2014 plan

It has been a busy fall full of plans. Officially it is now 2014 and some of the plans are coming to fruition.  I am officially on team Blood is thicker then Mud for the 2014 Zulu Challenge. We have entered a team and look forward to a day of challenges, fun, laughs and hard work!  I will also be running in my 6th City Chase this year. Another fun day spent with my mom.

My husband will be attempting the Canadian Death Race on a relay team this year, so I get to be support.  Looking forward to it. It will nice to still be there but not have any of the stress.  He he he. My boys will also be running the 5 k again this year. I will get to run with my youngest again. 

September will be all about Off the Grid. Officially an adventure race! We will need to do a bit of paddling practice. 

October will be about the Grizzly Ultra Marathon.  Registration is done, hotels are booked. Now comes all the training!

Let's do this 2014!

Chocolate for breakfast

Great spin class followed by a chocolate protein shake. Pretty yummy. Hoping pool will be open for our swim tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Sprint what?

Great morning workout. Boot camp shuffle with 3 stations. Run 1 lap of track, run the stairs and push-up on the bosu x 3. Then 3 with the same except lunges on bosu. Then 3 with sit ups on bosu. Then came the work. 4 half lap sprints running as fast as I could. Stretch and done. Finished off with a chai tea protein shake. Felt great.

Wonderful hike

So lucky to be able to go for a hike today. Temps weren't bad, trail was packed well and I had the best company. I have missed our hikes so much.
Can't wait for the next one.

Spin it out

Up and at 'em for spin class this morning. Went well for my first spin.

Made my smoothie into a chai tea. Pretty good!!

Weighed in the Ernie's challenge. Not very happy with the number on the scale but that will change!!

Lessons learned

This morning was mostly about learning. It was the first day I got up early (way early). As in 5:30 am early. To work out at the gym.
Lesson 1: I need to eat something before the gym. We will see what that will end up being over the next few days.

Lesson 2: I think it will take some time to feel comfortable increasing my heart rate that soon after waking up. I didn't really feel well.

Lesson 3: I think I need to slowly add Jacobs ladder to my routine. It made me feel very dizzy.

Lesson 4: I can drink a protein shake for breakfast I can also enjoy it and feel satisfied. It did take me a long time however. Mixed the powder with frozen fruit and a v8 and cranberry mix of juice.

Lesson 5: feel tired tonight but not as exhausted as I thought.

Lesson 6: it's tough to get in 10,000 steps in everyday.

Looking forward to spin tomorrow morning.

Getting closer

I started this blog years ago to document my goal of doing an adventure race. At the time I didn't realize how long it would actually take me. That being said my original goal has opened up countless wonderful opportunities that I would not change for the world.

I have convinced my sister to give off the grid a try in 2013. Registration is not until march but in the meantime I have made a few preparations. Gym membership,check. Partner, check. New adventure backpack, check. Morning protein shakes, check.

So here is to 2013 and my adventure race!

Keep you posted. Amanda

The view of angels

I was lucky enough to go on another girls hiking trip April 2012. 4 girls headed off for the state of Utah to hike in Bryce National Park and Zion National Park.

The very first morning we woke to 4 inches of fresh snow!!

It was a beautiful sight. The contrast of the red rock and the white snow. Wow.

Bruce is at almost 9000 ft above sea level and you hike down into the amphitheater.

We spent the day, grabbed a wonderful lunch and drive to Zion.

It was amazing how much warmer the drop to approx 4000 ft can be. Still spring conditions and some snow but the air was just so much warmer.

Our first hike was Angels Landing. This is a beautiful hike up some switchbacks, through a canyon, up some more quick short switchbacks called Walters Wiggles then up a very skinny ridgeback.

It was my favorite. So neat to be standing on 2 feet of rock and looking down 1200ft on both sides!

We also did a quick trip into the Emerald pools.

There was a very large rain front coming in so we packed up to spend the night at a family home in nearby Mesquite. Plus we deserves the shower and comfy beds!

The next day we ran from the rain and headed south to the Valley of fire. The color contrast was very cool.

We drove to lake mead as well. Then headed back to mesquite for supper.

Next day the rain had cleared and so we headed back to Zion for our last big summit... Observation Point.

Such a nice hike. Lots of switchbacks, beautiful canyon and wonderful view of the canyon. Plus you get to look down at Angels Landing!


Such a wonderful trip. I am truly blessed to have such wonderful ladies in my life!!

Back at it.

So much fun stuff has happened over the last year. I will be updating a bit plus what's on the horizon. Luv it!!

City Chase -Edmonton 2011

I have been looking forward to this race since I saw it last year. After signing up in the Edmonton race with my mom, the Calgary race with my sister and our Garcia in the wings all that was left was the wait.

Last weekend was the first test....Edmonton.

Mom has never entered any type of race before and we both were unsure of this type of race. Would the clues be hard, would we figure out the bus system, could finish in time.

Some history on the race itself.

How it Works
Experience Laughter, Adventure and Discovery!

The Mitsubishi City Chase Powered by GoodLife Fitness is a unique urban adventure that requires participants to exhibit teamwork, resourcefulness, determination and the ability to make decisions on the fly as they search for ChasePoints scattered in unknown locations throughout the city. ChasePoints are designed to test teams with a variety of physical, intellectual, adventurous and humorous challenges.

To conquer this 4-6 hour urban event, 2-person teams will run, walk and use public transit to navigate their way throughout the city, while calling family and friends for help, accessing the Internet, and even employing assistance of total strangers. The first team to complete the required ChasePoints and cross the finish line WINS

Our goal was to finish the 10 checkpoints in the 6 hours and to have a fantastic time doing it.

We had done the fundraising for Right to Play which gave us an opportunity for a free chase point. After I drove to Edmonton, we went for dinner and picked up my new favorite socks (injinji) we were back to the room to get ready. City Chase had been feeding that a clue would be given out early and it was placed on Facebook. We spent some time filling out the crossword and unscrambling the letters the give us a clue. It was a lot of fun and really got us pumped up.

The next morning I woke at 6:30 am and had a feeling I should check FB. I noticed the profile picture had changed and quickly realized it was another free checkpoint. All about getting your Facebook team to like or comment a post. So onto the phone we went to get it going. Thanks to all our support, we had them very quickly.

Off for a bite to eat and then down to Sir Winston Chruchill Square for the start. Surrounded by over 900 other chasers we were taking it all in. We then played a game of mobster paper, rock, scissors. For someone who said how do you play, mom made it to the final 5 teams!

Then we were told the clue was at city hall and we were off.

A quick photo of the clue sheet and they were sent to our Garcia and my sister to look over. Then a quick read from ourselves. I have to say I felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount and how cryptic they were. Mom was confident in the first clue so off we went to the Edmonton Petroleum Club.

This is where I made the first mistake. Walking in the direction of our destination to get on a bus. Problem, very few buses that way. We should have moved back closer to Jasper where most of the buses travel. Oh well, with Ashley and Kelly we were able to get on a bus and completed our first task. To partner with another team to maneuver a car through an obstacle course.

With A LOT of help from Kelly we were able to finish the next chase point.....to match up head shots of Oilers with their jersey number while mom dressed lime a goalie to find the numbers.

Back on a bus to kinsmen park ( the clue from the crossword). Got a tip from the rider that we could take a separate trail instead of running down the big hill to the park. With a quick run we made it to the stairs, to find they went nowhere! A quick yell up to mom and some investigating turns out we were on the back of a par 3 course and very close. So we ran across the fairways to the chagrin of the actual players. Sorry, but as mom said...it's only a par three...not a REAL course.

We were excited for this chase point as we were going to act like soldiers in bootcamp AND get our free chase point for fundraising our money. 2 for 1. And we need it. By this time we only had 2 and we were already 2 hours in. A quick run through the course and some burpees, we weighed our shoes for Columbia hit our 2 punches and we were off to the bus stop with 4 now.

The next bus took us back downtown and only 2 blocks from our next point. One problem....we couldn't find it. Luckily Kelly sent us to another one and by walking a bit further we found the original point. Spin! Get two strangers to ride a spin bike for a total of 10 min. Tougher then it sounds but after mom convinced a guy who could hardly walk( very stoned and admitted it) and I convinced a guy drinking a beer we were off. Point 5.

Then to the hotel near by to carry luggage from the basement to the 12 th floor. Phew. We then were off to do a photo scavenger hunt. Take a picture of gardening, of 4 people all jumping at the same time, of one team member washing their hair in a bathroom sink!(me)
A quick hike to the parliament busing to do some back to back drawing. Point 8.

On our way downtown we came upon a chase point. How lucky we're we. So we had to unscramble some words and then write and perform an opera. Not our best performance but the point was ours!

Off to main street again. We were prepping ourselves for spiders as there was some cryptic 8 leg reference in the clue. Plus it was our last point so we would have done almost anything at this point. However once we got here we realized it was another photo scavenger hunt. Shoot. This was going to take some time and we would have to walk right by the finish line. Crummy

We rocked it out as fast as we could and hoofed it to the finish to complete out 10 in under 6 hours. Wow. We had so much fun. Could not wait for 2012!!

Adventure race?

Although technically not an adventure race I am really excited about my 2011 events. I will be participating in both the Edmonton and Calgary city chase's www.mitsubishicitychase.com
I will then be traveling to Southern Utah to hike some of the most beautiful areas in the world. From the top of angels landing to the bottom of the narrows or the subway.

Last Grande Cache training day

So we headed back to GC to fo our full leg minus the pavement sections last weekend. Forecast for 20 and no wind, ended up raining the whole time! So it was a tough day slugging it out.
I had some issues with digestion of my food and felt quite ill on the way up Grande. I have a tough one today to try and figure some food stuff out. Don't want to feel the same way race day!
Really slippery coming down the backside of the powerline to the cemetery. Do you think it's too much to ask for 10 degrees with cloud cover and no rain or wind for race day???

Marshall Death Race Update

We went for a family bike ride and it turned into a pretty long one. 10 km for Marshall on his two wheeler is a pretty good way but he did really good. We were about 1/4 way in and he turned to me and said, "this is great training for my death race".
So cute.

It's so nice to be in shape so that when a last minute offer to hike Bergeron Falls comes up....you can! Plus the fact that I have the support of my family of course.

A beautiful trip with beautiful people. We worked hard and laughed harder. So much fun.




Approx. 15 km round trip. Travelled from the trailhead steady up for 2 km then down to the Murray River. We then made our way up Bergeron creek across rock and through a wonderful canyon to the base of the falls. Lunch and some pictures and back the way we came for 500 M. Then a 2 km climb along the ridgeline to the top of the falls.

We did a few extra loops and then headed back to the trailhead.

MANHUNT 2010

Alarm goes off at 6:00 am Saturday morning. Shelley and I get dressed, have some breakfast and pack our camlebak's. Safety pack, first aid kit, about 5 liters of water, trail mix and protein bars, camera, Kleenex and gloves.

We are picked up at 6:45 am, jump in a pick up and taken to our starting location, 18 km (as the crow flies) from the finish line.

Job - Get to the finish line before the Mantrackers find you!

The Mantrackers are located only 1 mile to our east along a well site road. We have to wait until 8:00 am for the start of our race. We mill around, practice making some dummy tracks and covering them up. The road is hard packed and the tracks are hard to see. Advantage Prey.

At 8:00 am the signal flare goes off, the Mantrackers radio that they can see it and we are off.

We go directly into the bush. The horses will be here very quickly and we need to find cover. We find a overgrown quad trail quite early though which makes our travel quite easy. We follow this for a few kilometers, changing our direction and choosing trails that are taking us in a South-westerly direction. We have a couple clearing crossings in the first few kilometers and are very nervous about the Mantrackers coming across us in these spots.

We get into some deeper forest and lose our quad trail. Still have a pretty good game trail most of the time but still hard to slug through. Lots of dead fall from the May Long snow.

At about 6 or 7 km in we come to a well site road. It is bitter sweet. Happy to run/walk on a nice surface but very nervous about being caught. Road = horses advantage. We decide to run the road for a couple km's to make up some time and rest our legs.

The road ends in an opening so we hide a bit and sit down for our first rest. Eat, drink and plan the next move.

There was a choice between an overgrown cutline or the bush. I was nervous about the cutline and I know Shelley wanted to take it. Looking back now with the advantage of satellite mapping I can see we should have taken it and also how close we were to it! Although our slugfest through the bush and over the Saddle Hills was the hardest section, the cutline would have also been tough as it was very grown over and had alot of fallen trees. Either way we would have still been in the deepest forest possible. 20/20!

After another 6km of slugging through the bush we came to the large pipeline running though the area. We knew we would have to cross this but were quite nervous about it. Again basically because it switches the advantage back to the Mantrackers.

We don't see them and decide to travel North to the wellsite that we can see. Again we know we are on the pipeline but we aren't sure where along that pipeline we are. To far south or north and we would miss our opportunity to find a road.

At the well site we are able to find our exact location on the map using land locations. No guessing...we know exactly where we are. What a feeling!

We head West on a well site road and mainly stick to roads and cutlines for the next 9 or 10 km.

We have to run the last km across an open field to the finish line. So nervous that the Mantrackers are waiting for you but happy to be done. Everyone cheered us across the finish line and toasted us with champagne.

What an experience. 26 km across some pretty dense bush. Some areas we are sure no one has ever been! Thank you to The Evelyn Sutherland foundation and of course Shelley for being such a great partner.

Man Hunt

So last week I received a call from a friend who was hoping I would help her friend. Long story short, I was asked to become prey in a man hunt the next weekend. That would be this Saturday!
After thinking about it and confirming I could get a partner, we gave a resounding YES!
So now I am on the countdown. 4 sleeps until I run for my life from two men on horseback! Yikes

All on the bumpy road to an adventure race.

Training Trip #1

So we sent the kids to grandparents, packed up the husbands and Rhinos and headed South to take our first peek at our leg for the Death Race.

We parked at the La Prairie staging on the Hwy and headed up Flood Mountain. Once on the quad trail (which is the actually leg of the race) it is quite well marked. Lots of orange tagging in the trees anyway.

Ran into Mike who was out training that day as well and he advised us not to try slugfest. So once we got snowed out of quading to the top of Flood we took his advice. But Amanda and I parted ways with the guys for awhile and ran down Flood the 9 km back to the trucks in about an hour.

Then we packed up the rhinos and moved back West 10 km to the Grande parking area and had the boys take us up that way. Lots of snow covering the trail and even more at the top.



But we were able to pick our way around on foot and the boys found their way around in the rhinos as well.

We had wanted to do the "powerline" as well but weren't sure about snow. You can see in the picture the line of snow on the far hill is where we had to go!




But we got out the binoculars and thought we could pick our way through. So, Amanda and I headed off, leaving the boys at the top.

The next picture is the view from where we came!



So the boys waited for us to make sure we could make it around at the bottom (as we couldn't see it from the top) and when we said we were good they took off back the way they came to organize the rhinos and meet us back on the North of Grande Cache at the cemetery (where the leg meets the highway)

We booked it and ended up getting there in less than an hour beating the boys by 20 min!

All in all, we felt good. Still had fuel in the tank. Feel better about our training. And not too sore today!

From the Death Race website.

Second leg, 27 km: Flood & Grande Mountain Slugfest
Includes about.1 km of pavement. The rest is dirt trail with rocky and swampy sections, and approximately 6 km of hard packed dirt road.. Net elevation gain is 500 feet, but the total elevation change is well over 6000 feet. This leg of the race is characterized by long sustained climbing with about 3 km of very rough terrain and two creek crossings. The trail from the summit of Flood Mountain to the summit of Grande Mountain is the roughest piece of trail in the Death Race. The power line down the front of Grande Mountain leading back into town is the most dangerous part of the entire course. This is due to the steep, rocky drop-offs and unstable footing while running downhill. The Slugfest is the most technical section and is rated the second hardest leg of the Death Race (although many rate this leg as the hardest of all).

Marshall entered the kids Death Race!

So after the main race on Saturday they have a fun kids race Sunday. They get a t-shirt and a medal if they finish 5 k in 90 min.

So Marshall and I did our first training run together and he did pretty good. Quite a bit of coaxing from me and a bit of whining but all in all he was very excited to go and happy to be out.

He had lots of energy and could have gone further which is good. It think 5 km in 1 hour will be our goal!

Great job bud!

Not Juan'ce but Twice!

So we are back from Vancouver Island and Juan is in the books. We had gorgeous weather the first two days, which was good as that second day is a killer. It rained through the second night and was still raining that third morning. We had thrown around pushing past Sombrio (our third day end point) and stopping 4 km later at Little Kuitsie. This would allow us to finish in 4 rather then the planned 5 days. We were still up in the air until we had arrived at Sombrio, hiking 8 km in the rain all day and miserable conditions at the beach. Little shelter, lots of rain and wind, plus alot of weekend partiers. So without much discussion, just a couple looks from one to the other, on went the bags and on we went. I guess we figured we misadwell be walking in the rain rather then sitting in it!
Little Kuitsie is a depressing dark in the middle of the scary woods campground, but we made the best of it! I mean when you get excited about the roominess of an outhouse, you're pulling at straws!
I was still able to check the weather on my blackberry (amazing) and saw that weather was turning around. Woke to beautiful sky's and a wonderful 14 km out to the end. We even took our packs off for over an hour and searched around the tide pools on a reef shelf for our lunch.
Then off to the parking lot to unload our gear. I also had a wonderful geo-cache hidden there by a friend of mine, so we all searched and found it! A wonderful note, card and a loonie.
We were then followed out on the trail by Murphy. A young guy who looked exhausted. He had just completed Juan in 2 DAYS SOLO! Wowsa.
Then off to Port Renfrew, for F-O-O-D. Something not from a foil pack, not dehydrated or a meal resembling a bar!
We ate like kings. Fresh Halibut and shrimp!
Loved every minute of it. Now it's onto the Death Race but I am already throwing ideas around for the next hike...hmmmm. Any suggestions?