!!!!! Just when the training was going well, and my running strength and speed with a backpack had reached a new level, an injury happens. I guess that is part of training and taking part in events like these. I have now a soft tissue injury to my foot arch which is surprisingly very painful, it was mild until I took part in another trail race last Saturday and caused more damage. Oh well, patience is the key with lots of icing, stretching and a few physio visits. The goal now is to get through this as quickly as possible but making sure the foot is properly healed before getting back on track with the training. The race starts on Saturday 20th October - 91/2 weeks to go !

Well, one more post to give an idea of the varied training I am going through for the extreme marathon. I guess the posts have varied slightly from the main topic of this blog about my passion for conservation, but doing all these races also gives a great opportunity to see and experience new outdoor areas I probably would not have visited. One race series I did last summer, and have repeated this year is the 5 peaks trail running series in southern Ontario (http://www.5peaks.com/). They are an incredibly well organised series of trail races that have grown in poularity remarkably in the last two years. The courses are very challenging but a good fast trail run test. See the website for more details !

Completed our third adventure race of the ARC (Adventure Racing Canada) series this last weekend. This race was held at Wye Marsh (http://www.wyemarsh.com/) just outside Midland, Ontario. A tough race for various reasons although the terrain was much easier than previous races. 6 km canoe, 20 km mountain bike ride and 7km trail run. The canoe through the marsh was especially challenging navigating narrow channels through the marsh, and ploughing through thick lily beds in places. No chance to get the momentum going with the canoe and a struggle for most of the way. It is becoming a regular occurrence that at least one of our duo comes off the bike during the mountain biking stage, and this time it was me, going over the handle bars in some thick sand. Fortunately only some minor grazes, and so the training goes on in preparation for the Augrabies Extreme Marathon in October. The plan is for August and September to be "huge" months in terms of hours on our feet, and training with the weighted back pack as usual.

Another excellent trip, this time back country canoeing in Algonquin Provincial Park. We based ourselves for four nights at a camp site on Tom Thomson Lake, on one day doing an extensive canoeing day trip of approximately 25km, and over 7 km of portages. The scenery was spectacular and pristine. The weather too was in our favour, with five days of sunshine, each evening being calm and tranquil. This gave me my first opportunity to see and hear the common loons on the lakes calling as the sun set. Their yodel call being a great addition to the evening experience. Our canoeing is improving with every adventure race and canoeing trip, and it is just a great experience to be gliding over the glassy lake surface with no wind, the only sound being the dip of the paddles in the water. What a contrast to the continuous background noise of the city, and it certainly takes some time to adjust to the wilderness and hear the distant sounds of animals and birds.