Canmore Quad

I had previously done the Canmore Quad in the summer of 2011 with Wes (A skier who I work with at Gord's) and Andrew (Our Mizuno rep from Gord's), but we rode bikes and took vehicles between points, took long breaks between each summit, and shotgunned a beer on each summit resulting in a total finishing time of 11:54. Since then I have wanted to get back and do it right, and as fast as possible. 

Reid, a speed skater from school had stopped in at Gord's to pick up some shoes, and mentioned he was thinking about giving it a shot as well this summer, so we decided very last minute to give it a go, and 4 days later, on Monday June 17th we made our attempt.

For those of you who haven't heard of the Canmore Quad, it involves running all 4 of the mountains in each corner of the town of Canmore powered only by your own two legs. It has been done very few times, and all in all involves just over 51km of running, with a quad burning 5000m of elevation gain and loss. 

The Canmore Quad. Starting and finishing on Main Street in Canmore

I guess I have a blog now

What? Travis has joined the masses and got a blog? Why would he do that!?!

I figured a blog is a great way for me to keep track of my post collegiate training, and some of the photos that I get while out in the mountains. I'm going to try and avoid the narcissistic aspects many blogs cater to and focus mostly on reporting my training.

After Graduating from university, and ending my track career, I quickly realized that I needed something to train for to keep up any semblance of previous fitness. Because the high intensity of track and road workouts always lead to me getting injured, I quickly ruled those out. I've always liked trail running, and the highlight of most of my summers were getting out for long runs in the mountains, and had always stayed relatively injury free during these periods of high mileage. This and the fact that I got entries to a couple local 50 milers through Gord's, I figured why not give trail racing a try?

Killing it on the track

Ideally, I should have started this when I finished the indoor track season, but having only decided to run a 50 miler a couple of weeks ago, I'm a bit behind the times. As a starting point, my last track workout with the Dinos was at the end of April, and this blog will chronicle my transition from racing 1 mile to 50 miles. It should be an interesting process, having never raced over 10km, and never having to bother hitting an aide station en route.

The two races I'm shooting for this summer are Iron Legs in the middle of August, and the Fernie 50 on June 29th.

Ridgeback trail en route to Moose Summit

So far this summer, I've been fairly sporadic with my training, getting out for long runs most Monday's on my day off, but being quite inconsistant the rest of the week. Generally, I've been doing some tempo runs, pool runs, bike rides and weights.
This week, I was offered an entry to the newly established Fernie 50 miler on June 29th, and jumped at the chance to get in some ultra experience before Iron Legs in August. Only having 2 weeks to prepare for a 50 miler is probably a terrible idea, and the longest run I've done to date is 43km from Station Flats to the summit of Moose Mountain. The Fernie 50 will be a bit of a stretch, but nonetheless a good training day.

I'll try to be as consistant as possible, updating my progress over the next few months.

56 days to go until Iron Legs
7 days to go until Fernie 50