Skip to main content

Haiti, Wyoming, and Calgary

Nose Hill
The month of June thus far...
May 31 - June 9: Port-au-Prince, Haiti with eMi - read report here.
June 11: Fly to Calgary
June 13-17: Calgary > Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming > Lethbirdge, AB > Calgary
June 17 - July: Calgary

The torrential rain in the past week flooded a couple towns, including Canmore, Banff, and downtown Calgary. Hence, I'm staying put for the first time in awhile, sipping coffee and organizing my thoughts and experiences. While travelling and seeing new things are always exciting, this is really why I am here: to find solitude, to listen, and to reflect in order to become a better servant.  In the past week, my daily routine has been getting up early, go for a run (more on that later), get to the eMi office, work on the Haiti project, and come home. Sounds just like what I do at home in Charlotte, right? It is. With the difference being I have the orphans, Bethany, and Pastor Jean on my mind all day while at "work." I like that I'm not serving clients; but serving my friends and those in dire needs.

My host family lives a mile away from this amazing park called Nose Hill, which covers 4.35 sq. mi of grasslands. It has over 37 miles of maintained trail, dirt and gravel, and many more of undocumented single tracks, which are usually more interesting in terms of both terrain and scenery. Unlike anywhere in North Carolina, there aren't many trees in the prairie. The baldy looking grassland can be deceiving, however. The gentle gradual slope is always longer and steeper than I anticipate. With Calgary sitting on 4000', I've been grasping for air with the slightest elevation gain this whole week. It can be demoralizing when running 5 miles feels like 10. Anyhow, I've enjoy my morning outings and have set my mind to explore all the trails (not in one setting) before I leave.

Nose Hill in NW Calgary overlooks much of the city.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WV Trilogy - Part 2

(If you haven't read Part 1, it's here .) (Sat) Oct 13 -  Sunrise at Spruce Knob 6 a.m. start in the dark. My legs surprised me by being happier than yesterday. My heart is in better place as well. The first 6.7 mile goes up to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. Part of this section was on fire road and I welcomed the faster miles. Steady progress was made in the first 20 miles or so until the long, long descent into Aid Station 3. As I have decided yesterday, I'd start the race, go from aid station to aid station, and re-evaluate my condition at each. I left Aid station 2 feeling good but then the long descent once again put doubts in my mind. Running reduced to little steps on jello-legs. Compression socks helped to contain the injury and pain, but the strength to support the pounding was still lacking. Soon, my knees started to hurt as well. At aid station 3, they told me I had 2:45 to make it to the next aid station before the cut-off. At the pace I...
7 comments
more >>

Blue Ridge Marathon

Bill Rodgers After reading so many people's blog on their experience of America's toughest road marathon, the Blue Ridge Marathon, I'm starting to lose my own chain of thought/memory. Bottom line is I had a lot of fun and surprised myself with a sub-4 finish. My estimate was around five hours, or maybe even 5:30 if condition was tough like last year's monsoon. Here's my account of it: Three and a half hour drive from Charlotte straight to packet pickup at Roanoke's Taubman Museum of Art, a modern and iconic building in contrast with the rest of the historical railroad downtown. It was Friday evening and the streets were lively. People were on the patio and on the street with live music playing. I strolled around a little but not too much since I wanted to save my legs. My hotel was only about a mile away. I contemplated on just walking there from the hotel, but ended up driving half a mile or so to park at the Civic Center. Half a mile could be a haul af...
2 comments
more >>

Leatherwood 50k

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4 ESV). Leatherwood HQ (Photo credit: Stephanie Moore) I’ve always known that running requires not only physical fitness, but also mental power. What I did not realize till this weekend was mental power did not just mean “toughing it out” or “sucking it up” during the race, but it also meant changing our attitude before and during a difficult race. Last year while running the Leatherwood 10-miler, I was very glad that I wasn’t running the 50k/mile; but this year, I was going to be that person running the 50k. The weather forecast leading up to the race didn’t look good and it had gotten progressively worse. Knowing the slightest rain would turn the horse trails into mud pits, I was not looking forward to it. Just a...
2 comments
more >>