-
Active Art
I’ve been inspired the past few years by folks who combine activity and art, sport and expression. Sport in itself is an expression (Chariots of Fire, “when I run, I feel God’s pleasure,” anyone?), but when an artist combines a physical activity with another medium, I find the results interesting. Here are a few artists…
-
Touching the Land
It felt silly when when the idea came out of my mouth years ago. When asked about my life dreams, I looked to the ceiling and tried to put words to it. The image in my mind was of Denver’s front range, and the dream was to interact with those mountains. My tool of choice…
-
Man Versus Winter
It’s been a wild few weeks in winter-land. Storms on a twice/week basis, snow drifts up to the chin, and temperatures often plummeting down below -30°. As someone who enjoys winter endurance sports, I’ve had a few weeks of self-reflection. Last week I read iRunFar’s article “When is it too cold to run?” which got…
-
The Things Dad Brought Home
Last weekend I ran on the frozen Seine River. Because of the rumours of wildlife along this twisting urban waterway, I kept my camera (the kind that also makes phone calls) handy. Sure enough, within the first couple kilometres I’d chased up a fox, later a small herd of friendly whitetails. And at about the…
-
The Year of the Fun Run
When race cancellation emails began to fill runners’ inboxes in early 2020, causing a primary running and training motivator to fizzle, everyone was forced to look for those alternative motivations to keep moving forward. For several years I’d been finding “running as art” a good motivator for getting out the door daily (those RunHaiku won’t…
-
Longest Night Run 2020: Recap
At 4:29pm on Dec 21, the sun set on the longest night of the year. In Steinbach, the gray sky hardly blinked as it slowly faded to deeper shades of grey, and the street lights slowly took over lighting the streets of town. And as the darkness settled in, we began to run. The weeks…
-
Nocturnal
I saw an owl the other day. Against dawn’s glowing eastern sky, a silent silhouette suspended in the branches between the path and the grassy field. I stopped to watch the rare sight, trying to make out the details of the great creature in the dim light. Although my eyes struggled, I knew I hadn’t…
-
What the Trail Requires: The Mantario
For the past couple years I’ve heard stories about the Mantario Hiking Trail from friends who’d hiked and run it. At about 63km (40 miles) long, it’s not to be taken lightly. The trail was created in 1970s (though I wonder at its prior history), and traces a north-south path through the Mantario Wilderness Zone,…
-
Secret Paths of Steinbach
When I was a kid, I was enthralled by secret portals into other worlds. Books like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Secret Garden captured my young imagination. What if I could crawl into a tunnel, a cave, or an ordinary wardrobe, and enter into a secret mystical world? I imagined carving a…
-
Running Every Single Street in Steinbach
“To walk across a place is to truly know a place.” – Rickey Gates # Last year I was inspired by Rickey Gates’ “Every Single Street” project, where the ultrarunner set out to run all of the 1170km (1100 miles) of street in San Fransisco. No big deal, right? Here’s the documentary that was produced…