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by bardo 🍁
2021-12-23
running guy

Adventure Runs Season Two

Adventure Runs Season Two
2021-12-23
running guy

I may have written earlier this year about how I’ve spent each of the last two summers devising a weekly run outing for my running crew.

Each week over about fourteen weeks of summer we would meet at a location I’d disclosed earlier in the day for a six to eight klick run.

It could be through a neighbourhood. It could start in a bedroom community outside the city. It might wind through the river valley in an interesting place. It just had to be somewhere interesting, new or both.

What adventure from 2021 will be forever etched upon your memory.

for whatever one photo is worth:

In mid-June I summoned the runners to a location on the far east side of the city in a small park area adjacent to a billionaires row of oil refineries.

From here the mighty North Saskatchewan river wends past the last few suburbs of Edmonton and out into the vast prairies, Atlantic-bound (or at least towards the Atlantic via the Hudson’s Bay).

We parked, lathered up in bug spray and trotted off into the valley at a casual running pace.

Along the way we encountered treacherous cliffs, uncertain detours, instagrammable locations to pose with rusted out vehicles, paths lock to construction, bushwacking through low tree branches, a small but wet water crossing, a climb up a grassy summer ski hill, and a slog through an ill-marked trail …or three.

It was a kooky but amazing little evening adventure.

And it was topped off by the fact that as we all went to drive away home from the single exit to the park, there stopped a freight train blocking our path of escape for nearly an hour. We all wandered around outside of our queued up vehicles and lamented the real meaning of an urban evening adventure that ended with a prairie blockade.

Local adventure is what you make of it. It’s finding something new, even if new is just a few minutes drive from where you live, work, or usually play.

I think back on that evening in mid-June and how it defined what could go sideways on a quirky, loosely-planned run, but it also highlighted exactly why we crave such things at all. It is now, even almost six months to the day later, stuck in my brain as one of the weirdest evenings of the summer… in a good way.

Thirty one topics. Thirty one posts. Not exactly a list… but close. In December I like to look back on the year that was. My daily posts in December-ish are themed-ish and may contain spoilers set against the backdrop of some year-end-ish personal exposition.

backyard adventures december-ish river valley running together what a picture is worth

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about

It’s about more than just food.

It’s about a mindset and a perspective on living a full, active and interesting life.

The Cast Iron Guy blog heated up in January 2021 as a journal of uncomplicated things, life lived, and a mindset that reflects the philosophical practicality of well-seasoned cast iron frying pan: enduring, simple, down-to-earth & extremely useful.

I write regularly from here in the Canadian Prairies about things that interest me, including the artistic inspiration I get outdoors, travel, gear, growing and cooking food, fire craft, suburban and nature trails, running, and (of course) the clever and curious ways I find to use my many pieces of cast iron cookware.

On This Day

  • Adventure Runs Season Two
    2021-12-23

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backpacking backyard adventures baking blogging bread campfire cast iron love cast iron seasoning cooking cooking with fire cooking with gas december-ish doing it daily garden lists of things local wilderness meta monday mountains pandemic fallout photographer poem questions and answers race report recipe reseasoning river valley running solo running spring running together running trail running training running winter sourdough bread guy spring thaw suburban firecraft sunday runday the socials travel photo travel tuesday urban sketching video what a picture is worth why i blog winter weather wordy wednesday