My 2017 Year- In - Review!

   

It's been a long time since I've done one of those "year end reviews" that are so popular this time of year. It never really seemed as though I had anything terribly interesting to tell people about and I don't really set goals for myself so it never was possible to tell people whether I actually achieved them or not. So, this year, once again I wasn't going to bother with the re-cap process.

Medway Valley ESA

   Then I stopped and thought about what kind of a year I'd had. It occurred to me that, for a change, I had done some things I'd never done before and I actually had set some goals throughout the year and then attained them! Because of this, the thought of going back and doing a little rehashing seemed more enjoyable than it usually does. So here I go!
   I spent most of the early part of 2017 getting acquainted with the trail systems right here in London, Ontario. At the end of 2016, my interest in trail-running was piqued and I promised myself I would spend as much time out on the trails as I possibly could, as soon as I could. 

Sifton Bog ESA

   To this end, I made it a goal to visit each of London's seven Environmentally Significant Areas (ESAs) and run the trails there. This past winter was a mild one for this area and getting out on the trails was relatively easy and more or less painless. On the weekends and whenever I had a day off I would simply visit the next ESA on my list---I was already quite familiar with the ones at my end of town and had already run them many times. Eventually, it took a little over a month (parts of February and March) to get all seven ESAs properly run. I even ran a couple of them twice.
   

Meadowlily ESA

It was during this time that I also had the opportunity to try out the new Camelbak I'd gotten for Christmas. At the end of 2016, I'd run into hydration issues while out on the trails (I sweat a lot) and I knew that if I was going to spend as much time running the trails as I really wanted, then I would need a more viable form of hydration. The Camelbak worked just fine and I was excitedly looking forward to the Spring and Summer.

Westminster Ponds ESA....can you spot the teddy bear??

   Spring finally came and early in April I decided I would go out for a street run and see just where all this winter trail-running had taken me, in the way of endurance. I started out from my house and ran about four houses down before I heard a pop in my knee and felt the pain. Thank goodness I was that close to home and was able to limp my way back.
   I was actually able to get into my doctor the following day and was diagnosed with a strained or pulled gastrocnemius muscle. This is one of the long muscles which travels up the back of your leg and connects in under your kneecap. He prescribed a couple weeks of rest, a couple of weeks of walking and then a couple of weeks of light running.

Thames Valley Trail

   I did the resting. Then it was time for the walking. Back at the end of 2016, I had heard about something called the Thames Valley Trail. It was a 110

Thames Valley Trail

kilometer trail which started about 30K southwest of London, worked its way up through the city and then on to the town of St. Marys, northeast of London. I had already been intrigued with the idea of hiking the Trail and when the doctor told me that walking would become part of my knee's recovery process, things just seemed to fall into place.
   I then spent slightly over a month hiking all 15 sections of the trail. Several times I was able to hike more than one section at a time so, altogether, this came to nine different outings.

Thames Valley Trail

   It was quite the learning experience! I learned a fair bit about what my 64-year-old body was capable of (and sometimes what it wasn't) and I walked it entirely on my own, which also made it a very contemplative experience. There are many such trails here in Ontario and I now have the yen to hit more of them!
   September came and, after a couple of setbacks with  my knee, I was finally able to try actual running again. I had tweaked my knee a couple of times while out hiking and playing golf and because of

Thames Valley Trail

this it took me this long to actually tentatively run again.
   My plan was to get out the first time and run 1 kilometer. As long as things were okay, the next time out I would run 1K farther and so on, back up to a respectable mileage. Eventually, through September to early December, I worked my way back up to running 9K. 
   At that point, winter and Christmas hit and, if I had any free time that I could have used for running, I spent it shopping, or some other Christmas activity. 

Thames Valley Trail

    Round about this time, however, I started going back to the gym again! I had had a Goodlife membership for about two years and hadn't used it once. Totally ridiculous, obviously, and so I more or less forced myself to get back into it. Having done so, however, I found I rather enjoyed it and am looking forward to getting back to it in the new year.
   So, this is my re-cap of my 2017. When I looked back at it, I realized that I actually had made several goals and then followed through on all of them.

And ME---at the END of the
Thames Valley Trail!

   I had a goal of running all of London's ESAs and I had done that. I had a goal of hiking the Thames Valley Trail and I had done that. I had a goal of getting back to decent mileage during trail runs and I had done that. I had a goal of getting back into the gym and, lo and behold, I had done that as well!
   I am now wondering what 2018 will bring. For sure, I want to explore more hiking trails in Ontario and I have to admit that the Bruce Trail is high on my list. Part of me even wants to hike somewhere with a tent strapped to my back so I can spend the night and then keep on hiking in the morning. I definitely want to run more, and longer, trails. There are some snowshoeing experiences that await. There are more trips to the gym in my future and, at some point, I really need to get out and play some ball hockey with the younger guys.
   So I guess all of the above are my goals for 2018 and, having stated them here, I will now be able to go back around this time next year and tell you all how many of them I was able to attain. In the meantime, I hope that 2018 brings only happiness and self-fulfillment to you all! 
   Cheers!

Hiking The Thames Valley Trail: Section 10-Gibbons Park to Kilally Meadows and Section 11-Kilally Meadows to Fanshawe Park

   It was another beautiful day here in London, Ontario and I am on my second week of holidays and,  not only that, Doralyn was busy today doing things with her mum today so I took this opportunity to get in two more sections of the Thames Valley Trail. 
   I drove my car out to the Ted Early Sports Complex on Clarke Road, which was near today's end point. Doralyn followed me there, I left my car so I could use it later to get home and then Doralyn drove me to Gibbons Park, where I had left off the other day.
   It was about 28C (82F) with humidity putting it up to round about 34C (93F) when I started hiking so I made sure I had plenty of fluids when I headed out and fuel for later. The nice part was that most of the walking was in shaded forest and that certainly helps with the heat (until later anyways...)
   Also one of the nice things about the recent hikes is that they've been inside the city. This has allowed me to see parts of London from angles I wouldn't normally. Rather than looking down to the river as I cross a bridge I'm looking up at the undersides of the bridge from the river. Rather than the fronts of buildings, I'm seeing what they look like from behind. It's actually a pretty cool way to see the city!
   So now it's time for the usual huge photo dump, cuz I walked the walk!

Just left Gibbons Park and hiking
along the river, generally
toward Western University

Awesome (and somewhat creepy) root
system. There were a few of these today.

Just before University Bridge

Richmond Street bridge

King's College, affiliated with Western.

St. Peter's Seminary

In behind St. Peter's.

Approaching Adelaide Street bridge.

The start of today's second section. About
to enter Kilally Meadows.

Hiking through Kilally

Still in Kilally

A section of the trail in Kilally
essentially runs through
peoples' back yards.

Just leaving Kilally and headed for...

...Highbury Ave.

Then down to Highbury and Kilally Ave.

A LONG, hot and seemingly all uphill
hike along Kilally. Actually 1.5K

Passed by a couple of beautiful horses
but by the time I got my phone out to
take a pic, the one horse had wandered
off and, unfortunately, my camera
focused more on the tree...

Kilally and Clarke Road. My car was
about a kilometer south of here
but I was headed north for a bit.

The end point for today's second section.
Next time out, headed into Fanshawe Park.

Runs and Ruins-A Photo Dump

   Since I (apparently) transitioned over to trail-running at the end of last summer, I have subsequently found myself in places I have never been before, doing things I have never done before and seeing things I have never seen before.
   I have come much closer to the damage done to rotting tree stumps by pileated woodpeckers, the unmistakable mark beavers leave on the woodlands, the high and unreachable  nests of bald eagles and occasionally the sad and lonely passings of the beasts of the forest.
   These things were all new to me but, at the same time, I was not surprised---it's not like I had no inkling of some of the marvels of nature.
   What did surprise me, however, were all the times I ran across the remnants of human life and habitation, half-buried and almost un-noticeable in the woodlands. Pretty well every time this happened, for some reason I felt compelled to to stop and visually document my findings. Many of those pics ended up on these pages, quite a few didn't. The following is a bit of a photo-dump, each with its own description, of some of the ruins I ran into.

I came across these abandoned pipes
at the eastern end of Komoka
Provincial Park. I'm gonna guess
they're still there...

This was by the trail in Kains Woods
and I ran past it a couple of times
before I realized it was actually
there. Bunch of stones and mortar
and also pretty far away from
habitation.

Not really a "ruin" but definitely
a sign that a human had been messing
with things.

Not even sure what this is, part of a
sewer system? Seemed pretty
old and it was in the middle of
the Sifton Bog.

Ran past this makeshift grave in
Kilally Meadows. Hope it was a pet...

After my run in the Sifton Bog, I was
exploring the old section of Hyde
Park Road. I noticed an open field
which looked as though it had
some kind of a laneway running
through so I went exploring.
I soon discovered I was in the middle
of where someone's farm used to be.
This and the next two pictures
were taken there.

Bits of concrete and a pipe sticking up
out of the ground.

Not sure if this was the remnants
of some kind of well or something.

I came across these concrete steps
while running through the Westminster
Ponds. Not the usual kind of steps
London uses in their environmentally
significant areas. Pretty sure they
were built so that the war vets
could access the Ponds from
Westminster Hospital, back when
it was in service

One of the abandoned buildings that
formed part of the Westminster Veterans
Hospital. In a slow state of decay...

Got off on an unmarked trail at the
western end of Komoka Park. Guessing
it used to be for cattle.

At this point was totally lost in Komoka
Park and was hacking my way
through underbrush and came across
the remnants of an old fence,

Another bushwacking adventure had me
coming across a ladder into a tree. This
was on the outskirts of Meadowlily
Woodsa. Think it might have been
a deer blind at one time.

Probably my favourite thing I've run
across. This was about the size of a large
matchbox and contained the remains
of "Nathan", who I assume was likely
a goldfish. Found this at the base
of a tree in Warbler Woods.

   So there you have my photo dump! I hurt my knee about a week and a half ago, otherwise this would have been a bunch of (likely) boring pics from my latest trail run. Instead, you got these awesome ones!! Hopefully, back to the boring ones soon!

My Brush With The Law (Oh...And A New Trail...)

    Ah, the weekend again and I was off to explore Kilally Meadows, the last remaining ESA (environmentally significant area) in London whose trails I had not visited.

    Kilally is in the northeast part of London so this requires a cross-town trip for me. I took Oxford Street, one of London's main east-west thoroughfares and about half way there I realized there was a police vehicle with flashing lights right behind me. My assumption was that he was headed somewhere on an emergency so, as soon as I could safely pull over and stop, I did.
   Well, he pulled over and stopped right behind me. This is never a good sign. And right up until he got to my window, I had no idea why I'd been stopped. As it turns out, I was driving with an invalid licence plate sticker. My jaw dropped. In Ontario, you need to renew your plate sticker every year as they expire on your birthday. My birthday was last week and for the first time ever I had forgotten to get a new sticker. I have occasionally been late by a couple of days but I have never just totally forgotten. I have stuck this one on my burgeoning "Old Man" file and, needless to say, it put a bit of a damper on my run day. Not to mention the $110 hit to the bank account...

Hmm...which way to go?

   I arrived at the eastern end of Kilally Meadows shortly after and parked in the lot. Once again, I was about to be running in new territory and needed to do a little scouting first. There was a small trail headed north and a concrete path running sort of parallel to it but neither of them was really clearly marked. I vaguely remembered the map showing that the first part of the trail began along multi-use path and so I headed down the concrete path. About fifty yards down the path, there was clearly a marked trail headed off to the right and I happily took it.

   It's been above freezing for the last little while and the trails were pretty muddy in quite a few spots. New trails mean second-guessing at junctions and then the pre-requisite backtracking and a fair amount of this went on today. Eventually I made it all the way to Highbury Ave., which brings you out almost in the middle of a subdivision. The last hundred and fifty yards or so of the trail takes you what feels like right through people's backyards. There are no real fences at this point and it is clear that homeowners have done work on both sides of the trail---a little surreal, actually.

Wind damage

   It was around this point that I decided to check my Garmin. I had purposely been avoiding looking at it because the miles seem to go by faster when you just concentrate on the landscape. Well, I wish I had looked at it a little earlier because it had stopped for some reason. I could remember fooling with it near the beginning and I guess I had paused it, unknowingly. I made sure it was running on the way back and more or less followed the trail exactly and it appears as though I might have run about 5K. This was way shorter than I had originally planned but the alternative was to run back and forth, over and over and today I just didn't feel like it.
   We had one of our worst windstorms ever about a week and a half ago and there was a fair amount of damage done to the forest. This and the fact that at this time of year there is no greenery and very little sun makes the running a little depressing and I had no real urge to formulate mileage today. All I had really been trying to do was cross Kilally Meadows off my list and now I can say I have run in all seven of London's ESAs. I have done some of them the disservice of only having run them in the winter. My plan is to get back to them in the summer and see how the experience changes. Maybe then I'll rate them all! 

P.S. I had way more pictures than this to post but for some reason Blogger's not quite up to snuff today---lots of pics were fine til I uploaded them but many were then only partial pics! Annoying!