Running Free

Several weeks have passed since my candidacy exam. The exam was one of the most stressful and pressurized situations I have ever been in. I had studied well and felt prepared but after nearly 6 weeks of 12-17 hours a day right up until I took the exam I realized that my brain was revolting and as the questions were asked my mind turned into a thick fog and a million fragmented pieces that I couldn't form together to make any sense. I was grasping and grasping but there was nothing there. It is the first time in my life that my mind froze like that. I was able to struggle through the exam and answer enough so that I somehow passed in the end, but I was really disappointed because my performance didn't represent what I really know. That being said, the exam came and went and I was able to get back to my experiments, research, and also running. For the first week or two following my exam my running was weak and inconsistent because of the 6 week running hiatus, foul weather, and because the stress from the exam took some time to completely dissolve away. This past week though, my running has improved drastically without the stress of the exam holding me back. I have felt like I have been running free for the first time in many months if not in over a year.

Monday was warmer than it has been all year and so I stripped down to a single shirt and shorts which felt amazing after 6 months of tights, toques, layers, gloves, and sleeves. I had been training for the past few weeks with a pack to prepare for my long Summer mountain run and so without the weight I felt extremely light and nimble. I ran really strong and summited Mount Doug 6 times for a total of about 3,000 feet of vertical both up and down. I just flew through the trails. I felt something that had been missing for some time...the twinge of a runners high...the warm glow that accompanies a runner when life is balanced and everything is in it's place!

Today I didn't have the option to drive to the trail head so I had to run the 3 mile evil black strip of asphalt, choked with walkers and automobile exhaust. The run started partly cloudy and about 55 degrees (perfect for running) and within 10 minutes my legs began to really start moving. It was one of those rare times where the legs crank like some sort of perpetual motion machine. The more I pushed them the faster they seemed to respond and it felt I was getting much more out of my legs than the energy I was investing. This carried me to the trail head and beyond the road extremely fast. I chose to do the more challenging and steep reverse route of the Mount Doug Gutbuster. As I was approaching the first summit the sun peered out of a dark veil of clouds and back lit a million succulent chartreuse leaves making them have the appearance of fluttering green butterflies. My spirits lifted as I rounded the corner to my first steep summit. The effects of the 3000 feet from Monday's run apparently hadn't fully left my system, and my legs began to fatigue. I pushed them right up to my lactic threshold trying to push beyond it so next run I can push it back even more. I tore down the mountain after summiting and felt the warmth from the patches of exposed sunlight between the new foliage-choked trees. After my descent I began a long and steady uphill grade to my next summit. I kept the legs spinning but they were tired. I didn't care I was free in the forest with my thoughts (free from stress and baggage that comes from feeling guilty if you aren't studying).

I began to think ahead 72 days when me and my best friend(s) line up at Smith and Morehouse Reservoir and begin our 24-ish mile run through Utah's Uinta Mountains to where we finally will summit Bald Mountain at 11,947 feet after 6,000 feet of vert. Is there still going to be too much snow in July? Will I be ready by then only being able to train at sea level and having no time to acclimatize? Questions began to spin around in my head. I began to think about Tim and I as we have spent many Summer's camping hiking and fishing in the shadows of the Uinta Mountains and now almost 20 years after our friendship began we will be running the same hallowed trails. I remember hiking there with Tim's dad and hearing him tell us how he used to run those trails and I couldn't fathom being able to do that and now I am months away.

The steep face of the last 100 feet of my second summit snapped me out of my thoughts and I began to grind up the steep face. On top I pound the last slug of water from my Ultimate Direction water bottle, I knew I could use all the fluids I could get with the sun now warming the temps. I glide down the slope and head for my final summit, the Bedrock Buster. The climb is steep and brutal and my legs are toast by this point. I pushed myself and ran on the exposed rib of diorite making up the trail. I catch my breath and am shocked to find dozens of people on the summit apparently deciding to crawl out of their holes to soak up some sun after driving to the top like hibernating critters. I decide not to linger in the crowds and plummet off the summit and down the mountain and instantly find myself alone again. My thoughts wander back to home and bounce from mountains in Utah and Colorado I want to summit, to the Himalayas. I wonder if I could ever accomplish my dream of summiting an 8,000 meter peak and what kind of money and kitchen pass I would have to come up with to attempt this. My legs are now spent as I reach the road. I painfully push myself the remaining few miles to my house. I feel I am ready for my first 4 hour run of the year. I will use the Easter weekend to run the Gowland Tod range and clock some time on my feet in that beautiful and under-utilized range just minutes away from Victoria. What a great feeling to be running free again!

Since my legs felt perpetual today I decided to post a song called "Perpetual" by Irish/British electronic group VNV Nation. VNV has components of Synthpop, Industrial, Trance and EMB sounds. The name stands for "Victory not Vengeance" in keeping with the band's motto that "One should strive to succeed, not sit in bitter regret." The song has a very perpetual motion sound to it and I like to use it as means of pushing myself during tough stretches or even to accompany me when running well like most of today. I saw these guys live in Salt Lake a few years ago and was really impressed with the positive energy and the great show they put on. Enjoy some Perpetual!

Back from my writing hiatus - The H2H is when?

I can't believe I finally wrapped up the first draft of my 50 page PhD proposal. It was a beast to write with hundreds of references. I basically sat and wrote for 6 weeks with little else to offset the academic-induced coma I found myself in. The worst aspect is I basically had to kiss my training goodbye for the summer and hunker down on my project. I knew that it was a matter of time before school pushed ultra training aside for various stints during my program. Alas, I came here to study Geology and leave an impact on how geologists' think about my area of interest. So I had to push my running aside because to run at all would be to take away from time that had to be spent sleeping or writing.

Excuses aside, I am back at it again. The main motivation is I just realized that I am less than 2 months away from the Haney to Harrison 100 km relay race in which I am a member of a 6 person team. I just realized that I am completely out of running let alone racing shape and I have a team depending on me. So I have developed a plan in which I add 3 minutes to my daily runs each day and 15% to my long weekend runs. This should get me close to 1.5 hours of running a day with long runs near 3 hours once a week. Since it is a road race (yuck!!) I have been incorporating flat road and gravel trail into my training to get me into better shape for pounding the pavement.

Even though I have had a two month break I have found my running coming back fairly quickly (for this first week anyhow). The first run was a bit brutal as my capillaries opened up again and I busted the lungs back in, but since I have comfortably found my breath and air. I really need to kick about 12 pounds as well so it is time to chill out on my eating. I am afraid that the pressurized writing scenario may have allowed me to find solace in snacking and late meals to accompany during late nights of writing. The lack of inactivity and overeating was a simple equation for rapid weight gain. I am glad to be back to burning some calories and eating less and more thoughtfully.

Last night was awesome. My 4 year old son wanted to accompany me for a short warm-up run. It was dark and foggy so we each strapped on the headlamps and hit the dark tree choked trails. What a trooper! He cranked out an awesome pace for a little dude and we ran about 1 km in about 9 minutes which was pretty cool. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of it was sharing this aspect of my life with him. I look forward to future running exploits with my family. I love that I don't even have to push him to do it. He sees me running and the joy and passion I get out of it and he naturally wants to run like dad. It is really cool. Who knows he may have a natural talent that can carry him far. I guess the key is I let him do it on his own without me forcing him. After all if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't want to run.

I guess I have just a short 31 minute run tonight and I am looking forward to it.

In the spirit of my lack of preparation for the H2H I am including a song appropriately named "Not Prepared" by a group called Mesh. It is a classic song. The first time I heard it was on a napster copy of Depeche Mode's Exciter album. This leaked copy of the album included this track by Mesh and also "Pony Tail Girl" by Brian Hazard of Color Theory (another of my favorites). Apparently the person who put the Exciter album up on Napster around the year 2000 thought these two artists sounded similar to Gore and included them with the album, fooling many people (not me I could tell the two tracks weren't Gore). Well now that I am not prepared remotely in any way, shape, or form, for the H2H this song might light a fire so perhaps I can salvage some sort of a slightly below average time and not completely disappointed my team.

Summit of Mt. Finlayson and cooking up some lava

Today I decided to run in Gold Stream Park and tackle Mt. Finlayson, a large diorite dome that errupts from the banks of gold stream at sea level. Mt. Finlayson is a short but steep trail that climbs from sea level to 1375 feet in just a few kms. The trail starts out fairly smooth and steep and is runnable but once you reach the shoulder of the mountain you enter multiple class three pitches with rocks wore smooth from hikers and past glaciers. It actually is about the most technical stuff I have attempted on the island. It took me about 28 minutes to top out but I wasn't feeling that well due to a sore neck from a restless night which lead to a morning headache. I was a bit dizzy off and on and it definitely isn't a trail to have any sort of fainting spell. I took it relaxed and power hiked the majority of the upper trail. The run down was quite dangerous with many spots where it would be easy to get out of control or lock ball-bearing gravel under your tread and slide of a ledge. I took a nice controlled descent and I can't for the life of me figure out how I got off the trail (it is extremely straight forward with bright orange markers everywhere) but before I knew it I was in the middle of the bush, whacking my way towards the general direction of the trail. I picked the main trail back up and flew through the last km of the trail like it was nothing. I ended up finishing the round trip in about 45 minutes, which is a pretty short run for me but I think that the steepness and length of the climb spiced up the variability of my weekly regime and I think I will use this one for future hill training and stack multiple summits to really get used to steep 1400 foot climbs and descents over technical ground.

After running Finlayson I headed into school where I whipped up a quick batch of lava. Much like baking cookies but instead of flour and sugar I add Silica (quartz SiO2) and calcium carbonate (limestone). And instead of putting the batch in at 200 degrees celcius I place it in a furnace at 15oo degrees celcius. When it has cooked long enough I pour out the glowing red viscous melt onto a stainless steel plate and now instead of a white or redish powder (from iron) it is a black glass like obsidian.

It was a good day with a steep summit of finlayson followed by making some lava. My life is awesome!

I decided to throw some Arcade Fire on my blog since I don't have Canadian music represented yet. This is a group with quite a few members but fronted by a husband and wife team from Montreal. This song "Keep the Car Running" is one of many favs by the band and I think it is a great song to have playing in the noodle during a crazy trail run like today. Check out more of their stuff, they have tons of different weird instruments that they incorporate in genius ways.

My First Post

My first post will be basic background on where I have been, where I am at, and where I am heading. As you can obviously see I am quite passionate about the outdoors and particularly the Geosciences. I did my undergraduate research in a University in Utah called Weber State, where I had a fantastic staff of great professors. I tried to be as involved as possible, participating in an array of undergraduate research studies, and field trips. I exceled in my studies and graduated in May of 07' with a Bachelor's of Science in Geology. It was a memorable time for me and I will always look back at my studies there with great fondness. I feel I have made friends that will last through the ages. I was able to go to South America and participate in a conference in Mendoza, Argentina. I loved it down there, and would love to return one day. Durring this time period I got heavily involved in trail running and began to train at lunch with a good friend. I wanted to aspire to the Wasatch 100 mile endurance run and was on my way, when I was halted by surgery. I had Surgery in July of 2005 on most of my major organs. It was an interesting time in my life, and I most likely will blog about it later. This completely stopped any running and the recovery to 80% was about a year. In this time I finished my degree. I then started a company looking for mineral resources, using a process I created, to streamline the costly and lengthy exploration process. That story is quite a tangent that I will not delve into for this current post. I then decided to pursue graduate studies in Geology. I applied to Western Australia first, and was unable to come up with the funding and scholarships necessary to attend. I switched my focus to Canada do to the Great North's focus on Earth Sciences, and applied from east to west. My first choice, funny enough, was the school I got into. The University of Victoria. I preferred this school based on location, research opportunity, supervisor, and just a desire to attend. I made the move on August 18-20th. I packed up a U-haul and started a new adventure. It has been fantastic and challenging for many different reasons that I am sure will become evident through my blogs. Throughout all of this excitement and adventure I have had a strong reliance on music to be a soundtrack to my life. I have always loved Depeche Mode for reasons I will blog about later, but their music has been a huge back drop for many memorable events in my life. I am a complete "audiophile" and really love music. I enjoy many different genres, but tend to gravitate towards moody, bluesy, dark, electronic, and mixed electro acoustic bands. I have had many tangents along the way from punk to metal, but find myself continually going back to my 80's synth roots and bands that have sprung up as a result. These main themes will always be running throughout my blog and many will be inter-twined. I think this will be fun to force myself to get my thoughts together and work through some of my issues. That is the last 6 years of my life in a nutshell. I will try to include a photo or two along the way, to keep it interesting







This is a photo of a recent exploration trip in Utah's Uinta Mountains.