LifeAthlon

Caballo Blanco 80k 2017

The sun is setting on North America’s deepest canyon. The bus bounces like an old couch and moans as it dives down a dirt road steeply carved into the canyon walls, towards the small town of Urique nestled by the river at the very bottom of the world. Urique. Cecilia & I glance at each…

Finding Home: Mexico 2017

Lista? Si. Segura? Si. I’m stalling. It’s 11:30am and we’re about to set out on an all out race around a 10km loop course with 700m of altitude gain in 29°c heat. We’re somewhere between 2300m & 2400m high but that’s no excuse anymore, I’ve been training at this altitude for 21 days now. The goal…

Planting Trees Vs UltraRunning

For those who know me, I often attribute a lot of my capacity to run UltraMarathon to the lessons and adaptations I gather during my ongoing years as a tree planter. The mental and physical benefits that come from 2-3 months of intensive tree planting include: the musculoskeletal adaptation of transporting 60lbs+ bags around shnarby…

A Wet & Cold Year

From Chile to Mexico with a whole lot of Canada in between. My year in numbers: 365 Days
365 Km of racing
40 hours 21 minutes of racing
4 Podium Finishes
8 Races
4½ Months Travelling
2 International Trips (Chile-Mexico)
6 Months Living in a Tent
2 Months Planting Trees
84,000 Trees Planted
500+ Visitors on LifeAthlon from
30 Different Countries
4 Bear encounters while running
3200m Highest Altitude.
3 Pairs of Shoes
29 minutes 50 seconds record on the Grouse Grind in Vancouver

Respirar: A Running Trip Through Central Mexico 2016

‘How do you know its broken?’ ‘I don’t. Look at it though its all purple!’ It takes tremendous instinct to read and seize the right moment between leg cramps to reach down to my feet to take my slimy sock off my foot. My fingers are useless, I lost all dexterity from running 6hours at…

The Art of Doing More

Doing more. The art of doing more. Passions are a time consuming affair. Often, when confronted with the effects that cultivating a strong dedication and discipline has on my life, and the lives of those around me, I scramble wildly for a motive. On a daily basis, I find myself confronted by the daunting question…

UltraFiord 100k 2016

This is Patagonia. I’m on the summit of a mountain, in shorts and long-sleeve shirt, running against a wind hurling whipping curtains of snow in every direction; running on ice, loose rocks and through streams of glacier water; singing at the top of my lungs, talking to myself, cheering myself on; my legs are danger…

Chile 2016 – The Southward Journey

Four days away from the culminating point of a three-month trip through most of Chile and parts of Argentina, I find myself reflecting back at the great tangled mess of achievements, challenges, emotions, expectations, exhaustion, stress, adventures…, that is the result of the attempted convergence of two major lifestyles: travelling & training. Hereafter is a…

The year of my life

What’s a long way? For a kid whose running career began at the age of three, sprinting down the street, naked, making a getaway from diapers. For a boy who felt too ashamed of running in the neighbourhood, to train for a high school race, because of how awkward arms and hands behaved when they…

The IronSandwich

Darkness has come. Eight post meridiem on September 7th 2014, I’m alone, drinking water from a swamp analyzing a sweaty map by the glow of my headlamp. Behind me, in the distance of time, there is a lake, there are roads, there are trails. Sunrise sunset, and still. It is a sandwich that has brought me…