Local Endurance Community Events

Well friends, we’ve made it to Friday. It has been another whirlwind of a week and I am looking forward to a weekend of racing, a trail run and spending some time celebrating my mum.

Today I wanted to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. Endurance sport community.
The community that exists within these sports is something that absolutely exceptional in my mind. Easy going, gentle people who will give you the shirt off their back or a gel if you are low, but you better believe they will be stiff competition on the race course.

It has been such a pleasure to network within the local community and I wanted to share some of the coolest events that are happening and invite you to join in some of the awesomeness in my region or perhaps you to start it yourself in your circle of the world.

CAB Bikes

Community Access BikeShare or CAB is an amazing project designed to provide public access to bikes for everyone. Members can access CAB bicycles at convenient locations throughout Kitchener Waterloo. They are smack dab in the middle of a ‘crowd-raising’ campaign to help them jumpstart the bikeshare this year.
The project runs from mid-April to mid-November each year and seasonal registration is only $40.
Want to get involved?
• Make a donation to help them reach their goal of $10,000
• Become a volunteer with bikeshare!
• Buy a bikeshare membership now for you or a gift for a friend
• Join the Bike Share Email list
• Follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
Garbage Run
I have a favourite Starbucks in Waterloo Region and I write a lot of my blogs there in between work and practice at night. I kept running into this PhD student who basically lived there as well and we started  talking garbage and running. Dave Whiteside has started a cool, local group open to anyone who wants to spend an afternoon on a run picking up garbage and recycling from our local park and roadways and celebrating the awesomeness afterward at a local restaurant. (After we wash our hands, of course.) Message me if you are interested in joining in the next run and we add you to the Facebook Group!

HydroCut 
The other afternoon, I was on a run on my local trail system with a friend and ran into one of the Waterloo Cycling Club members who was cleaning up the trails. He mentioned that they want to be opening and welcome to all the trail runners in the area and they are looking for volunteers who are wanting to help clean up the branches, rocks and scrub from the trails to make them runnable and clean.

The next big project day is May 31 (my birthday!) so if you are interested in helping to clea the hydrocut, please send me a message. I am partnering with them in the future to write a post on trail etiquette so keep an eye out for that.

Runners Choice

And then there is the best little running store of all time. Runners Choice trail groups were what launched me into trail running to begin with in 2010, so I am excited to report that they are starting back up again this year on Tuesday, May 20 at the trails at Sir John A MacDonald – do not be fooled by the all the houses around there, those trails are super challenging and great training for those technical trail races.

They also have adopted a local road and collected 11 bags of trash on a 1.5 km strip of road and found everything from water cooler jugs, terracota planter pots and a wig this past year on Earth Day.

Message me if you are interested in joining the next garbage pick up or the trail groups – I am planning on doing the Tuesday night runs and would love you to join me!

What are your favourite things about the endurance sport community in your town?