A 16 km loop from the Candy Store, Log Train Trail. Port Alberni

This is a nice loop starting and finishing from Port Alberni’s iconic Candy Store, where many hikers, runners, cyclists, quad enthusiasts park to start an outing.  We walked down the Log train trail and up Citizen’s Climb to the power lines.

Citizen’s Climb

A rained-out run: Somewhere above Port Alberni’s Log Train Trail

Fall, or even winter, seems to have come pretty early this year. Dave and I headed out on this run a bit over a week ago, on September 17th, when it was still officially summer! (Kind of hard to remember summer now, it’s been so cold and wet this week). The original plan was to do a 16 km loop on trails that Dave knows, which I have never been on, starting at Coombs Candy (on the highway) and heading down the Log Train Trail, then veering off onto the single-track trails above.

The four of us together starting out on the Log Train Trail.

It all started well…

Photo essay: Autumn colours in full display along Port Alberni’s Roger’s Creek Nature Trail

The Roger’s Creek Nature Trail, along with all of the side-trails that branck off from it, is one of Dave’s and my favourite running routes. The trail-head is a short bike ride or drive from the house. The trails are beautiful – and my favourite kind of trail to run on: rolling and winding forest paths. They are technical as in you have to pay attention – they turn this way and that, and there are a few roots and rocks – but just enough so to make them interesting. They are not challenging at all. And they are shaded by the forest cover, so a great choice in the hottest days of summer, and they don’t get too muddy in the fall and winter rains.

For as many times as we have run them, we haven’t yet done a blog post about them (although our big run with April a year or so ago did include sections along Roger’s Creek). Well, right now, the fall colours are in full display – so Dave and I went out for a very relaxing few hours with my good camera gear (SLR and tripod and all) and the dogs. Here are the results of that photo shoot:

Take the good weather when it comes: A 4 hr trail run with April

Heading out from Dave's house

Well, it may only be September, but it sure feels like winter has already set in. The heavy rains have started.

So April emailed Dave and me a few days ago. She’d been checking out the forecast for the week, and it was calling for a short break in the weather for Wednesday. “Are you guys up for a 30k trail run?” she asked. Of course we were!

She and Dave decided to do a 50k road bike ride beforehand. I politely declined. They are both faster runners than me anyway, so I was happy to have them wear themselves out a bit before we started.

Port Alberni Trail Run Roger's Creek

We started at Dave’s house – partly because it is Trail Centrale, with

Sometimes we cycle

[by Dave] When we aren’t running we cycle and swim.  Road and offroad.  Yesterday we rode a 62 km loop from home to the end of Beaver Creek Road (25 km on pavement), back along the Log Train Trail, crossed the highway at the CandyStore, through Grad Drunk, then wound our way through the logging roads and trails behind Bainbridge Lake back to home (37 km on trails and logging roads).  About five hours of riding.

[by Jackie] Part of the reason we wanted to do this ride is because we want to run it. Most of our big trail runs are on pretty tough terrain,  so we actually walk a lot of the uphills and some of the tricky parts (we value our health and our continuing ability to go out on these