#100happydays Day 6 Facetiming with each other just before bed, happily planning the next day’s run.
#100happydays Day 6 Face-time! Bedtime chats
#100happdays – Day 5 Workshop Runners
#100happdays – Day 5
Happy runners in our workshops! It’s great to see our runners come out and reach their goals at Running Free Newmarket.
Workshop runners
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#100happdays -Day 4 Tuckered out Pups
#100happydays Day 4 – Pinte and Pabst get a little carried away playing so it is always a calmer afternoon if they get to run in the forest! They love it and so do we! We’re all happy!
#100happydays with Pabst
#100happdays with Pint
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#100happydays – Day 3 Running together at Scanlon
#100happydays day 3 found us running in the forest at Scanlon Creek. What a beautiful day for a trot through the forest, the bugs weren’t awake yet and the trail was soft. A great feeling after pounding the roads all winter.
We always seem to run into something or someone interesting. Today it was Wayne the painter. Wayne had his easel set up on one of the trails, capturing the beautiful spring colors. It was great to stop and chat with him and capture a selfie!
#100happydays – Day 3 a selfie by the “Leaning Tree” and meeting Wayne the Painter
#100happdays – Day 2 Day-Trip
On a day-trip to Midland and the Wye Marsh – past the Midland Legion and thought of my Sister! Mean while my Sister was having a wonderful romp in the wood with her happy dogs!
#100happydays – Day 2 – Happy dogs and a great run in the forest,
#100happydays – found the Midland Legion for my Sister!
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#100happdays
We are joining the thousands who are sharing their #100happdays!
Here is Day 1 – having morning coffee together before starting our busy day! Love it!
Day 1 Enjoying morning coffee together! #100happydays
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Giant’s Rib Raid
What a perfect day for a tromp through the woods with friends. The sun shone, and apparently the wind blew, although we didn’t really feel it sheltered in the trees. Spring flowers were blooming and the orienteering began.
Our team of 3 for the race
The Giant’s Rib Raid is put on by Don’t Get Lost and is a 22-26 Km orienteering trail race on the Niagara Escarpment. This year’s race started near Kilbride Ontario. It involves a lot of technical running and a compass so you “don’t get lost!” We love running the Bruce Trail. The race started at Kelso Conservation Area and proceeded through Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area, Crawford Lake Conservation Area and wound its way down to Kilbride. Of course we didn’t know any of this until we picked up our maps the day of the race.
Here we are meeting another team in the race at a CP.
We had to add to our team name include our 3rd teammate (the rules call for teams of three) so the Blister Sisters and the Bandage took off running.
We did great on the first 6 CP’s (check points) but CP 7 gave us a run for the money, we were so close, but we just couldn’t find it. After deciding that we really need to do a navigation course and learn how to use our trusty compass with a map, we bushwhacked on to CP 8 & 9 only to find out that CP 7 was also CP 10. Well, we found CP 10, no problem!
Brook’s Cascadia! Love them!
More bushwhacking ensued to try to stomp our way out of the bush. The ice storm of the fall of 2013 did a lot of damage to the bush and I don’t think I found 2 square meters that didn’t have a downed tree or a cord of branches on it.
Check points were everywhere. Too much fun!
Time was running short so we ran the trails through Crawford Lake, until we saw the beautiful carvings that are near the lake. Picture taking took a few minutes off our time. The next part of the trail was particularly rocky and beautiful, by then we were really behind so our non-competitive spirit took advantage of us and we chose to just enjoy the rest of the race.
Next year we’ll be back and perhaps have a handle on the whole compass thing.
Awesome trail running and climbing!
The Giant Rib Raid is coming up!
We have been diligently training for another event – The Giant Rib Raid! This is a team of 3 event so we talked Jean Corner, our Brooks rep into coming along for the fun. Stay tune for our race report.
In the mean time check out the Giant’s Rid Raid at the Don’t Get Lost website.
Awesome trails at Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area. It’s a fuzzy picture but this is what the trails look like with our out glasses!
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Chilly Half Marathon – March 2nd, 2014
We had this wild idea to train for something this past winter. In a moment of “we have to had a goal” planning we chose to train for the Chilly Half Marathon in Burlington Ontario. The Chilly Half is a 21.1k road race along the Lakeshore, a four lane main road in Burlington Ontario. We thought this would be a good race to train for because it was early in the season and you got a great jacket just for registering. By training for this run, we were going to be ahead in our training for all the events we have planned for in 2014. That was our goal.
Throughout the worst winter for cold and snow in more than 10 years we pushed through our training, and forgetting that we hadn’t run a “road’ race in over 10 years, we kept saying to each other “it’s only a half”.
Race day came along with 5 cm of fresh snow, slush and negative temperatures. The only thing we could be thankful for was that the wind chill was only about 10 degrees colder that the minus 15C temperature at start time. We’re not sure but we think the sun came out for a bit, we couldn’t really tell because our glasses frosted over!
Selfie at the start line at Chilly Half Marathon March 2nd 2014, all smiles!
Huddled in the crowd at the start line, brought back so many memories of our days of road racing, we giggled and jiggled to keep warm. Then we were off, freezing.
Shivering in the start line with 3000 other runners! Cold cold cold!
Slogging through the slush and the crowd, expectations started to diminish and 21k became a little daunting. The best part of the race was that the course was an out and back so we got to see the young winners gliding along with their effortless strides and keen concentration and we got to see all the people, like us, at the back, the ones who planned and trained and who have awesome goals that might not include winning.
The volunteers were plenty, since lots of streets have to be controlled. Angry motorists were at every corner waiting impatiently for the race to be over. That brought back memories of past marathons through Burlington.
We shuffled along over the ice and through the slush to the turnaround pylon only to be greeted by a head wind on the way back. We were very happy to shuffle uphill to the finish.
It was so cold my camera froze! Hi Ramona, so good to see you again!
Despite the inclement weather and the fact the race was on the road and not a beautiful snow covered trail in the woods we did have a great time. We met with our Team Running Free friends, hugged old friends along the course that we haven’t seen for years and we laughed a lot! We achieved our goal! On to our next adventure!
It’s good to be back at Scanlon Creek
Scanlon over the years has become one of our favorite places to run, hike, and unwind.
We really enjoy the many trails of different terrain it gives us lots of options to choose from so it’s never the same experience twice.
We have made many incredible memories there which Phil has captured on film, put to music it really shows what nut cases we really are. To “us” though it really shows how much fun we can conjure up for ourselves. Whether it’s snowshoeing amongst the snow covered trees, feeding the birds where they actually land in your hands, or making snow angels, winter in Scanlon is breathtaking.
Check out Scanlon Creek www.lsrca.on.ca/conservation_areas/
Blister Sister Adventure Race Team 