Rock and Ice Ultra Marathon

Ever heard of the Marathon des Sables? If you haven't, it's a long distance stage marathon which is held annually in the Sahara desert. Competitors challenge themselves by running marathon distances daily for 6 days in this unforgiving environment. It's one of only a few ultra events held around the world.

Now that you've got some background on this genre of sport, lets rearrange some of the Marathon des Sables details to get the newest Canadian ultra marathon incarnation. As you can clearly guess the Rock and Ice Ultra will be the polar opposite of the Marathon des Sables in terms of temperature. We're talking close to -30 degrees versus 40 degrees Celsius but both events share the distinction of being held in a desert environment. The Rock and Ice Ultra will start in Yellowknife , N.W.T. and the course will traverse kilometres of cold tundra and numerous frozen lakes. Competitors will be further challenged by having to ski or snowshoe while pulling all their gear and supplies in a pulk. The top finishers in each category will earn cold, hard Canadian Ekati diamonds for their pain and perseverance.

I am fortunate enough to be one of the race photographers for this epic event. The race will be held on March 17th - 23rd. Check the race website for updates during the competition and I'll be posting some of my insights here at a later date. Plenty of imagery will also be available on my photography webpage.

New Website, Up and Running

I started this blog with hopes of eventually linking it to my own website. It's been a long time coming but the first version is now online. I categorize it as such because I will be adding new content and upgrading the site periodically. It's going to be a work in progress. You can follow the link on the right or click here to view it.

On a related but separate issue, Soundslides (a slide show presentation program that incorporates images and audio) and audio slide shows have started to appear on a variety of newspaper websites across the U.S. A write up on this innovative multimedia program has been posted on Rob Galbraiths digital photography website.

I hope to add some of this unique multimedia content to my website and this blog in the near future.

Bell City Chase comes to Toronto

The Toronto edition of the Bell City Chase occurred this past Saturday. Some 500 teams of two competed in this unique race. It's been compared to "The Amazing Race" which some of you may already be familiar with. Dundas Square in the heart of the city was the headquarters, race start, and finish for this event. Teams raced around downtown Toronto to their choice of 28 checkpoints, although, they only had to complete 10 of them in order to head for the finish. Competitors were treated to tasks like human curling, canoeing, and worm eating.

A small gallery of photographs can be seen on the left here. Check out the official website for more information on this race series.

Rally Update

Boy was I presumptuous in my last post. I was hoping to update this site with content from this event often. As you can tell it didn't happen. There were many distractions and time restrains during my time in the desert. Many factors including arrival time (we would be out off-roading in modified 4x4's for 12-14 hours per day), lack of internet access, sand storms, and human needs such as hunger, hygiene, and sleep, limited my time and motivation. I am back in Toronto and I'm trying to recover from serious sleep deprivation. Each morning our wake up call would occur at 4am and I would usually get to bed by midnight every night for ten days. The last day of the event and my travel day home was a continuous 44 hour journey with perhaps an hour of interrupted sleep in total. All this combined with my initial jet lag on my trip to the event. Despite all the drama I'm very happy with the images I've captured and I will probably attend again next year. I'll be putting up a final collection of images at the link I provided in my previous message so take a look. Some images will also accompany a future Toronto Star article in the Saturday Star Wheels section. So keep an eye out for that.

The race website is www.rallyeaichadesgazelles.com and my images can be seen at www.sportsshooter.com/lmphoto/gaz06

2006 Rallye Aicha des Gazelles

For those of you that don't know, I am currently in the Moroccan desert covering an all-female vehicle rally. This is my second year attending the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles and it has definetly been one to remember. It's a challenge just to arrive at the event. Travelling from Canada, there's a 6.5 hour flight followed by a 10 hour drive to the Bivouac (French for desert camp). The times I've quoted do not include any delays and/or waiting time. Anyway, I'll post more of my story in the following days. The internet access will be cut off imminently so I will post a couple of images and call it a night.

This is our antique mercedes taxi and our driver (more about the ride and our driver in my next post)

This is my view when I get up in the morning.

The event photo's can be seen at http://www.sportsshooter.com/lmphoto/gaz06. I'll be updating the gallery and this blog frequently so visit often.