Engineered to Run

When I travelled to Corner Brook on July 30/31 for a test run on the Steep Ultra course, part of my plan was to write a blog detailing the trip and discussing the course, to help some of my friends, and any other runners, who weren't going to get a chance to see it before race day. After the race got cancelled, I lost the motivation to write that post, but I still think it's a good story that's worth telling. Unlike the rest of the posts in this series, this post (and the next one) will only cover a two-day window and will be focused entirely on that adventure. I hope you enjoy it. _____________________________________________________________________________________ When I woke on the morning of Thursday, July 30, 2020, I was prepared for a hectic and exciting two days. My plan was to leave mid-morning, drive across the province to Corner Brook, have a quick night in a hotel, wake up super early the next morning, run 50k, and then drive home. I was planning for all of thi...

Beautiful coastline on Motion Path. As the calendar turned to June 2020, I was coming off the high of completing the Limitless Vertical Challenge the previous week while simultaneously beginning to come to grips with the fact that I was less than two weeks from being unemployed for the first time in my life. The first week of the month was mostly spent allowing my body some recovery time from all the climbing I'd done during the challenge, while beginning to tie up any loose ends and preparing handover notes for my projects at work. I had a session with my psychologist during the middle of that week, and I remember him asking me what my first feeling was when I found out I was losing my job. It took me a second to respond, but the answer that I ended up giving him was, "Relieved." In hindsight, that response was very much a reaction to the feelings I had been experiencing relative to my work over the previous months and years. As the pandemic had dragged on and the impact...