Mudd, Sweat & Tears

Or should that be 'Mudd, Blood & Hyperthermia... Ok, so it wasn't quite that bad but I did scuff my knee a little and it was certainly cold enough not to sweat!

Mudd, Sweat & Tears is a 12km cross country obstacle course similar to the Tough Mudder or Spartan races out there. It's designed to test all round fitness, team spirit and determination. Here in Kelowna BC the event takes place at Crystal Mountain - one of our local ski resorts, which being at elevation means the weather is unpredictable to say the least - especially in spring. It was probably 15 degrees C in town but up the hills it was no higher than 5. With rain. With wind. With icy cold water obstacles... Thankfully there was lots of running up an down hillsides in-between obstacles which gave the competitors a chance to dry off and warm up - somewhat. I say competitors but really it's not a race at all, at least not against other teams, just against yourselves. All teams help each other out when it comes to the more challenging events like climbing up and over 9ft mud slicked walls and the likes.

Our team consisted mainly of people from Helen's workplace, and me as a guest member and was a variety of ages and fitness levels, but only one goal - to have fun and to finish! Our start time was 10 am but due to some logistical issues and the sheer numbers of competitors we got going with the newly created 10:15 group!. There seemed to be less of us in our group so we had a daily clear run to the first obstacle - the above mentioned 9ft wall. Once over that the fun really started - with a muddy crawl through a pit covered with strands of barbed wire - just to keep our heads down and our bodies low, and wet! This really set the scene for the morning and from now on anything we came across was covered in mud from previous participants - I was always a bit of a dab hand at rope climbs but when both it and my hands are covered in slimy mud...

Other obstacles consisted of the intentionally demoralizing idea of carrying something heavy up a hill only to then carry it back down again, hulling a truck tire uphill by rope, more mud pits and wading through a waist deep mountain stream full of snow-melt - only the males amongst us can really appreciate the effort it takes to keep the water level below 'that' certain part of the body :-/

But the clincher, hence the photograph, had to be the last obstacle - the 'Over and Under'. A mud pit just a foot or so deep with logs running side to side; waist high ones to climb/slither over and low ones barely above the mud level to go under. Amazingly I did see one or two clean-ish faces that had managed to somehow get under without having to fully submerge the body, but for me at least, the only way under was to literally swim under! And so it was I emerged with enough mud in my face to not be able to open my eyes for sometime afterward - tricky really when the only way to clean off was a fire hose connected to yet more snow-melt water.

It was funny to watch a crowd of people trying to get their free finisher's beer to their mouths whilst shivering uncontrollably to the point of spilling more than they drank - but those few sips that made it to your mouth were oh so sweet!. Carelessly we'd taken just one small towel between us thinking that it would be easy to dry off and then put on our clean clothes - ha, no such chance! Getting home, (how awesome are heated seats when you need them...) we had to strip off in the garage before entering the house as even our 'clean' clothes were caked in slowly drying mud. And then the longest hottest shower ever ensued...

All in all a top day out; lots of mud, some sweat and some very almost tears of feeling fingers again after eventually thawing out  - way to go team Bridge Trolls!!!

White Rabbit Snowshoe Race Recap

It's that time of year; the time that most runners hang up their shoes and find another way to keep fit during the winter. I'm fortunate enough to live in a place where winter sports are everywhere and although my skiing prowess leaves a lot to be desired, I seem to be able to get myself around on snowshoes adequately. There is a difference however between adequately and competently so it was no surprise that Saturday morning found me lining up for the mostly downhill 5 km race rather than the 'start at the bottom of the hill, run to the top, turn round and run back down again' 10 km race! I say mostly downhill as the first couple of kms are undulating and quite the warm-up, so much so that any extra layers worn whilst stood around at the top of the hill, (thankfully the 5 km race ticket includes a lift pass to get to the top!) have long since been discarded with gloves, hat and 'Buff' stuffed into any available pocket.

The White Rabbit Snowshoe Race is an annual event and this was it's 9th year and my third. It's a small and very friendly event with a campfire, hot chocolate and cookies at the finish line, along with the friends and families of runners to cheer you on as you 'sprint' the last 100 metres to the finish line. I say the last 100 metres as that was about the limit of visibility due to the thick fog/clouds at the lower level of the Crystal Mountain Resort. In typical ski resort style though, the weather at the top was stunning with blue skies and sunshine above and the surrounding area below popping up through the thick cloud layer. However grey the sky looks from below, it's only ever a case of how high to climb to get above it. (Mountain fiends and arial sorts people will resonate here!)

Just missing a podium by one place, (I'll catch you next year…) didn't mater in the slightest as prizes are all picked blindly from a bag of race bib numbers. As usual the prizes supplied by sponsors excelled themselves with anything from new snowshoes to poles, thermal wear and other such goodies. This year my wife's number was picked early so she bagged a new snowshoe bag for me - it seemed only fair as last year I'd won one for her!

I 'suppose' now would be a good time to let my wife Helen have her share of the limelight; after numerous 10 km road races, half marathons and even the Chicago full marathon, she secured her first ever podium with an outstanding third place finish in the women's race! Well done honey, what great race. Ok, you can climb down from the step now ;-)

Happy Chickens live at Sterling Springs!

There's been a lot of bad press lately, (and rightly so) surrounding the treatment of animals and the quality of meat that comes from big commercial farms. Well, if you live anywhere near The Okanagan I have the answer for you! This weekend I had the privilege of my own private tour by Lisa and Hans Dueck - owners and 365 days a year workers at Sterling Springs Chicken Farm just outside Falkland.

Nestled in the hills overlooking the valley below can be found one of the most ethical and decent food processing operations I've ever seen. In three heated barns (the size of which would typically hold tens of thousands) live just hundreds of clean, healthy, well fed and stress free chickens. They wander around these spacious rooms with what looks like not a care in the world. There is plenty of feed and more importantly, plenty of access to it. No survival of the fittest here! They don't receive any hormones and not a single antibiotic; to the point that when asked by a Govt inspector what would happen if they caught a harmful bug, Hans replied he'd sooner cull them all than fill them with unhealthy, (to them and us) chemicals. Due to the size of the operation, losing a few hundred chickens worth of profit won't break the bank. Try that when you have tens of thousands!

They manage the whole process themselves on-site, from eggs through to the end product, whether that be whole frozen chickens, parts thereof or 100% chicken breast ground sausage. And by 100% I mean no fillers, no other chicken meat, no added water! Instead of the more financially efficient and business savvy practice of processing the chickens at 30 days, they let all theirs grow naturally and comfortably until eight weeks - the accepted but often ignored optimum age for human consumption.

Come processing time their two kids seem to know as much about the operation as Mum and Dad do and are an integral part of the process. Once the bird is at the point of  butchering and/or freezing each and every chicken is individually inspected inside and out by a Govt inspector - they only process 400 at a time so it's no big deal - I wonder how that works in the larger more commercial farms? Actually, I don't; we've all seen documentaries like 'Food Inc', 'Food Matters' and 'Farmageddon'…

If you're lucky enough to be local; they supply to Urban Fare grocery store in Kelowna, and during the summer season at some of the local farmers markets. They also supply some our of our local high end restaurants such as the Gray Monk Estate Winery in Winfield and Waterfront Wines and RauDZ in Kelowna. And if you're not local, don't worry, these types of farmers ARE out there, you may just have to look that little bit further than the usual chain supermarkets...

A nicer couple you couldn't wish to meet, and if I were a chicken - I know where I'd want to grow up…

For more information visit (and 'like'!) the Sterling Springs Chicken Farm Facebook page where you can find their latest price lists and promos and details of their local deliveries.

Fresh air experience

This time of year might just be one of my favourites; I love the summer heat and the colours of spring and autumn but there's something about the first snow outing of the season. Fortunately I live in a lake valley surrounded by mountains which means we get much milder weather at lake level while we have deep thick snowy conditions up on the high ground.

And so it was this weekend that a bunch of us, and of course our dogs, headed to the hills for our first snowshoe hike/fumble… There's a ski resort just about 45 minutes from here and just 2 kms short of that there is a smaller area with Nordic skiing, snowmobile routes and plenty of trails to snowshoe and let the dogs go mad together. Ours being a Vizsla with no undercoat and very little body fat was the only one to wear a fleece coat; at 20 months she's still too young to know when she's cold and would quite happily freeze to death as long as she was having fun!

The logistics of getting 7 people, 6 dogs and 3 vehicles to the same place at the same time was like herding cats so by the time those who needed to hire shoes had them and we were all ready to go it was already well into the afternoon. And being a cloudy day, we only had a couple of hours till dusk but it was plenty of time for our first foray together. It did help that we knew where we were going so we managed to get deep into the forest before turning round to come back. It would have been nice to have done a loop but unfortunately there are maps of the area's trails and although we were following 'blazes' on the trees, we had no way of knowing how far each trail would go - I think we need a full day, a GPS and a picnic to figure out some loops of our own.

Exercise - check!
Fresh air - check!
Quality social time - check!
Self care - check! 

Next trip is planned to be a night hike with all of us carrying a backpack of food, dry firewood and maybe just a small warming tipple or three...

Life in the old dog! 10K race result!

Back in my early 30s I used to run a lot; I was lean, light, strong and fast. Having a job that involved jumping from allegedly 'perfectly serviceable' aircraft, (although I don't believe there is such a thing as a perfectly serviceable aircraft myself!) laden down with the equivalent of my own body weight must have helped my fitness. However, as I got older and my career took on more of a sedentary nature, coupled with my go-to favourite, 'worn out knees' excuse, my running became virtually non existent. When I did get the urge to join in a fun run it would usually be a last minute affair with very little if any training.

So this year when my wife, herself a marathon runner, suggested I might actually put some effort in, in the hope of getting a half decent time in my regular, once a year 10k road race, I decided she was right! (Damn I hate admitting that!!!) So did I train? Well, not really train, however I did run the Whistler 10k this spring as I promised a client if he could do it, I'd run it with him. I also ran probably once a week once the summer heat had eased off. But I don't enjoy running like I used to, instead choosing to hike harder with my pup and even treat her to a bit of 'speed' when I'd head out on my mountain bike into the woods and hills with her egging me on!

The BMO Kelowna marathon is an excellent event and is hugely supported with both full and half marathons and also a 10k race. The route is flat and fast and finishes on the shore of the stunning Lake Okanagan. There is a lot of sponsor support with a huge marquee style tent to keep warm in before heading out to the start line. And the food at the end was tremendous; lots of perfectly healthy bananas and local apples, but also the type of treats most runners enjoy after working hard; granola bars, chips, cookies, juice, coffee, hot chocolate and a whole host of stuff I didn't even get to...

This year for the first time I was in the 50 - 59 age group so I had higher hopes due purely to the size of the group and I wasn't disappointed with my result. The training obviously helped, but even with that and knowing my pace lately, I was expecting and would have been pleased with a time of around 48 minutes. So imagine my delight when I came second in my age group, 33rd overall out of 850 runners and posted my best time in 15 years of 44:27! Without wanting to sound all 'salesman' on you I really believe that what helped my time was the detox I'd just finished three days before, during which I'd lost 4lbs and more than 1 percent of my body fat in just over a week of eating nothing but clean whole foods! If that's not proof I don't know what is?!! (some extra evidence to support this theory was my wife's Half Marathon PR after completing my Spring Detox, and then another PR for her this weekend after doing the Fall detox with me!) So if you want to shed weight from toxins, fuel your body cleanly and healthily, and maybe even gain energy and vitality you might consider joining my last detox this season (its starts on Monday!), check it out here!

I ran as part of my friend Rhonda's Results 4 Life Fitness team where we ALL took home medals in our respective age groups! What a Result!

Taking time for Self Care - My Hiking and Camping trip

Since our Vizsla pup Meli arrived in our family 14 months ago, my wife and I had been looking forward to turning her into a camping dog. Being a very active kind of pup we knew we'd never get a peaceful night's sleep in a tent unless she was completely worn out and would sleep the night through. She's been my hiking buddy and Helen's running partner for a year now and is never too tired to 'bring it on' so we thought we'd test her up in the Selkirk Mountains with a long weekend away to Glacier National Park.

Isn't it funny how camping always seems to have that 'aaaand relax' feeling about it and sure enough, as soon as we pulled in and started pitching the tent, the rest of the world and its problems just disappeared. We got there Friday night, too late to go hiking so the three of us strolled around the camp ground checking out the camp-fires and raging torrent of a river that marked the edge of the site. Why are we happy to sleep with the sound of rushing water in our ears and even trains, but not road traffic?

Saturday brought the weather we'd been promised with a cool start followed by temps in the high 20s as the sun made its way over the mountains. We choose a longer hike knowing we'd be glad of a shorter one on Sunday morning; the Asulkan Valley would be a 16km round trip with a 3,000 ft elevation gain , and would be more than enough for two of us...

With the clear weather, the views were spectacular as expected, what wasn't expected however was the cell service in the middle of what seemed like nowhere; is there no escape from Facebook??? Getting back to the camp-site around 6 pm made perfect timing for a roaring camp-fire a well stacked BBQ and of course a bottle of BC's finest :-) To say we all slept well that night would be stating the obvious; even Meli with all her excitement and her 'gentle trot' to the top of the valley was glad of the rest.

Sunday dawned even warmer so we lazed around the campsite for the morning and slowly packed up our site. Check out was Noon so we loaded up the car and moved to the trailhead for our brief 'warm-down' hike. This was just an 8km out and back along what used to be the railway back when the main railroad ran through back in the days before the highway was built. The campground is near the site of the old Glacier House; a place where first class passengers on the Trans Canada Railway would swap their carriages for remote luxury for a few days. The buildings are now all gone but you can still see the ruins of what harks back to a magical time in the history of cross country travel; when to travel meant to adventure...

It was a wonderful weekend of self-care, relaxation, gorgeous weather, great company, challenging hiking, amazing views. In short...Pretty darn great!

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My too-gorgeous-for-her-own-good, friend and fellow Health Coach Anna is doing a Self Care September challenge on her blog which is what prompted me to make the most of BC's amazing fall weather and get away for a couple of days. Join in with Anna's challenge on social media by using the hashtag #selfcaresept when posting your status updates or photos!