Thursday, July 28, 2011

Death Race

Tomorrow the Fast Trax crew heads to Grande Cache for the Death Race - Death Race website. This will be our fifth year entering the race, and with the exception of 2008 (when I got lost on stage 4), we've typically done quite well.

This year's lineup will be as follows:

1. Paul Moore
2. Reid Hosford
3. Tyla Cooper
4. Will Critchley
5. Patrick Moore

Our best times for this race were in 2007 and 2009 - both years we finished the 125km even in 12:12:00. I'm pretty proud of those results, but with our crew this year I think we'll be able to take a run at them.

Unfortunately, there are no live results for the Death Race and the official results typically take weeks to get posted. In the meantime, the best way to follow our progress throughout the day is on the Fast Trax Facebook page - FT on FB. We'll be live blogging throughout the day as the relay and solo events go down.

In addition, Jack (a legend of the Death Race, literally), Marcelo (a legend in his own way), and Claire (a first time soloist) will be tackling the whole event on their own. We'll keep you posted on their progress as well.

Let's get dangerous.

Patrick, Robin, Will, and Paul getting dangerous.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sinister 7

This weekend the Fast Trax shop team, consisting of Tyla, me, Will, Paul, Reid, Kristen, and Maryann, headed to Blairemore for the Sinister 7 trail race. This is a 148km trail race comprising seven stages ranging from 12km to 35km. The scenery is beautiful, but the terrain is tough. You can check out more details here - Sinister 7.

We did a pretty good job of live blogging the race to Facebook, but for those of you who don't following the shop (Fast Trax on Facebook), here is what went down. There are a [very] few pictures as well.




The weekend started at Wok Box in Leduc. Whether skiing or running, this is how I like to start my trips.
Saturday, 12:48PM:  Tyla had a strong run and powered through Leg 1 to finish in 1:40. Patrick floated up and down the technical Leg 2 to finish in 1:40. Will out on Leg 3 now, we expect him to finish around 1:20PM.

Saturday, 1:52PM: Will utterly slays Leg 3 in ~2:45. Paul has now been out on Leg 4 for about 45 minutes.

Saturday, 4:22PM: Stage 4 over. Paul kills it in 3:13. Team Fast Trax comfortably in fourth overall.

"That bottle of cola was one of the best things I've ever put to my lips. Straight up."  Paul Moore

"They say that you feel most alive when you're close to dying. I guess I felt pretty alive for those final few kilometres then."  Paul Moore


Saturday,  6:49PM:  Reid done Leg 5 in 2:05. Fast Trax now second overall, at least 8 minutes up on third. Kristen out on course.

Saturday, 8:13PM:  Kristen through Leg 6 in 1:25. Fast Trax now in fourth overall. Maryann out on course with two teams hot on her heels. This is going to be close.

Saturday, 9:00PM(ish):  Fast Trax finishes fourth! Maryann held off hard charging teams for a sweet run!


A fun weekend with an awesome team. You can check out full results here later in the week - results. Also, you can check out my GPS download of Leg 2 here - Patrick Garmin Connect. Click on "Player" in the upper-right of the screen and then click the "Toggle FullScreen" button once it loads. If you check out the hybrid view you can see a map of where I went. Hitting the "play" button will give you real time speed, heart rate, and elevation data. Pretty cool.    


Next up is the Death Race on July 30th. The first five members of our Sinister team make up the Fast Trax Death Race squad. As Paul said, "we are going to have a phenomenon of a Death Race team."  He is correct - I think we're going to be pretty darn good!


Huge thanks to Jack for arranging the race entry, smokin' team kits, and accommodation! The whole team is ultra proud to represent the shop!

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Warning - not skiing related

This is mostly for Grandma.

Maryann and I made cookies! I accidentally ate a couple out of the batch on the right. They turned out really well!