Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike - Pictures

2006 RacesRaid Pulse Sprint Adventure Race: October 28, 2006

2006-10-28T13:42:00.000-05:00

Victory!

A quick bike start and some misreading of instructions caused myself and a number of other teams including myself to swim with the bike on this windy, rainey 3°C late-October day. Some hard pushing on the bike got me first in the water section, but I got dummied by some large surf and went into the final trek section section 9 minutes off the lead. Some creative route choice made up those 9 minutes and more to give me the overall win in my first solo race. I still prefer team racing!

A nice bonus the following morning where I ended up winning the Long Advanced section of the Ottawa Orienteering Club meet at Camp Fortune under about 5cm of snow! It was beautiful in the woods.

Ottawa Orienteering Club 8-hour Rogaine: October 21, 2006

2006-10-21T15:57:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately there are no pictures to offer, but some creative route choices and good tag-team navigation saw this edition of Team adidas Canada (myself and Carolyn Connell) end up with 2nd in the co-ed category of the 8-hour race. Though we came 2nd to a 14 year old, she is a national caliber athlete so we don't feel badly. Beautiful fall colours and amazing scenery in the always astounding Gatineau Park!

Salomon Adventure Challenge Champs: Sept. 30, 2006

2006-09-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

Team adidas Canada in the all-male division (myself, Pete Cameron and Andrew Love) managed to work our way up through the field throughout the race and dispite our collective >600lbs in one canoe causing a tipping, our high speed running sprint to the finish earned us 2nd overall.

Subaru Northern Club Championship Triathlon: Aug. 20, 2006

2006-08-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

In my first ever triathlon, I managed to make it to the start line nearly on time, survived the 750m swim, earned the 3rd fastest bike time in my age group on my mountain bike over 33km (didn't get friendly looks from the disc wheels I was passing) and brought home the 7km run for a respectable finish in 1h 44min.

Salomon Adventure Challenge - Esprit Rafting: July 16, 2006

2006-07-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

Team adidas Canada managed to pull in to the finish line in third place dispite some large mechanical issues on the bike. Swimming in the Ottawa river at the finish line was great motivation to push on this HOT day!

Salomon Adventure Challenge - Long course: June 17, 2006

2006-06-17T14:00:00.000-05:00

An I.T. error cause Team adidas Canada (myself, Carolyn Connell, Andrew Love) to be called our all-female counterpart Team adidas Divas - an honour to us since they have won the women's division of every race they have entered. The bikes were friendly to us as we came back from a navigation mistake dropping us to 26th position to end up 2nd overall! Route choices that included swimming lakes and swamps kept us cool on an extremely hot day!

North American Rogaine Championships: June 10-11, 2006

2006-06-11T10:00:00.000-05:00

Team Spirit of adidas Canada was born for this championship race when I joined the captain of an accomplished adventure racing team from out west. We arrived 5th in our division and 8th overall; not bad for my frist Rogaine!

National Adventure Racing Championships: May 28-June 2, 2006

2006-06-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

Photo Credit: Crish Owen Halper http://www.AdventureArt.ca

Team adidas Canada travelled to Timmins, Ontario to push through the three stage race (15 hour, one night's sleep, 3-day continuous, one night's sleep, 7 hour) took place up in Timmins and though a teammate's difficulty with the extreme heat forced us to go unranked, we ended up with an aggregate time that would have put us in 4th place.

The sprint race on day 1 was intense with fast riding, punishing white water and thirsty insects that even the locals were speaking of how they had never seen them that bad. After having some trouble in the white water, we recovered to cross the line in 5th place in the country's strongest field.

The second stage started with an epic 40+km off-trail trek that took teams 24-48 hours to complete. We managed to survive the heat and impending insanity from dense clouds of black flies to contine into the paddle in 4th place. The next paddle took over 24 hours, but was entertaining in its variety of flat and white water. A 50km ride brought us to another trek where the sleep monsters awaited us. We stumbled to the other side and rode into the morning where I broke a chain only 3km from the finish. We scootered and towed in with some happy faces to have completed a course that most teams could not.

The final stage was more of an epilogue, but still had its challenges since we were working with an aerial photo for a map. We saw some great local Timmins scenes and descended into a gold mine to grab some check points. Better timing this time - I broke a pedal as I was crossing the finish line. I didn't even notice since our support crew was waiting for us with a six-pack and very tall strawberry ice cream sundaes!

Adventure racing to this degree would not be possible without good team work. What a great feeling it was to have used our strong team bond to persist through some pretty tough times. Great work guys!

Salomon Adventure Challenge - Fenelon Falls: May 6, 2006

2006-05-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

Team adidas Canada changed composition a bit for this race and we ended up arriving 4th in the co-ed category.

Boston Marathon: April 17, 2006

2006-04-17T14:19:00.000-05:00

I decided to try my hand at marathoning. Although not really a runner, I was pretty pleased with my 3:19:07 on the tough Boston course. What an inspiration to have hundreds of thousands of people (rumoured to be >1 million) lining the streets. I must have slapped thousands of hands on the side of the road over the course of the marathon. People of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds yelling and cheering on ALL of the runners...thanks Boston!

Canadian Ski Marathon: February 11-12, 2006

2006-02-12T16:31:00.000-05:00

After starting to cross-country ski at the beginning of the season, I actually got fairly emotional as I approached the finish line of this epic tour. This very Canadian tradition of 40 years spans 160km of classic-style cross-country skiing over 2 days. I got my Coureur de Bois Bronze with a twist; I camped out overnight with the more expierenced skiiers. There is something special about staying out of doors for an entire weekend in a -25°C Canadian winter. I was constantly stunned by the course-side beauty over both days!

Winter Salomon Adventure Challenge: January 21, 2006

2006-01-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

Overnight on Friday night, we were treated to a pile of snow which made this winter race amazing! Though none of Team adidas Canada can ski, we managed a 2nd place finish with some strong biking, accurate navigation and a number of spectacular spills in the snow!