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I’ve had to retire my old training watch. It’s a Suunto T3 and has performed well over the last few years. I broke the strap for the second time and it’s over $20 to replace and a special order. That’s a pain in the butt. Also, the heart rate strap seems to have stopped working. So now, it’s just a stopwatch. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money fixing it and the like so I bought a cheaper replacement. It’s a basic Timex Ironman Road Trainer HRM for only $105 from Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC). It has fewer features, but I think I will survive without them. The one I will miss is the interval timing. I try to run intervals once a week and being able to set two separate interval times is nice (run hard for 2 minutes and rest for 1 minute). Today will be my first day with the new watch so we will see how it goes.

I also replaced our screen tent. My family are tenters, so having a decent shelter for cooking and eating is a must. Our old screen tent was heaving and failing so it was time for a replacement. I picked up a Hootenanny from MEC and set it up yesterday. So far it’s great! Not sure how it will do in a steady rain, but I can always tarp it. Now I just have to get out and use it!

Ever since I was a kid I have loved hiking and camping gear. Backpacks, ropes, tents, knives and all that great stuff that goes along with camping. Since being a “grown up” with responsibilities, that addiction was replaced with other important things. This summer, however, the gear addiction was somewhat rekindled.

During my week off in the Summer, I spent the majority of my time in the outdoors, taking pictures, and doing fun things like making bows and arrows for my kids (well kind of mostly for me), and watching a lot of Survivorman (I love that Survivorman (Les Stroud) is a Canuck). I became more and more enthusiastic about the outdoors, survival and general camping. I took the family camping a couple of times – once to Jasper and once to Elk Island National Park. Great fun, even though it was terribly cold and rainy in Jasper. In the last several weeks I have pretty much worn out my MEC catalog and visited their web site countless times. I haven’t really even purchased anything (just a tent). I just spend all my time looking and drooling over all the gear. And it’s not that I need much in the way of gear. I just like to look at it! For example, I hate heights and will never really do any climbing, but I am fascinated by climbing gear. My older daughter is starting a climbing class this fall and I think it’s so great. What a cool thing for a 5 year-old to do! Anyway, I think I will stop now and go look at new sleeping bags. Mine is getting pretty worn out.