james sinclair's blog

     I am an Ontario Fat Asser travelling to the West Kootenays, looking for info on trails in the Valhalla Provincial Park, Idaho peak,  or the 7 Summit trail in Rossland. Where I run I'm the largest animal on the trails and don't need to worry about other animals , except on mountain bike. Do I get any bagging rights? ( if I get to the top), What should I carry other than water?(maps, whistle, etc.)  Or are there any other runners that are around from Aug 10 to Aug 24, I be around  Slocan, Trail, Rossland and Nelson.

As I sit hear listening to the rain outside, wondering what will it be like tomorrow? I ran the 10k loop of the Hop yesterday and found that there is still lots of snow in sections, mud, and some very large puddles. Overall the course is runable, by tomorrow though, expect to get wet and muddy, but what else would you want from a trail run, isn't there points for getting the dirtiest.  See you at the  Spring Bunny Hop, I be the dirty one.

So far as snow is concerned, we have anywhere between a 15 to 30+cm base of hard pack, very runable snow. I've been in running on it for the last 2 days. Covered half the course Friday, it was nice, no sprains or strains. Running in the mornings is best, before the sun gets to it, because it can get sloppy. With 20 days to go, keep your fingers crossed and hopefully mother nature will be nice to us, no suprises. Well got to go the trails are calling!

Beautiful blue sky and snowy trails all around. The tempeture to start is about 3 degrees as we wait 15 minutes, but to no avail, we have a no show (the sanest of the group no doubt). Off we hop down the trail, Peter and I, wondering if this is a mistake, should we be on skiis or shoeshoes, to late we've started this run called the Spring Bunny Hop. It's got to be spring somewhere but not here,usally here the trails are pretty much bare this time of year but as we find out we're in deep, up to 24 inches of snow, that's above my knee.

As I sit here typing away wondering how many endurance junkies out there will show up to run on approximatly 24 inches of hard packed snow and ice in Ontario in April. I ran for an hour Wednesday to see what the trails where like, I've run on worse. The trail is somewhat like the mountian madness run in 2006, a little more ice out here, and the snow is a little more forgiving when you step off the trail, still deep though. As I write this my training partner and now fat asser Peter is on his way to verify the trails.

My training partner and now fellow fat asser, Peter McQuillan skied half the course of the Spring Bunny Hop today to find there is a base of at least 2 feet of snow and 19 days to melt it. For Ontario this is unusually for this time of year. Normally I am able to run these trails year around, but this year we've been skiing a solid two months, I don't know if my running shoes still fit. Tomorrow I guess I have go back to road running.(dirt roads that is.) Is anybody interested in x-country skiing it? That might be the only way around. We're still expecting more snow.