The Sea to Summit trail is an extension of the Upper Shannon Falls trail to the top of the new Sea to Sky Gondola in Squamish, BC.

As a run or fast hike, it takes around 2 hours to summit and is between 6.5 – 9.8 km, depending on your route, with roughly 1,000 metres of elevation gain. It climbs almost double as high as the nearby Stawamus Chief, giving you a great view back down at the massive monolith. Karl and I recently did the hike starting from the Shannon Falls parking lot which is definitely the way to go.

After injuring the peroneal tendon in my left foot at Diez Vista in early April, I had been restricted to the pool for the first few weeks of recovery as I reported last month. I was starting to enjoy swimming to a certain degree but being stuck inside was the worst.

In May, I was finally able to start biking, first mostly on the indoor trainer and later on longer road rides. About a week and a half ago, I was able to start hiking again which had meant almost daily trips up the BCMC, because anything worth doing is worth overdoing. It’s been great to get outside again consistently with some of the friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

They say that training builds you up and racing breaks you down. Each training session is a small deposit into a piggy bank of fitness; each race a withdrawal.

This seems especially true with ultra running which usually requires at least a short amount of time off after a race. But many ultra runners are in the habit of racing so frequently that it could almost appear they ‘race to train’ instead of the other way around, treating their ‘B’ races like nothing more than a catered training run. “It’s just a training run” and “I’m just going to take it easy” are pretty commonly heard expressions during a race. Nothing wrong with that!

I’ve always found it hard to stick to my plans to take it easy during a race though. Once in the heat of the moment I always want to put my fitness to the test and leave it all out on the course. Even so, there’s still plenty of room for racing in my training.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for motivational quotes; the ones that have images of mountains and runners that fill so many Tumblr feeds. Over the years, I’ve collected a bunch of my favourite motivational quotes about running and life – is there a difference? 😉

Below are 10 of my favourites, but if you have any to add, let me know in the comments!

After just starting my racing season in March, April was supposed to be about starting to really build volume leading up to this month’s Sun Mountain 50 miler, but not before racing Diez Vista 50k which was to be my first ultra distance race of the year. I’d been feeling faster and stronger than ever and ready for an amazing season as a new member of Salomon Flight Crew.

I managed to finish Diez Vista in 5:04:37 for 9th place overall, but the race was far from a success, having stupidly spent the last half hobbling in pain.