Ultramarathoner: Foot care and first aid (Part 2)
Without healthy feet, you are not going to get very far, and blisters early on in an event may cost you hours of time, or even keep you from finishing at all. So the focus of Part 2 of this series is how to take care of your feet, with some notes as well on First Aid kits and other safety gear.
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 Read more…
Ultramarathoners: Preparing for a multi-day race (Part 1)
There is a lot to do to prepare for a multi-day running race. There are so many articles out there about various training programs. But, when I headed out to attempt my first multi-day ultra in 2008, I felt that there was so much more that I needed to know beyond the training – and I had trouble finding it.
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 Read more…
Winter bird-watching in the city
I am in Vancouver for the week. It amazes me, every time I pay a winter visit to this city, how absolutely great the bird-watching is here.
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 Read more…
Serenity – or (back to) Nature
The other day I went for a walk out to Tonquin Beach. A five-minute walk from my doorstep takes me to the start of the trail. From there, I meander another 5 minutes through the rainforest and I am on the beach…
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 Read more…
Growing rice in Canada – some hopeful signs
Well, who would have ever thought it… my rice plants are blooming! Here, in Tofino, in November!
I brought them inside at the end of summer – you can read about them up to that point in my September 5th blog entry. I thought that was that – a “technical success” in that I had plants, but no actual rice. But the plants were just too beautiful to throw out, so I brought them inside, to the south-facing window in my bedroom.
I didn’t think that the plants were doing much there, but now looking back to those September photos I can see that they have definitely bushed out. Interestingly, I left one bucket of plants downstairs, on my heated tile floor at my front entrance: more heat, Read more…
Harvesting veggies in November
Well, how does that look?
I’m pretty pleased – that’s a November vegetable harvest from my garden in Port Alberni!
In this photo you’ll see freshly picked celery, brussels sprouts and swiss chard. I picked the peppers and tomatoes (green) about a month ago, and have been letting them ripen slowly inside.
OK, I know that you can’t be doing this right across Canada – our Vancouver Island climate is a bit milder. But still, there is a lot that you can harvest even into the first frosts – most of the cabbage family (especially kale, usually one of my standards, but I did not have access to the garden in Port Alberni until July, which is too late to seed it) as well as cabbages and brussels sprouts. Many of these can take quite a hard frost – in fact, they get even more tender and flavourful Read more…
Our Canadian Coldwater surf champ!
Wow, well it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. It has been a pretty busy month for me. I knew I’d be at the surf comp for at least a few days – the week-long O’Neill Coldwater Classic was held in Tofino the last week of October, the first time ever that an international pro surf competition has come to Canada.
But the event just got more and more exciting as local boy Pete Devries made it through heat after heat after Read more…
Project Athena – the beauty of both giving and receiving
I’ve just returned from my Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hike with Project Athena. I’ve posted daily reports about the hike on www.SleepMonsters.com, so if you’d like to find out more about the actual hiking trip, please take a look at that. Here, I am trying to put into words what Project Athena is actually doing – and that is really hard to do, because this charitable foundation is operating on so many different levels.
Officially, this Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hike was a fund-raising trip. All together, the participants fund-raised $15,000, and all of that money will go to supporting future “athenaship” recipients: helping women Read more…
The goddesses from Project Athena head to the Grand Canyon
OK, now here is something I am truly excited about! Some of the most inspiring and accomplished people who I have ever come across, who have decided to put their energy towards helping others.
Robyn Benincasa is one of the world’s greatest athletes. Sorry, folks, but adventure racers can put pretty much any Olympian to shame. I don’t want to put down Olympians at all – what they do is amazing – but really, most of them are very very good at just one thing. Adventure racers, on the other hand, have to be good at everything – mountain biking, running Read more…
Collecting kelp
There’s food all around!
Well, I know that’s not true everywhere, but it sure is true out here on the west coast.
I went out for a little kayak paddle on a golden evening last week. As I glided over the kelp beds, I could see that that some of the fronds at the tips of the Giant Kelp (Macrocystis spp.) were still lovely and clean. Usually, around this time of the year, the “leaves” start to fall apart, and are overgrown with all sorts of stuff (I am not sure exactly what, but some sort of fuzzy marine growth that makes them pretty unsuitable for harvest).
I plucked a couple of fronds, and folded them up under the bungies on my deck. It was Read more…
Jacqueline Windh 