This weekend marked my last big weekend of training before Diez Vista 50k in just under two weeks.

Saturday, I joined a group of another 70 or so runners in Squamish for the first of several Squamish 50 Orientation Runs. I’m not running SQ50 this year, but the orientation runs are always a great way to meet some new faces and to hang out with old friends. I tried to keep the pace in check though for the 21 km and 2.5 hours or so, knowing that the big event for the weekend was still to come. After all, Sunday was to be my first trail race of the year, the Cap Crusher 8k, part of the Coast Mountain Trail Series and said to be “the toughest 8km trail race in Canada” with 500m of gain (which would translate to a 3000m 50k).

There’s not much I love more than running in the snow. With the winter trail running season coming to a close, I wanted to share a few of the items that I’ve come to consider essential for braving the elements.

Garibaldi Lake is one of the most scenic destinations in BC and is one of my favourite places to run in the summer but, until recently, I had never seen the lake in the winter. A group of us ran to the lake and then on to the meadows in January with our snowshoes in just over 5 hours to and from the Rubble Creek parking lot just south of Whistler.

Check out the video above which I shot using a GoPro 3, along with the photos below from my Instagram feed. You can also read a full trip report from a run to Garibaldi Lake and Panorama Ridge last summer.

In my January training recap, I mentioned having ramped up my training a little quickly after having just returned from a big trip over the holidays – not so much in terms of mileage, but time-on-feet which is how I measure my longer efforts. I had started strength training again along with weekly speed work at the track.

February’s focus continued to be on building a good foundation of speed and strength to get ready for a couple of shorter races coming up in March, including the Yeti Snowshoe Race at Cypress and the Coast Mountain Trail Series Cap Crusher, while starting to build volume and doing some recon runs for April’s Diez Vista 50k.

When I started running about 5 years ago I jumped pretty much straight into the half-marathon and marathon distance. Far from a high school or collegiate running background here. As I began to follow a formal training plan, I found the tempo runs and speed work to be more difficult than the longer distance runs but I quickly realized how important they are even for marathon performance.