Here’s a video from the footage I filmed at the Tahoe 100 mile race my friends Adrian and Mark were running. Since they are both pretty soft I had to help carry them most of the second half and wasn’t able to capture the footage I had hoped to.

If you’re curious how they did, I wrote it up in an earlier post here.

;D

Filmed & edited on an iPhone4 from Mark Rabo on Vimeo.

The iPhone4 launched in Canada this week and I lined up for way too long (8hrs too long) to get one. The camera, HD video and onboard video editing had me most excited.

My aunt was visited from Poland and I took the opportunity to make this little movie for her. This was made entirely on my iPhone4. There are some glaring limitations with this camera and software combination* but once you learn them, decent results are possible (this video was the learning before the decent). The first video entirely made with an iPhone4 was “Apple of My Eye” and it really impressed me – the capabilities of this phone are astounding, I thought. It turns out the filmmakers were very clever in working around the limitations of the iPhone.

It’s important to keep in mind that this is a v1.0 product and it is on a phone that fits in your pocket. Being able to shoot, edit and upload a video without carrying a bag of gear and computers is a huge advantage and worth the minor tradeoffs. Afterall, you know what they say – the best video camera and editing machine is the one you have with you.

*NOTE: Catcubed does a great job covering iMovie’s limitations in this critical (but informative) review.

It’s 5am and under the glow of flood lights and hum of generators the runners wait on the starting line. For some it will be the last time they stand still for 35 hours, for others it’s the first step towards great pain and discovering their true limits.

Humans are not adapted to traveling long distances. It’s why we ride horses, invent cars and live in small communities. Yet, despite nature’s insistence, a few hundred people gather in Lake Tahoe every year to run 100 miles – four marathons back-to-back, no stopping.

I’m quite happy to be on the sidelines for this event, photographing it for my friend Mark Dowds. He and his childhood lad (they’re Irish) Adrian Eagleson are running it together. Both turning 40 this year, they decided to undertake one crazy challenge per year to fend off boredom and entropy – Year 1 is the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 ultra marathon.

Neither had run more than 50 miles previously and were in unknown territory. As we drive the twenty minutes to the start, everyone sits quietly in the darkness, lost in thought, calming their nerves. I wonder how these guys are going to pull it off.

I do some running, not much. My platypus feet cap my range at roughly 20km but I have friends that run marathons and that’s a huge accomplishment in my eyes. So running four of them back-to-back is beyond my comprehension. How do you pace yourself? How do you prepare psychologically? Well, it turns out you don’t. When it’s your first time you just get out there and wing it.

Sprint runners (distances of roughly 5000m) can sustain 8 minute miles. A 10 minute mile is the average speed for a marathon runner. Mark and Adrian’s goal is 100 miles in 30 hours, about 18 minute per mile. The winner of the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 will average a blistering 10.6 minutes/mile sustained for 17 hours 40 minutes. That’s endurance.

About an hour after the race begins the sun rolls over the Sierra mountains, revealing one of the most beautiful and varied landscapes I’ve seen. You can walk through desert scrub brush, up a pine forest trail and look down at a cobalt blue lake with snow capped mountains in back. For someone who spent his childhood in the flat, unchanging Canadian Shield and skiing down a hill made from a pile of garbage, this is shocking.

The course follows the Tahoe Rim Trail which runs up and down the hills surrounding Lake Tahoe. It’s only accessible by car at two locations: the start (also the halfway point and finish) and Diamond Peak, a ski chalet at the foot of a 2 mile, 2000ft climb that’s openly cursed by everyone who climbs it – simultaneously the “glimpse of heaven and taste of hell” the organizers vaunt from the website.

Tunnel Creek is the hub of the course with racers passing through it eight times but it’s only accessible via a 3 mile, 1700ft hike which I find myself climbing often. Moving deliberately upwards it can be covered in just over an hour but, being the Toronto flatlander that I am, it takes me closer to two as I stop and involuntarily do my best Double Rainbow Guy impressions.

At the top of Tunnel Creek stands the aid station, a micro community of tents and volunteers providing water, food, medical attention and motivation. This is where I will join Mark and Adrian to run the 13 miles to Diamond Peak as their pace/safety runner. These stations are scattered throughout the course and staffed with doctors (usually ultra marathoners themselves) who weigh runners and check blood pressure. If a runner drops too much from their starting weight they’re given a chance to rehydrate and continue or get pulled out, no questions asked. The type of people who undertake challenges like this are often so headstrong and motivated that they ignore the body’s warning signs and need a 3rd party to step in before they get into serious trouble. One runner proudly recounted a story of pushing to the point where he collapse and couldn’t move. They had to carry him out on a horse and he spent the next two days in hospital on a dialysis machine.

That afternoon Mark and Adrian are moving at a very good pace. When they come through the halfway point at Spooner Lake it’s only 11 hours after they started – well ahead of their 30 hour schedule. The cheering supporters raise runners spirits but only temporarily. Before long, the crushing reality that the toughest part is still ahead hits.

That’s why pace runners are allowed at the halfway point onwards. Pace runners’ duties, in addition to refilling water, fetching food and cleaning feet, is to motivate. A big part of that is getting the runner back on trail quickly at aid stations. Even five minutes of sitting can set in inertia making it impossible to get back up. Words between runners and crew are often terse, bordering on abusive; but in the runner’s fragile state of mind, only orders keep them moving. It’s no time to be nice – it’s bootcamp.

The guys are all smiles at Spooner Lake but not all is well. Mark has rolled both his ankles and is worried about the lingering pain and possible ligament damage; Adrian’s mountaineering experience has kept him straight and upright but bad blistering on his toes and soles is slowing him down. After new socks, clean feet and a quick bite they’re off again with Albert, the first pace runner who will carry them over the halfway hump. Several hours later it’d be my turn, then Webb would take over at dawn for the 20 mile home stretch.

The trail to Diamond Peak is a narrow swath cutting up and over a ridge to the ski chalet over a half marathon in distance away. It’s apparently scenic but the sliver of moon that night isn’t bright enough to reveal it. At 1am, we leave the food and safety of the aid station at Tunnel Creek and run into the dark. It’s a strange feeling to run in darkness – you retreat into the cocoon of your headlamp and lose all sense of direction and time; just your thoughts and your feet plodding on remain. Fatigue exacerbates the darkness and eventually my mind begins to play tricks on me. I begin experiencing visual and sound hallucinations: hearing voices, seeing lights in the distance and the shadows cast by my hands look like people running beside me – the chalet seems like it’s around every corner.

I earn the title of Worst Safety Runner as I fall asleep running several times that night. I thought only sharks could sleep while moving but now I know better. It’s much like dozing off while driving and equally dangerous. I hope Mark and Adrian don’t hear the slipping and stumbling behind them but they do and later anoint me ‘Mr. Sleepy.’ For four hours we traverse the ridge yet we hardly talk. At one point we come across another runner stumbling down the trail. He’s barely lucid and if it wasn’t so ridiculous we’d say he was drunk. He mumbles about wanting to sleep and asks how much further. We take a moment, sit next to him, feed him some caffeine and energy gels and get him moving. I’d later see him crossing the finish line in a sprint just behind Mark and Adrian.

When we make it to the chalet the sun is coming up and brings with it new energy – I start to feel better. Adrian catches a short nap while Mark has his feet bandaged up. Then Webb, as fresh as is possible from a night of sleeping on the floor, rallies the boys and they’re off on the 20 mile homestretch.

In their battered state, this final leg takes seven hours to cover. But when they do, the reward is beer, a blood pressure check and a bigass belt buckle to prove it all happened.

I ran a half marathon that night, the farthest I’ve ever run, yet I feel like I’ve accomplished little in comparison to what Mark, Adrian and the others did that weekend. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible for humans to run 100 miles without stopping but as I watch people of all sizes, shapes and ages cross that finish line, I am in awe. Sore, beaten, and blistered they were, but also beaming with pride and a newfound confidence. Congratulations to all who finished and all who tried, and especially to the Irish duo who can now clip on those gaudy belt buckles, swagger into a bar and over beers start planning crazy adventure #2. I hope to join you on it.

To see more photos from the race click here.

I’ve been using the Tilopa for the last 6 months and having taken it on several trips internationally I feel comfortable to give you my review.

I chose the Tilopa because it’s dimensions are the largest for carry-on allowable by all major airlines operating today. That does make it a large bag and a useful one too but it’s far from perfect and you may find some qualities deal breakers for you.

Below are the pros & cons as I see them, I dig into more details in the video. You can also see my review of the KATA Sensitivity bag, my daypack and the other half of my travel bag setup.

Pros
- It’s volume is the largest allowable for carry-on.
- Lots of external straps and pockets. I use them to attach a tripod and monopod and store snacks and Powerbars to avoid the ridiculously priced and unhealthy airport food.
- One of the few backpacks that fits a ton of camera gear and a 15″ laptop (mine is a Dell XPS M1530).
- The internal metal frame helps the bag keep it’s shape.
- The reinforced ICU (Internal Camera Unit) is removable and nicely compartmentalizes your camera gear.
- ICUs come in different sizes so you can use the one that’s best for your trip. One comes with the bag and additional ones are ~$40USD (less if you buy several at once).
- The zippered opening on the back provides access to your camera gear in the ICU without having to remove it. It’s not easy access so I wouldn’t consider it for spontaneous shooting.
- Waterproof compartments I haven’t tested in more than a light rain but they work well in those conditions.

Cons
- On smaller commuter aircraft that typically serve short-hop connecting flights, the overhead is too small for the Tilopa and you’ll need to gate-check it. That means it’ll sit in the cargo hold but at least be spared the baggage carousel.
- The center grab handle is located on the back instead of the top, well off the center of gravity, causing the bag to bump against your leg making it a useless carrying point.
- When fully loaded with camera gear it can get very heavy.
- It starts to cause pain between my shoulder blades after 15-30 minutes of walking. The chest and waist straps only delay the inevitable. This could be a result of the weight but still a big issue for me. I would dream of bringing this bag on a long hike without lightening it.
- The Large ICU that shipped with my bag took up alot of space leaving little for clothes and other travel bits. F-Stop told me they will offer the option to choose your ICU size on ordering soon.
- No iPod pouch/compartment. Every bag should have one of these.
- Small dealer network means you have to buy the bag online and unseen. They do have a 30 day return policy but it’ll cost you the shipping.
- The price. At $295USD this bag is not cheap.

I looked at over two hundred bags before picking the Tilopa and I can’t say I’m completely thrilled with it. The ergonomics over time are my main issue but if you want to travel with camera gear and a 15″ laptop without checking baggage and in backpack form, this is one of the few bags that fill those requirements.

Btw, if you know if another bag that does all this drop me a line.

I’ve got some time to kill waiting for my Greyhound to Reno and my entertaining addicts and their squabble have been ushered outside leaving only the smell of urine and the buzz of fluorescent tubes. To occupy my mind, I’m writing out my gear list.

I’m a little tired from the day of travel and slowed from the Jack in the Box I just ate so it’s point-form from here on in.

Photo Gear
- Canon 7D (1)
- Canon 40D (1)
- Canon 17-40mm f/4L (1)
- Canon 70-200mm f/4L (1)
- Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8 EX (1)
- Memory cards, 16GB (2), 32GB (1)
- Batteries & chargers (3 of each)
- Sigma EF-500 flash (1)
- Remote shutter cable (1)
- Polarizing filters (2)
- Three-leg tripod (1)
- Monopod (1)
- H2 audio recorder (1)
- Kodak Zi6 camera (1)
- 4GB SD card (2)
- Sony Handycam + charger (1)
- Extended life battery for Handycam (1)

Clothing
- Shorts (3)
- Jeans (1)
- Shoes (1)
- Polar fleece (1)
- Underwear & socks (3 of each)

Miscellaneous
- AA batteries (lots)
- Dell XPS laptop + charger (1)
- iPhone + charger (1)
- External backup battery for iPhone (1)
- 500GB hard drives (2)
- 8GB USB stick
- Flashlight (2)
- Rain poncho (0, the forecast will make me regret that)
- Passport (1)
- Book – “Song of Sirens” by Ernest Gann
- Ziploc bags (5)
- Notebook & pen (1)

If you could, who would you most like to share a table with over coffee? This question occasionally comes up in good conversation and it’s a fun one to ponder even though I’m often caught flat-footed and blurt out some person without proper consideration. But after reading ‘Fate is the Hunter’ by Ernest Gann, the author and adventurer has climbed to the top of my list.

The book is an autobiographical memoir of his career as a pilot at a time when flying was anything but routine and planes were anything but reliable. These were the days when flying as a passenger in a commercial airline, if only they had known, could be considered courageous on a level just below the pilots.

Gann played a small role in this pioneering era but his recorded accounts are an incredible contribution. His humbleness betrays the jaw-dropping scope of his adventures and his wit and sarcasm make reading them a thorough pleasure.

I’m writing this minutes after turning the final page and dissecting the book any further into a review feels out if place because I feel mostly sadness right now. I will never get to share a coffee with Captain Gann no matter how determined I am for he died in 1991. I can only be thankful for his prolific writing and the collection of books he left us to relive his adventurous spirit and hopefully inspire our own.

My next book is without question ‘Song of the Sirens’ – tales from his seafaring days as a mariner.

Do you remember fruit picking as a child? I do. There were cherry and plum trees on the farm in Poland where I spent the summers. Poland shares a similar latitude to Toronto and right around this time of year (July) the branches would burst into deep red ripeness and my cousins and I similarly burst out of the house, swarming the trees like starved locusts as our grandmother waved bowls in the air yelling for us to fill them up. Of course we eventually did, but not before ravaging the trees for our own selfish gains. Some activities have the power to awaken the child in us and fruit picking is one of them – splashing around in a creek, water balloon fights and playing retro video games are others that do the trick.

No matter where you live there are U-pick farms in the area. Pickyourown.org is a website which despite it’s terrible design is the most comprehensive database of U-pick farms in the world as well as listings of what fruits are in season and recipes to try if you manage not to eat everything you pick. And with many farms using organic growing practices, there’s no better way to eat well, locally and inexpensively.

But those are just the reasons to appease the adult side. The child in us is content to lie in the shade, simultaneously loathing and relishing the sweet stomach ache that results when fruit and carefree come together.

Available for: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile
Tested on: iPhone 3G
Price: Free (tested), Paid version $3.99 (as of June 23, 2010)

“Thus, led astray by the divagations of roads, as by other indulgent fictions, having in the course of our travels skirted so many well-watered lands, so many orchards, so many meadows, we have from the beginning of time embellished the picture of our prison”

Antoine de St-Exupery preferred the exploring off the beaten path – his vessel of choice was the airplane. Whether you pound the pavement in your 10K run training, hit the trails on your mountain bike, or soar over both like St-Exupery, Every Trail is an excellent app that lets you record and share your wanderings and discover new ones too.

I tested Every Trail on a route I’ve been riding and running for years. I was mostly curious to find the distance since there was no way to measure over the zigzagging and rolling terrain.

The app takes some time to load, about 30 seconds, but once it’s done two taps and you’re off – no upfront registration required. Registering allows you to upload and share trips unlike iMapMyRide/Run which will record a run but not save it. NOTE: This pissed me off about iMapMyRide so I didn’t bother using it anymore, it may be a perfectly good app. The free version (used on this test) provides most of the functionality you’ll need. The paid version goes for $3.99 and allows you to sync more than 3 trips, removes ads, enables video recording, and downloads maps to your phone if you’re going to be out of cell tower range.

At any point in your travels you can take a photo and pin it to your location on the map. This is great when exploring people’s uploaded trips and deciding whether it’s one for you – post lots of photos.

Every Trail automatically tracks your location, elevation and time. Flick a slider to stop the trip (a nice UI touch to prevent accidental stoppage) and add metadata like title, tags, story (basically a description), and tips. Tap ‘share’ and your trip is uploaded. Trips can be made public or private so if you want to share but are privacy conscious best to start or stop away from your door.

You can listen to music from your iPod like with any other app but be sure to start the tunes before launching Every Trail to avoid having to relaunch. The pop-up iPod controls don’t work and push you out of the app stopping your tracking. However, double tapping the home button when the phone is locked brings up the controls without interrupting the app. Be aware that phone calls will also interrupt the app but there’s not much you can do about this since Apple gives them trump power.

When you’ve uploading your trip, log on to Everytrail.com. Here you’ll be able to edit metadata, get embed links (like the one below) and also create a trip from scratch if you’re into planning ahead. Viewing trips is nice on the big screen and the animated trip replay with a speed/elevation vs. distance graph is super cool.

But the real goldmine here is the database of trips created by the community. I live just outside of Toronto and had no problem finding a bunch of them (mind you most of them were people testing the app with a drive to work). You can view trips by activity or by location or both. This is a rich community, here are the number of trips in the top 5 activity categories.

1. Road biking (64,539)
2. Mountain biking (40,236)
3. Hiking (34,256)
4. Walking (26,556)
5. Running (20,381)

This app eats batteries. The 40 minute ride for this post, including 17 photos and the upload muched roughly 1/2 of my battery. So if you need your phone for emergency purposes you may want to keep Every Trail off. The options allow you to reduce the frequency of the satellite pings but at the expense of accuracy. Another thing about the GPS is that it has trouble getting a good lock under even light tree cover. As you can see from my trip, this can result in some strange paths.

Overall, this is a pretty impressive app. I like the idea of tracking my own trips but I can see people using it only to find cool new routes to run or ride.

Here’s my trip embed:
Mississauga/Toronto Border Run (Banks of Etobicoke Creek) at EveryTrail

I just finished reading Ted Simon’s Riding High. It’s the second of three books spun from the thread of his around the world motorcycle adventure: the first being Jupiter’s Travels and the third Dreaming of Jupiter (which is actually him retracing his steps over two decades later).

I ordered all three books together and started Riding High on the heels of Jupiter’s Travels. Jupiter’s Travels is very focused on the motorcycle. Ted brings you along for the ride, practically sitting you on the passenger seat. For a motorcyclist, it’s engrossing and fascinating, leaving you day dreaming about where you would take your own adventure.

Riding High tells the stories not told in Jupiter’s Travels. The focus shifts away from the motorcycle as Ted dives deeper into the human stories: the people he met, brief relationships made and how they affected him and his view on life. For more than half the book, Ted leaves the bike on the sidestand and describes his life after the adventure and his difficulty merging back into the stream of “normal” society.

This was the part I found most fascinating. It’s such a grand and incredible adventure that I hadn’t even though about the return. Four years on a bike with no home, no destination, no contact with friends. Danger, excitement, struggle, triumph, constant stimulus and newness. How do you come back and live in the same place, or do the same thing?

I’m also a big fan of Ted Simon’s writing style. His words flow lie brush strokes and had me waiting for each new stroke, like this one:

“Nothing had prepared me for the stunning beauty of that place. I avoided tourist brochures like the plague, and read as little as possible about the places I was to visit until I got there. Maybe i had onec seen a lake as blue as Nahuel Huapi, or a mountain as tall as the Catedral, or forests as green as those around Bariloche, but to find all three together under a blue sky in that crisp, cold light was as outrageous as a vision of paradise; a poet’s nightmare, for it made poetry superfluous.”

Or this:

“There’s plenty to laugh at here if you can get yourself into the right frame of mind. I try to imagine that I’ve never flown before. With practice this view of things comes quite easily. Then the whole idea of a Boeing 747 flying at all becomes quite hilarious. How can it? How could this immense silver eggplant ever leave the ground? Seen with an innocent eye, the Flight of the Jumbo is plainly absurd. A great lolloping bulbous thing like that, supported by thin air? Ridiculous! Yet here are hundreds of sane adults solemnly certain that in eleven hours from now this crazy contraption, this mad inventor’s fantasy, will land them in San Francisco.”

It reads effortlessly, like it was written in one sitting. Thoughts are strung together so perfectly that I devoured the second half of the book in helpings so big they cost me my mornings. Scribbling note after note in the sidebars, smiling in agreement and sometimes contemplating, staying up well into the night.

Initially, Riding High put me off with it’s reduced motorcycle content but I now believe that was a good thing. It wiped the two-wheel glaze from my eyes and allowed me to see the motivations and struggles common to everyone searching for meaning and purpose to their lives.

Amazon link

Here’s the trip debrief for the weekend roadtrip to my buddy’s cottage.

Departed: Friday, June 11, 3:30pm
Returned: Sunday, June 13, 6:30pm
Days: ~2
Distance travelled roundtrip: 533.4 km (333.4 miles)

COSTS
Fuel: $30
Food: $15 (one greasy spoon breakfast; other meals provided at cottage)
Accommodations: $0 (stayed at the cottage)
Miscellaneous: $10 (6-pk of beer)

TOTAL COST: $55

We rode up on Friday along some sideroads with very little traffic. The sky only started clouding over towards the last hour of our ride and opened up for the last 30 minutes. It was the first time riding the CB360 in the rain and it performed without issue. My gloves and saddlebags kept dry but the rain was light and speeds were low so no way to tell if that would continue in a downpour.

Saturday had on and off showers and we rode to grab a greasy spoon breakfast and cruised some nice backroads. No incidents despite the balding rear tire I haven’t replaced. I didn’t take any photos on the ride but got some great pics of the most energetic dog in the world. After 45 minutes of fetching sticks in the lake he was still spinning for more – I’m convinced he would have continued to exhaustion if I hadn’t stopped.

On Sunday a couple friends came up for the day to get some open water training for the triathlon they’re racing in a month. I decided to join them and almost drowned, really. I saddled up for home at 2:45pm and took Hwy 11 until Orillia where I turned off on Calyon Rd to connect with Division Rd which turns into Horseshoe Valley Rd. From there a right on Hwy 26, south on Airport Rd and into Mississauga. This route avoids a huge swath of highways which the Honda isn’t the happiest on.

There were a couple problems with the bike on the ride. I noticed the clutch slipping on some uphills and a new vibration from the engine. The clutch is an easy fix but the vibration concerns me, especially on the longer roadtrips I’m planning. I’ll keep an eye on it and see what happens.