Ean Jackson's blog

It's Sunday 31 December 2006.  I just assessed my 2006 fitness resolutions and gave myself a 75% or "C" grade.  Room for improvement!

STORMY (Squamish Test Of Running Mettle, Yeh!) is one of my favorite runs.  It's one of a handfull of runs that I try to do every year... and the only one of those that I've participated in every year it has been held.

As usual, the weather was perfect.  The refinements in the course kept me on my toes, but I didn't get lost.  As if by devine retribution, one of the places I got lost a few years ago (named "Jackson's Dilemma" by then race director Paul Cubbon) was added into the official course this year.

I participated in the Fluffy Bunny Trail Run yesterday. Actually, that's not totally accurate, because the "Fluffy Bunny" is the 35K distance and my friend Doug MacKay and I attempted the 25K "Run in the Park" distance of the Fluffy Bunny Trail Run.  This was a bunny with teeth!

This past 8 July, I ran an ultra.   Well, whoop-de-do, you might say.   But this was not just any ultra.  It was the 14th time I run the Knee Knackering North Shore Trail Run.  It was certainly the slowest I've ever run the Knee Knacker and maybe the slowest I've ever run an ultra. So what's to crow about?

The Atacama Crossing is a six-stage, 250-kilometer footrace. The six stages range from 20-80 kilometers over the seven days.

My buddy Wade Repta is running in it.  You might even know Wade, as he's a Club Fat Ass member who comes out fairly frequently to events around Vancouver.  He's doing the whole thing solo.  Basically, you run across Chile.  It's the dryest place on earth.  What a stud Wade is!

Wade is a sandbagger.  He will always say, "Naw, haven't been training much", but I think he has been training really hard for this one and as of today, the 3rd day, he's in 12th place overall! Man, I wish I was there at least crewing for him.  This event looks like a lot of fun.  (See photos on the event site.  That's where I got these.)

Wader, brother Dom and Paul Kennedy did the Marathon des Sables a couple years back, so he knows what he's up against.  Their slide show of Marathon des Sables (especially the feet pictures) convinced me that races like this are for a special breed of person.  Wade is sure that. 

I finished the Knee Knacker this past week.  My knees were knackered going into it.  They gave also me grief doing it.  My time was a PW (personal worst on the course)... but this is my favorite run and the one run that I look most forward to each year. Given that this is the 14th time I've completed the race, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic and thought I'd share why. 

The Knee Knackering North Shore Trail run was my second ultramarathon run, my first trail run and my first exposure to running in British Columbia.  

Where has the time gone? 2006 is now half-over!

It's a drag being injured.  I fear nobody at the Capilano Eagles running club will remember me if I were to show up at a Tuesday evening workout.  Friends are out running Western States 100, doing Ironman tris, ramping up for the Knee Knacker and I'm surfing the Internet looking for a silver bullet for my bum knees so I can get back on the trails.  I guess it's divine retribution for my misspent youth?

I'd heard of it.  I sure couldn't spell it.  Before I got it, I figured anyone who whined about their foot being sore was a wuss... but this injury sidelined me for the better part of 9 months.