage people to:
- get on their bike, or walk, and use their car 10% less
- eat 10% less meat (our high meat consumption is a huge cost to the planet)
- use 10% less plastic – get in the habit of carrying reusable shopping bags, and reject products that use excessive packaging
- use 10% less paper
- produce 10% of their own food
I think it would barely impact most people’s lives to make these 10% cuts. In fact, I bet that most people could cut all of these things by 25% without any serious suffering.

And what if I can influence 1000 people to make those 25% cuts? That would have the same net result as 250 times the effect of me going extreme and ejecting myself from society! So pass this info around.

We really can each make a difference. As individuals, it sometimes seems that what we each can do is very small – but there is a power in spreading the word, convincing others to do the same. That way we stand together. And, together, we do make a difference.

Sharleen, I do hear what you are saying about supporting the publishing industry. And I do so very fondly remember those weekend mornings, reading a real paper newspaper over a cup of coffee. But, for a long time now, I haven’t felt good about throwing that paper in the bin – even if it is a recycle bin. Every now and then I manage to snag someone’s old paper – sometimes weeks old – to relive that pleasure. (The second R).

But, to me, if I have to choose between supporting an industry (even one I work in!) and supporting the future of our planet, a place for our children, I have to choose our planet and our collective future. And that’s why I think we should – no, we must – get used to alternative financial models for many of our industries. The news(paper) industry is only one of them.

No one else pays attention to this date, but I always do. The anniversary of our earthquake is perhaps not pleasant to think of, but it is important. Kind of like Remembrance Day.

It was 310 years ago today – around 9pm on the night of January 26th, 1700, that the last big quake hit. How do scientists know that? Native people up and down the coast have earthquake stories in their oral history – but as non-written cultures, they are not able to provide exact calendar dates for these events.

Geologists can recognize ancient tsunami deposits by taking core samples in the mudflats – some of their data come from right here beside Tofino, in Browning Passage (pictured in photo). Whenever there is a tsunami, a layer of sand gets thrown up on the mudflats, smothering and killing the vegetation below (eelgrass, algae, etc.) Geologists can carbon-date that killed vegetation layer, thereby dating the tsunami-lain sand layer.

That’s how they know the last big earthquake/tsunami event was in the year 1700, with an error of plus or minus 20 years. By the way, the 1964 tsunami was nothing, in comparison. Click here for a map that shows the reach of both the 1700 and 1964 tsunamis in Port Alberni. You can see that the 1700 one (thick black line) went much higher than the 1974 one (shaded area).

Lower down, the geologists found more sand layers that represent other large earthquake/tsunami events that took place in the years 1310, 810, 400, 170BC and 600BC. All together, they have identified a total of 13 earthquake/tsunami events here, and that is how they know that the average recurrence interval is 500 years. (That is just the average – they have been anywhere from 200 to 900 years apart; this means that, at 310 years, we are in range right now).

So, from carbon-dating below the sand deposits, they had the date narrowed down to between 1680 and 1720. Then they found a trees that were knocked down around that time, preserved under a lake. By dendrochronology – looking for patterns in the sequences of tree rings (that relate to seasons, e.g. harsh winters, droughts, good growing seasons) and comparing them to the ring patterns in living trees today that are greater than about 350 years old, they could count back on the rings and narrow the earthquake down to the winter of 1699-1700.

Then they went to Japan, which has had written tsunami records for centuries (or perhaps millenia, I am not sure), and they found a record that winter of a big tsunami that hit Japan, but with no known earthquake related to it. Back-calculating from the time of the tsunami in Japan, and knowing how fast a tsunami wave travels, they figured out that this big magnitude 9 earthquake hit here around 9pm on January 26th, 1700.

Wondering why we have earthquakes here? North America’s Pacific Rim region is an area where tectonic plates are colliding. The oceanic plate is subducting under the continental plate.

There is no such thing as a fault “line” – you have to think of the Earth in 3D. People think of a fault is a “line” only because that’s how you draw it on a map – but the map only shows the Earth’s surface, and you need to imagine what is going on below the surface. A fault is really a plane – which represents the boundary between two masses of rock – in this case, between the two tectonic plates.

That boundary comes to the Earth’s surface roughly 75 km off the shore of Vancouver Island – under the ocean. You can draw where it comes to the Earth’s surface on a map, and that’s why people looking at maps think of it as a line. But that plane actually angles downward to the northeast, dipping right under Washington State.

This map, from the United States Geological Survey, shows the plate boundaries. The thin red line with the triangles on it (labelled Cascadia Subduction Zone) is where that fault plane hits the surface. The triangles show which side it is angling down towards. Here in Tofino, that fault plane – the top of the subducting oceanic plate – is 25 km below the Earth’s surface, and getting deeper as it moves eastward. Eventually it melts… and that magma rises up to form volcanoes. That’s why all the volcanoes are located in a defined arc, 150 or so km to the east of where the fault “line” is on the map.

So, if you can imagine in 3D that oceanic plate sliding downward, below the coasts of northern California, Oregon and Washington and below Vancouver Island, you’ll find that it makes sense why the earthquakes occur where they do, in the region outlined in black. That is the region directly above where the two plates are moving against one another. The high pressure deep in the Earth makes them get stuck. When the pressure build up to the point that they move, that’s the earthquake.

Subduction earthquakes are the strongest type of earthquakes. (Other types of earthquakes occur from plates moving sideways past one another, rather than downward – such as the San Francisco earthquakes). The earthquake we are expecting here will likely be a magnitude 8 or 9 event - that is between 10 and 100 times stronger than the Haiti earthquake earlier this month.

I hope that this info helps people to understand why we get earthquakes, and how scientists know these things. I don’t think this is talked about enough. If people are not informed, they cannot prepare. When this earthquake comes, it will affect a huge region and the damage (and casualties) will be extensive. We will experience what the people of Haiti are living through right now. If you want to hear more about my views on our emergency preparedness, please check out my post today on the Tofino Residents blog.

“Yup,” I smile. Damp is good. Damp means that the temperature is still above freezing.

The last week or two has been warm even for Tofino. My witch hazel bloomed a couple of weeks ago. Which is normal; it usually blooms the first week of January. But riding my bike around town yesterday, I noticed there are actually a lot of flowers in bloom right now.

So I got back on the bike today, camera in hand. These are no amazing photos – I only took my point-and-shoot out – but I was sure surprised, once I started looking. Remember, this is Canada, in the middle of January!

In a short little lap around town, I came across dozens of different types of flowers in bloom! I didn’t even photograph every single one, and there were four that I did not know the names of, either. But, of what I could recognize, I found: witch hazel; pink, blue, yellow and white primroses; pink and white heather; rhododendrons; azaleas; viburnum; geranium; three types of daisy; lavatera; pansies; violets; periwinkle; fuschia; California lilac; lobelia; calendula and hellebore – even one red rose and some mums trying hard. Oh yes, and strawberries (on my own back deck!).

Counting the four I didn’t know the name of, that is 26 different flowers in bloom here in Tofino right now.

Amazing what you see, once you start paying attention. Hope you enjoy the pix.

[One day later] Oh, I just couldn’t help myself, I had to go out and take more flower pictures again today. So here is instalment two of the Tofino Flowers in January photo essay. I found crocuses and even blackberries in bloom! Counting them, as well as Scotch broom (oh no, invasive but pretty), two more types that I don’t know the name of, and the snap dragon that I forgot to mention yesterday, that makes a total of 31 different types of flowers in bloom in Tofino right now! Enjoy…

Prepare your feet beforehand: Elite racers may not have to do much – they seem to have bombproof feet, and I don’t know if that is because they are genetically born that way and that’s why they become so good at distance, or because they have put so many miles on that they have toughened up their tootsies. I think it’s probably a combination of both. Well, the rest of us can’t change our genetics – all we can do is put as many miles on our feet as possible, both walking and running, to toughen them up. Some racers advocate other ways of toughening the skin, such as a daily 15 minute foot-soak in lemon juice for 3 weeks before the event. I have not tried this.

Prevent swelling: A lot of blistering happens on a multi-day race because of swelling that starts two or more days in. Your feet become bigger and shaped differently, and suddenly your favourite shoes don’t fit any more. Anything you can do to prevent swelling will help to prevent blisters. Getting your electrolytes out of balance will contribute to swelling, so take proper electrolyte supplements.

When not actually running – whether stopping on the trail, or in camp after each day’s stage, elevate your feet as much and as often as possible. For this to truly be effective, your feet must be higher than most of your body, so just stretching your legs out on an adjacent chair has only limited effect. Find the time to lie down on your back with your legs resting on a chair, or even straight up against a wall – especially for the first hour after you get in.

I’ve found compression socks to be incredibly useful. You can buy compression socks for runners – in fact, Injinji has a new toe sock out that is also a compression sock that I am dying to try. I have not yet raced in compression socks, but I think they are a good idea and would try them if I had them. I just use those granny socks, the ones for old ladies with varicose veins, that you buy at the drug store – and I put them on as soon as I get in (yes, before showering – because the swelling starts as soon as you stop running, and it is much easier to prevent it in the first place than to try to bring it back down later). I often sleep in my compression socks too.

I’ve enjoyed the nights on a race that I sleep in my Hennessy Hammock – the slightly curved nature of the hammock naturally elevates your feet above most of your body.

Deal with swelling: OK, after a few days you are probably swelling anyway. Keep up the elevating and compression socks. But you’ll probably need to do something about your shoes. Most of you will know to bring a pair of shoes that is one size larger for later in the race. What I have found that works really well, too, is changing my insoles. At last year’s 6-day 232 km Coastal Challenge, I raced in my size 9 Mizuna trail runners (which I love) with insoles.

I started with Sole Footbeds – the thick and cushy “Softec Ultra” model. After a few days, I moved to the thinner “Softec Regular”. On Day 6, I got rid of the Sole footbeds and put the regular Mizuna ones back in. Perfect fit, keeping my favourite shoes on for the whole race. (My shoes are a pretty loose fit anyway, partly because of my Injinji toe socks – you might want to bring a pair of larger shoes with you as well, just in case).

Prevent blisters: There are two schools of thought on how to prepare your feet for race day. Some people say keep them dry and tough, even calloused, to be resistent to blisters. Others say keep them soft and malleable, that it is the callouses themselves that cause the deep blisters, and they massage vaseline or baby’s diaper rash cream into their feet – both to keep the skin soft and to keep the moisture out.

So far, I am of the “keep them dry” school. I may try the “soft” approach at some point, but I fear that softening my skin will, on me, promote blisters. (The idea of dealing with socks lined with vaseline also grosses me out). Each person just needs to figure out for himself which approach will work best for him.

Don’t race in new shoes; make sure you break them in. (I know you know that – I just have to say it for completeness)

Each runner has parts of their feet that are more prone to blister: the little toe, the heel, the outside of the big toe. You know your feet. Tape up those spots before you even start – that prevention will save you so much time and hassle and pain down the road! Put the tape on the night before the race – that makes the tape stick better; it may even stay on the whole race (and since there is no wound or blister under that tape, you don’t need to worry about infection or changing “dressings”). Leukotape (or here for Canadians) is preferred by many racers I know. Applying that Tincture of Benzoine first ensures that your tape will stay on for days, and perhaps even for a week.

OK, here is what I love: my Injinji “Performance” toe socks. For people who are prone to getting blisters between their toes, these will change your life! They do spread your toes just the tiniest bit – I like that feeling, but some people don’t. Like anything, test them out before you head to the race. You may have to change your shoe size or even brand to use them, because they do take up a bit of extra room. But I love them – I was one of a handful of racers who never had to visit the foot doctor at The Coastal Challenge (either year!) and if I have to credit only one thing for that it would have to be my Injinji socks.

The other thing I do on the trail is put a lot of effort into keeping my feet dry. Anyone racing for a good finishing time won’t bother to do this, but if you are like me, just trying to finish the whole thing, this is something to consider. First, I carried one, and some times two, pairs of spare dry socks in a ziplock bag with me. If you are racing in a hot climate like Costa Rica, you can dry everything in minutes. (This is only worth the effort if you know the trail is going to be dry for the next while, e.g. after a river crossing). Just find a rock in the full sun, and remove your socks, shoes, and insoles, lay them and your feet out in the sun, and within five minutes everything would be bone dry, except perhaps the socks. Even if you don’t take the time to dry everything, just letting the shoes drain for a moment while you squeeze the water out of the insoles, and then putting the dry socks on, gets your feet mostly dry for the next section of trail. I figure if it prevents you from gettting slowed down by blisters later in the race, it is time well spent.

Deal with blisters on the trail: OK, you still might feel a blister coming on – no system is perfect. Again, this is when I think 5 minutes spent on the trail, now, can save you more time than that down the road. If you feel a “hot spot”, pay attention to it. Remove your sock; perhaps you can adjust something, or just need to remove a stick or a pebble before it causes damage. If there is a blister coming, pop it right away.

Get your alcohol wipe, wipe the needle as well as the skin where you are going to pop it. Press the side of the blister, to raise it, and go in sideways at the very edge, on the opposite side. You want the needle to go in parallel to your skin, so there is no possibility of pricking in too deep. Then squeeze the blister from the side to get all the fluid out. Sometimes the fluid is in between several different skin layers, and you may have to go in with the needle again; go in through the same hole, angling the needle differently to get the different layers. (I know some people say “never pop blisters” – that is fine advice for people who recover on the couch, but not for people wearing shoes and continuing on. You just have to keep it clean and dry afterwards). Cover it with a bandaid – if you have punctured it with only one needle hole and covered it well, it is unlikely to rip open.

Deal with blisters in camp: Back in camp, clean up your feet well and get all of your supplies ready alongside you before you start. Some races have medics there who will treat your feet if you wish. Even though they may provide some medical supplies there, they often ask that you bring your own. The better supplies you have, the better treatment you will get. So look carefully at your race info pack to work out how much you should bring.

Pop any blisters that are causing you pain. If you need to re-pop any that have been popped before, do your very best to go in through the old hole. Once you have multiple holes going, it is more likely that the whole blister will rip open when you are running. Open blisters are to be avoided at all cost – they are very painful, get infected easily, and can devastate your race.

Now tape up the blisters. Make sure you do this at night, because the tape will adhere much better if it stays on all night before you put your shoes back on. Remember that the skin on the blister is no longer attached to the skin below it. If you are going to have to remove the tape again, you will probably peel the whole blister off. So sometimes a band-aid works better than tape, because the middle of the band-aid is not sticky. Or you can put a band-aid on first and then cover it with tape – or find other creative solutions to keeping your blisters’ lids on. While you are at it, tape up any hot spots that threaten to become blisters tomorrow. Remember to use Tincture of Benzoine on any dressings or tape that you plan to leave on for mutiple days.

Keep your toenails on: Toenails that touch the front of your running shoes is one of the most common causes of losing toenails. So first of all, arrive at the race start with your toenails neatly trimmed. Swelling of your feet may also make your toes touch, so follow the advice above about preventing and dealing with swelling. Another cause, I recently found out first-hand, of toenails falling off is from your foot sliding forward in the shoe – even if your shoe if big enough that the toes don’t touch the front. That rolling-forward motion of the foot, with the bottom of the foot sweatily stuck to the insole but the top of the foot pushing forward, starts to unstick the toe from the underside of the toenail. Ewww, you say? Yup, it hurts. So make sure you learn to lace your shoes for the downhills (see photo), using that extra little loop there. When starting a big downhill, it’s a good idea to just completely redo your lacing before you start the descent. (The good news, I found out last year, is that losing a toenail is not as painful as it sounds).

Beware chafing and abrasion: You may find problems aside from your feet. On multi-day races, or in a new climate, you may suddenly start chafing in places you have never chafed before: from your backpack straps or waistbelt, under your arms, in your unmentionables and, for women, from your running bra or between your thighs (that’s why I recommend tights rather than shorts). Use lubricants – especially around your unmentionables.

When you feel a spot starting to heat up, deal with the chafing right away. Tape works if you catch it early (not on your unmentionables!). The absolutely best thing is Opsite wound dressing (Americans purchase here, Canadians here). This stuff looks like clear sticky plastic; it is waterproof and completely breathable; you put it on and it just feels like putting your skin back on. (A few years ago I scraped a wide swath of skin off the inside of my wrist the night before heading out to Peru; I plunked a piece of Opsite on and it stayed on for two entire weeks. I literally watched my skin heal under it). This stuff is expensive, so I wouldn’t waste it out on the race course, where you are sweaty and dirty and it probably won’t stick properly. But when you are back in camp, get yourself clean and dry and put a bit piece of Opsite over the areas that are chafing (or on any shallow scrapes or burns – as long as they are very clean). I suggest trimming any sharp corners of the Opsite patch so they are rounded, so they don’t catch on anything and start to peel off.

First Aid kit to carry: OK, take a look at how complete this kit is:

Let’s look at each item, going clockwise from top left:
Sterile wound dressings: A couple of sterile gauze dressings – good for covering a wound as well as for cleaning up blood around a would, as well as a non-adherent dressing won’t stick to oozing scrapes (this matters a lot when it is time to remove the dressing).
Steri-strips: For wounds that would require stitches (I use them at home rather than going to the hospital – in spite of our free health care! It’s faster, and you don’t scar as much). Far more reliable than butterfly closures. Carry two sizes.
Needle in a tube: For popping blisters.
Tweezers: For removing splinters, thorns, stingers. Any good tweezers will do, but I sure like my Uncle Bill’s Sliver Gripper, for its light weight and fine precise point. My old one came in a little bottle – I think now they come with a little guard for the tips.
Crepe bandage: This is not really essential. What a crepe bandage is good for is fixing a wound dressing to an arm or a leg quickly. But the athletic tape you are carrying does double-duty here – you are carrying it mainly to help get you home in the case of an ankle sprain but, if need be, you can use it to tape dressings on. (Note: this is not the same as a tensor bandage; see section on ankle sprains, below).
Friar’s Balsam or Tincture of Benzoine: You apply this anywhere you have to tape, and it makes that tape stick like anything. The main times where it is important that the tape does not slip or come off are: (1) closing a wound with Steri-strips, and (2) taping sprains. Considering you are probably sweaty and damp out there, you may find that you are not able to tape anything without this stuff.
Alcohol wipes: To clean up and disinfect a wound.
Selection of band-aids: Pick a variety of shapes and sizes, and a brand that stays on when wet.
Ibuprofen: Ideally in a sealed unit, as shown; otherwise scrunch two or three tablets up in foil, but inspect them from time to time in damp climates. You may have to replace them.
Athletic tape wrapped on lip balm: This is the most space and weight efficient way I have found to carry the athletic tape.I am 5’6.5”, and I need 26.5” of tape to tape an ankle sprain (see video, below). So adjust up and down according to your height (and perhaps add another 6” in case you need tape for anything else).
Antibiotic cream or ointment: I don’t actually carry antibiotic ointment with me. I figure that an alcohol wipe or two are good enough until I get back to camp – but some people might prefer to have it with them. If possible, save a mostly-used tube to carry with you in the field, so it is as light-weight as possible.

Sound like a lot? Now look how compact it is to carry. That is a lot of contingency for not much weight. Everything except the (optional) crepe bandage packs up into a very slim ziplock bag. (I keep the lip balm out because I use it frequently during the day).

Ankle sprains: First, some myth debunking: forget about the tensor bandage. A tensor bandage is stretchy, and stretchy things cannot support anything… because they stretch. (The purpose of the tensor is basically the same as a Superman bandaid for a kid with an owwie… purely psychological). Doctors will tape your ankle in a way that stabilizes it nearly completely, but that means that you pretty much cannot move it. They don’t realize that we’re a bit crazy – we want to keep going. So here is a way that you can tape your ankle, with a minimum of tape, keeping the mobility in the directions that you need to be able to walk, climb, and even leap. I have used it on myself, and was able to walk myself out from a remote backpacking trip, and I have also used it on a fellow racer in The Coastal Challenge who was most grateful.

So, the idea is that you use the length of tape on your lip balm to get you through the day. Once back at camp, remove the tape and clean up, do what you can at that point to bring the swelling down, and then before bed tape it up the same way, using Tincture of Benzoine and two layers of tape, so that the new tape wil be sturdy and remain on for the remainder of your race.

Snakebite/insect sting kit: If your route passes through remote areas where there are venomous snakes, I really recommend taking along a Sawyer Extractor (available at REI). Yes, chances are slim that you will get bitten – but the consequences are very grave. The extractor will not remove all the venom by any means; the idea is you get it on as quickly as possible, to remove some of the venom, thereby buying yourself just a little bit of time while help is on its way to you. The extractor comes with several sizes of suckers on it, so can even be used for insect bites – although it is probably not worth your while to stop while racing for an insect bite unless you are allergic. I do want to emphasize: this will not remove all of the venom. The idea is it just removes a portion, with the aim of reducing the severity of the reaction and buying you some time. If you are bitten by a snake, you still must seek urgent emergency first aid.

Take a look at these photos (see what I go through for you!). I pricked a tiny little hole in the top of my hand before applying the extractor, so small that it didn’t even bleed when I squeezed it (I wanted to go for blood, but I chickened out). I applied the Extractor for one minute (you are supposed to leave it on longer but I didn’t want to get too much of a hickey). Even so, you can see that it got a little drop of blood out. The Extractor comes with different sized heads – I used a larger one for the photo, but a smaller one would have applied even more suction. Like I said, it probably will not save you on its own, but it buys you time. The key is to get it on immediately, before the venom starts to spread away from the wound.

This is an item that you will probably never need… you just need to assess the risk vs. weight thing for yourself and decide whether or not you are going to carry it anyway. I do.

First Aid kit for camp: I have mentioned most of the things that you want in this kit above. Here is a brief summary:
- Rubbing alcohol (disinfects while drying), antibiotic ointment e.g. neosporin, antibiotic powder, Leukotape, athletic tape, scissors, Opsite dressings, variety of bandaids, sun block, antifungal cream e.g. Canesten
- Medications etc: Ibuprofen, Rolaids, alka-seltzer, anti-diarrhea meds (my favourite is carbon pills – I don’t know if you can buy them in North America, but they are easy to get in Central and South America, and they work quickly without getting into heavier antibiotics), water treatment tablets
- Also spare supplies to replenish your portable First Aid kit in case of use or water damage

Other useful things to have with you: Most multi-day races require racers to have plastic racing boxes that the organizers load and truck around for you. Some things that I have found useful to have with me, aside from a good range of clothing and shoes and camping gear, are:
- plastic boxes, to keep things in your racing box organized
- lots of spare ziplock bags, useful for carrying small quantities of food like pretzels or candies, race maps, cameras, and spare dry socks
- an inflatable pillow, even a small one, for your head or, more likely, to elevate your feet or knees at night
- constipation aids… sorry for bringing it up, but lots of gels and blue sports drink coupled with very early mornings is not a good recipe for lightening the load. You don’t want to run with all that on board. Bring prunes and things to much on, as well as some pills like Metamucil.
- a peg-free travel clothesline such as the Flexoline – get lightweight hooks or carabiners to put on the ends so you can hook it on whatever is available.
- spare items that are essential, but that could get lost or damaged: sunglasses, sunhat, lip balm, water bottle.

OK, there you go. I hope that helps. Please feel free to add anything in the comments, below. Happy racing!

And for more detailed info on foot care, check out John Vonhof’s excellent site Fixing Your Feet.

I am going to assume that you’ve already found a training program that is appropriate to your experience and your goals.  With these articles, I am going to help you out with some of the other things you need to think of when heading off to a multi-day running event – information that I have gleaned from my years following the world’s top multisport/endurance racers as a reporter for www.sleepmonsters.com, as well as by twice racing in The Coastal Challenge, Costa Rica’s 6-day, 200+ km staged expedition run.

And, I have to tell you, this kind of information pays off.  I am not a fast runner by any means – and I know that I never will be.  Yet, with proper preparation, I managed to finish 2009’s Coastal Challenge ahead of runners whose marathon time is a full hour faster than mine – and with my feet in better shape than theirs, too.

Foot care is so important – even on short races like marathons – but it is crucial in ultras and multi-day races.  So I am dividing this article into two parts: Part 1 will be general preparation, and Part 2 will be specifically about foot care, as well as some info about first aid kits and other things to take with you.  This article is geared towards prepping for multi-day, off-road, staged races like The Coastal Challenge, but much of the advice will be of use for other types of endurance races too.

Training: OK, I said that I wasn’t going to talk about training.  Well, I’m not going to talk about the actual running training – but I do want to say that it is important to prepare your whole body for the long days, and especially for back-to-back days.  If you always train with rest days (as is recommended by many running programs, which consider a marathon to be “the” great long distance), it will be a real shock to your body to suddenly deprive it of its rest days.  So try to incorporate long days and back-to-back-days into your training program as much as possible – and these don’t need to be running (train too hard with the running and you’ll get injured – you know that!).  Time on your feet: walking and hiking is great cross-training as well as foot-conditioning – but any kind of hard and sustained activity like gardening, landscaping, home renos, helping your friend move, is really good body prep for a multi-day race.  And so is deliberate cross-training like biking and swimming – get some long, back-to-back physical days in. Make sure you prepare your knees and so avoid injury by training for the downhills as well as the uphills (see my article in the June issue of Canadian Running Magazine). Also – make sure that you know what you are getting into as far as the terrain goes.  Some races might require bouldering, coasteering, even some swimming – if yours does, get as much training on rough terrain as you can.

Acclimatize: Get to the race location as early as you can.  It really pays to get over the jet-lag, and get your body acclimatized to local conditions (heat? cold? altitude?) as early as possible.  I arrived in Costa Rica a week before the race last year, and I had absolutely no issues with the heat (when acclimatizing to the heat, make sure you sleep at night in the heat, air conditioners off, so that your body fully acclimatizes).  I plan to get to Bolivia at least 2 weeks before the Inca Run this September, in order to acclimatize to the altitude.  I know that not everyone can afford the time to do this – but I have noticed that racers who do plan to take some extra vacation time around their race tend to do it afterward, as a “reward”.  I would really recommend taking that time beforehand.

Be prepared for things to be different: Especially when you are running in a different climate than what you are used to – suddenly your pack that has never ever chafed you starts chafing, or your shoes that used to fit feel too tight.  Or your heartrate going up hills goes crazy.  This is another argument for getting there early if possible – to acclimatize, as well as test gear and clothing in the race environment. If you can’t get there early, just be mentally prepared for things to be different, and bring gear with you (first aid supplies, spare clothing) to give you as many options as possible when things start getting strange.

Specific to the tropics: You are hot and sweaty down here and, as I said, things are suddenly different.  Be prepared to chafe in places you have never chafed before – from your pack, under your arms, and in other delicate places that I won’t mention here.  (Check out Part 2 for info on First Aid supplies that can help). Bring lubricants – and use them each morning! Women, especially, often chafe terribly on the inside of their thighs in this environment – so I strongly recommend wearing tights (long or short) rather than regular running shorts.  You might want to trim hair in some of those delicate places too (but not so short that it’s stubbly – you’re not trying to make sandpaper here!).
Being hot and sweaty, even at night, you are also more susceptible to fungal infections, so I’d recommend having an antifungal cream such as Canesten on hand.
Also, make sure you read the info on electrolytes, below.

Nutrition while racing: Most races will provide electrolyte drinks and some basic sweet or carb-based foods during the race. I strongly recommend bringing your own carefully chosen foods that work for you. I know that a lot of people depend mainly on sugars – gels, shots, sweet drinks.  I find that they can work in the final 1-3 hours of a long day, but the problems for me with sugar is (1) it burns more quickly, so you get mich more defined highs and then crashes, and (2) after a few hours of it, it upsets my stomach and just plain grosses me out.
Each person is different, and you have to do what works for you.  I really suggest going for the complex carbs rather than the refined sugars for a more sustained energy supply, other than the final hour or two of each day.  It is hard to eat much at a time – I’d normally grab a handful of whatever is on offer at the aid stations and eat it as I continue on.  Then I have a little bag on my wastebelt with ziplocks of carb-rich salty food, like crackers or pretzels or potato chips (food is a really good way to get your salts).  I don’t stop to eat – I just try to nearly constantly take tiny little bites as I move.
There are also some complex-carb drinks out there – they tend to be a bit thick and might gum up CamelBak systems.  At the Coastal Challenge this year, I tried out Genr8’s complex carb drink.  It was a real pain in the butt to mix up, tending to get very lumpy – I finally found the best way to use it was to have it mixed very thick and concentrated in the bottom of an empty Gatorade bottle (i.e. something very light to carry).  I used it on the longest (10 and 12 hour) days.  I ate solid food as much as I could, and about 2/3 of the way into the route I added water to my Genr8 mix, gave it a really good shake, and drank it over the next 2 or so hours.  Wow, what a great sustained energy source it turned out to be, and it is quite a bland and non-offensive flavour!  But it really is a pain to mix up (and I wouldn’t try using it in a CamelBak), so I strongly suggest you give it a few test runs before you use it in a race situation: http://genr8speed.com/
Another one that I have not tried, but I have heard good results for, is Carbo Pro.  This is a colourless and tasteless complex carb blend that you can mix into water or any of your favourite sports drinks to up the complex carb calorie count.  Apparently it can gum up your CamelBak, so use it with caution (clean the bag well right after use).  Look for http://sportquestdirect.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=6&zenid=f0cd5b00d88785ee1fa8ed1e22740b5a or, in Canada, http://www.carbopro.ca/.

Hydration and electrolytes: Everyone knows how important it is to drink.  Not everyone fully understands how critical the need for electrolytes is – especially in tropical settings.  At last year’s Coastal Challenge, Project Athena Captain Robyn Benincasa saved dozens of people who did not bring electrolytes with them, just by handing them a little salt pill.  On Day One of the race, we came across a pair of girls staggering around on the trail, and then a guy flat on his back with leg cramps, due to electrolyte deficiencies – so preventable! But, even if you don’t get that critical, it is amazing how much keeping your electrolytes in balance improves your energy levels.
Races provide electrolyte drinks, but you never really know how they are mixed, what concentration they will be at.  What worked for me was having two camel bags, one with just water, and one mixed with full-strength Gatorade.  It is amazing how, on long racing days, suddenly one or the other of those options just grosses you out and you don’t want to drink it.  Having both options there ensures that you keep drinking.
But even electrolyte drinks don’t provide enough salt when drinking lots in a tropical environment – through sweating, your body still gradually depletes without extra added salt. You can still get into trouble even drinking sports drinks. Taking an electrolyte pill every hour (e.g. Sustain or Endurolyte), occasionally even more than that, will keep your electrolytes balanced and your energy high.  It’s also a really good idea to pack salty food with you – getting your electrolytes in food rather than supplements reduces your chance of feeling nauseous from them.

Nutrition in camp: This is one of the most important things to know for multi-day racing.  This is not a piddly little one-day marathon – it’s getting up again and doing another marathon with only 12-18 hours of rest, then getting up the next day and doing it again!  To maximize muscle recovery, it is crucial that you get a big whack of protein into your body within 45 minutes of ceasing activity.  That means that, as soon as you finish for the day, you go straight to your racing box and pull out a tin of sardines or bag of beef jerky and eat it. Do not take off your shoes, do not wash up, do not chat with your fellow racers. Go straight to your box and eat your protein. Then you can deal with the other stuff. (I learned this from Ligia Madrigal – she finished 1st female and 5th overall at the 2009 Coastal Challenge).

Clothing: Find out as much as you can about the climate you are travelling to, and think about all the things you may have to deal with: heat, cold, dampness, sun, insects, sand.  Bring lots of options with you.  While it is tempting to dress minimally in hot climates, long sleeves and long tights offer sun protection as well as protection from scratches and insect bites.  The Coastal Challenge’s route designer, Rodrigo Carazo, is also an adventure racer – he tells me that he would always wear long tights when racing in Costa Rica. (I actually find that tights are cooling – your sweat gets more spread out in them, rather than just trickling down your legs, so the cooling be evaporation works better, and the sun is so vertical that they don’t really get hot from the sunshine).  Tights – whether long or short – also help prevent chafing between your thighs (as I said, very important for women!).  Consider a brimmed hat rather than just one with a visor, to provide sun protection to your neck and ears.

Sunshine: Speaking of the sun – remember to apply sunblock when you get up in the morning, before your skin is wet and slippery.  Remember the backs of your legs and the tops of your ears (oh, look at those poor girls’ ears!), and take care not to miss any spots around your shoulders and neck.  Get a strong SPF lip balm, and reapply it frequently.  Try to source little pouches of sunblock to carry with you so you can reapply during the day.

What to carry with you: Well, this of course depends upon the nature of the race you are in, and what to expect in terms of terrain and climate.  You want to travel as light as possible – but, if your route passes through remote areas away from easy access to assistance, you want to make sure you are prepared to take care of yourself.  Some elites may not carry a pack at all, travelling just with hand-bottles and relying on food at aid stations – but you need to be pretty confident about your speed to do that. Things I carried in Costa Rica were:
- food (discussed above), including some salty snacks in a pouch on my waist-belt to ensure that I nibbled constantly
- two CamelBaks (one with water, one with Gatorade) as well as one lightweight rigid plastic water bottle (the three containers were not always full, necessarily, but they gave me options of how to carry my fluids – the rigid bottle is handy because it is faster to refill at aid stations than the Camel bags).
- mini-first aid kit and snakebite kit (to be discussed in Part 2)
- spare dry socks in a ziplock bag
- lightweight rain jacket (I only carried this sometimes – many sporting goods lines have these ultra-light water-resistant jackets that fold up into a tiny pocket, a good insurance if there is a chance of wind and rain together)
- space blanket (also only sometimes – a good insurance if the weather might turn on you or if there is any possibility of getting stuck out overnight)
- camera in ziplock (in spite of the ziplock, my camera packed it in in the rain). Be cautious about taking any electronic gear with you, and find out from your race directors if there is the possibility of any “water challenges” along the route. Ziplocks provide poor protection for hard pieces of gear because they abrade quickly – if you are serious about carrying phone or camera or iPod, I suggest a proper drybag, and wrapping the item in a piece of cotton cloth (piece of an old T-shirt) inside the bag, so you can dry your hand on the cloth before handling the item.
I know I carried more than most people I did.  My background is much more as a wilderness guide than as an athlete or racer, so I am used to carrying contingency supplies for various situations.  You just need to figure out what is right for yourself, taking into account your own comfort level as well as also how remote each day’s route is, and how quickly race support crews could get to you if something happens.

Well, that’s lots for now.  Next week I will post some info specifically about foot care, as well as more specific info about things to pack, with a focus on first aid and medical supplies.

(All photos taken by me at The Coastal Challenge, 2008 and 2009, text and photos ©Jacqueline Windh)

So, even though the lighting was far from great for photography, I am postingt a few of this morning’s pix here just to show you how much bird life there is here.

There are lovely seawall walks in this city – in West Vancouver, for example, and also around Stanley Park, where you can see huge flocks of overwintering seabirds.  Right now, here in West Vancouver, there are huge flocks of Barrow’s goldeneye all along the shorelines.  They are really fascinating to watch as they are constantly in motion, diving down in the shallows to capture small invertebrates in their beaks then popping back up to the surface to eat them.  The water around the birds at surface is constantly bubbling and churning from the activity of the birds below.  You can see in the two panoramic shots here – at the left, there is a male bird just coming up from a dive (you can see him still entirely under the water in the first shot) while at the right, another is arching into his next dive.

While I was photographing the goldeneye, I looked up to see that a pair of mallards had stealthily paddled up to the rocks right beside me, and a pair of oystercatchers had landed quietly beside me too.  Looking around, I also saw a pair of mergansers swimming further from shore, as well as a pir of one of my favourite birds, harlequin ducks, sitting together on a rock dow the shoreline.  I had seen the harlequins earlier – they were what drew me down to the water’s edge – but they are very shy birds, and soon swam away.  I wish I’d been able to get a photo of them – they really are one of the prettiest birds around.  You’d never know from their delicate looks how hardy they are out in the surf zone.

For an online bird ID guide and lots of interesting bird info, check out: http://www.allaboutbirds.org

It is a soft grey evening (yes, this time of year, 4pm is evening…).  Tonquin is a small beach, but the tide is low, so the beach is nearly as long as it gets, maybe 400 or 500 m?  I touch the rock at the south end with my rubber boot, as is the custom.  The winter surf curls beside me and I turn and now follow the tideline towards the north end.  The sky is grey. The sun setting over the open ocean touches the cloud-bottoms with hints of peach and rose.

I take a deep breath of cool salt air.  I exhale slowly, then focus on breathing steadily, deliberately: in with the good, out with the bad, letting go of thoughts of deadlines, overdue obligations, mortgage payments, year-end tasks, as I gaze out to sea.

A flash of black on the water catches my eye.  I watch the spot as I walk the waveline, stomping through the salt water in my gumboots.  A moment later, it reappears: two large dark faces, the silhouetted, crumpled brows of a pair of male steller sea lions, swimming side-by-side into Tofino Harbour against the swift ebb current.  I stop to watch them, letting the salt waves swirl around my boots.

I breathe out. Forcefully. Out with the bad, in with the good. And while I watch the sea lions, another black shape appears – even closer, at the edge of the break.  The rounded face of a harbour seal hangs by the peaking wave-crests, turning his head left then right, as he watches me.

Here I live, a stone’s throw from Nature (yes, Nature with a capital N). That’s what I came to Tofino for, some 15 or so years ago, to live on the edge (or, hopefully, beyond it).  Yet I realize that I have barely spent any time out in Nature for several years now!

I have been messing up on my life plan… (and, by the way, didn’t I go through this exact same thought process a year ago, when I promised byself that this summer I would get back in my kayak, back into the wilderness, But what’s happened?)

It’s a tough time to be a writer, with magazines folding left and right (National Geographic Adventure mag folded earlier this month!) and with web media not having any model by which they can charge users… and therefore pay their writers. I’ve been stressing so much about planning my career, plotting out how I can survive (financially) in this world… that I am forgetting to simply live in this world, to appreciate the parts of it that I value, that feed me.

I don’t have an answer.  It is a tough period for me.  If I am to partake in society, I have to earn a living in it (where “living” equates to $$). In that case, my Nature time comes down to being “vacation”.  And taking vacation is pretty hard to justify, when you are self-employed in a seemingly dying industry.  Or, the alternative: I return to Nature… and leave the conventions of our Society behind?

I’m not sure what I’ll do in the long run. But I know that on the shorter term, I have to make time to get “out there” more. To feed my soul. Because, right now, I am living the worst of both worlds.

As far as towns go, Tofino is lacking in many things – it is expensive to live here; our schools and hospitals are underfunded and the services are under threat; we don’t have facilities like sports centres or movie theatres or shopping malls.  The trade-off is that we have the grandeur of Nature, the rainforests and oceans that make Clayoquot Sound one of the world’s cradles of biodiversity, at our doorstep.  But if I am not going to take advantage of what this place has to offer, what am I doing living here?

So I sit here, tapping away in front of the computer screen, warm in this room with my electric heat and electric lights and the radio chattering away, thinking of those sea lions and that curious seal, and of the whales and the bears and the sandpipers and the eagles, and of the barnacles and mussels that right now are being washed by cold sea-surf on the new moon’s rising tide, all of them living their lives right here, all around me, and reminding me that there is so much more, so much more, out there.