Orangeville's Own PETA Star

It's nice to see that I'm not the only vegetable eating, animal rights fan in my little town. Featured in our local paper last week is a 24 year old girl named Virigina Fort who is an active member of PETA, travelling the world as an activist for the organization.

The original article can be found here at Orangeville.com.

Of course, as you will see if you read the article, everyone is anti-PETA and all the good this girl is doing is over-shadowed by an opinion that has been planted in people's heads about PETA.

Nevertheless, she is doing a wonderful job following her heart and she looks a great deal better than me naked in the street, painted up as a cat (picture at link above) - not that I'm above doing that...

Back on Track / Jesse Davidson

With my roofing fiasco behind me, I was able to finally get a run in today. I only had to wear shorts, no toque and no gloves! Finally, we're having some decent weather in Southern Ontario. This wasn't the case all week, when we were pelted with snow, ice, rain, high winds... - all the things that make trying to walk around on a roof quite fun. After waking up Wednesday, pretty much my whole left side was useless from the waist down. I even missed hockey Wednesday night - this, I assure, is not a regular occurance.

Anywho, I was able to put in close to 10km today and add a bit of red to my map of Orangeville in my quest to complete my latest personal challenge. Normally, I run in the evening or hit the trails on weekends. Today, I was reminded just how bustling a little town Orangeville is. I was also reminded about how that drives me up the wall. Crossing streets becomes a nightmare on the weekends here. I did, however, get through my run without getting hit or hitting anyone else. Here's the latest updated picture:

I would also like to bring to light the unfortunate passing of Jesse Davidson at the age of 29. Jesse was from my hometown of London, Ontario and was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at the age of 6. His father, John, a local newscaster in London, refused to do nothing about his son's rare disease. in 1995, the two embarked on a 3000+ km trek on foot across our province of Ontario, with John pushing Jesse in his wheelchair. The two brought awareness to this rare disease and raised much needed funding for research. From this, the Jesse's Journey Foundation was formed. The website can be found here .

John later walked across the country of Canada to raise even more awareness. Some countries qualify their heroes by the number of lives they've taken in combat. In Canada, I like to think that our heroes are measured by the number of lives they've saved or have made better. In the tradition of Terry Fox and Rick Hansen, among others, Jesse Davidson will always be remembered as a True Canadian Hero.

Update On Personal Challenge

I was able to put in a good 12.8km run tonight between work and the Halloween festivities. My map got a lot of extra red put on it. I decided mid-run that I'm going to change the rules slightly for this challenge. It's my challenge and I can do that! I've excluded any roads that are cul-de-sacs or dead ends. I've never lived on a cul-de-sac so I feel I have no need to respect their existence. Besides, they're an un-sociable road. They only want to be friends with one other road - two roads is way too many.

However, if I can, I will run on as many dead ends as I can before the November 16 deadline. The best thing is, my achilles did not bother me over my almost 13km today and there was a significant amount of hills on the run. That bodes well in the completion of this challenge before jetting off to Panama.

Here's the latest map udpate:

Here are links to my other posts for this challenge:

October 29

October 27

October 26

Challenge Update and My Opinion On H1N1 Hype

I took yesterday off to rest my achilles. It feels pretty good after putting in 8.7km tonight and making my map a little redder. I played hockey last night and it really seems to be the miracle cure for the achilles problems. The day after playing hockey, I can feel no pain at all in the heel.

Here's my pretty map:

About the H1N1 hysteria...

Anything that the government and the media are hyping as urgent, can only mean there's a hidden motive. I, nor anyone in my family, will not be taking any vaccine that has been created and mass produced in such a short time with supposedly already known side effects. Especially, since it is for a virus that, in reality, affects very few people in proportion to the population and kills an even lesser amount. I've heard it said by reputed doctors, even on mainstream media, that the odds of dying from H1N1 are about 1 in 8,000,000. I like them odds.

For all those germiphobes out there, that do nothing else to ensure a healthy body, but believe constantly washing your hands is going to be your saviour: think about all the hands that have touched every food product you buy at the grocery store. Are you scrubbing down those cans and jars? Are you really cleaning your raw fruits and vegetables? What do you do with the receipt that the cashier with the germ covered hands has just ripped off the cash register and handed to you? She/he also had her/his fingers all over your credit card, debit card or cash change.

The cure for this and any other manufactured virus, is to eat properly, exercises daily and sleep when needed. What we don't need is more crap injected into our systems. It seems in the last 10 years, governments of the world have done nothing to calm and ensure their citizens. Instead, they seem to thrive on creating hysteria and paranoia. What is their motive? It certainly makes the citizens of the developed world live in fear. Are they trying to keep us from travelling to less developed countries and realizing that we don't really have it as good as we've been told? Are they trying to suppress us so that we buy and use less products and commodities and therefore bring down the economies of emerging markets such as China, India and the Middle East?

I'm certainly not one to throw a complete blind eye to threats to my health. I just believe that H1N1 (or heiny - 'high knee' - as my 85 year old Mom calls it), SARS, Avian Flu or any other virus of the day can be overcome and even prevented by living a healthy, vegan lifestyle. One must also go against the western world's idea that sleep is bad and lazy and missing work is such a mortal sin. Sleep cures all. Work just isn't that friggin' important.

My message is: Don't succumb to the paranoia. Continue to live a healthy, active vegan lifestyle and we'll all disappoint the politicians when their game doesn't go as planned. Yes, I still support non-violence but I'm also feeling rebellious lately. Don't even get me started on the Catholic School Board in my area banning Halloween costumes from school!

To follow my latest challenge, check out these posts:

Update 1

Update 2

New Personal Challenge: Run All The Streets Of Orangeville

I've slacked off on major personal challenges lately but the running season ended last weekend with the Vulture Bait 25km Trail Race and I've got three weeks before I'm in hot and sunny Panama for two weeks. That gives me three weeks to do something with my running that I've wanted to do for a long time: Cover all the streets in my town, Orangeville, Ontario, Canada.
If you want to find Orangeville on Google Earth, just input into the 'fly to' box, these co-ordinates: 43 55.0682N 80 05.5114W and you should be directed right to the centre of town. Orangeville is not a large town at approximately 6km long from east to west and 4km from north to south. With a population of 30,0000, it serves mostly as a bedroom community for people who work in the Greater Toronto Area.
I'm going into this challenge having done absolutely no math on if this is possible in three weeks or not and what mileage I'll need to put in on a nightly basis if I'm to seriously consider completing this. I'm pretty sure it can be done - I just have a good feeling! One of my rules for this challenge is that all runs must start from my home on William Street. My strategy is to plan each night's run to hit a point on the outskirts of town before returning on a different route. With a series of runs that kind of look like a spirograph drawing from the 1970's, it should be fairly easy to cover all the pavement in a fairly efficient manner.
I started this challenge last night with a 7.8km run through town. I'm taking tonight off and will be back at it tomorrow night. I'm just in the process of getting a semi-interactive map up so that I can post my updates in a graphic form. Wish me luck - I wasn't overly successful in a few of my challenges over the summer, so I'm looking for a big win with this one.

Associated Content Article - The 5 Best Trails To Run, Hike or Bike Around Orangeville, Ontario, Canada

Just a quick note that I've published an article on Associated Content. The article features the 5 best trails to run, hike or bike on in the Orangeville, Ontario, Canada area. Orangeville is somewhat of a hotbed for trail systems as it is at the crossroads of the Bruce Trail and Trans-Canada Trail. Within 25 kilometers of the town, there are many trails systems to discover.
If you are new to the Orangeville area, a long-time resident who is new to the outdoors, or a visitor to the Greater Toronto Area, this a great guide for you.
A great companion to this article is Google Earth. All the trails are accompanied with co-ordinates that can be cut and pasted into Google Earth search to pinpoint the best parking and starting point for each of the trails.
Of course, there are more than 5 trails to discover in the area, but these are a great group to start with an will provide 100's of kilometers of travel the way nature intended - without a motor.

Check out my recently published content on AC:

The 5 Best Trails to Run, Hike or Bike Around Orangeville, Ontario, Canada

Virtual Run to Montreal

I'm a little disappointed with the mileage I've put in this year, so far. I've decided to challenge myself with a goal of 614.84km before September 13, 2009. This is the distance from my front door to the starting line of the Oasis de Montreal half-marathon which, of course, takes place on September 13.

I've used RunningAHEAD's online software to arrive at the route. I've used RunningAHEAD for over a year now, and I find it to be a great on-line exercise log and route planner. The site now uses GPS so that all I needed to do was click on the map at my house in Orangeville, then move on over to Montreal and click on the start line on the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec aren't very exciting when it comes to route options, unfortunately. You can either take highway 7 or highway 401 - that's it. The software basically chooses the hwy. 7 route with some minor tweaks. It's the shorter distance compared to the 401 and, in reality, pedestrians aren't allowed on the 401 'super highway' anyway.



I'm starting my challenge as of June 1, 2009. I've already put in 10.8km, which puts me a whole 10.8km outside of Orangeville, somewhere on highway 9...

With hockey down to 1 night per week for the summer and the weather continuing to be unseasonable cool, I should be able to achieve this with no problems. I will update my progress at the end of each post.