Spooky Island

I am a curmudgeonly old man when it comes to most festive holidays and Halloween is no different. I am not a fan of dressing up & the drunken ghoul who buzzed our door at 3:45 am yesterday didn't help the cause. But in the spirit of today, here are some foggy pictures from my morning run at Mount Finlayson on Friday.

After my trot around Goldstream Park, I sat and watched the annual chum salmon spawning run which is currently underway. Their migration and final journey upstream to produce offspring before dying from exhaustion really is a natural marvel and wonder.

I like to ride my bicycle

I really love riding, but the only way I could ever be competitive in a bike race is if it involved a lot of running, so this race might be up my alley (it also has the best commentary/recall that I have heard at a race)

People...

...are awesome.

Everyone has a cool party trick (I can suck my guts in and make my stomach look like a skull-weird I know), some people have amazing body control & others have mastered their skills to such an extent that they can take huge risks. This video is a compilation of people who have mastered their skills and who are doing some impressive feats-enjoy!(I saw this video over at the Endurance Conspiracy blog)

Where I am at....

I am on a bit of a do what I feel like training program at the moment & I must say, I enjoy the freedom that it allows. I am still running quite a bit some days and then not so much others. I am also getting in the gym and having fun making up workouts, riding the bike a bit more, going to the climbing gym & doing the odd bit of yoga.
I guess the fact is is that I am an active person and I just enjoy the feeling of moving, but the mental break from structured running is a worthwhile endeavour. Some people really need to take full breaks from activity at the end of their seasons & perhaps I should be better at doing this as well, but I just enjoy getting out there and going after it too much to fully commit to doing it, so instead my "off-season" is a tad more intuitive and impulsive, jumping on whatever exercise train I feel like getting on.

Last weekend Lauren and I went to Tofino for 3 days. We had a great storm roll in when we were there, so we experienced the storms and storm watching that the area is so well known for. I got in some runs on the beach, desperately looking for a trail head to jump on and explore the area. Lauren and I also went for a great hike, trying to find a downed plane from the 1940s, the Canso Crash Site, a great trek if you are in the area, but mostly we enjoyed good food and enjoyed being at the end of the road.

I have also used this time to get to know some of my sponsors a bit better. On Monday I went to the Vancouver head office of Arc'teryx and spent the day chatting with product designers, marketing team and sales crew and visiting the factory, talking to the interesting, smart, quirky, innovative, fun and passionate people that work there. Once again, I am amazed at just how labour intensive the process is and just how knowledgeable the crew there are. The gear is kick ass for a reason, people put a lot of thought, time, work, testing and time in the field to make a killer product.

I spent the day with Jason Kruk (alpine climber) and Eric Hjorleifson (big mountain skier)& learned more about them and how they play in the mountains. They are both totally psyched on their sports and their enthusiasm for mountain play is infectious. I wish I had half their mountain experiences. We were tagging along with industry insiders and I got to learn much more about the media and business side of the industry. We started the day off with a wet and rainy run and the day ended with a fashion show launching the 2011 season gear and we followed this up with a bit of a party. Insider tip from the catwalk--along with some highly technical gear, expect some new colours in the line up & some very clean lines in the clothes (if you don't know what I mean by this, well that is because I am no fashion editor). Mike Rogge from Powder magazine has some good pics of the day.

Flora Health-A trip to the farm

Last Thursday, Lauren and I had the pleasure of visiting and meeting some wonderful folks from behind the scenes at the Flora Health facility just across the border in Lynden Washington. We are both athletes under their Oil The Machine campaign, so it was great to get to know what the company is about better. It was also a real treat to learn more about their products and to get to a tour of their farm and production facility.
We spent the day with Christine Fletcher and Jen Segger, two wonderful Canadian athletes who are also brand ambassadors. It was a lot of fun to get hang out and get to know them both better while sharing the experience.

It was amazing to see just how contained the whole process was in that one site. All the products are natural plant based and many of the ingredients come from their organic farm about a mile from the factory and distribution centre (***the flax and ingredients for their Udo's oil blend are specially sourced, mostly from Canada).
What struck me most, was just how labour intensive the process is. Due to their high quality standards, they have people at almost every level of production. Trained farmers hand pick the crop, it is then manually inspected and throughout the processing plant there are people constantly checking to make sure the products are up to snuff.
The ingenuity behind farming and running a plant are also impressive. Almost every piece of machinery has to be crafted, designed, or re-developed to suit their specific needs. The machine shop is a critical part of the process and there is a constant rejigging and rethinking of how they operate. Being highly weather dependent, improvisation and innovation is a real asset. For instance, they are currently playing around with an aquaponics system, trying to develop a symbiotic process where fish help to provide nutrients to the herbs and water plants in their green house. It all seems so finicky, but the crew there have a real passion for their craft and really seem to enjoy the challenge.
The beauty of having the farm and processing system next door to each other is that next to nothing is wasted, with any fibrous bi-product, or surplus going back into the farm as compost. The ease of travel between the two sites also reinforced their environmental ethic. To me, and to the company obviously, it only makes sense to mix environmental and health concerns, since they are inter-dependent.

Some highlights of the trip included tasting and smelling all the fresh herbs, spices and seeds at the farm and getting to watch them make some of their fresh BIJA Pumpkin seed Oil and getting to taste the oil at various stages of processing. We also got fresh bottles of the Udo's 3-6-9 Oil Blend fresh off the conveyor. Another treat are the BIJA Omega truffles that are well worth a try if you haven't tasted them.

A cool addition to the trip was getting to meet Thomas Greither, the CEO of the company and grandson of the original founder of Salus Haus, an affiliated brand. However getting to see his funky electric car was definitely a standout. The car is the Tango, the world's fastest electric car. It is about half as wide as a Smart car and we got to see this vehicle in action and man does it have a lot of torque. It can go from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds.

To cap off a perfect day, Lauren and I managed to roll onto the ferry just as it was loading and caught a beautiful sunset.

All in all, a great day and an amazing experience. We really are lucky as athletes to get to experience as much as we do and doubly lucky to be able to be associated to such cool companies.

Africa is music

One of the things I remember most from my childhood is the Nigerian passion for song and dance. The people seem to have rhythm flowing through their veins, something this "oyibo" is sorely lacking.
Although this is from Zambia, a few thousand kilometers south-east of Nigeria, it captures the spirit perfectly. A homemade guitar, sparse surroundings, children encircling the scene and wonderful singing and dancing-a beautiful reminder of the most formative years of my life:

Ken's Song - A Traditional Era from David Tree on Vimeo.

Tribute to Georges Salomon

The passing of a skiing innovator and legend.

(edited FIS press release)

The founder of the ski equipment firm and the inventor of the release binding has died. Georges Salomon was 85.

He died in Annecy, France, this week.

Tributes to him have been paid from across the ski world as he started the company that grew into one of the major brands.

He originally manufactured saw blades before moving into making the edges for skis and then bindings.

(For those of you who are interested, you can find a history of Salomon's innovations, such as the first cable bindings and the first releasable bindings all the way back in 1955 here.)

It all began in 1947 in Annecy and by the early 1950s he began making ski edges using automatic machines.

By the mid 1960s the company had grown and he developed the first heel release binding.
In the 1970s Salomon was the leading manufacturer of bindings in the world and in the mid 1970s it started producing clothing, bags and other accessories.
By the end of the decade it began making ski boots.

But what Georges Salomon will best be remembered for is the release ski binding.
"He was an extraordinary visionary who was always a step ahead of his competition," said the marketing director of Salomon, Yvan Thevenin.

So cheers to innovators and doers and thanks to Salomon for the support. The shoes have taken me to some amazing places: