Dana’s first attempts at running started at age 15, prompted by the desire to impress a boy. “Thankfully, the boy in question appreciated her other charms and running was quickly abandoned,” she says of her younger self. The habit finally stuck about two years ago, however, and she has since co-founded a two-person running team called “The Fighting Mongooses.” Dana offers great advice in her blogs, such as to think twice about the Toronto Zoo 10k. “A strong whiff of elephant dung is not the reward you’re looking for when you’ve just crested yet another f-ing hill in the freezing cold,” she advises. She also entertains with stories of, um, interesting people she met during races. “There was that guy in the short robe two years ago who invited us back to his house for pancakes after the race — we decided to keep running.” Funny and smart is a winning combo in our books!

A runner for almost two years, Terry recently had the mildly traumatic experience of trying to find a flattering pair of running pants (“Isn’t running about pushing personal boundaries and just getting out there and moving? Except when you don’t look in the least bit like Paula Radcliffe.”). But although she may have been a bit embarrassed by “helpful handsome guy” at the store, she keeps a great perspective through her running experiences. Pushing through a number of injuries early in her running career, she got right back to training for her next race. “The feeling of elation when I crossed the finish line is unimaginable,” says Terry. Sounds like she’s hooked for good!

As a technical writer, Laura renewed her interest in running to “conquer the bulge and regain the energy and focus I used to have when being very active.” A seasoned blogger at hoodieruns.blogspot.com, she writes about everything from running to knitting, nutrition and the “hamster wheel (aka the treadmill!).” Laura’s goals include running a marathon before her 25th birthday and attaining new 5k PR, and she blogs to stay motivated. “My reasoning was that if anyone and everyone, including loved ones, could read about how many runs I missed it would become pretty embarrassing and I’d be motivated to get out and run,” she says. From the looks of her workout reports, it seems to be working!

Self-described “running nerds,” Vicky and Grant are co-workers who “spend their lunch hours at the nearest bookstore and will often be seen around the office getting excited about a new energy bar or running gadget.” The duo captured our attention with their unique (double) take on Running Blog Idol, pledging to address a host of different topics including Canadian running heroes. Their submission to our contest even included a sample vlog (available at youtube.com/watch?v=oy4oDokN1Qo), which they promise is “but only a mere example of the lengths we are willing to go in order to share our experience, knowledge, research and general ramblings.” Holy multimedia, Batman!

A new runner, 24-year-old Dennis recently participated in the 10k Festival City Run in Stratford, ON. While the distance seemed rather long (“First, let me just point out that 10 kilometres is 10,000 metres.”) and his chest felt “like a volcano” at the end of the race, he maintains that he actually enjoyed his first-ever, long-distance run. When he’s not working on Parliament Hill, Dennis is now busy training for the Ottawa Marathon – an ambitious goal for a newbie. He has even joined the ranks of those “crazy” and “insane” people who bundle up to run in sub-zero temperatures. Now that’s dedication!

A runner for just over four years, Karen has already completed a marathon, two half marathons and a variety of 5k and 10k races. She describes her first marathon – the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon last September – as “a nightmare.” However, she met a very interesting person in the process – a man named Sydney who was running his 152nd marathon! Although the race didn’t go as well as planned for Karen or Sydney, he showed her that no matter how experienced a runner you are, you can still have a bad day. “Does that mean we shouldn’t bother to prepare, or maybe just shouldn’t bother at all? Of course not!” says Karen. “In the end, it is what we make it.” We like her optimism!

I ran my first indoor meet on the weekend at the beautiful facility at the University of Washington in Seattle. This was an invitational meet with a very competitive university field featuring varsity runners from the US most of whom were trying to make NCAA standard. The UVic Vikes had athletes competing in different events and heats and everyone PBd in their event which was fantastic! We all went out to dinner the night before and ate a great meal at The Keg.

Waiting for my race the next day was tough. I ran in the second fastest heat of the 3000m which was in the late afternoon on the Saturday, (Valentine’s Day) which happened to be my 41st birthday! It was a long wait and I felt a sense of relief once I started doing my strides. My team-mates were so wonderful with assuring me that I would be fine and would have a blast racing on an indoor track. I stood at the start-line, feeling excited and scared hoping I would survive running such a short and fast race. The race ended up being great fun. I ran well but reflecting back I probably ran a bit too relaxed in the first 1200m and had to make up a lot of ground in the last km. I couldn’t hear any splits so relied on Brent’s advice as I ran by. I moved up from about 13th position to finish 4th in a time of 9:39. I was pleased with my effort and know I can run faster so I am looking forward to our next race which will be in two weeks in Regina for the Canada West Track & Field Championships.

When I came back from my cool-down, I was given a birthday pie in the face! The girls on the team planned it so that when I came back from my warm-up they asked me to pose for a picture and that’s when I got it right in the kisser! It was very funny!

“Today, first of all I’d like to thank everyone for following our expedition and I’d particularly like to thank Kathy, Bob and Anton for all their hard work and Josee also for ahh supporting us out here it’s very important to us and ahhh I’d like to say that I’m very proud that our team made this trek with, in such good time. Before I was on, before coming on the expedition I’d known Ray for almost ten years, but I’d never met Kevin. But ahhh we got along really well, famously; I’ve never laughed so much in an expedition. so we made a great team on the ice, and everyone participated in you know the crucial decisions during the expedition and I think our collective knowledge and experiences contributed you know to the fast time that we made going from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole. I hope everyone’s enjoyed our blogs along the way and i’d like to thank everyone for following our trek and that’s the final word from Richard. Thank you. Bye”

Richard (Listen to Audio)

“Hi everybody, here it’s Kevin here, and sort of sitting in Punta Arenas waiting for our flight out. And ahh today I’m just reflecting on ahhh we’re really thing about why our our trip was such a success. I think on a number of points it’s quite simple why, why it really worked out. Ray put together arguably the best team possible he could for this, and ahhh if you know, with with Richard being arguably the most experienced Polar trekker in the world and getting us to the start line was for us, with really, you know all the kit to make this work out as best it could and ahhh you know we worked as a team out there. We made navigational, route finding decisions together, ahhh as a team. Ahhhh figuring out where we’re going to go and what we’re going to do and making all our critical decisions together. Ahhhumm ahhhummm once we started we were moving through a cravass field, and I felt my experience through that helped a lot. Errr I travelled through the glaciers of British Columbia alot and feel that my ahh umm y’know ideas and route finding decisions err across the cravasses were actually were were essential. As was ahhh you know I said my cold weather experience you know nothing compares me to Richard, but ahhh two major Alaskan expeditions certainly didn’t hurt. Umm our team was really strong, we carried equal weight throughout and that’s critical to success as well. And ahhh and ahhh Ray’s nutritional guidance was ahhh essential too. Ummm it was so important that at the end of each day, in terms of umm ahhh vitamins and muscle milk and everything else errr it was sooo good and we felt so good. Richard said he had never felt so good on an expedition as this one. So ahhh I think those are a few points you know that made it work, working as a team. I think that there’s no “I” in team as , as Ray was known to say throughout the whole thing and ahhh I think that’s the key to anything. Good teamwork, you can’t work as an individual. Cheers and ahhh we’ll talk soon. Bye for now.”

Reflections (Listen to Audio)