215 results for author: Colin Harris

iRun

Colin Harris is living his childhood dream of running across Canada. Along the way, he’s visiting students in over 60 classrooms from St. John’s to Vancouver and encouraging kids to get outside, get active and reconnect with nature. Harris decided to run 7,300 kilometres because he’s an outdoor educator who was growing discouraged with kids spending so much time in front of screens and so little time outside. “This sedentary lifestyle is leading to a general decrease in kids’ health,” says Harris. With 16 years of road running in his legs, Harris had a solid base to behin his cross-Canada tour. He breaks his runs into a 15k morning ...

Day 42 – 44.1 km (total – 856.6 km)

  I have a sneaking suspicion that Newfoundland just doesn’t want to let us go!   It’s almost humourous…. I’m sure it will be soon!  After not being able to run yesterday because of high winds and blowing snow, I took a crack at it today.  The TCH wasn’t in great shape, but it was pretty quiet out there… and it wasn’t snowing.  Lunch entailed Sarah handing me a sandwich out the window because there was nowhere to stop.  She found a spot another 7 km down the highway, so I was able to take a break at 30 k.  After a break, I started back and got a text at about 37 k that the battery was dead.  Perfect!  But within a ...

Day 41 – day off (total – 815.5 km)

High winds and blowing snow prevented me from running today. So we tried to have a bit of fun in the snow! We're 98 km from Port-Aux-Basques.

Day 40 – 42.5 km (total – 815.5 km)

I’ll fill you in on a little secret… walking over 7 hours a day is way harder than running 4 and a half (at least for me!).  Today was one of those damp winter days where the cold gets under your skin and leaves you with the chills all day.  Snow was consistent throughout much of the day but little of it stuck around.  Tonight, there is excitement in the RV as I have less than 100 kilometres left to the ferry!  There will be many pseudo finish lines along the way and the ferry back to the mainland is one of them.  So we anticipate the next couple of days and hope for good weather. A good friend sent me a poem she found a little while ...

Day 39 – 42.9 km (total – 773 km)

Yesterday was a tough day.  There was a sense of anticipation in starting the day… Corner Brook to Port-Aux-Basques was the homestretch.  Granted, a long homestretch of over 200 km, but a homestretch nonetheless.  By 15 k, the side of my knee was hurting again.  By 25 k, I was in more pain than I had experienced in the last 3 weeks.  I sat on the side of the highway, discouraged and disheartened.   And then it was decision time – go back to Corner Brook and have someone tell me I need to not run for a bit, or carry on…maybe without the running part for a bit. Injuries can be a strange thing.  When I run forward, the IT Band is ...

Playdate on Two Wheels – Ottawa, ON

One glorious warm spring day, Jasper and I had a play date with our friend Tom. We love Tom. He’s a little bit older than Jasper but he still hangs out with us. Some guys are nice that way. To meet up with Tom, Jasper, Anna Sierra and I rode to school on our Bike Friday Family Tandem. It’s a fabulous bike. The back seat and handlebars can be raised for a tall adult or lowered for a child. Apparently the whole bike can come apart and be packed into two suitcases for travelling. Derek and I have tried riding the tandem together. Once. We were a speedy team, but oh so scrappy.  We quickly realized we each need complete control of our own ...

Day 38 – 40.9 km (total – 730.1 km)

Last November, our partner organizations KidActive and The Child and Nature Alliance put on a conference in Ottawa called Healthy Children Healthy Spaces.  One of the keynote speakers was Tim Gill.  He is one of the leading thinkers in the UK on children and has published a book called No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society.  He started with two questions to begin his presentation and asked people to stand if the answer was “yes”. Was your favourite place growing up outside? 1. Did that place go unsupervised by any parent or adult? 2. I just wrote 2 paragraphs talking about perceived risk versus actual risk, but then erased ...

Day 37 – day off (total – 689.2 km)

Today was a day that both Sarah and I were looking forward to.  It had felt like awhile since we had been in a school, so we were excited to visit J.J. Curling Elementary this afternoon.  This school was one of 6 elementary schools in Corner Brook and again, we were amazed at their commitment to being active. First, as a school, they are “walking across Canada”!  They go outside when they can (in the gym when the weather is foul) and walk or run.  They then add up their distance and plot it on a map.  Currently, they are “in” New Brunswick.  So it was fun to draw some comparisons and we’re going to keep in touch to see when we ...

Day 35/36 – 21.6 km (total – 689.2 km)

  Call it karma, call it good luck, call it whatever you want – we feel very fortunate right now.  Yesterday morning, I ran a half marathon from Pasadena to Marble Mountain (just outside of Corner Brook) and every step hurt.  But my old Sunday School teacher Rob Pollett from many moons ago worked at the ski hill and told me to stop in and say hi.  With arms extended, Rob bought us lunch and told us he had a villa free for us during our couple of days around the area.  Needless to say, we feel like we’re living the high life!  Our ’84 Citation parked out front sort of sticks out like a sore thumb, but we’re enjoying a couple of ...

Day 33 – day off (total – 628.2 km)

A place can become home quicker than you realize.  Over the last 3 nights, amidst running and our little adventure in the ditch, we have gotten to know the Irving gas station quite well.  The restaurant is quite popular in these parts, and because the RV currently doesn’t have heat, we’ve been spending quite a bit of time in a booth.  I can tell you that their soup is amazing and their homemade pies… delicious! It seems as though this is the hub of Deer Lake.  Granted, we have spent the majority of our time here.  We got away today to go for a lovely walk along Deer Lake with the dogs, and the local massage therapist had an opening ...