One more round (of pain)!

So here I sit, in a lovely hotel room at the Westin Bayshore with a fantastic view of the Vancouver harbour, recovering from another marathon. Crazy, you say? At this point I definitely won’t argue with you. Actually, I shall rather quote a sign I saw along the course: “We are all insane. Some are just more insane than others.” I set out this time to achieve my goal of running a marathon in 4 hours and 15 minutes. I did not achieve that goal. Not even close. So yes, I will likely at some point run another. But right now I’m not sure when that will happen, because I vow to retire the fuel belt for at least the rest of this year. I’ve got a lot on my plate over the summer and another full marathon is just not in the cards. A 100 km bike race, yes, but a marathon, no. Remember I’m retiring the fuel belt, not the eLoad.

So on with the stories. My official finishing chip time was 4:31:22. So not the 4:15 I was hoping for. And I wanted that time. Bad. Really, really bad. I trained, and I thought I could do it. Then somewhere between 21 and 30 km, it all fell apart. That’s actually exactly where it fell apart last year at the Vancouver marathon. I’ve decided now that I just really don’t like this course. There’s something about it that just rubs me the wrong way. I’m not a huge fan of long, semi-straight stretches, and this course is full of them. There’s also a really long stretch of road right at the end that takes you out of downtown and all the way out to UBC and back. And I swear it’s the longest stretch of road in the world. It just keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny on steroids. And the problem for me is, I see that it keeps going, and all I can think is that I have to turn around and come right back. It’s awful, especially for it being the last 12 km of the course. Pure torture. So I think I need to expand my horizons in the way of the marathons I run. I think maybe Calgary next year if I can work it. I could use a new belt buckle…

There’s also been a lot going on in my life lately. Glen and I have put the house up for sale and are planning to move back to Alberta by the end of July. Glen’s been out of work, and my own experience at work lately hasn’t exactly been stellar. And on Friday I could feel a sore throat starting, so I started popping Cold FX like they were candy. It’s held the sore throat at bay, but I can feel it spreading now. So I’m getting sick. All of this probably contributed in some way to the demise of my 4:15 dreams. I guess it just wasn’t my day. But enough of the excuses. Someday A I’ll get there. Someday.

Moving right along, I was doing very well until about half way. I was actually ahead of my nemesis, the pace bunny. Only this time it was the 4:15 pace bunny. I was ahead of him! I can’t tell you how happy that made me. But somewhere in there he passed me, and I just couldn’t catch him. Damn you, pace bunny! Damn you! The hills this time were killer. Every hill after half-way felt like a mountain, and I just couldn’t maintain my pace. I had to slow down almost to a walk. But I didn’t walk. I may not have done stellar, and I may have disappointed myself, but I didn’t walk. And it would have been all too easy after the 30 km marker. Oh, to have just walked for a minute or two! No! I would not walk! I knew at that point my goal time was shot, but I had to salvage my dignity somehow. So I kept running. Many know my creedo is that you can’t say you’ve run a marathon if you stop to walk during it, and I stand by that. I may have bombed when it came to time, but I still ran the marathon. So while I might be disappointed with my time, I still have a time. I still finished. Which is more than I can say for a large chunk of the population that will never even try. So despite all that, I’m satisfied, thank you very much.
Not a lot of runners from Campbell River made the trip across the straight for this event, but I still managed to see a couple of them. The coach caught up with me somewhere around 34 km, and I’m pretty sure he lied when he said he thought the 4:15 pace bunny was behind me. Nice try, Mark. I appreciate the thought. I give much love to Marian, though. I was on my way back from the turnaround at UBC when I hollered at her. Despite being at the end of my rope I still yelled. And she waved back and hooted in her typical Marian fashion. It wasn’t much, but it kept me going for nearly 4 more kilometres. So thanks, Marian. I hope your race went better than mine.

So now on to the tidbits we all love so much.

The Lulu girls. There were a lot of people out on the course wearing gear from Lululemon. In my own personal experience, the people that shop at Lulu for running gear aren’t generally very hard-core runners. Not that you have to be to enter a marathon. Actually, I’m probably just projecting my jealously on them, since I don’t look nearly as good in the clothes as they do. I tried my hardest to keep ahead of these two girls wearing identical shorts from that store in different colors. I can’t remember now if I came in ahead of them or not. But I hope I did. I can’t really explain why, maybe it’s the jealousy thing, but I just felt the need to keep ahead of them. Though it could have been the perkiness of their stride. After 30 km, perky gets really, really annoying. If you have a perky stride, don’t run next to me in a marathon. I’m likely to shove you into a thorny bush along the course.

Sponges. Seriously, who did a girl have to sleep with to get a sponge out on the course? There was a serious lack of sponges at this race. The last 2 years in Vancouver there’s been an abundance of sponges at some of the water stations. This year, I came across only a single sponge station that still had any left. And you bet your arse I took it. And it felt good. This year I was really needing the sponges, too. It was dry this year, and the sun kept peeking out, so I was actually getting pretty sweaty. So I needed sponges. But seeing as there were none, I had to resort to using the water station cups and just splashing them into my face. It didn’t jive so well with the sweat and the contact lenses. But it was better than nothing, I guess.

Hat guy! If you’ve read one of my recent entries about the Comox Valley half, you’ll know about hat guy. Well, he was back again this year! He was actually behind me quite a ways, but he was still there in all his hat-wearing glory. Someday I’m going to get the nerve to introduce myself and find out what his name is.

The wounds. Many of you are familiar with my experiences with wounds sustained in the quest of a marathon medal, and Vancouver was no exception. Sometimes the wound is as simple as some thigh chafing from my shorts, or as big as the now permanent scar I have on my chest from making a poor sports bra decision (see my 2007 blog entitled “42 km is really far”). Well, there was still chafing this time, but there was no broken skin. I also somehow managed to get some chafing from a sports bra that I wore in the last marathon I ran, and that time it didn’t chafe at all. This year, the most impressive injury I sustained was a blister on my right big toe that’s roughly the size of Philadelphia. It’s huge! And not only that, it even bled a little. So it looks even more impressive. I also have the marathoner’s walk going on, but I expect that to get better over the next couple days.

New management. I think there was a change in the organizing committee for this year’s marathon, and they made some changes I wasn’t particularly happy with. Previously, they had hosted the expo and race package pick-up at the host hotel, where we usually stay. This year they set up big tents near the start/finish line, which made the expo very crowded and somewhat difficult to get to. It was very convenient when it was at the hotel, but this year we ended up driving around trying to find a parking space for about 20 minutes. There was also far less food at the finish line this year than previously, and there were no bags to carry it in. They also handed out the shirts at the package pick-up instead of at the finish line, so they don’t say “finisher” on them. Which is okay, I still get the shirt, but there’s something to be said for the pride of wearing a shirt that says “marathon finisher” on it. But my biggest complaint is with this year’s medals. It’s not that they changed the logo on the medal, though I did like the native art they used to put on them. It’s the fact that this year’s medal has no date or year on it! That was the unique, exciting part of the medals, you could only get them that year. Even if the design didn’t change, at least the date would be different. But these ones could be from any year, really. And it sucks! I’m running 42.2 km! The least you could do is make the medal unique enough that if I come back to run again next year I don’t end up with exactly the same medal! I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty cheesed about that.

Newspaper coverage. Normally I like staying the night after the marathon to recuperate, but also so that I can get a copy of the newspaper the next day to see my name in print. But alas, the year, my name was not in print. In fact, there was very little coverage of the marathon in the papers this year. The Province had a couple pages, which was nice, but the Vancouver Sun had a single picture with a caption. That’s it. No accompanying article, no list of the winners, just a single picture. Yet there were nearly 2 pages devoted to the Vancouver Canucks, who I might mention, actually lost that weekend. Vancouver is a running city. They host one of the largest marathons in Canada, and yet all we rate is a single picture? Thousands of people trained for thousands of hours, shedding their sweat, tears, and even some blood, and yet they barely rate any newspaper coverage? Shame on you, Vancouver newspapers, shame on you.

So that’s all my stories about this year’s Vancouver Marathon. My next adventure has yet to be planned, but I can’t lie that I kinda hear the waves on the Chesterman’s in Tofino calling my name…

Two days in Ontario.

As many of you are already aware, my loving husband is currently out of work. Thus he's been looking, and this past week we were flown to Ontario for two days in the Niagra region so he could go to an in-person interview for a job as a maintenance engineer at a recycled paper mill. The company was nice enough to fly us both out there, rent us a car and hotel room, so they could interview Glen and we could both see the area to see if we liked it enough to move there.

Strangely enough, Niagra Falls was never really on my list of stuff I wanted to see. I'm not sure why, I guess I just figured one waterfall is as good as the next and I didn't feel the need to go out of my way to see that one. But more about that later. We left on Monday morning at noon, right after I had gotten off a night shift. Which was mistake number one. I didn't get any semblance of sleep so I felt awful pretty much the entire day. We landed in Hamilton at midnight local time and made it to the hotel about an hour later. So we finally got to bed around 3 am local time.

Glen had to be up for the interview the next day at 1 pm, so I got up a bit early to use the treadmill in the hotel. I had finished my book the day before (Race to Dakar-which is fantastic, by the way, and I definitely recommend it for anyone that's into endurance sports or motorcycles) and neglected to bring a new one, so I was hoping there was a bookstore within walking distance. Fortunately, I found out that the Brock University campus was about a block away from the hotel. And where there's a university, there's a university bookstore. It only took me about half an hour to find the bookstore on campus. After that, I walked up to a the Glenridge Quarry, which was right across from the hotel. It used to be a quarry, then they used it as a landfill, and now they've converted it to a cute little park with some trails. So I went wandering around the park for a while. That's where the picture at the top of this post came from.
Once Glen came back from his interview, we headed over to Niagra Falls. And I gotta say, it's pretty impressive. Most people will say the falls are amazing, but not a lot of people mention how huge the river is that feeds it. It's gigantic! For me, the sheer size of the river that leads up to the falls is almost as impressive as the falls themselves. And there's not just Niagra falls to see, there's also a huge waterfall off the American side the the canyon that's also impressive. And there's tons to do in the little area around the falls, too. My Mom told me before I left that it's a lot like Vegas, and she was right. Only a little bit smaller. There are arcades, haunted houses, adventure parks, even a giant ferris wheel. You could spend a good couple days (and an ever better amount of money) just wandering around. We didn't do much there, since it was getting a little late and we only had a couple hours, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

The next morning the jet lag caught up with us big time. The company Glen was interviewing with had set us up with a realtor who was going to take us around and show us the different areas of the different towns, and we were meeting with her at 10 am the second day. So we had to get up a little earlier to get breakfast, plus I got up even earlier to go for a jog that morning. I actually ended up getting up around 7, which I might add would be 4 am Pacific time. I barely managed 45 minutes jogging, which is really abnormal for me, and which is also how I knew I was unbelievably tired. At one point I even fell asleep in the realtor's car. Glen was really tired too. And just when we were getting used to the time change, we had to be up at 5 am the next morning to be in Hamilton for our flight home. I might add that's 5 am local time, which would be 2 am Pacific time. You wouldn't think that 3 hours would make that big a difference, but when you're working on almost no sleep the day you leave, then throw in a 3 hour time change, well, it doesn't end well. The day we came back, I slept pretty much the entire day. I honestly thought I'd be okay given that I work really weird hours that include night shifts, but I guess even I'm not immune to crazy time changes. Next time I go on a trip with a time change of more than an hour, I'm definitely factoring in a day for jet lag.

The realtor was very nice, and took us around the areas she thought would be good for us to live in if we were to move there. He driving was a bit scary, though. Especially when she answered her cell phone while explaining something to us and driving at the same time. We thought she might kill us all, but we somehow made it out alive. The houses in that area are all brick. Seriously, if you have a house with only vinyl siding, you're the odd one on the block. It's crazy. And because of the brick, all the houses seem to look incredibly grand. They aren't necessarily that big or fancy, they just look it because of the brick. And the columns. Lots of the houses have columns. It's really quite pretty, it just seems really super fancy because that's not what we're used to.


The second day, after the realtor dropped us off at the hotel, we went out to explore a little bit more. Glen wanted to see the locks on the Welland Canal. We managed to see one of the bridges lift up to let a ship through, which was pretty cool. The whole bridge deck lifts straight into the air to let the ship go underneath. The lock was even better. The ship can just barely fit into the lock, and when they start letting the water in, it raises pretty fast. I wasn't expecting to be impressed by the lock, but the whole operation was actually quite impressive. And fast, too. It only took about 20 minutes for the whole thing.

One thing I noticed while we were down there was was that there's a serious lack of hills. I thought Saskatchewan was flat, but at least they have to occasional rolling hill. Out near Niagra Falls it's pretty much totally flat. Lots of vineyards, too. We were expecting that, since everyone was telling us it was wine country before we left. But there really are a lot of vineyards. We didn't manage to visit any, though. And you can get anywhere in about 15 minutes once you figure out the roads, because there are tons of highways and freeways. But figuring out the roads is the hard part. They don't build any of the roads straight. And none of them face north/south. Glen and I took about 10 minutes in the car the first day discussing which way north was. We found out the second day we were both wrong. It's funny how turned around you get when you don't know what direction you're facing.

Overall it's actually a pretty nice area. Though I think if we decided to move there, I would miss the hills and mountains. It sounds odd, but I think the flat landscape might make me crazy. We haven't heard anything from the company about the job yet, but the day we got back we found out that the place that owns the mill had filed for bankruptcy protection. I guess we'll see. We haven't really made any decisions yet, but don't worry, I'll let all my avid readers know when we finally get something figured out. So stay tuned for more news and my next big adventure!

I am the Queen of Awesome!

Or at least that's how I felt after finishing the Comox Valley Half Marathon yesterday.

I went into this race not entirely sure how I was going to do, or even what I wanted to do. Generally, when I enter a racem I have some goal in mind, however vague. Like getting a specific time, or even just finishing in one piece. I didn't really have a goal for this one. It wasn't until the day before when Mark asked me about it that I even gave it any thought. Did I want to run hard, to see how fast I could do it? Or did I want to take it easy and enjoy the experience?
I decided I wanted to see how fast I could go. I haven't really been training to run a half marathon, and it's not really my top choice of distance. I prefer the marathon, however twisted and masochistic that might sound to you all. I like a good long distance, and 21.1 km just really doesn't feel like enough. I've been of the opinion lately that the race really starts at 19 km. I still believe that, Sunday was no exception. But it was a good race.

There aren't really a lot of spectators on the course in Comox. It's kind of out in the country and it's not exactly a huge event (somewhere around 500 people each year), so there aren't people lined up along the ditches the entire way to watch. The people that do go to watch, however, are fantastic. Especially the volunteers. It wasn't exactly warm out there on Sunday, and they stood outside for hours, directing traffic and screaming their heads off for people they didn't even know. It's awesome.

The course itself is an out and back, so you run out, turn around and run back along the same roads. This is the second time I've done this race, and I like the course much better this time. It's slightly uphill most of the way out, and then slightly downhill most of the way back. It took me an hour to get to the halfway point, and just under 59 minutes to get back. And I know I was going faster on the way back. I like it for that-as long as you don't kill yourself in the first half, the second half isn't too bad. Well, that's how I felt about it on Sunday anyways.My official time was 1:58:41, which is a personal best for me. What's even better is that I felt good during the race, which makes the outcome just that much sweeter. I think I just might be getting the hang of this "running" thing. There were only a few moments where I felt like stopping or slowing down, and somehow by reminding myself there wasn't much distance left and that I knew I could keep going this speed I managed to keep my pace up. I'm rather proud of myself, can you tell? Toot, toot. That's me tooting my own horn.

I don't really have a lot of the usual tidbits I normally rant about after a race. For whatever reason I was having a good day and not a lot was bothering me. I do have one or two, though.

Hat Guy. There's this guy, he's Asian and I've seen him in more than one race, and he was there on Sunday. He wears these goofy hats-the kind you'd get at the dollar store that look like something out of Dr. Seuss. The only reason I recognized him was because I remember following him in Vancouver last year. And I remember because I was fixated on passing him for about 5 km. The hats were different, but I know it was the same guy by his stride and the spandex shorts. (Some people have a very particular stride you can recognize from a long ways away. I'm told I have one of these recognizeable strides.) He was out there on Sunday, with one of his goofy hats. And he wears them for the entire race. It's insane. And it can't be particularly comfortable since most of those hats are pretty cheap and have absolutely no air flow. This time it only took me about a kilometre to pass him, though. I have to give this guy props for his props, as it were. Everyone who passes him smiles, and he brings just a little bit of joy to the race. I hope I get to see this guy again in future races.

The Gel Station. I do not use gels. I had an unfortunateincident a couple years ago when I tried one, and ended up spending the afternoon curled up around the porcelain bowl wondering why I started running in the first place. I later determined it may have been due to the gel being of the banana flavor, which I have since decided I might be slightly allergic to. Nevertheless, every time I see or think about energy gels, my stomach lurches and I have to concentrate relatively hard not to immediately toss my cookies. There was a gel station on the course and as I passed it my stomach did it's enevitable flip-flop. But I managed to keep it together and keep going. I'm hoping at some point to get over this, but who knows how long that's going to take.

The food. I love to eat, and I'm not embarrased to say that eating is probably the entire reason I continue to run. Running means I can eat like a pig just before auction and get away with it. The food post-race in Comox is fantastic! This year there was chili (meaty or veggie, depending on your tastes), buns (mmm, carbs), juice boxes (the 5 year-old in me is squealing), and the obligatory oranges and bananas. There were also some delightful cookies and yogurt. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. And I was all good, the chili in particular. I'm starting to think the whole reason I run in races is for the food afterwards...

Draw prizes. Many thanks to the good folks at Timex for donating the shiny new Iroman Triathalon watch I am currently sporting as a draw prize. It fits my wrist perfectly and is actually very aesthetically pleasing. Like any former universty student, I love free stuff. Especially when it's a really sweet watch. Glen's been eyeing it up since I won it, but I think I'm safe since I'm pretty sure it won't fit his huge man wrists (it's a women's watch).

That's about it for this particular race. The Merville 15 km is only a couple weeks away, so stay tuned.

Tofino in March=Bad Idea.

So it had been almost two months since I last tried surfing, and I'll admit I was itching to get out of Campbell River for a couple days. So I traded a couple shifts at work and convinced Glen to head out to Tofino for few days for some surfing and hiking. You might say, "Sara, it's March, won't it be a little cold to be playing around in the ocean?" Well, yes, it will be, but the wetsuits keep you nice and warm, so I wasn't particularly worried about that.

Originally I had thought we would stay at the hostel, but then we found out that we were going during the Pacific Rim Whale Festival, so every type of accommodation in town had hiked their prices for the week, probably hoping to make a few extra bucks off the tourists. Well, not only am I cheap, but I also have an unemployed husband. So we decided we would camp instead to save ourselves the cash. Bad idea. We wanted to stay at Crystal Cove, where I know they have nice bathrooms and good campsites, but when we got there they told us they no longer allow tenting. Seriously? We had stayed there before, but now we weren't allowed? Despite the fact that most of their sites were empty, they were turning down our business. That's right, they only take RVs now. They're camping snobs. So we left quite irritated and went down the road to Bella Pacifica. Where the showers and bathrooms aren't heated, and are basically outdoors.

After we set up the tent and tarp to keep the rain off our heads (this is the west coast, after all), we went into town and rented wetsuits and boards. It was cold, but once you get the wetsuit on, it's not so bad. We got to the parking lot at the beach, which was completely empty. That's right, we had the beach to ourselves. I somehow managed to get into my wetsuit whilst still in the car, which is no small feat. And I was on the driver's side, so the steering wheel was in the way. It wasn't easy, but I still managed to do it. It was windy, but the waves were excellent, and fairly large. Somehow, though, I had manged to get a short pair of gloves, and every time I moved my arm they would exposed a lovely chunk of skin on my wrist and the water would trickle into my glove. So it only took about 5 minutes before my hands were numb. And the booties didn't fit right, either. So my feet were cold. I didn't realize just how cold until we got out of the water. It took a good 3 hours before I could feel my big toe again. A few more minutes, and I think I may have had some serious frostbite. Like, amputation frostbite. Yikes.


We only lasted about an hour before we got out of the water, mostly owing to my cold feet and hands. And there was no way we were going to put those frozen wetsuits back on the next day, so we returned them. Back at the campsite we decided we at least needed to rinse the saltwater off, so we braved the outdoor shower. I'll qualify what I mean by this. There were walls, but they didn't go all the way to the roof or the floor of the building. So the wind and cold were free-flowing through the shower stall. It was about 2 degrees celsius by this point in the day. And one loonie bought you 2 minutes worth of hot water. I'm pretty sure it was the quickest shower I've ever taken. We lit a fire back at camp and finally managed to get the feeling back in our extremeties. Just in time for it to start snowing. Well, it wasn't really snow, it was what my Dad calls gropple, which is actually more similar ot hail. We ate and then immediately went to bed. Sweet, down-filled, warm bed.


I rained and snowed all night, and when we finally rolled our lazy butts out of our nice warm sleeping bags, it was still going. So rather than spending a couple more days freezing and being miserable and wet, we packed up and headed for home. Which you would've thought would be a simple operation, only it was snowing all over the island at that point. And there's two passes on the way back to Campbell River. We spent most of the way back going about 60 km/h, and at a couple points we couldn't really go much faster than 15 km/h for fear of taking a corner too fast and careening right off the edge of a cliff on one of the windy roads. It wasn't particularly fun.


So Glen has now revoked my trip-making abilities, and refuses to take any more suggestions for weekend trips. I don't blame him, I don't have a particularly positive record at the moment.

Sara and Glen go to Hawaii

Well, it was a whirlwind 2 weeks in Hawaii for us, so let's forgo the usual pleasantries and dig in right away.

We left Dec. 24, 2008, which almost didn't happen. We were supposed to fly out of the Campbell River airport early on the morning of the 24th, but the airline called and suggested we fly out the evening of the 23rd and stay the night in Vancouver, just to make sure we made it to Vancouver for the 24th. Earlier that week it had dumped about 3 feet of snow on us and the airport had been shut down for almost a day and a half, and they were afraid of that happening again. So away we went to spend the evening in Vancouver. And it's a good thing we did, because the next day the snow was flying, and there were more than a few flights canceled at the Vancouver airport. Thankfully, our flight was only delayed, and we still managed to get out. We were 3 hours late leaving, but we still left, praise be to Westjet. Most of the Air Canada flights were canceled that day, but only one Westjet flight was canceled. We both felt pretty lucky, since there were some people who'd been trying to get somewhere for 3 days and were still trapped in the airport. So very early on Christmas morning we landed in Honolulu. And let me tell you, it felt a little weird getting off the plane into the +25 degree heat and humidity.

Which brings me to the weather on O'ahu. We stayed the entire 2 weeks on that one island, not because we didn't want to visit the other islands, but because there was enough to do on that one island that we didn't need to go anywhere else to fill up our time. Maui will just have to wait a few more years to enjoy our company. The weather's always nice in Hawaii. Even when it's windy and raining, you still don't need a jacket. A light sweater, maybe, but never a jacket. Unless it's waterproof, and then it comes in handy. As a self-professed running junkie, I was eager to try out running in Hawaii, especially since winter had finally settled over Campbell River and I was kindof tired of wearing full pants to jog in already. But I was not prepared for Hawaii. Within about 10 minutes, the sweat was running off me in rivers. And the humidity just sucks the energy right out of you. I think the longest jog I managed while we were there was just under an hour. And I thought I was going to die! I have great respect for anyone who runs the Honolulu marathon, or even attempts the Hawaii Ironman. I think you'd have to have a few screws loose to even attempt either.

Glen and I went on a bunch of tours and day trips while we were there. The largest industry in Hawaii is tourism, so there are lots to choose from. Though I will say that the most of the ones we went on were pretty tame. They appeared to be quite adventurous online when I booked them but were in actuality geared towards lazy, unfit tourists. And good example of this was the horseback ride we took at Kualoa ranch. I thought we'd actually get to go out, see some of the more hidden valleys, get a little farther off the beaten path. No. We stayed on a very flat gravel road and only travelled about 2 km. In an hour and a half! It was one of the most boring horseback rides I've ever taken. I'll explain why later.

First up was the North Shore Shark Encounter. We were taken out into the ocean about a kilometer from shore and put into a metal and plexiglass cage floating in the ocean. Then they tossed some chum in the water and we ducked under the surface with our snorkels and watched them. While it doesn't sound particularly extreme, it changes when you hop into the cage, duck your head under the water and the sharks are 3 feet away! It was a little unnerving for a while, but really cool. Then a piece of chum goes floating by and the sharks swim after it and whack their tails against the cage hard enough to jar it and it gets really, really cool. I got seasick for the first time in my life on this tour. I was fine, then after about 10 minutes in the cage I got nauseous. Then when we got back in the boat I tossed my cookies. I'm not proud, but it wasn't just me that was getting ill. In my defense, though, the waves were 6-8 foot rollers and the boat wasn't exactly huge.


We went to 2 different luaus while we were there. One at Paradise Cove, the other at the Polynesian Cultural Center. A luau for the tourists is basically dinner and a show. And a chance to try poi. More about the poi in the food section. They were both pretty good, and we did learn a bit from each of them. A luau is not to be missed when visiting Hawaii, even if it is just so you can get lei'ed.

We also went on a hike & bike tour with Bike Hawaii. It was okay, but I was hoping for a bit more from the bike. The hike was up to a waterfall in the rain forest, so we got wet. But the waterfall was pretty, and we got to see what a bamboo forest looks like. Picture green bamboo stalks about a foot apart for as far as you can see. It was cool. And very, very muddy. If you choose to do this tour, take the rubber boots. Trust me. The bike portion was downhill. There was almost no pedalling. And it was only 6 miles. And we had to go single file. It was frustrating having to hold the brakes and go slow the entire way down because the tourist dorks up at the front haven't been on a bike in 10 years. Go faster, dammit!

We also spent a day at Kualoa Ranch. We took the 6-wheeler tour, the ranch and movie tour, the horseback ride, and the garden and fishpond tour. The 6-wheeler tour was basically them driving us around in the back of an army vehicle through the bush. Not exactly thrilling. The ranch tour was the best of the day, because we got to see where a horde of movies were filmed, and the rest of the ranch. The movies I can remember that were filmed there: Pearl Harbour, Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, You Me and Dupree, George of the Jungle, Godzilla (the new one) and Mighty Joe Young. They also film a handful of TV shows there on occasion, but right now the only one I can remember is Lost. This tour would've been much better if I'd actually seen any of the shows they filmed there. I stopped watching Lost when the polar bear showed up. I've already described the horseback ride, and the garden tour was in a bus, driving through a garden pointing out different plants.


The North Shore Surf Bus was one of the better things we did while we were there. They picked us up and gave us a quick tour of the North Shore, then turned us loose at the activity of our choice for 2 1/2 hours. Glen and I chose to go surfing. More about the surfing later. Then they dropped us in Haleiwa for 1 1/2 hours to get lunch and wander aimlessly. Haleiwa is basically Hawaii's version of Tofino. We also stopped to see the turtles sunning themselves on the beach, and what should have been the Banzai Pipeline. I say should have because the day we were there it was totally flat. Yes, the stretch of beach famous 'round the world for having the best waves. Where the waves tend to reach heights of 40 feet. The stretch of beach with houses owned by Quicksilver, Roxy, and all the other surfing companies where they send their pro surfers to spend a couple weeks every year. Totally flat. I was quite cheesed, and that's putting it mildly. The picture below of Glen is at the Pipeline.

We also went out to the Polynesian Cultural Center for a day, and stayed for their luau and evening show. The center itself is interesting, and we got to try weaving, and some delightful coconut bread (which I shall attempt to make at home of I can figure out where to get freshly shredded coconut). The evening show was fantastic.

The tour guides in Hawaii are great. Most tours I've taken in other places, the guides are pretty serious, and don't really joke around a lot. The guides in Hawaii never stop with the funny. They even toss in a little sexual innuendo every now and then. It's fantastic. And it makes the tours that are a little lacking a bit easier to enjoy.

We also took a couple days to just wander around and do some stuff on our own. One of those things was hiking Diamond Head. It's a 0.7 mile "hike" to get to the rim of the crater. For Glen and I it wasn't particularly strenuous, we just sweated a lot because of the heat. But some of the people coming down that hill looked like they had climbed Everest. Seriously, 0.7 miles. That's like, 1 kilometre of uphill. It wasn't that bad. And we got a fantastic view of the island. It was also really nice to get a little exercise after having taken so many tame tours. I might also mention that we actually walked to the crater from our hotel. Most people took the bus. Pansies.


That same day we went to the Honolulu Zoo. It was a zoo. There's not much more to say. Oh, but there was this really cool Lovebird that was really friendly and kept following us back and forth in front of his cage. He squawked quite loudly when we finally walked away.

We also went our to Hanauma Bay for a day. We'd heard it was the place to go snorkeling, and we weren't disappointed. It's a protected area, so there's a fee to get in ($5-I shall rant more about this later), and you have to watch a 15 minute video before they let you in. But I didn't mind the fee so much here. In fact, I would've paid more. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. And the snorkeling was even better. The bay is filled with reef, so you can swim in and around the reef, into the little caves and crevices looking for fish and corals and other little creatures. And the reef is so shallow that at times you can scrape yourself on it just floating on the surface if you're not careful. And the fish! I couldn't begin to even start naming all of them. Though I will give you the Hawaiian name for one of them. The Reef Triggerfish, Hawaii's state fish. Humuhumunukunukuapu'aa. Yes, that's actually a real word. And I can actually pronounce it. There were so many fish you didn't even need a snorkel to see them under the surface. It was amazing. Should you ever be in Hawaii, go to Hanauma Bay. It's worth it.

We also went out to Pearl Harbour for a day. We didn't make it there early enough to get out to the USS Arizona memorial, but we did go to the other tourist traps they have out there. The USS Missouri (the "Mighty Mo") is the last battleship commissioned by the US military, and now it's a floating tourist attraction. It was a big boat. That's really all I have to say. The Pacific Aviation Museum was restored airplanes in a hangar. That's really all I have to say. The best part of that day was the submarine USS Bowfin. I whacked my head twice inside it. Submarines are tiny! But they still have all the instrumentation and dials and stuff, so it was interesting to crawl around in it.

On our last day we went to Chinatown. It wasn't really much different from any other Chinatown. The smells were making Glen nauseous, though, so that trip was short-lived.

There's still so much to say...where to start...

The other tourists. There are 2 main groups of tourists in Hawaii. Those that are Japanese, and those that are not. There are a lot of Japanese tourists in Hawaii, probably something to do with the relative proximity of Hawaii to Japan. There are so many of them that they have their own Japanese language tour guides at most of the attractions. Like in the rockies, they all have their huge cameras out all the time. And they always look perfect. Not a single hair is ever out of place. And the women are always in heels, even when it's completely impractical to be wearing heels, they have them on. We were at the ranch, and I swear I saw more than one pair of high-heeled shoes paired with white pants. At a ranch! You're just asking to fall in cow pie that way, my friend. And on the horseback ride, none of them had any idea how to ride a horse. None at all. So we had to go ultra-slow. Have you never seen a western movie? Pull left, horse goes left. Pull right, horse goes right. It`s not rocket science. Oh, and the bathrooms. As many people may not realize, Japanese women's butts never make contact with the toilet seat. Not sure exactly why this is, but they don't sit, they squat. So, as you can imagine, they miss a lot. So it's not uncommon to walk into a bathroom stall and see, not only that it hasn't been flushed, but that there's piss everywhere. On the seat, the floor, everywhere. It's disgusting. I understand that you squat, and I'm okay with that, but for the sake of everyone else using this bathroom, could you at least wipe the seat when you're done? It might make me hate you just a little bit less. I saw some of the most disgusting bathrooms I've ever seen in Hawaii. And I spent 2 weeks in the Jasper backcountry pissing over a log nailed to 2 trees. Those privys were better than some of the ones in Hawaii.

The other variety of tourist is anyone who isn't Japanese. You can spot the Canadians, they're the pasty-looking polite ones. And if you want to find out which ones they are for sure, wear a t-shirt with your favorite NHL team on it. We met at least 10 people from various places in Alberta simply by Glen wearing an Oiler's logo on his shirt. For the most part everyone's pretty cool. Though it is kindof funny to walk down the beach and try to pick out the Europeans in their speedos and cancer-dark tans. And the tans do get dark. Glen and I did get tanned a bit while we were there, but for the most part we had the SPF 50 out to prevent the inevitable sunburns. So we felt like snowpeople on the beaches for the most part. Some people have clearly never heard of skin cancer. It was a little disturbing. Sure, everyone expects you to come back looking like you've had a little sun, but there is a time to draw the line. When your skin gets darker than the locals, it's time to put the tanning oil away.

The shopping. Oi, the shopping! Man, could you spend a lot of money in Waikiki if you wanted to! A handful of the high-end stores you can find in Waikiki-Ferrari, Cartier, Ferragamo, Prada, Yves st. Laurent, Macy's. Those were the stores Glen and I stayed out of. Who needs to spend $1000 on a purse? But the other shopping, the souvenirs, of that we did plenty. After a few days we realized that every little souvenir store basically sells the same stuff. The only thing that changes is the price. And if you get to International Marketplace, you can sometimes bargain them down a little to get something cheaper. There's also a chain there called the ABC Stores. They're basically the 7-11's of Waikiki. I think one guy told us there's 42 in Waikiki alone. They're more numerous than Starbucks in downtown Vancouver. It's insane. Throw a penny in any direction and you'll hit one. I will give them this, though, they are quite handy when you're looking for something specific, 'cause they'll probably have it.

The food. Oh, the food. It's expensive, but good for the most part. I think Glen and I each gained at least 5 pounds. There are tons of restaurants in Waikiki, so you never have to go to the same place twice. You can find cheaper places to eat, but you might have to look a little harder. One of the best places we ate at was the Senor Frog's. Good Mexican food and a really fun place to eat. Though that could have been the yard-long mai tai. I was a little disappointed the guy making the balloon hats never made it to our table, but maybe next time. Cheeseburger in Paradise was also a fantastic place to get a good burger at a reasonable price. And they had good taste in music. We also had a hot dog at a place called Puka Dog, where they had all kinds of funky relishes. Glen had Starfruit relish on his, I had coconut on mine. And it actually tasted pretty good. Poi is the one food all tourists to the islands must try, and you usually find it at a luau. They make it from tarot root, which is cooked and then ground into a tasteless paste. It's pale purple. Some people hate it, Glen and I were indifferent. We did realy enjoy the poi bread at the Cultural Center, though. It was really super purple and tasted really good.

Money. Hawaii is not a cheap place to visit. Everywhere you go they want money for something. At Diamond Head we had to pay $1 just to get onto the hiking trail. And then when we got to the top they wanted $2 for a sheet that proclaimed to the world we had actually made it to the top (despite the fact that it was possibly the easiest hike I have ever done). At Hanauma Bay we had to pay $5 just for the privilege of getting in (though, as I said earlier, this was actually worth it). At the Polynesian Cultural Center, if you hadn't already paid for a guided tour, you could pay $25 each and upgrade yourself to having a guide. It's like that everywhere. But if you're picky about your souvenirs and what you do and where you go, it doesn't have to be.

The Language. There is a Hawaiian language. You don't necessarily walk around town and hear it spoken on the street, because Hawaii's been a US state for so long, but there are words that get used quite frequently. Aloha is one everybody knows, it means hello, goodbye, and I love you. Ohana (for anyone that hasn't seen Lilo and Stitch) means family. Mele Kalikimaka means Merry Christmas. It took us about a week to learn that one. We were told what Happy New Year was, but it's really long and neither of us can remember it now. Mahalo is thank you. That's about the extent of our Hawaiian vocabulary. Everyone in Hawaii is Ohana, so if you go somewhere, you get called cousin. Everyone's a cousin in Hawaii.

The Bus. This is the best way to get around O'ahu. It goes everywhere, and it's very tourist-friendly. The bus announces every stop and tells you what landmarks are near that stop so the clueless tourists (me and Glen) don't miss their stop. And it's $2 for 3 hours worth of transfers. The buses come quite often, too, so it's not like you have to be exactly on time to get where you want to go. The bus negates the need to rent a car, and for the most part will drop you off feet from where the tourist attraction you're looking to get to is. Bus guides for most of the tourist attractions on O'ahu can be found at any ABC store.

Obama. Barack Obama was born on O'ahu. And grew up there. And vacationed there. While we were there. Apparently the day he went body surfing the coast guard had to actually be in the air while he was on the beach. We learned that from one of the guys on the shark tour, whose roommate is in the coast guard. Apparently now you can even take the Obama tour, which will take you past the hospital he was born in, the school he went to, and other Obama landmarks. Though if you take enough of the other tours, you'll get to see all of those landmarks anyways. They're very proud of Obama in Hawaii. I too, shall wear my "Obama Surfs" T-shirt with pride.

Surfing. I was psyched for the surfing. The first opportunity we had was on the North Shore, when we went up with the Surf Bus. But, as I mentioned previously, the waves sucked that day. Like, really sucked. Though it wasn't just the waves. Most of the surfing in Hawaii is on reef breaks. The surfing I'm used to, in Tofino, is a beach break. They're very different. Beach breaks are regular, and frequent. Reef breaks aren't. You have to paddle out lying on your board because you can't walk, because there's reef just underneath the surface of the water. Which doesn't make the wipeouts very beginner friendly. While neither Glen nor I ever did manage to injure ourselves, it was likely only due to the fact that we never really managed to catch that many waves. Reef breaks are not regular, and they move around depending on the waves. One minute you think the wave's going to break, so you start paddling, but then it peters out and you've got nothing. Then, because of the paddling, you're in the wrong spot for the next wave, so you have to turn around and paddle back for the next wave. Except that it's a reef break, so the wave has moved. It's very frustrating. You have to literally be out on the water the entire day to get even just a couple chances. I can count on one hand the number of waves I managed to actually try and ride. And we rented a board in Waikiki for almost 4 hours one day.

The wounds. This section seems to pop up in all my blogs, so why should this one be any different? It started with a scratch on my leg the first day. I have no idea where it came from, or when it happened, but there it is. And I'm pretty sure it's gonna scar. Then there were the surfing bruises. Normally I get the ones over my hip bones where my body contacts the board, and Hawaii was no exception. Only these were much, much worse. I'd have taken pictures but they're not exactly in a good spot to be taking pictures of. They have only now started to not hurt, and we've been home for almost a week. I actually had to stop myself from renting a board one day beacuse I didn`t want to make the hipbruises worse. Another surfing injury I sustained was the board rash. Unique, as I have never had board rash before. I got it on my upper arms where they were brushing the board as I paddled, and on my hip above my bikini bottoms. It's itchy, so it makes sense they call it a rash. I guess there's a reason they call those surfing shirts "rashies". Should you decide to try surfing in a tropical climate, ask for a rashie. You may feel foolish at first, but you'll thank me later when you're rash-free.

The Eye Candy. Oh, the boys in Hawaii! The girls were pretty too, I guess, if you're into that. But the boys! Go to any beach, anywhere. It's just delightful. I wanted to get a picture of the guy who runs the surf bus to demonstrate this, but he put his shirt back on before I could get my camera. But use your imagination. And then multiply that by 5. Yeah. And there's lots of good-looking Hawaiian boys, too. They were all just a little too short for me. At one point I was promised a 6'2" guy to take my picture with at one of the luau's, only to be disappointed when he was only about 5'7". Pretty, but too short. Ladies, if you ever want to go somewhere just for some lovely man candy to look at, I recommend Hawaii. You won't be disappointed.

So that brings me to the end of our trip, finally. We did manage to get back home again. Though it was touch and go when our plane was delayed by 5 1/2 hours in Honolulu due to the weather in Vancouver. We managed to get a couple hours sleep in an airport hotel, which was much better than some, who ended up sleeping on the floor at the airport. Well, I think that's it for this adventure. I'm sure I've left something out, but I'm sure you're all tired of reading by now, or at least need to get back to work. So stay tuned for the next great adventure!

42 km is still, indeed, far.

This weekend I had the pleasure of heading down to Victoria to run the full Royal Victoria marathon. But Sara, you say, you’ve already run one marathon this year. Wouldn’t another be a little much? To which I would reply, of course not! For a running junkie like myself, there’s no such thing as too much running.

Naturally, the weekend started off disastrously. I just got off a night shift on Saturday morning at 7:30 am, so I went home and we managed to get on the road relatively early. I zonked and slept in the car pretty much all the way to Victoria. We got to the Marriott, our home for the next 2 nights, and as we were getting our bags out of the car we realized we had left Glen’s at home. His bag was packed, sitting by the door ready to go, but we had gotten in the car without putting the bag in it. Curses! Luckily it was only a 2 day trip, so we decided he could live without it. We bought a few things at the store so he could get by. And for future reference, you can get deodorant, toothbrushes, razors, shaving cream, toothpaste, and all that other stuff you need all at the 7-11. Then when we went to pick up my race package, they had gotten my shirt wrong. I’d asked for a men’s small so I could get sleeves that were long enough, and they had re-interpreted that as a women’s small. I did manage to swap that after the race for one that did fit, though.

Now on to the race. I ran it in 4:20:26. It was faster than my personal best thus far, but not the 4:15 I had been hoping for. It was, however, the best I have felt throughout the course of a race. Ever. Really. One might ask how it’s possible to feel pretty good when you’re forcing your body to cover such an unnaturally and insanely long a distance as 42 km. I felt good for about 28 km, then the pain started to kick in, but that was okay. Pain I can deal with. Fatigue is worse, and I wasn’t feeling that just yet. Then somewhere around 32 km it started to feel like a slog and the fatigue started. But I’ve heard that the last 10 km are a slog for everyone, even those really experienced runners. Despite the slog, I never had the complete and utter despair set in like I have in my other 2 marathons. I never felt like I couldn’t cover the distance. I did feel like my legs were simply going to fall off and that I’d have to drag my body over the finish line sporting just bleeding stumps, but I never felt the complete and utter despair that I would never get to the finish line because it was, simply, too far. It was great. So despite the fact that I didn’t get the time I’d been hoping for, I’m quite satisfied with my run for how I felt throughout. And that’s what I’m going to remember about this race.

The Victoria marathon had fewer participants than the Vancouver marathon, so we all managed to get spread out pretty quickly. It was nice because there was far less people dodging throughout the race. I also particularly liked the course itself. There were a lot of twists and turns, and very few hills. I find the twists and turns help because you can’t see how much farther down the road you have to run. This helps in the last couple kilometres when you swear that the long stretch of road you can see ahead of you is never going to end. It’ll just keep going forever and you’ll die before you get to the end. That didn’t happen with this course, because it winds enough that you can’t see more than a couple blocks in front of you. And the hills that were there were small and short. Hills bad, flat good.

So now I shall recount all the little tidbits I feel are worth mentioning.

The Weather. The day before the race I was freezing. I don’t know if it was because I was tired or if it actually was cold out, but I was dreading waking up early so I could get out in the frigid morning weather and run for nearly 4 ½ hours. It just didn’t particularly sound like a super-fun Sunday morning. Then came the decision: tank top, t-shirt, or long sleeves. Well, it’s not quite winter so the long sleeves were out right away, but I figured it was cold enough for a t-shirt. I did bring a long sleeved shirt that I wore until I warmed up, and promptly ditched when I felt it wasn’t needed anymore. This is a trick a lot of runners use, you just get an old shirt you don’t want anymore and ditch it when you get warm enough. Little did I know just how enjoyable it would be when I did dump the shirt. It was very satisfying, just taking off a piece of clothing and tossing it on the ground, never to be seen again. I highly recommend this if you’re not sure of the weather on race day. The weather turned out to be perfection, and we couldn’t have asked for better. It was slightly cloudy but the sun did come out a few times, but not for long, and not long enough to make it hot out.

My support crew. I take my own water and fuel during my runs. This gets a little complicated when it’s a full marathon and my fuel belt simply doesn’t carry enough for the whole race. So I had to figure out a way to get Glen somewhere out along the race route to swap me some bottle so I’d have enough. We managed to get his bike into the car, and he rode out to close to the middle of the route so he could be there with my bottles when I came by. It worked perfectly. He even managed to get a couple good pictures in the process. These races would be so much more complicated if I didn’t have such a supportive husband, so thank you, Glen. I’d be lost without you. (The irony is that Glen will likely never read this blog even though I always send him the link. He’s lazy, and that includes reading.)

The crowds and the other runners. Major props must be given to the people of Victoria for being such an enthusiastic bunch. Some of them must have been clapping and yelling for 4 hours. It was amazing. And they’d yell out your name if you got close enough for them to read it off your race bib. And if you didn’t get close enough, they’d yell out some article of clothing. I think I got called “blue shorts” about 4 times. Take a look at the picture and you’ll know where that comes from. It’s pretty hard to miss the blue shorts. Up to this point I had also never realized how much fun it was to be running a race where there are other people you know in it, and you actually see them along the course. I got a high-five from Linda, who I’m sure at the point I saw her didn’t have a whole lot of energy left, but it was awesome nonetheless. I yelled at Dawn, though I’m not sure if she heard me since she seemed pretty “in the zone” at the time. And I got a thumbs up from Coach Mark as he went by in the opposite direction, despite the fact that he looked pretty rough at the time. Sorry Mark, but you kinda did. And then there was the rest of the crew, parked up on a balcony at the Admirals hotel, who I could hear screaming from the street, despite the fact that they must’ve been three stories from the ground. Runners can be loud when they want to. Now if only they’d thought to toss me a beer…

Speaking of beer, the beer station was there again this year. I once again did not partake, but I definitely thought about it. Had they been about 5 km closer to the finish line there wouldn’t have been any thought involved. Oh, and the best part was there was a cop standing about 100 metres down the street directing traffic. Funny.

After the race, around 6 pm that night, just as Glen and I were about to head out for dinner, the power went out everywhere on the island south of Nanaimo. I still don’t know the cause, but when Glen and I did leave the hotel we had to take the stairs, and we were on the 5^th floor. That was 5 very long floors I had to walk down, my friends. It wasn’t pretty. We thought when we got to the bar they’d just seat us and let us sit until the power came back on, but no such luck, so we were turned away and headed back to our hotel. We were almost back when the power came back on so we turned around and went back to the bar again. The beer was totally worth waiting for. Mmmm…

All in all, I had an excellent time in Victoria, despite forgetting Glen’s bag, a shirt that was the wrong size and a one hour power outage. It was a good weekend, and a good race. And also, I would like to point out, no new scars to add to my tally. So yes, a very good weekend. Stay tuned for my next great adventure!

And Much Ground was Covered.

Greetings again, avid readers and fans! Welcome to another edition of what Sara did on vacation. In just the past few days I returned from a whirlwind week-long journey through Alberta for the purpose of running a half-marathon and spending a few days hiking with my family and a few new friends. Glen and I first drove to Calgary so I could run the half-marathon, then we headed-via Edmonton-to Mount Robson provincial park to hike the Berg Lake Trail.

This trip involved a lot of driving. And while I don’t mind the driving so much, it’s the nights and food stops in between that generally hold the story. On the way to Calgary we stopped in Golden for the evening, and ended up in a, umm, interesting motel just off the side of the highway. The room reeked of cigarettes, which the “charming” woman with the attached oxygen tank at the front desk somehow failed to mention. Then we walked down the road a ways to a place called Legendz Diner. It was, in fact, just what it advertised-a diner. Complete with greasy burgers and a healthy layer of grease covering everything else in said diner. But they were playing good tunes, so it was all good. On the way back to the Island from Mount Robson we somehow missed the Hole-In-The-Wall Restaurant, which may have been due to us cheering for the semi in front of us to pass the two RVs he and us were stuck behind. I will also mention the Old Caboose Restaurant in Clearwater. Delicious sandwiches. Should you ever be in Clearwater and feeling peckish, I would suggest a stop there. Let’s hope they’ve fixed the ice cream machine before you get there.

On to the half marathon. It was in Calgary during the stampede, and if you’ve never been to Calgary for Stampede, go. Seriously. Straw bales everywhere, and everyone, and I mean everyone, in a cowboy hat. And I love myself a cowboy. It was a delightful droolfest. Why the Calgary half, you ask? Well, my cousins Leah & Lori were running the full marathon and I thought it would be cool to be in the same race as them. I would’ve loved to have done the full marathon with them, but with the Robson hike looming the next day, the ability to walk the next day was a necessity. Had I been informed the full marathon finishers medals were, in fact, belt buckles, I would’ve said to hell with Robson and run the full. I finished in 2:01:41, which isn’t my fastest time, but I’m fairly pleased with it. I must admit that I didn’t train particularly hard for this one, so I think that’s a fairly good time given my training effort. I will now point out that Calgary, unlike Campbell River where I run right next to the ocean, is not at sea level. It’s actually 3557 feet above sea level. Altitude makes a difference to distance runners. You don’t’ have to believe me, ‘cause I know it’s true. There’s more oxygen at sea level. For the record, Leah came in at 3:29:18, and Lori was just behind at 3:41:19. One day I hope to be able to keep up with them. I may be 80 when this happens, but I’m okay with that.

The race was good, I don’t really remember much except trying to keep up with the damn 2 hour pace bunny. I couldn’t do it. He just kept passing me. But it turns out that wasn’t so bad, since Glen said he came in about 3 minutes before the 2 hour mark. He was still my nemesis on the course, though. Damn you pace bunny, damn you! The course even took us through the Calgary zoo and the Stampede grounds. It’s not every marathon you get to see monkeys watch you run, so props to the organizers for that bit of fun. When my mom and family planned on coming down to see me run, I demanded they bring signs. I was not disappointed. There were signs. It made me happy. And as it turned out, they were pretty much the only signs along the whole course. For me! Yay me!

After Calgary Glen and I headed up to Spruce Grove for the night, and the next morning out to Mount Robson for 5 nights and 6 days on the fabulous and picturesque Berg Lake Trail. There were 9 of us in total: Glen & me, My brother Beau and his Girlfriend Christy, my sister Jana and her (as of 2 days into the trip) finacee Jonathon, Jon’s cousin Kristy, Christy’s brother Rob, and his ex-girlfriend Tamara. We hiked 11 km on the first day to Whitehorn camp, then 10 km the second to Berg Lake camp. We spent 3 nights at Berg Lake, with 2 days for day hikes and chillin’, and then we hiked all the way out. We had planned an extra night on the way out at Whitehorn to make the trip out a bit easier, but there were a few people with pretty bad blisters that couldn’t face another chilly morning of putting their boots on, so we changed our plans and hiked the whole way out in one day. It was long and it hurt, but I think most people were happy to be back in civilization a day early. Most of us ended up with pretty bad hiker’s walk, too. I shall now piece the hike into my usual sections of amusement.

Jana and Jon, or as they are known in my house, “Janathon”. Jon came to me and Glen the first night at Whitehorn and showed us the ring he planned to give Jana on the edge of Berg Lake. He planned to wait for her to do her usual dip of the feet into the lake and propose to her. Apparently everyone but Jana knew, and once we got to Berg Lake we kept trying to get her to go down by the lake, but she wouldn’t take the bait. It was killing me and Christy that we knew but couldn’t say anything. Well, we finally got her down there near the end of the day, so now I have another wedding to attend sometime in the future.

The Weather. The weather was, well, miserable for most of the trip. The clouds were low, thus covering the mountain we had all come so far to see. And it kept raining on us. At one point we even had a little snow. Yes, snow. In July. It’s the Rockies, it happens. So we were cold. And we couldn’t really hang around outside. So we spent most of our time sitting in the cabin playing cards instead of basking in the beauty that is The Robson. But then, on our last day, just to tease us, the sky cleared and we got the most amazing view of the mountain. It’s like it knew we were leaving and didn’t want us to go. So we had one day of good weather, the day we left. But it was better than getting rained on the whole way out.

Food. Generally, on hiking trips, you go a bit hungry, since you don’t really want to have to carry enough food to keep you full the whole time. Mostly since food is heavy and you’ve gotta pack it all around on your back. But this was not the case on this trip. Apparently someone decided we were going to eat like kings. And eat we did. Spaghetti with actual spaghetti sauce-they poured spaghetti sauce into nalgene bottles and hiked it up the big hills-eggs, sausage, and granola bars. Lots of granola bars. 210 granola bars, to be exact. That worked out to 5 bars a day. I’m not sure who came up with that number, but I think they overestimated. Christy actually ended up giving about 20 to a family in the cabin with a couple of young kids. And we still had leftovers. Luckily, Christy’s brother Rob is nothing but stomach. Which is weird, since he looks like he’s about 130 lbs soaking wet. But if there was food left over, Rob would eat it. It was rare to see him around camp without a half-eaten piece of beef jerky or granola bar in his hand.

The singing. A grand Damgaard family tradition, dating back to the first days of the first Robson trip. Generally, you just burst into song whenever you feel like it. On the trail, in the outhouse, while cooking dinner, or playing cards. We had a couple favourites on this trip: Carrot Juice is Murder by the Arrogant Worms, and Granny’s in the Cellar. And the whole time we annoyed Christy by singing them. Carrot Juice is Murder even got sung in full-blown harmony, with all the backup parts. We even managed to get them stuck in her head overnight a couple times. We even had a 4 year old request our rendition of Granny’s in the Cellar one more time. It was awesome. Jana and I even managed couple verses of Tomorrow. One day we’ll actually learn all the words so we can sing the whole song and not just the chorus.

Snowbird Pass. A previously mentioned, we had 2 days up at Berg Lake for day hikes. The first day I wanted to go up to Snowbird Pass, which was 26 km round-trip. No one else seemed particularly keen on going with me, so I went by myself. And it was awesome! It was uphill pretty much the whole way there and downhill the whole way back, but it was totally worth it. The trail takes you up the side of a valley with a fantastic view of Robson Glacier, then past some waterfalls and up into a high alpine meadow and even farther up a scree slope to the pass. On the other side of the pass is a huge icefield which was pretty cool to see. A good chunk of the hiking was along scree slopes, so I’ve had my share of them for a while. And it was a long way up, too. According to my GPS, I covered almost 800 m vertical that day. And it was a long 26 km. It took me 6 ½ hours, and I barely stopped at all. But it was worth it, since I’m sure there aren’t many people who’ve seen Snowbird Pass. The next day Jana and Kristy went up. They said it was worth it, too.

Mumm Basin, Toboggan Falls and “the Cave”. This was about a 10 km day hike I went on with Glen and Rob. It goes uphill for what seems like forever, but then it levels out and you get the most amazing panoramic views I’ve ever seen. If you ever want to feel small, hike up to Mumm Basin. It should put your world in perspective. Also along the same trail is a sizeable cave you can crawl into and explore. You have to stoop to get inside, but you can stand in it, and if you brought a headlight it’s interesting to walk around in it. Toboggan Falls, as always, were pretty, with all the little potholes and spots carved out by years of rushing water. Another day trip that was well worth it.

After the hike we all drove to Jasper for pizza at the now infamous Jasper Pizza. Though it was a 2 hour detour, it was totally worth it for pizza and a beer. We all toasted our success and our sore body parts then headed our separate ways. And it was pretty nice to shower after 5 days in the bush.

We have another holiday planned for July so stay tuned for details!

42 km is Still, Like, Far.

So this past weekend Glen and I journeyed once again to Vancouver, so I could run the unnaturally long distance that is a marathon. I’ve been training for about 4 months, and I felt pretty confident going into it that I would finish and be a little bit faster than I was last year. And I did finish, and I was faster than last year. And now everything hurts. I’m pretty sure I won’t have any lingering injuries from it, just sore muscles that should heal with time.

Lets start with what happened before the race. About a week and a half before I decided to go hiking with a friend up to Cape Scott. During that trip I managed to get a couple gigantic blisters on each of my heels. I also woke up the morning after getting back with a raging cold. So things weren’t looking particularly good but I was going anyways since I had already paid for the race and at least one night at the hotel. We stayed at the Westin Bayshore again, a fabulous expensive hotel, but totally worth it for only 2 nights.

So the race itself went reasonably well, or so I think now. But at the time it was terrible, and for about an hour and a half I was cursing myself for deciding to do this again. And I ended up going out and running the first half at the speed I wanted to, but somewhere between 25 and 27 km I kinda fell apart and had to really slow down. But I still managed to finish in 4:21:44, which is faster than last year, and that’s what I’m going to cling to. And I got the medal and the T-shirt, which is the reason we all run, right? And the last 12 km of the race were the most difficult 12 km I have ever run. All I wanted to do was stop running and sit down. And it would’ve been so easy to just stop and walk for a kilometre or two. But then I wouldn’t be able to say I ran it. So I kept running. I swear that stretch of road that heads up to UBC and then comes back is the longest stretch of road ever! It just keeps going and going, and then when you finally do get to the end you realize that now you’ve got to turn around and go all the way back again! And when you finally do get to stop it’s the weirdest feeling, ‘cause the blood is still rushing to your legs but you don’t need it to anymore. And that’s when the pain finally kicks in and you realize how sore you are. Really, really sore. Which brings about the marathoner’s walk. Similar to hikers walk, but involving a lot more groaning and gritting of teeth.

The other thing you experience is every possible human emotion you could ever conceive. From total and utter despair that you’ll never make it to the finish line and simply drop dead, to complete elation that when you believe you’re actually going to finish. Pain and anguish right alongside total enlightenment, and all within minutes of each other. And that’s all part of the experience.

A lot went on in the 4 hours and 21 minutes I was on that race course. So I’ll try to recount what I remember.

The sponge stations. Last year it was raining and there was no real need for the sponges, since we were all already dripping anyways. But this year there was no rain and it was around 10 degrees so it was reasonably warm and there was plenty of sweating. So the salt began accumulating. Which is where the sponge stations came in. I grabbed one and managed to get most of the salt off my face, and it felt pretty good. It’s amazing, really, how well those little sponges hold water. There’s almost enough in one sponge to get your head, back, and front wet if you wanted to. I did use a couple to cool off my back, which helped me get my second wind once. And for the record, yes, every time I passed a sponge station the Arrongant Worms song rolled through my head. There was also a candy station, and we all know how Sara loves the candy. I actually saw the Vaseline sticks, too. It’s pretty much a popsicle stick that’s been dipped in a vat of Vaseline and gets used for on-the-course chafing relief. And while I, myself, did not actually partake of any Vaseline, I imagine that after 30 km or so of irritation, Vaseline on a popsicle stick looks pretty good.

Chafing. The Vaseline leads me to my next subject, the chafing. As most of you know, last year I suffered some pretty serious chafing, most notably around my neck from an ill-fitting sports bra. That particular bra has since been retired. The scar is still there. I didn’t have many chafing problems this year, praise be to the Body Glide. I thought I was going to have problems when I could feel the shorts starting to chafe around half way, but they somehow stopped shortly after. My fuel belt and the elastic waistband from my shorts caused the biggest problems, but even then they were small areas and not really that bad at all. So I made it through relatively irritation-free. And hopefully with no new scars for the future.

The Relay Runners. I hated them last year and I hated them again this year. Because they were dry. And they weren’t tired. And they kept passing me. Last year they were dry while the rest of us were dripping from the rain. This year they were dry because they weren’t sweating like everyone else. There was no salt precipitated on their faces or their legs (yes, I did have salt lines on my legs!) and they didn’t have wet hair from either dumping water on themselves or sweating. They’d just bounce by me like I was standing still, with their un-soreness. Well, I’d have a lot of energy too if I hadn’t already run 25 kilometers. But I didn’t have 3 other people to share the distance with. I had to run the whole way myself! So there!

The spectators. There weren’t nearly as many good signs along the sides of the road as there were last year. But there were a lot more people, and thus a lot more people cheering. I would now like to thank each and every person who yelled my name out on that course. You have no idea how much it helped me, even if I have no idea who you are and will never see you again. There’s just something about having someone cheering your name that makes it a little easier to keep going. One lady in particular was standing about ½ a km from the finish line and screaming, “You’re all marathon runners!” It was pretty cool.

Bobbing ponytails. There were plenty of bobbing ponytails to be seen at the Vancouver marathon. Sometimes they bother me, sometimes they don’t. It depends on the type of ponytail, really. Shorter ponytails bobbing about weren’t particularly annoying that day. It was the longer ones thrashing around that were grating on my nerves. One woman had her really long hair up in pigtails, and by about half way through they were sweaty messes flopping about. And I had to continue watching them for another 20 km. Eww.

Anyways, that about wraps it up for my experience at the 2008 Vancouver Marathon. Until next time, and my next great adventure!

The Costa Rica "Make-a the Sex" tour 2008

Greetings, avid readers! Pull up a chair and get comfy, ‘cause it’s gonna be a long one. Well, if you hadn’t already heard (which would be hard since I’ve been bragging since my holidays were approved), I recently made a 2 week foray into the world of Central America, in the form of a trip to Costa Rica. I went with 2 friends, Becky and April, who I’ve known since the days of university. We backpacked around to various parts of the country for almost 2 weeks, spending a couple days in each place.

I’d go through the whole trip and give you an itemized list of what we did and where we went, but that would be boring and not at all my style. So I’ll try and give you the highlights, city by city.

Jaco/Playa Hermosa. It was so hot in Jaco we literally couldn’t wear clothes. We just walked around in our bathing suits. Which was OK since everyone else was doing the same thing. We went surfing while we were there, which was fantastic because the waves were strong enough I actually managed to get standing on my board. We stayed at a hotel right on Playa Hermosa (Hermosa Beach), so we could watch the waves come crashing in whenever we wanted, and our hotel had A/C, which was fantastic since it made it so much easier to sleep.

Isla Tortuga. We went on a day cruise from San Jose to Tortuga island. The ship we took had a bar, so naturally we had to have a pina colada or two. The best part of that was that they opened the cans of coconut milk with a machete. The tour took us to Puntareanas and they we sailed to Tortuga Island, where we spent 4 hours and had a fantastic lunch. At one point we were considering “forgetting” to get back on the boat and getting stuck on the island. The beach was too perfect, and the water was unbelievably warm. But we did get back on the boat.

Monteverde. We did quite a bit with our 3 days in Monteverde. We went on a guided night hike in the rainforest. We also went on a short hike through a cloud forest, which looks exactly like you think the rainforest should look like-huge trees, plants growing on plants growing on plants, and green everywhere. We also took a zip line tour. The first one was a little scary, but each line after that was more and more fun. The longest line was 750 m. The day we went it was raining and really windy, so on the last 2 lines they sent us across 2 at a time, so we’d have enough weight to make it to the other side, because the wind slows you down. What we did was the person in front would scrunch themselves up in the fetal position, and the person behind would wrap their legs around the person in front. Since there was an odd number of us, we got paired with an Australian fellow named Wade. So feel free to make as many jokes as possible about April having a strange man’s legs wrapped around her. We also went on a horseback ride on some tiny Costa Rican horses. We managed to miss the rainy season, but no one mentioned there’s a windy season in Monteverde. The wind just howled the entire time we were there. And it gets rather difficult to sleep when the wind is screaming so loud outside your window you swear it’s gonna blow the whole building right off the hill. Maybe that’s why the buildings are all made of concrete…

La Fortuna. We had the best time of the whole trip in Fortuna. We took a tour near the volcano, watched the glowing lava rocks from the volcano, and sampled the local liquor known as guaro (a little bonus our tour guide brought for us-never let a Costa Rican guy pour you a drink. It’s like 50/50 kids). We went to the hot springs where Becky got so sloshed off a drink called a 10 o’clock last call (one guess why it’s called that) we thought we might have to carry her back to the hostel. We went on another horseback ride, and deviated from the itinerary slightly by going bungee jumping-April paid and we called it my birthday present. Apologies to my mom’s friend Darlene at this point, since I had promised my mom I would never bungee jump and then sent her an email right after I did it, and Darlene had to walk with my mom that day at lunch after she had gotten the email. But the bungee was the biggest adrenaline rush I’ve ever had, which for me is really saying a lot. Our last day in Fortuna we went waterfall rappelling, which was fantastic, even though some of the rappels were right into waterfalls and we got a little damp.

San Jose. We were in San Jose off and on for several days on the trip. It’s a huge city, very confusing, but interesting nonetheless. We managed to get to Mercado Central, a big market selling everything you could possibly imagine (and lots of low-hanging objects for me to whack my head on-but more of that later), and we found this one pedestrian street with a myriad of shops on it. We didn’t really see much in San Jose, but none of us were really keen in sightseeing in the city anyways.

A lot of this is just my impressions, opinions and observations on the parts of Costa Rica I saw. It in no way should influence your views, since everyone experiences everything differently. This was a great trip, and even though at times it might sound like I’m complaining, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I came away with an overall excellent impression of Costa Rica, and I enjoyed my time there. While some things may have seemed gross, or very odd, I realized on this trip that’s just the way they do things, and it’s not weird to them at all. It’s a different country, and a different culture, and I appreciate that there are differences between how I live and what I experienced there. And that’s the whole point of traveling, isn’t it?

So without further delay, everyone’s favorite part, the little tidbits and highlights I feel the need to share:

The Language. I got off the plane and the first thing that runs through my mind is, “Holy crap! Everything’s in Spanish!”. It’s not that I didn’t expect this. I did know before leaving that Costa Rica was a Spanish speaking country. But when you get off the plane it basically smacks you in the face. Luckily, most signs, pamphlets., etc. are also written in English in most of the parts we visited, so it’s fairly easy to get around. I did make an attempt to learn some Spanish before I left, but everyone talks so bloody fast you can never catch anything even if you do know a little. But it did help a little when trying to read menus, signs, etc. That said, most of the people we came in contact with spoke excellent English. So if you’re staying mostly in the tourist areas and not going too far off the beaten track, you could probably get around pretty well if you didn’t speak a word of Spanish. I also found that they’re very modest in their appraisal of their own ability to speak English. When you ask if they speak English, they would often say a little. But then you start asking questions, and they come back at you with almost perfect English. Mad props to the people of Costa Rica for that, since I know nowhere in Canada or the US do we try to learn other languages in order to try and communicate with people visiting our own country. In the off chance that you did come across someone who really didn’t speak any English, you could usually muddle through with hand signals and any of the little Spanish you do know. And they were very, very patient with us when we did try and use a little of the language. In some cases I think they even appreciated the effort. Another quirky bit comes up when we were on guided tours and the guides were talking about the animals mating. They don’t say the animals mate, they say they “make-a the sex”. After one day I pointed this out to Becky and April, after which we felt the need to pop that particular phrase into speech whenever we could. Now you understand the title of this blog.

Other travelers and accommodations. While travelling, and particularly if you’re staying in hostels, you meet a lot of other people who are also travelling. In some cases this is quite fun, as the other people you meet are interesting, nice and friendly. In other cases, the people you meet are arrogant, disgusting and quite rude. Americans have somehow made quite the name for themselves as being arrogant and rude, and after this trip, I can understand why. Not all of the Americans we met were rude and arrogant, but sadly, the ones that aren’t are quickly forgotten when you come across one complaining about something as though they were the only person in the country that should matter. We were waiting for a tour to start and a fellow from somewhere in the southern states asked us where the tour started from. We told him that we were told somewhere around there, but not exactly where. His response was: “Well, what good are you, then?”. We don’t work here, buddy. We’re tourists just like you. This is not to say that all Americans are like this. We met a couple girls from New York who were actually quite nice. Neither is it to say that it’s only Americans who can be rude. At one point we were in the same room at a hostel with a group of Argentinean guys who were pretty disgusting. Apparently, in Argentina, if you want you can sell your sister for a cocaine farm and a couple goats. But that’s only if she’s hot. This we learned one night while the guys were talking to another guy staying in our room. The hostels themselves can be quite interesting, too. Most of the ones we stayed at were so convoluted you could almost get lost in them, and don’t even bother trying to find and empty bathroom. It was as if they just decided to plop rooms here and there, with no real planning. Kind-of makes you wonder a little about the building codes. Everyone at the hostels we were at seemed to smoke just about anywhere. Which, as a non-smoker, was a little irritating. But not quite as irritating as having to share a bathroom with 4 rather feminine guys from Argentina. I swear each of them spent more time in the bathroom than all three of us girls combined.

The people of Costa Rica. When you’re reading about Costa Rica most sources will warn you a little about Tico time. Ticos are what the locals are called, and the locals are never in a hurry. Even when they’re working. Especially when they’re working. So Tico time is basically a warning that you shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry, since nothing’s gonna get done too fast. It wouldn’t be rare to be standing at a counter trying to buy something and have the cashier simply walk away for a few minutes without a word. Sometimes it’s to answer the phone, help another customer, and sometimes it’s just to talk to their friend who just walked into the store. They do come back and finish helping you eventually, but in the meantime you’re left standing at the counter wondering where they went and if they’re ever coming back. That’s Tico time. I also noticed the the women in Costa Rica aren’t particularly shy about their bodies. You won’t see a whole lot of loose clothing, but you will see a whole lot of bellies peeking out from under shirts that are a little too tight. And a lot of skin, even on people you’d rather not see a whole lot of skin on. For the most part, the guys in Costa Rica, particularly the tour guides, it seemed, were pretty cute. Short, but cute. I’m pretty sure April had to hold herself back from popping one of them in her backpack and taking him home.

Driving. Originally, April and Becky had planned on renting a car and doing most of the driving around ourselves. But after about 5 minutes on the road, I was very, very greatful that plan was scrapped. Roads in Costa Rica are windy, bumpy and confusing. We were walking around San Jose looking for Mercado Central, when we realized there were no street signs. None of the roads in San Jose make any sense. They meet at very odd angles, some of them dead-end without warning, and some are one way streets that aren’t marked as such. And after the bus ride to the hostel on my first night there I realized that stop signs don’t mean stop, red lights only sometimes mean stop, and lane lines are basically pointless. This makes walking anywhere a rather interesting experience, since you’re never sure if you’re going to get run over if you cross the street. Pedestrians don’t have the right of way, we quickly learned. So we decided the best plan, if we did have to cross a street was just to run. Sure, the locals got a good laugh out of it, but we lived to tell the tale. And there are motorcycles everywhere, that drive everywhere. When cars are stopped at a stoplight, the motorcycles drive up between the rows of cars to the stop lines so they can get in front of the lines of cars when the light turns green. All of the vehicles in Costa Rica are standards. Tourist vehicles tend to be vans that are a little bigger than a minivan but slightly smaller than a full out bus. Though there are full size buses there. You just don’t want to take them because of the sketchy roads. The paved roads are as bumpy as gravel roads are here. They build them on really steep hills, and they wind them up, down, and around the hilly terrain. Before we left, we had heard that the road to Monteverde was really bad, but after about an hour and a half I remarked about how it wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone had been saying. Then about 10 minutes later our driver slowed right down and we didn’t know why. Then it dawned on us. The pavement had ended. The road was so bumpy we were catching air off our seats every few minutes. And it was narrow, and on the side of a steep hill. So when the driver would swerve to avoid a big bump, every so often he’d go dangerously close to the edge of a rather steep cliff. They’re very fond of their horns in Costa Rica, but for very different reasons than here. Here, if you honk your horn, it generally is accompanied by a single-finger gesture and a contemptuous look. There, a car horn is simply to let a pedestrian know you’re coming up behind them, to let other cars know you’re turning/stopping/etc, to get the guy in front of you to hurry, or simply to say hello. You get very used to the sound of car horns very quickly once you get there.

The wounds. We got hurt so many times on this trip we actually started keeping a log of all our maladies. It ranged from self-inflicted pain like sore butts from horseback riding to accidental stuff like April ripping open a couple of her toes on 2 separate occasions. Though we did come home battered and bruised, we didn’t mange to get ourselves seriously hurt, which I see as a plus. I did, at one point, get a rather disturbing rash, but after a quick trip to a doctor and 10 anti-histamine pills, it cleared up quite nicely. The one thing that sticks in my mind is how I managed to keep whacking my head on various things. It started with getting up out of a hammock and slamming my head into the bar over top of it, and was followed by me whacking my head on something nearly every day after that. Apparently Costa Rica was built for short people. It was everything from the stuff hanging from the ceiling in Mercado Central, to the bulkheads on the boat on the way to Tortuga. And the best part was April and Becky would snicker every time this happened. April wants to go to Scotland next, so I have high hopes for a place built for taller people there. We all also managed to get a lot of good bruises, from surfing, falling into stuff, and in places we don’t even remember getting hurt. Sadly, none of the good ones seemed to photograph very well.

The food. One of the most important parts of any trip, if you ask me. The typical dish in Costa Rica is known as a casado. It consists of rice mixed with beans(and some spices if you’re lucky), scrambled eggs if it’s breakfast/chicken or fish if it’s supper or lunch, some sort of bread product (buns, tortillas, toast), and fruit, and perhaps some fried plantains (which are basically sweet bananas). It’s good the first few times, and then you get really sick of rice and beans. Plus they put rice and beans in everything, so you get even more sick of them. I was hoping for lots of different kinds of spices on the foods there, but the most exciting it really got was cilantro. To be fair, though, we did have some very good casados, particularly the one from Pure Trek canyoning. There is an acute lack of carbs in Costa Rica. The closest you’ll get to bread most places is a tortilla shell. After a while we took to ordering the pasta dishes in some restaurants because we were just so tired of meat. Well, Becky wasn’t tired of the meat, but it’s Becky. They have a dessert there called the 3 milks (tres leches). It’s like a super-moist cake with icing and sweetened milk underneath it. It’s delicious, and should you ever get the chance, definitely try it. As for drinks, yes, beer is actually cheaper than water. You can get a beer for about 800 colones (about $1.50), but water will generally run you 1000 colones (about $2). I actually only had one beer the whole time we were there, and it was just so I could say I’ve had Costa Rican beer. They have 2 common brands, Pilsen and Imperial, though Imperial seems to be a little more easier to find. You can have just about anything made in a juice or milkshake in the restaurants. We had ones like coconut, strawberry, guava, mango, papaya, watermelon, and blackberry. It’s a little hit and miss as to whether they’re good or not, but it’s fun to just pick one and take your chances. And if they’re not particularly good they’re at least still drinkable. And when they say milkshake, it’s not like a milkshake you’d get from Dairy Queen. It’s fruit juice mixed with milk, not ice cream. The coffee I had there was also some of the best I’ve ever tasted. I don’t know if it was simply because it was fresh (they grow coffee beans there, so when I say fresh, I mean like the beans were picked yesterday), or if it was the type of bean, but every cup was a little sip of caffeinated paradise. And we all agreed that the best coffee we had the whole trip was at Poca a Poca in Monteverde. If you ever go, have a cup. Bloody fantastic!

Money. Everyone’s most and least favorite. The local currency is colones, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a place that wouldn’t take US dollars. Everything costs about the same there as it would here, but in some cases some stuff is a bit cheaper. A coke, for instance, would be around $1, whereas it would be $2 here. There are about 500 colones to a US dollar. It took me about 3 days to get the conversions right, but after that it’s pretty easy, and you can use dollars or colones interchangeably, pretty much everywhere. Even the bank machines there will give you the choice between withdrawing dollars or colones. It can be a little hard to get rid of coins sometimes, though. The smallest denomination we saw was 5 colones, and unless you’re really on the ball, it’s hard to get rid of anything smaller than a 500 colones coin. Luckily at the airport there are boxes for donations to help the homeless, which is a brilliant idea, since travelers need to get rid of their coins somehow, and it’ll take about ‘til they get to the airport to realize this.

Everything else that didn’t fit in the previous categories. The houses are all attached together, and you rarely see shingles. Almost all the roofs are corrugated tin. Which is great ‘cause it’s cheap, but noisy if it rains. There’s no heating in any of the buildings, since there’s really no need for it. Except when you’re in Monteverde and the temperature drops at night and the blanket that came with your bed at the hostel is a little too thin. Almost everything is made of concrete or metal. You don’t see a whole lot of processed wood. Though they do have these nifty trees they use to make “living fenceposts”. Basically all you have to do is take a living branch or log of this tree, plop it in the ground and it’ll grow. Set them up in a line, and voila! A fence. None of the windows have screens. There are bugs, so screens would have been useful, but there are none. And the way the windows open is that they’re glass slats that pivot to let air in . Sort-of like those horizontal blinds.

So that was my trip to Costa Rica. Until my next great adventure!

My trip to the salon.

Warning: This post contains references to to my "bikini area". If you don't want to hear anything about this particular part of me, stop reading now. Really.

So today I did another one of those things I never thought I would ever do. Or ever need to do. I went to a salon and had various parts of me waxed. Yes. I know. Why would I ever subject myself to this masochistic practice? Well, in about a week I'll be headed to the tropical country of Costa Rica, and there will be bikinis involved. Yes, bikinis. So I figured, given that I currently look the most bikini worthy I ever have, or likely ever will be, I might as well go all in. And not having to take a razor with me when I go, probably a good thing. Plus you only live once, right?

I've had more than one person tell me how much waxing hurts. And it should. Think about it-you have hot wax spread over and area, then smooth a piece of cloth over top and rip it off, pulling all the hairs out by the roots. It's gonna hurt. But I figured I could probably take it, given that I feel I have a reasonably high tolerance for pain. (For evidence of this pain tolerance, note that I have run a marathon, been ice climbing, had my navel pierced, hiked the Juan de Fuca trail in 2 days, and just recently had my teeth pulled and felt relatively little pain.) So bring it on, I said. Plus I have a bucket of T3's left over from having my wisdom teeth pulled a week ago so pain management isn't a problem. And to be honest, it really wasn't all that bad. Sure, it hurts when they yank the strip off, but it doesn't last long. It's basically just like yanking a really big band-aid off. Several times.

I went in to get the whole ball of wax (sorry, I couldn't resist)-legs, underarms, and bikini. I wasn't sure how the whole process worked, but basically they take you into a little room, wrap a towel around you and start waxing. You do, however, get to keep your underwear on, which is kinda nice for those of us who are a little more modest. I was surprised at how quick the whole process is. I thought, given the amount of hair I was getting removed, I would be there for at least an hour. But it took no more than a half hour. It was quick. The lady doing it, I might mention, told me no less than 2 times how she was amazed how little hair I actually had. She initially looked at my legs and said she didn't even really need to wax them, because there was so little hair to start with. Well, I knew my hair was blond, and thus harder to see, but I never really thought I had less leg hair than your average woman. And I hadn't shaved since the end of December, so I figured I had rather a lot of hair. But apparently not. She also said this as she was doing my bikini line.

I initially figured I would go for the brazilian bikini wax, since I was gonna be there anyways. I'm a bit of an all-or-nothing type of person sometimes. If you don't know what a brazilian bikini wax is, Google it. I'm not gonna explain it. But when I got there I changed my mind. Thinking back to the bikinis I was taking with me, neither of them is particularly teeny, so I just went for the traditional "a little off the sides". And the result, in my opinion, is just right. I won't have anything peeking out my bottoms, and I need not worry about that problem for a good 4-6 weeks now. Plus you get to keep your underpants on and just pull them out of the way a little. Post waxing, I did bleed a little. It's a pretty sensitive area, so that makes sense. And it does look like I've got a bit of a rash now, but that should go away in the next couple days. Overall, I'm pretty happy with my bikini wax.

I was also planning on getting my underarms done, but when she looked at them she said that the hair wasn't long enough for it. Apparently you need a good quarter inch of hair for it to work. So I couldn't get my underarms done. But since I don't leave for a week I might go again near the end of the week and see if I can get it done before I leave.

So after all of it she put some smelly moisturizer on the previously waxed areas and sent me on my way. All in all, it wasn't really a bad experience. And I would go again, were I to go on a trip or to an event I felt warranted it. I would even endure the pineapple/coconut/mango/ whatever-it-is scent of the moisturizer afterwards.

Vancouver=Expensive Shoes and Cell Phones

So this week I made a little pilgrimage to Vancouver to do a some Christmas shopping. I spent 3 days and 2 nights wandering aimlessly and spending hoardes of money. And I’ve learned a few things about Vancouver I feel the need to share. These are not necessarily facts, but more my observations and opinions of this particular city after having visited for a few days.

Vancouverites are terrible drivers. This, I believe, is not necessarily due to the fact that they are actually bad at driving, but have become bad drivers because of the city in which they drive. The traffic here is insane. And it should be. There are millions of people living here. But in some cases there’s really no need for it. Here are a few things I’ve learned from the little driving I’ve done in Vancouver. You will get honked at. It doesn’t matter how well you drive, it will happen. People here are very fond of their horns, and like to use them often. My hotel was downtown and had very thin windows, and I don’t think an hour went by, at any time of the day, that I didn’t hear a car horn. I myself even used it once. But only once, and only because the guy wanted to turn left in front of me as I was going straight through an intersection. But many like to use their horns if you sit too long at a light that has just turned green. True enough, most people will honk if you sit too long at a green light after it has changed. But in Vancouver, the waiting period before the honk has significantly decreased. Normally you might get 5 seconds or so. If you’re ever in Vancouver, wait 3. I can almost guarantee you’ll get a honk from behind you. Because that guy behind you is very important and has important places to go, and if you don’t immediately mash your accelerator to the floor, clearly you aren’t paying attention and need to be reminded that a green light means you can go. And you must go. Now. Or they’ll honk. It is also impossible, mostly in downtown Vancouver, to make a left turn. There are no left turn signals, but rather many, many no left turn signs. Which generally means you have to make several right turns and go farther than needed to get where you’re going. Which is not as easy as it sounds, considering that some streets just like to end before you get to the spot where you can turn right to get around the block because you couldn’t turn left before. At one point I got so lost because of this particular problem I ended up going down a back alley and making a 20 block detour. Mostly because at one intersection I wasn’t allowed to turn left. After this I quickly decided that instead of driving to the big mall I wanted to go to, I would trek down 4 blocks and take the Skytrain. Best decision ever. It costs $3.25 to take the Skytrain from downtown to Metrotown mall, and it was $3.25 well spent. That’s $6.50 I probably would’ve spent on gas just sitting in traffic getting there anyway. And it saved me the headache of driving in downtown again. So if you’re visiting Vancouver, park your car and take transit. You won’t be sorry. (And it’s a little better for the environment, too.)

Being a pedestrian in Vancouver isn’t easy either. There seem to be certain things people downtown like to do that make little sense and are sometimes even dangerous. Like even though the walk-man signal has stopped, they figure they can start crossing the street anyway. And they then get a bewildered look on their face when the light turns green and some guy honks at them. When I was in Vegas, if the walk sign had changed, you don’t go. ‘Cause the cabbies will run you over. At least in Vancouver all they do is honk. They might swear at you, but you can’t hear that part because they won’t roll down their windows because they’re afraid of fresh air. And it might let a little more of that new car smell out of their fancy BMW. The other thing I noticed pedestrians do is line up right at the edge of the sidewalk and wait to cross. With their toes either on the road or very close. I even saw a few guys stand directly on the road and wait for the light to change. I don’t know about anyone else, but I value my toes too much to do that.

And Vancouverites love their cell phones. If you walk down the street, any street, just pick one, you’ll see someone talking on a cell phone. Or text messaging. Or just idly flipping their phone open and closed so everyone around them notices they have one. If I get brain cancer later in life, I’m pretty sure it’ll be because of those 3 days I spent in Vancouver and all the cellular waves that passed through my skull.

The ladies, and even some of the men, also clearly love their shoes. Stilettos, fancy work shoes for the guys, even shiny sparkly flats, all of them very expensive and very impractical. Stilettos, for instance, boggle my mind in that city. None of the sidewalks are flat. They’re all bumpy and uneven. How do these women not break their ankles just getting from one boutique to the next? And how do they manage to even walk at all? Well, that second one has nothing to do with Vancouver, just my own puzzlement over stiletto heels. I’m pretty sure my feet would fall off if I tried to do all the walking I did in stilettos. Even in my pink runners, which I wore because they looked slightly better than the Mizuno’s that have several hundred kilometres and a marathon on them, after a day my dogs were more than barking. They were howling like coyotes on the Alberta prairies. If you’re planning on going to Vancouver and walking anywhere, wear comfortable shoes. You’ll thank me later. Oh, and as a side note, apparently skinny jeans are still cool. I thought this craze had passed last season, but I may have mis-read that particular memo. It’s a shame, really, since no one looks good in skinny jeans. Even if they are a size 0.

There are a lot of “meterosexuals” in Vancouver as well, so there are quite a few guys walking around in fancy shoes. And it’s not just the shoes with the guys. They also dress pretty good. Given, there are the ones wearing fancy suits that likely cost more than my entire university education, but they have a reason for that: work. It’s the ones in the fancy jeans, wool coats and scarves that get me. If it was 1830, I’d probably call them dandies. But it does make for some delightful people watching. Especially if you’re a lady. There’s just somethin’ about a well-dressed man. And it’s constant eye candy in the downtown area. Just park yourself on a chair outside one of the cafes, position a drool cup under your chin and enjoy. In fact, I think April, Becky, Kristi and I need to plan a random trip to Vancouver just so we can ogle the men on Robson Street. Trust me ladies, it’d be worth the money.

The service in some stores can be confusing, too. I’m used to walking into a store and having someone ask me if I need help finding anything. Usually I just say I’m only looking and they leave me alone. But it’s nice to be asked, because sometimes you do actually need a hand finding something. But in most places in Vancouver, I didn’t get asked at all. And then when I really would have asked for help, there was no one to be found. Anywhere. I did find, however, that in some of the smaller, less expensive stores, the staff was much more friendly and actually did ask if I needed help finding anything. And I give mad props to all the little stores in Chinatown, where I think the service might be the best in the city. You might not be able to understand it all, but I found the storeowners so eager to please, one guy even offered to carry a couple pictures I bought several blocks away to my car, even though they weren’t very big or heavy, and I hadn’t paid very much for them.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I’d move to Vancouver for Stanley Park. Acres and acres of forest and trails. And kilometres of paved running trails uninterrupted by roads and stop lights. Sheer running bliss. And the Seawall’s flat, too. So there’re no hills to contend with. I used to wonder why anyone would move to Vancouver and now I know. Stanley Park.

So that, in a nutshell, was my little trip to the giant metropolis known as Vancouver. It’s really not a bad city. That is, if you can chill out, don’t need to get anywhere too fast, and have a lot of patience for hearing car horns.

21 km isn't Really That Far...

Greetings avid readers! Well, it has been a while since I updated this here blog, but it’s also been a while since my last adventure, so forgive me for my absence. Today’s topic will be the Royal Victoria Half Marathon, which took place on October 6, 2007. As you may have previously read, I have in fact participated in a previous half marathon, in the Comox Valley earlier this year. And unlike my foray into extreme distances in Vancouver, this particular race was a mere half marathon.

When I say “mere”, I am referring to a distance of 21.1 km. To many of you this may seem far, but to me, after having run my first full marathon only 6 months ago, half the distance doesn’t really seem that far. In fact, it seemed almost easy. Sure, I was tired after I finished, but I was also thinking “is that it?” Which leads me to believe that I may need to run another full marathon at some point, as the half left me feeling somewhat unfulfilled.

So for the numbers. As previously mentioned, the distance was 21.1 km, or for those of you who think this is still 1970, 13.1 miles. My previous time from the Comox half marathon was 2 hours and 4 minutes, which works out to about 6 minutes per kilometer. In Victoria, my time was 1 hour and 59 minutes, which works out to around 5 minutes and 40 seconds per kilometer. To the non-runners out there this might not sound like a big deal. So I beat myself by 5 minutes. Big whoop. Well, yes, it actually is. My “natural” pace (that is, the pace I run at when time is not a factor and I’m just out for a leisurely jog), is about 6 minutes and 20 seconds per kilometer. This means that in Victoria I ran every kilometer 40 seconds faster than the speed my body seems to like best. Big deal, right? 40 seconds isn’t a lot of time. Really? Well try doing it for 2 hours! That 5 minutes might not seem like that big a deal, but it is. Coincidentally for those keeping track, I ran the full marathon doing about 6 minutes and 30 second kilometers-which is damn slow compared to 5:40/kilometer. So yes, beating myself by 5 minutes IS a big deal. I’ll stop lecturing now.

As for the race itself it wasn’t particularly eventful. I ran for 2 hours. There were other people. So I’ll try to recount a few of the little things I remember.

Early in the race I was concerned that I would chicken out and decide not to keep the pace I had set for myself, so I decided if I could, I would find a person or group running the pace I wanted and just tail them for the rest of it. And it worked, for the first half. I found these two older guys who were running between 5:40/km and 5:30/km consistently, so I tried to keep up with them. One of the guys had an almost handle-bar moustache and looked a little like the Monopoly guy. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to jail. At about half-way I lost them on an uphill (damn those infernal uphills!), so I was on my own for the rest of the way. I was a little irritated for some of the race, because there we so many people I had to keep dodging around. There were around 5,000 in the half marathon. This might not seem like that many, considering there were twice that many in the full marathon in Vancouver, but with the shorter course, we didn’t get the chance to thin out as much. Which left me dodging the walk/runners when they were walking, and looking back over my shoulder every now and then to make sure if I swerved I wasn’t going to get beaned by anyone that came screaming up behind me.

Victoria has a beautiful course, though. It started in downtown and led us through a park, then down to the water. As we were coming back the sun was rising so there was a (and this one’s for you, Beau) pretty sunrise to look at for a few km. And the sun even came out for a few minutes near the end. Though a few minutes after I crossed the finish line it did start to rain again. Which made me a pretty happy I hadn’t decided to go for the full. Oh, and about 15 km into the race there was, and I’m not joking here, a beer station. Really. It was just someone outside their house handing out half-full cups of beer. And it was actual beer. I didn’t have any, but I saw them opening the cans. How cool is that? I’m sure they would’ve had a lot more takers if they were at to the finish line, though. It’s hard to run and drink at the same time, and when it’s beer you don’t want to spill.

I ran this race with a cold. Glen managed to give it to me about three days before the race and I spent those 3 days cursing him. Ask him, he’ll tell you. Though that morning I did feel much better, it probably wasn’t the best idea for me to be out in the chilly morning air trying to run fast for 2 hours while I was also trying to get over a cold. I went downhill in the health department for a few days after that. I’m just now starting to feel normal again (a week and a half later). So why didn’t I just not go? Well, number one is I’m far too stubborn to let a little illness stop me. Or stupid. I’ll leave that one up to you. Second, I worked my ass off for three months for those 2 hours. Third, I had already booked the hotel room, registered and paid for the race, and finagled several trades so I could get the weekend off work. So short of a nuclear holocaust, I was going to run. And I managed what is known as a “personal best”, so there!

After the race Glen felt the need to point out all the salt that had precipitated on my face. And it was a lot. I hope it comes through in the picture. I theorize it may have been because of the cold I was sweating a little more than usual, and with no rain to wash it off, it just stayed there. In a gross, crusty ring around my cheeks and ears. Yummy.

So that’s my experience running the half marathon in Victoria. Stay tuned for my next adventure!

The Epic Hike that is The South Boundary

For those that I forgot to tell or just don’t really talk to much, I recently came back from a two week backpacking trip through the Jasper wilderness, on a trail known as the South Boundary. It starts at Medicine Lake on the road up to Maligne Lake and goes south, and skirts the south boundary of the park as it heads towards the Icefields Parkway. The last day it actually leaves Jasper National Park and comes out at Panther Falls in Banff, about 10 minutes south of the Columbia Icefields. I went with my sister (Jana) and our friend Charlene (or Slacker, as she is better known). Sounds like a good way to spend a holiday, right?

So the South Boundary Trail is a long walk through the bush. Really. That’s pretty much it. But since elaboration is obviously necessary, I’ll lay out the “highlights” of each day, as best I remember them-with a little help from the trip log book I kept. The whole trip was 14 days long, and we covered 172 km of trail.

Day 1: Jacques Lake Camp (the camp we stayed at that night), 13 km (the approx. number of km we hiked that day). A hike on relatively flat ground to get to delightful camp with picnic tables, designated tent pads, and one of the famous “green thrones” Jasper is so famous for (for those who don’t hike the Jasper backcountry-a molded plastic toilet with no walls but an actual seat). I would later learn that that last amenity was few and far between on this trip, and quite a luxury. Not much happened on Day 1, really. Jacques lake is quite beautiful, though. I would go back there for an overnight or a day trip if I happened to be in Jasper for a while and needed something to do. Oh, and we had one of the more filling meals of the trip this day, 2 boxes of Kraft Dinner between the 3 of us.

Day 2: Grizzly Camp, 11 km (I’ll mention at this point that none of the distance markers on the trail were right-they didn’t even agree with each other. One would say it was 12 km to the next camp, but then you’d get there and the sign would say you’d just gone 14 km. And though my sister tried to estimate the distance, she was off by a few km most days, though we don’t blame her, since getting any information on this trail was extremely difficult.). It rained through the night, so as we walked through the bush for the first part of the morning, none of us wearing our rain pants, we got completely soaked from the brush overhanging the trail. Then we ended up in a burnt area that a forest fire had ripped through a couple years previous. There were signs before we got there warning of unstable trees that could fall at any time. One of the tips Slacker liked was to “spread out to prevent multiple casualties”. I actually didn’t mind this day so much. There was a little up, a little down, and the lack of trees meant you could see the surrounding mountains and scenery. Though the trees did creak rather ominously when the wind picked up and pieces of bark kept flying off them and hitting us. We also had to climb over a few fallen burnt trees, effectively covering our pants and hands in a lovely layer of black soot. One nice thing about this day was that fireweed had grown up in most of the area. So there were pretty flowers to look at, and as an added bonus, they don’t hurt when they whack you in the face like tree branches do. The campsite was another story. A fire pit plunked down next to the river, with a small cleared area to pitch your tent. The “privy”, as they were now being referred to, was a log nailed between two trees with a hole dug underneath it. Classy.

Just a note here, after the first 2 days my memory gets a bit fuzzy, so I’ll be relying on the log book to try and remember it. It’s not that I have a bad memory or anything, but with a total of 14 days hiking through bush that all looks the same and staying at campsites that are all basically the same, it all really starts to blur together.

Day 3: Climax Camp (or pleasure camp, as Jana calls it), 12 km. It rained the night before, so everything was wet again. The only really eventful thing that happened today was when we came to a river we thought we had to cross without a bridge. There was some significant profanity from Jana when we got there and didn’t see any bridge, or even any remains of a bridge. And it was a raging river, people. We’re talking one of those sub-zero, super fast flowing mountain rivers. Since I was the biggest, I had a go at crossing it with my sandals on. Yeah. I got about ½ a metre from the bank and it was suddenly at crotchular level. And when the water’s that cold, crotchular level is not good. Plus it was going way too fast and there’s no way I would’ve made it, since the damn thing was probably 6 or 8 metres across, I had only made it ½ a metre. So after some serious studying of the map I decided we had to go farther up the river, since it looked like the bridge went perpendicular to this one ridge, and where we were trying to cross we were parallel. So the boots went back on and we walked up the river-and hallelujah, there was a bridge! Thanks to the Flying Trail Crew of 1992 (there was a sign), we had a bridge to cross over. A rickety bridge with gaps between the boards big enough for Slacker to fit through, but a bridge nonetheless. That was pretty much our excitement for the day. After today we didn’t see people for 8 more days.

Day 4: Rocky Forks Camp, 10 km. This is the day I started to lose my ambition for hiking through the bush and the total boredom that comes with it. On this trail the actual trail itself is a deep rut-2 feet deep in places-through the bush. So you spend most of the day staring at your feet trying not to trip over tree roots and rocks. Super fun. This is also the day the conversation died a little, so there wasn’t much talking on the trail for the rest of the trip. One of the main reasons for this, though, is that the trail itself is really narrow, so you have to hike single file. And when there’s 3 of you all spread out, it’ hard to hear each other, no less carry on a conversation. So we didn’t do much talking after this. Rocky Forks camp wasn’t exactly stellar. The only water source was a really scungy looking, stagnant pond. It was as though they just picked a spot and plunked the camp down right there.

Day 5: Lagrace Camp, 18 km. Today was the longest day, but we had a break planned when we got to Medicine Tent Camp about halfway through the day’s hike. When we did get to Medicine Tent we felt pretty cheated. It was one of the nicer camps, it had benches, a rather comfy privy log, and it was next to one spot in the river where it went deep into a pool off to the side and the current wasn’t too strong, so you could’ve had a bath there if you wanted. But we only stopped for a bit to dry a few things out in the few minutes of sun we had and have a quick granola bar. Then it was on to Lagrace Camp, which wasn’t too bad. It started to rain just as we were starting dinner, so after we cleaned everything we got into the tent for shelter. I should say now that we had a crib board and cards to pass the time, and Slacker and I played quite a few games of crib and lying-down war. Lying-down war is when you’re both lying in the tent and too lazy to actually sit up, so instead up putting your cards down you hold them up above you so you can lie down and play. I don’t know what the final tally for wins and losses was between us for the trip, but I think it ended up fairly even in the end.

Day 6: Cairn Pass Camp, 12 km. Today I really started to smell the stench that is 3 unwashed people. The last night was easily the worst, but even today when I crawled into the tent I could smell us. It’s now wonder we didn’t see any animals, they probably smelled us a mile away. What’s that you smell Bob? I think it’s unshowered human. Maybe we should avoid that particular area today… Anyways, today we went over Cairn Pass, which is 2250 metres in elevation. It wasn’t actually too bad a climb, in my opinion anyways. The view was good from the pass, though it would’ve been even better if the cloud cover had been higher. It rained the night before, so everything was completely soaked, including us when we got to camp. There was a big fire pit at Cairn Pass Camp, though, and we decided that the rainy, miserable nature of the weather warranted starting a fire if we could actually get one going with wet wood. Well Slacker managed to get one started and we kept it going for a bit with some already chopped wood someone had left there previously. We dried out most of our socks, burnt a few of them, and this is where I burnt Glen’s camp towel. It still works, there’s just a brown spot on it that won’t wash out now. It was quite a sight to see our socks draped over the edge of the fire pit with steam coming off them. This was also the day I discovered that the hiking itself isn’t nearly so boring when you get a good daydream going. After today I didn’t have too many days where I was totally bored. Tired of trudging through the bush, yes, but not bored. Today was also the day Jana started whipping out songs from “Annie”. It’s actually quite fun belting out “Tomorrow” at the top of your lungs in the middle of nowhere.

Day 7: Cairn River Camp, 14 km. Half-way done. Finally! It had rained through the night, but we decided we didn’t want to wear our rain pants today. Big mistake. The trail was overgrown with bushes, so we all ended up totally soaked. And not just wet, but totally soaked, the kind of wet where your pants start sticking to your legs. Then we came to a river we had to cross. Not a very big one, easily crossable. Jana took her boots off to cross, but Slacker said hers, which actually had “waterproof” stamped right on them, were so wet there was no point taking them off. So she walked right through. I took one boot off and tested the rocks, but they were pretty slippery, and at that point all I wanted was to get to camp and crawl into my sleeping bag. Plus my boots were pretty wet already, so I put my boot back on and tromped through the creek with my boots on. It wasn’t so bad, actually. I poured the puddles out of my boots on the other side and we continued. We then crossed another creek and found camp. I decided that today was finally the day to wash my hair, since it had now been 7 days since I had done that. Plus my scalp was getting wicked itchy. So in the arctic fresh river I washed my hair. I swear it’s never felt so good to have clean hair.

Day 8: Southesk Camp, 9 km. Paradise. That’s how I would’ve described this camp the day we strolled into it. But I’ll get back to that later. It rained on us during the night and stopped just as we were straggling out of the tent in the morning. We hiked for a bit in the bush and then ended up in another burnt area, which we followed for quite a while. We then crossed a river, merely guessing that the trail continued on the other side. This was based on some ancient signs Jana spotted on the other side. Then we followed a sign that said “foot bridge”, hoping it would take us to a bridge so we could get across the bigger river. This trail wound up a hill, through the burnt area, and actually led us outside the national park boundary and into an area that had obviously been used by many, many quads. So there were a lot of trails to follow and not a lot of signs to tell us which to take. Thankfully I can read a map half-decent and we actually managed to make it to the foot bridge and across the river. Where our next challenge started. The bridge took us across the river, but the trail just sort of ended. And we were still in one of the burned parts, so it was even hard to guess. Then someone saw an axe mark cut into a tree just ahead. So far we’d seen them on trees just next to the trail-we figured they were for the parks people so they could find the trail after winter. So, like breadcrumbs, we followed the axe marks and finally caught up with the trail. At that point it turned into a clear-cut line that had been made as a firestop, which seemed to stretch forever. But then we made it to camp. Camp was a little piece of land that jutted out into a little shallow lake, and it had a pretty nice view. It just happened to be warm and sunny that day, so Slacker and I decided we were going for a swim. 8 days without a shower and you’d be thinking the same thing. It wasn’t too bad, actually. And the night we spent at Southesk was one of the 2 that it didn’t rain on us. As an added bonus, we also got to start the next day out with dry socks and boots, courtesy of the sun.

Day 9: Issac Creek Camp, 13 km. Just before we got to Issac Creek is where Jana had actually drawn in a part on the map, because it wasn’t actually there. Up until this point there’d been an actual dotted line that came on the map itself, but now we were basically guessing where the trail actually went, on the map anyways. I blanked out a good chunk of this day, since it was mostly through the bush, and boring as hell. Just before we got to camp we had to cross another creek, this one was a bit bigger than the ones that came before it. I was wandering around looking for a spot when Jana got tired of waiting and just gum-booted it right through. But it worked and we got to camp. Issac Creek was also a horse camp, thus there was a delightful green throne that I enjoyed a little too much, and benches to sit on. Well, the sitting wasn’t so great since they’d left the logs round, so they were a little hard on the arse, but it beats sitting on the ground.

Day 10: Arete Camp, 17 km. It rained on us during the night. There were actually 2 trails leading from Issac Creek Camp. One was pretty wide and well-used, the other was narrower but still well-used. The narrower one of the national park hiker/horse sings pointing to it. So two roads diverged in a wood… We discussed which to take, but I was pretty sure the parks people wouldn’t put that sign up for no reason, and I managed to convince Jana and Slacker of the same thing. So we took the road less traveled. This was still the part of the trail the map didn’t have on it, though this was the day we came back onto the established part of the map. The hike itself was mostly flat that day, but I was a little on edge since I wasn’t sure we had taken the right trail, and if we ended up having to backtrack, it was basically my fault. So I felt much better when we finally came across the Arete ranger cabin and I knew we were going in the right direction. And when I knew Jana and Slacker weren’t going to lose it on me. It sprinkled for a good portion of this day, and most of the time we were actually in camp, so we spent the better part of the day inside the tent. It was starting to get pretty cold today, and I think this is the first day the toques came out. This was also the day we decided would be good for the chicken noodle soup we brought. And for future reference, one packet of Lipton’s chicken noodle soup is not enough food for 3 hikers.

Day 11: Brazeau River Camp, 13 km. I had rained again during the night, so once again Jana was packing a wet tent. The hike to Brazeau River wasn’t so bad, though I though at one point Slacker was going to lose it when one sign said we still had 3 km left when we should’ve been almost there. Just before we got to camp we went by the Brazeau ranger cabin, and does that guy have it made! Stockpile of chopped wood, outhouse with walls, warm cabin, and to top it off, a nice little fence around his yard. It almost makes you want to become a park warden. Anyways, the sun broke through the clouds for a few hours once we got to camp, so Slacker and I managed to do a little washing in the river while it wasn’t too cold. Brazeau River Camp was pretty deluxe-2 picnic tables, actual tent pads and a green throne with a nice view to boot. We even managed to play a few games of cards on the picnic table before the weather turned and started to rain on us again.

Day 12: South Wolverine Camp, 9 km. This, in my opinion, was one of the two best days of the trip. It started out really terrible. It rained all night and as we were leaving in the morning it was so cold I think it may actually have been snowing. When we did get to our stop for the night we could see a fresh coat of snow on the mountains. And given that the cloud cover was pretty low but we could still see the snow from the valley, you can guess it was pretty cold. As we were nearing camp, Slacker pointed ahead and said she saw people. After 8 days, the sight of other people was actually quite strange. It was almost like, what are you doing out here? I thought we were the only ones out here in the bush. So we kept going, and it kept raining. We were so miserable when we got to camp that we set up the tent and crawled into our sleeping bags to warm up. After a nap we got up and made dinner, and as we were finishing, four guys strolled into camp, dripping wet. That was when the clouds started to break up and blue sky began appearing. It widened out over the whole valley, and soon we were literally basking in the sunlight. Literally. Jana has a video of the basking. Then, the guys managed to get a fire started, and invited us to enjoy-so we grabbed our wet socks and boots and dried everything as best we could. And at that point, dry socks were a luxury we thought we’d never get. And then, the piece de resistance, the icing on the cake, one of the guys offered us chocolate. That’s right, chocolate. After 12 days in the bush, chocolate. The look on Slacker’s face was priceless. We went to bed very happy that night.

Day 13: Boulder Creek Camp, 10 km. We woke up to frost and below zero temperatures. It was bloody cold, and really hard to get moving. Charlene’s boots, though drier than they’d been the previous day thanks to the fire, were basically frozen solid. The sky, however, was clear and blue, which gave us hope that the day might not totally suck like the many that had come before it. After some cold cereal (which paled in comparison to the feast the men brought), we went on our way. That day I decided not to wear my rain pants. I should have. I was soaked in seconds, and since the soaking agent just happened to be ice crystals, I was freezing. Not since I moved from Alberta have my thighs been so cold. The guys had warned us the day before that the trail disappeared and basically turned into a stream, and they didn’t lie. At one point, it was no longer trail, but us hopping between high points in a marsh, trying to figure out where to go next. We did find the trail again. The mountains, I might add, looked particularly nice that day because of their pristine new coat of white snow. The hike wasn’t too bad after we got out of the marsh, though it did start to go uphill in a big way. Boulder creek campground was a little windy, but not too bad. We had the one dessert we brought that night-a freeze-dried concoction called cherry blast. It was really more like goopy pie filling. I thought it wasn’t too bad, but Jana and Slacker didn’t really like it. Today, I might also mention, was gorge day. By that I mean that all the food we’d been rationing the whole trip because we didn’t want to run out we could eat. So we basically gorged and ate everything there was to eat except what we knew we weren’t going to need the next day on the hike out. It was awesome.

Day 14: Home. 10 km. This was one of the days it didn’t rain on us the night before, and trust me when I say Jana was ecstatic she didn’t have to carry a wet tent up over Nigel pass. We had breakfast at lightning speed and away we went. I might also mention this was probably the only day I was actually ready to go before Jana. The trail up the pass was just that, up. Up in a big way. There was no pussy-footing about it, you had to get over the pass, so you hike straight up the really steep hill. But it was worth it. Even though there were clouds there was a nice view and I may have gotten a little picture happy at this point. After the pass it was pretty much downhill through meadows and bush to the end. There was a few km’s of trail where we could hear the highway and almost see cars, but we were going parallel to the road. It was very frustrating that we could hear the cars but we weren’t there yet. Slacker almost had a breakdown from hunger, but once she got her fruit-to-go out and had that she was better. And did we get some looks from the tourists when we waltzed out of the bush. I think they may have been able to smell us. Let’s just say the bridge over Panther Falls cleared off pretty quick once we got there. Then we managed to convince Dad to go back through Jasper, and we had Jasper Pizza and beer, and everything was good again. Ahh, sweet civilization…

And now for everyone’s favorite, the little tidbits I feel the need to elaborate on:

Breakfast. Jana and Slacker had come up with this fantastic idea of putting cereal in a Ziploc bag with a tablespoon of powdered milk for breakfast. That way, it was just add water and voila, breakfast. It was actually pretty good most days. I found the Lucky Charms a little too sweet, but Slacker happily traded me for her share of the granola cereal. This carried the added bonus of being a really quick breakfast with no need to set up the stove or even do any dishes. Just rinse off your spork and the Ziploc bag and away you go. It was brilliant, really.

Food. I was hungry almost the entire time we were out. My stomach was making noises I haven’t ever really heard before. Strange grumblings, and pretty much all the time, not just when I was actually hungry. I think it may have been all the Lipton’s Sidekicks we were eating. Which, with the exception of some rice and mashed potatoes, was pretty much all we ever ate for dinner. Near the end I was actually missing meat. Me. But the up side of that would be that I actually lost 9 lbs on that trip. Granted, at least 3 of those were water weight from dehydration, but that’s still 6 lbs of actual weight. So there’s your answer for quick weight loss-go hiking in the middle of nowhere. But it’s not like we didn’t bring much food. When we left, we had 3 10 litre drybags and one 20 litre and they were so full we were almost having trouble closing them. This also made the first few days of pulling the food up to the bear pole on that skinny rope Jana brought a little unnerving. It also took 2 people pulling on the rope to hoist everything up until about 4 days from the end, when Jana managed it by herself.

Jana the camping nazi. So I realized after a few days that while hiking, my sister gets a little annoying. And here’s why. When Jana wakes up for the day she jumps out of her sleeping bag, packs all her stuff and has everything out of the tent before I even have time to roll over. After a while she started to whine that I took too long in the mornings. But what’s the rush? We got to most camps before 3 in the afternoon, so it’s not like we were pressed for time. And I’m on vacation. I’m allowed to move slow. I need time to lie there and just be thankful I didn’t get eaten or otherwise violated by a bear in the middle of the night. Is that so wrong?

TP. At one point in the trip I realized if I kept going the way I was with my toilet paper, I was going to run out. We had each brought 2 full rolls with us, and we figured that would be plenty. It wasn’t. Near the end, I was down to using maybe 3 or 4 squares in the hopes that the last little bit left on my roll would make it to the last day. It didn’t. But luckily Slacker doesn’t use nearly as much TP with each visit to the privy as a Damgaard, and she had a sizeable amount on her roll the second last day when I actually ran out. So she was more than generous when she said I could borrow for the next day if I had to go. Never before have I needed to “ration” my toilet paper. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. And I don’t want to experience it again. Though it did make me very grateful for a while afterwards that every time I went to use the facilities I could use as much as I wanted.

So there it is, my 2 weeks in the bush, summarized as best I can.

Two miserable days on the Juan de Fuca Trail.

A warning to my avid readers, this post is very long. So if you're at work, make sure the boss is in a meeting or on a break, `cause it’s going to take you a while to read it.

Today’s little foray into my life will consist of my experience hiking the Juan de Fuca trail on the west coast of Vancouver Island. As many of you know, I have occasionally enjoyed the hiking, so I thought for our first wedding anniversary this would be and interesting thing for Glen and I to do. We planned to park our car at the north end of the trail and take the shuttle to the south end, thus hiking back to the car. We were going to take 3 days to hike, staying 2 nights at campsites along the trail.

We caught the shuttle and were on the trail at 10 am. Everything was peachy as we came out onto Mystic beach. That was the last time anything could be referred to as peachy. The terrain got significantly worse from there. Here’s how it went: up a steep hill, down a steep hill, over a creek, repeat several times until exhaustion sets in. Then continue the pattern until you wish you were back at home. We were planning on staying at Chin beach the first night, which was 21 km from where we started, so after about an hour of this we knew we were going to have to go like stink. Plus when you realize it’s taking you about 30 minutes to go a mere 1 km, you start to think you might be in over your head, and that making Chin beach is just wishful thinking. But we hiked on.

We got to Bear beach and stopped to use the outhouse and have a snack. As we were about to leave, I realized my camera had fallen off my backpack somewhere along the beach. After searching for about 45 min, we gave up. In the process of searching, I tripped on a rock, fell onto a rock, and took a healthy chunk of skin off my right knee. With a lost camera and a bleeding knee, I decided I wasn’t having fun anymore.

We kept going down the beach and got to the end, and as we were looking for a sign to figure out where trail met beach, two fellows came along behind us. Glen asked them if they’d found a camera. Praise whatever god you pray to, they had found our camera! Things were starting to look up again. The next problem was finding the trail again. The map we had been looking at wasn’t very helpful, and we thought maybe it was farther along the beach. So the two Czech guys and us took our boots off and waded through this pool at the end of the beach, figuring the trail started again on the other side, and that the tide was just coming in. It wasn’t. We were lost. After some discussion and walking back along the beach again, we spotted a sign. It was through a creek and up a steep hill, but that’s where the trail went. So our next obstacle was crossing this stream. The bed of said stream was actually rock, which would’ve been fine, except there was this delightfully slimy moss growing on the rock, thus making the streambed extremely slippery. So you hold onto the rope and walk through the stream. Thankfully the water wasn’t very deep, and we were at least smart enough to wear our waterproof boots. However, the moss was very slippery, and I nearly lost it about halfway through. Thankfully I made it, and up another steep hill we went.

So many more exhausting hills later, we rolled into Chin beach at 7 pm. We pitched our tent and made dinner. One nice part of this trip was the other people camped at Chin. They helped up find a nice campsite, and as we were cooking dinner, invited us to join them at the fire they had going on the beach. That part of the trip was lovely, sitting near a nice fire with some good company and the waves crashing in the background.

Another cool part was the suspension bridges. They were a good 50-60 feet across, and suspended around 100 feet from the bottom of most of the ravines they went over.

The next morning we decided that we’d rather spend our next night in a hotel in Victoria, rather than camped in the bush somewhere. So we headed for the car. We made the excuse to ourselves that we would get to the last campsite and decide then if we would go all the way, but who were we really kidding? After all the bloodletting and near loss of camera? To make a long and painful story short, we got out of the bush at 9:30 that night, a full 12 hours after we walked off Chin beach that morning. For anyone doing the math, the trail itself is 47 km long, and our car was parked in Port Refrew, 3 km from the end of the trail. So we covered 21 km the first day, thus leaving about 26 that we covered the next day. Yes, we are insane.

We got lost twice the second day. Once, when we followed the wrong trail, ended up on a deserted beach, and had to backtrack to find the real trail again. The second time was basically the same, involving a beach and a serious lack of signs. Both times we wandered around for nearly an hour, trying to figure out where the trail started again. The first time I even started to freak out a little, since we were losing time and, well, completely lost. But we did eventually find our way.

So now I will go into detail about the little parts of the trail that I remember and that were the bane of my existence at the time.

The mud bogs. Every hiker’s seen them, and every hiker’s done the “dance around the edge” bit, to avoid having their boots sink up to their knees in muck. Well there were a lot of these. And when I say a lot, I mean one every few steps. No, not every few hundred steps, but every few steps. You’d just get around the last one, and take two steps and be on the next one. This is one of the reasons the going was so slow on the trail. So you might ask, why didn’t you get fed up and just start going straight through them after a while? Well, you do. For some of them. But others are so deep in the middle that you literally would sink up to your knees. So you continue the dance.

This was one of the more mild looking mud bogs. Note the unpleasant look on my sweetie's face.

The bloody tree roots. Freakin tree roots! The ENTIRE trail was like this. I know on some trails the tree roots seem cool, and provide good stairs to climb up. But after 47 km of them, you start to get really sick of clambering over tree roots. And these aren’t your ordinary tree roots. These are west coast tree roots. Thus they are much, much bigger. You end up climbing 5 feet up one side of the tree root to climb right back down the other side. I clipped my knee on one the first day (the already injured knee, by the way), and the root almost made it bleed, and gave me a good bruise. One of those bruises that turns a beautiful purple and then goes yellow as it’s fading. And, similar to the mud bogs, the tree roots occur ever few feet. So you feel like all you’re doing is climbing over tree roots. Some of them are so steep you end up grabbing the nearest root or branch to help pull yourself up. And you know other people have done the same, since the branch you just grabbed has been worn smooth by other people grabbing the same spot. The tree roots slow you down, too.

A rather "easy" section of what the tree roots look like. Glen and I could teach a course on climbing around tree roots now.

The stairs. The actually flights of stairs that have been built on this trail are fine. Actually, in parts they have used a previously fallen log and just chainsawed steps into them. Those steps are pretty cool. It’s the places where the park guys have taken a fallen log, driven two pieces of rebar into either end, and piled dirt up behind it on a slope that get to you. Normally, this is just good trail maintenance. It prevents erosion on slopes and makes it a little easier to hike. Not so on the Juan de Fuca. They’ve made all the steps too tall. I’m 6 feet, and I was having trouble getting up some of these. Now put a 40 lb pack on your back. Yeah. After a couple, I proceeded to whip out the “put one foot on the step, use your hand on your knee to help push yourself up” technique. Now do this several thousand times and you’ve got about half the trail.

The fallen trees. In some places, over the years, trees have fallen across the trail. Sometimes they have turned these trees into steps, bridges and whatnot. Other times they chainsaw through the whole thing. Most times, though, the tree is simply too large to chainsaw all the way through. What they do then is chainsaw steps up one side of the trunk and down the other. So there’s more steps you need to walk up and down. And they don’t make the steps small, either.

The underbrush. The Juan de Fuca trail is built in a coastal rain forest. And with this comes certain vegetation. And piles and piles of thick underbrush. The parks people have not cleared this underbrush from the trail. So for a large majority of the trail, you can see where the trail goes by looking at your feet, but when you look up, all you see is bush. Thick, leafy, tick-containing bush. After several kilometres I took to complaining about the bush. After several more kilometres, Glen asked me to stop, since it was getting annoying hearing me whine. I don’t blame him. Because of all the brush, there wasn’t much to see for the whole trail, so there wasn’t much to do other than complain.

The sweat. The trail is on the coast. Thus the air is extremely humid. And it was warm that weekend. So going up a steep hill (by now you know there were many of these), you break a sweat almost instantly. So after about 15 seconds, your clothes are soaked and you’re pretty much dripping. It was on this trail I decided fisherman’s hats are good, because once you sweat enough to soak the part that’s up against your forehead, you can turn the hat and the next part’s dry. It’s like having 4 hats in one. I have never sweated so much at one time in my life. And I`ve run a marathon.

I hated the two days I spent on this trail. We hiked it too fast, we didn’t expect the terrain we were on, I nearly lost my camera, we got lost twice, and I got hurt. It was a horrible 2 days. But Glen and I decided the next day, in our comfy, warm, clean Victoria hotel room, that to properly appreciate this trail you’d need to take your time. You’d have to stay one night at each camp and really, really take your time going between them. Then it might not be so bad. So to anyone thinking of hiking this trail, make sure you take your time and plan to spend almost a week there. Trust me, you’ll have a way better time.

Surfing, the return.

Well, I am back from another surfing expedition, and I made it alive, though with one or two new bruises to show off. Let me start off by saying that I am a terrible surfer, and I will likely always be a terrible surfer. But I'm okay with that.

We arrived in Tofino this long weekend to rain and cold. It was just getting dark so we put up a tarp to hide under, pitched our tent and went to bed. It poured all night, even when I had to get up to go to the bathroom. The morning came and I finally convinced Glen to try and start a fire with the soggy wood from the campground. It wasn't easy, but he managed to get it going and we dried out a good amount of wood for burning later in the day and hid it under our picnic table so it would stay dry. After finally warming up by the fire, I decided that I hadn't driven for 4 hours down those windy roads for nothing, I was going surfing, raining or not. Glen opted not to, he was a little tired and I think laziness may have played a small role too.

So we went into town and I rented a wetsuit and board. We got to the beach and I arrived at my first challenge. Putting on the wetsuit. This particular wetsuit had an attatched hood, to keep my head warm, or annoy me, I can't decide which. The zipper for the ridiculous thing was in the most bizzare spot-right across the collarbone and down both biceps at the top of the suit. This means that there was even more wetsuit that had to be yanked on before the zipper would go anywhere near closed. The thing was damp to start, so it was cold as I started, but they warm up quite quickly. Well, after you get this thing past your knees, it gets difficult. Most people know I'm not the strongest person around. I almost needed Glen to help me pull this device over myself. I decided the best way to go about it was to get it straightened out and then pull it up similar to the way most women would pull up their nylons. Pull a little up around the leg, then work it the rest of the way up 'til the top moved. This continued for about 20 minutes until I finally had the thing in the right spot at my neck. Then came the hood.

It was built with 2 collars, an inside one and an outside one with the hood attatched. The inside one slipped on easily over the top of my head from the front. The one with the hood squashed my face into an unrecognizeable mash as I was attempting to yank it over my hair. It actually hurt to put it on. But I managed to squeeze all of me in the wetsuit, and off I went to the ocean.

The actual surfing itself was still as difficult as it was before, and to my surprise, I hadn't gotten any better with the complete lack of practice I've had since the last time I tried. It is very tiring, though. I only managed to last 2 1/2 hours before I was so tired I almost couldn't carry my board back to the car. But I did have an idiot grin on my face the whole time, and for several hours afterward.

The next day wasn't much better, weather-wise. Still cold and rainy, so we packed up camp and headed to the beach so I could tire myself out for the ride home. Trust me when I say wetsuits are even harder to put on when they're wet than when they're just damp. You pull on the material to get your leg in, and nothing happens. It doesn't move an inch. So I ened up doing this delightful little shimmy for about 1/2 and hour to try and get into this silly piece of clothing in the parking lot of the beach.

And all in full view of the delightful, rippling biceps, muscley guy surfers. If anything, the weekend was worth it just for that particular eye candy. April, I know you enjoy a man with well-built shoulders...well you should visit Tofino sometime. Just sit in the parking lot and watch these guys change. And they do. Right in the parking lot. I even witnessed a full monty. From the back, anyways. And they like to walk around with their wetsuits half off, so they're shirtless. Give me a second to wipe the drool off my keyboard...

So I must describe also the process of removing the wetsuit, because it is nearly as amusing as the getting into the wetsuit. I decided the easiest way would be to peel it off, banana style. Again I'd like to bring up my aversion to bananas, but I digress. So after mashing my face yet again trying to get the silly hood off (my lips actually hurt for several hours afterward), I tried pullling it off. Well, it's really hard to get our of a wetsuit when you can't really move your arms, 'cause they're pinned to your sides from trying to get out. I actually needed Glen to help me get my arms out. Keep in mind that the suit is now wet, thus making it impossible to slide at all. So you get it to about your knees, at which point it gets so thick around your legs the banana doesn't peel anymore. So you wriggle for a long time until finally you can free one leg, at which point getting the other leg out is comparatively easy.

I've decided getting the wetsuit on and off is nearly as difficult as ths sport itself. They should have wetsuit changing olympics. The first person to get a wet wetsuit on and off first wins. It could even be a spectator sport. As Glen will attest to, it's quite funny to watch. I will give the wetsuit credit, though. It kept me nice and warm the whole time, and wasn't completely uncomfortable once you're actually in the water. I also noticed it's relatively hard to look bad in a wetsuit. It smooths out all the lumpy bumpies and holds everything in quite nicely.

Despite the rain and cold, I did enjoy the weekend. Though next time I think I need to drag Glen into the water with me whether he likes it or not. Mostly so he's too busy trying to get his own wetsuit on that he doesn't have time to laugh at me struggling with mine.
PS-Kristi-I think I've almost got that beach bum look down.