September 27, 2005 – When I decided to move home from Canmore, Alberta to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario this summer I figured that I would be spending most of my summer and fall in my Northern Ontario hometown. Little did I know that from June until October I would not spend more than two weeks straight in any given place. While I am not currently living in a cardboard box and while you probably won’t find me collecting bottles and cans on the side of the road, the fact is that if Statistics Canada happened to be doing a census right now then I’m not so sure that they wouldn’t count me as homeless.

It all started when I left Canmore at 9:00am in early June with the majority of my belongings loaded into my trusty Camry (hobo-style some might say). Seventeen hours later, hopped up on Red Bull, I arrived at longtime friend Steve Hart’s in Thunder Bay, Ontario. After a couple of days in T-Bay I finished my journey east, arriving in Sault Ste. Marie on June 9th. I set up a temporary home-base and proceeded to find part-time work which permitted me to earn some funds to put towards the race season while at the same time allowing me the flexibility to train. What I thought was a permanent off-season home in Sault Ste. Marie soon turned out to be merely a Monday-Friday residence as my weekends were spent in Orillia or Bracebridge visiting my girlfriend. Throughout the summer I also journeyed to Waterdown, Ontario to visit family and once in late August traveled to watch my fourteen year old cousin win a silver medal in the sixteen and under division at the Canadian beach volleyball championships. At no point this summer did I give the grass a chance to grow under my feet. I stayed in one place only until I had somewhere else to go and then moved on to my next destination.

In mid June I spent a week in Collingwood, Ontario for my first training camp with the Exel Racing Team. In early August I traveled to the Haig Glacier with the Ontario Elite Team for my first on-snow training camp of the year. I stayed in Canmore a total of sixteen days, seven of which were spent skiing in the bright sunshine of the Canadian Rockies. This camp was a great opportunity for me to get a huge week of training under my belt as well as help coach some of Ontario’s brightest young skiers. Rather than stay in Canmore for a long time, as I have done in the past, I decided that my objectives had been accomplished and that it was better for me to come back to the East and let the work that I had done sink in. I spent most of the rest of the summer in Southern Ontraio putting in some solid weeks of training and some even more solid time under the sun at the cottage. As August came to a close it was hard to believe that I had been so nomadic for such an extended period of time.

It is now almost the end of September and as I look back on the last month I realize that I have not been in my supposed home of Sault Ste. Marie for almost four weeks. In the early part of the month I traveled to Thunder Bay and remained there for a few days before catching a flight to Canmore for yet another Glacier training camp. While the weather at this camp was far from ideal, the weeklong expedition to snow and altitude did a tremendous amount of good in terms of getting more quality training in. Like my previous visit to the Haig, I kept this trip short and returned to Thunder Bay after being away for only fourteen days. It is currently Sunday and I have been here now for five days. In that short period of time I have competed in two running races. My first was a 7km trail race which began at 6:30pm on Wednesday night. I arrived at the Thunder Bay airport at 6:00pm, got to the course at 6:18pm, quickly registered and hit the start line cold. Aided by a severe and rapid decrease in altitude, my body felt surprisingly good and I was able to put in a strong and smooth effort. It is now Sunday night and I have just completed my second running race since returning to the East. Today was The Heart of Thunder Bay 10km road race. While I did not feel as strong as I did on my previous effort I was able to dig deep for a respectable time.

I will be spending the early part of this week in Thunder Bay and will then be returning to Sault Ste. Marie to rejuvenate after what will have been a six week hiatus. I am planning to spend most of October training in one place and limiting my travel but with my track record over the past few months who knows where I will end up. Only time will tell if I will be able to stay still until the race season begins and the real travel schedule kicks into high gear.

See you around…