As part of a four man team, we headed up to Elora, just north of Guelph, early on Tuesday morning (I’d pin the wake up at around 5 am for the two girls driving in from Peterborough). With the crew assembled, we grabbed some breakfast and in less than two hours had crossed over the top of Toronto, defeated rush hour, and landed ourselves in the midst of a beautiful setting that seemed like it had to be farther from downtown Toronto than it actually was. There’d be time to take that all in later. In the meantime, we had some cliffs to walk down and vast expanses to zip across.

I had never been rappelling before, but I expected the device used to be similar to the belaying devices I’ve used in rockwall climbing – a sort of metal triangle with a lever on it that controls your rate of descent. The device that kept our speed in check was actually a rope wrapped around another rope. Such a manual device took a few runs to earn my trust, but this “autoblock” as it’s called, did its job wonderfully while also comforting me by sounding like the good guys in Transformers. The Decepticons would never get me as long as this autoblock had my back.

When the time came to take those first few backwards steps off the cliff, we let the girls go first so they wouldn’t feel pressured to try and match our manly efforts.

Always the gentlemen.

Our guide Steven guided each of us down our first rappel, side-by-side; one at a time. The hang of the whole system comes pretty quickly, and after our first walk down we were good to partner up and head down together – onto the bigger cliff face and over a small cave where we stopped for a few minutes so Paul could pretend he was a monkey.

Once we had made a few runs at the rappelling courses, it was time to take on the zipline. No matter how safe you felt walking down the escarpment, it tests your faith in the ropes the first time your strapped in and asked to run straight off the cliff. As I prepared to run into the Gorge’s airspace, I took four confident, long, strut-in-my-step strides before tapping the brakes and tip-toeing off the edge. Admittedly, I lost some style points there.

Once you’re out over the gorge, you apply your new found rappelling techniques to lower yourself down into the water or gently onto the shoreline – or, in my case, pretend you’re a green beret storming down through a tree.

I’d like to thank Fred from OneAxe for having us out, and Steven for showing us the ropes. If you’re looking for a getaway or a team builder, check them out at oneaxepursuits.com.

The challenge: One city, two people, five hours, twelve clues.  It’s called the Great Urban Race (GUR), and there are a few different companies and models that put on these huge city wide scavenger hunts, but this was the one we chose.

The day started with registration at 10am, so we showed up in our Ferris and Cameron costumes, bus passes in hand. The girls, Amy and Krischele, wore some weird pink outfits that weren’t nearly as hilarious but probably aided them a lot more when they needed the assistance of strangers.

After registering, there was massive log jam of people in the doorway spilling out onto Front Street as they tried to read us the rules and hand out the clues. I was excited because I got to use one of my favourite Mitch Hedberg quotes when a GUR Staff told all of us standing in the doorway that we had to move because we were a fire hazard – “I am pretty sure if there’s a fire, we’re all going to leave – (pause) – that was the comedic genius of the late Mitch Hedberg ladies and gentlemen, not my own.”

After getting the clues we met up outside with the girls to try and solve as many of the clues as possible and create a route map for the day. Only your feet and public transit are allowed, and smartphones or phone-a-friend’s are recommended to help solve the often difficult clues. My buddy Tyler proved vital in this regard, as my phone is an antique. Thanks Tyler.

Anyways, as I was reading over the first clue with the girls, suddenly Paul, my teammate, starts running away and yelling at me, saying he knows where something is. So I take off and follow him, abandoning the girls.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I was just trying to throw them off. Come on lets get in this cab!”

“We can’t take cabs!”

“What?” He closes the cab door and we start jogging north. “Frig, flip-flops were a bad call.”

Over the course of the next 3 hours we practiced Muay Thai, made homemade soda, decorated cupcakes, met a few dozen strangers, were recognized as 80’s movie characters exactly four times, solved a murder mystery, held a snake and made some origami. All that while travelling from Front Street up to Dupont and Bathurst and back down to the Distillery District (with a couple loops back through Kensington Market for missed clues).

Obviously we beat the girls.

Two sister’s won that auction, and as part of the deal they took a trip up in the skies with myself and Pilot Ed Johnstone, who had kindly donated his services. Ed owns a small six-seater plane from the 70’s, kept in pristine condition with the original purple suede upholstery. I now feel like something is missing whenever I travel in a vehicle without it.

The first time I had flown with Ed I sat up front, and after he guided us around Niagara Falls for a few spins, he let me take over the controls as he radioed some info into Toronto’s air traffic controllers. I focused on keeping us as level as possible, though I inevitably took us up another 300 feet. I was able to keep us level based on seeing the horizon, but there was little to visually guide me to keep our nose flying flat.

This time around, with the girls on board, we let Sidney, the younger of the sisters, sit up front, which meant she had the controls coming back over the lake. As Ed let her steer, he instructed her that she could also use the foot pedals to shift the plane from left-to-right and back, and then demonstrated it by slamming on each of the pedals, whipping the plane out to the right, then sliding us back to the left as we hung a few thousand feet over Lake Ontario.

Sidney was not to be outdone, as she tilted us left and dropped us down 100 feet, her sister and I looked at each other and wondered how long Ed would be on the radio for. In the meantime, it was a roller coaster without rails.

We eventually made it to Toronto, where Ed took us down for a faux-landing at the Island Airport, thus letting us experience a view of the Toronto Skyline that not many get to see as we peeled up and rose over the skyscrapers.

Then came the bittersweet portion of the flight, the ending, but I enjoyed it so much because we travelled from the heart of Toronto to the Oshawa Airport in about 8 or 9 minutes. I looked down at the cars stuck on the DVP at 9pm and knew that someday soon I’d be joining them and looking up at the skies thinking about how sweet it all once was.

Years ago my buddy Matt took me out mountain biking in Durham Forest. It was my first time using clip-less pedals (a name I’ve never understood, as “clip-less” pedals are the only kind you clip into). Under practice conditions, I could snap my foot out of the clip-less pedals fine, but when I really needed to, such as when I was falling, the odds lowered to about 50%.

On one such occasion I was about to fall sideways into an evergreen tree, but rather than risk my delicate skin on the pines, I fell to the other side of the trail into what appeared to be an open clearing. Visually deceiving, the open clearing had the remnants of a small sapling – and I landed ass first into that damn stump. I’ve never admitted it publically, but I’ve avoided most real cycling ever since.

Fast forward 6 years, and Matt’s invited me out to the Chico 24 hours of Summer Solstice – a 24 hour mountain bike race in the hills of Albion, Ontario. It’s a 17km looping course that teams of 1-12 people (yeah, some go solo), try to tackle as many times as they can in a 24 hour period.

I arrived just in time for the start, which had been delayed two hours because of a downpour. So the 24 hour marathon had now become a simple 22 hour sprint. The race is the largest of its kind in North America, and loaded with a lot of first time racers who seem drawn to the energy and team/camping experience.

Many teams carry a laid back, “have fun” attitude,  enjoying the capacity campsite and taking turns spinning out through the woods.

Matt’s brother’s team, 3 Rox Racing, hooked me up with one of their bikes, some gear, and a guide in team member Corey who took me for a lap around the track.

The course had some highly technical portions, and while I still knew how to pedal and steer a bike – trying to flip gears, brake, and avoid other riders on a wet course proved to be a challenge. The typical routine had me failing to pick up enough speed into an uphill, sliding off a tight turn as we descended, and thanking Corey for waiting up every few minutes.

I couldn’t stick around for the night ride, but after navigating the forest and hills during the daytime, I think it’d be amazing to watch some riders tear through that course in the dead of the night with just a few lights guiding them.

Anyways, the experience has motivated me to inflate the tires on the old 18-speed, spray some WD-40 on the gears and invest in a non-purple helmet that’s less than 10 years old. Keep an eye out for me near Heber Downs or up in Durham Forest.

Golf, it’s at once the most humbling of sports and, for that exact reason, one of the most comfortable to try. The fact is that golf is a sport requiring movement so unnatural to the human body that no one can complete their first attempt without looking like a failed contortionist act. The expectations when you go to first pick up a golf club are zero. This is a good thing; you can go pick up a club, hit the range this afternoon, and if you never connect the club to the ball everyone will just assume you are a beginner, as they once were.

It’s such a humbling experience because its premise is so ridiculously simple. There are no opponents creating obstacles to your success, and once you’ve hit one ball straight you can’t imagine any reasons why you shouldn’t be able to do it again.

You’ll walk up to the tee deck with confidence in your stride and think to yourself, “It’s a par 4. Just hit your first shot down the fairway, your second shot onto the green, putt the ball close to the hole, and then tap it in for a par. It’s easy.”

Welcome to the delusional world of the golf course, which can mess with your head and turn even your friendly neighbourhood Mr. Rogers into a raging fountain of expletives. This brings us to the matter of etiquette. Golf is founded upon the ideal of being a gentlemen’s game – not in the sense that it excludes women (not anymore, anyways) but in the sense that you’re supposed to treat your competitors with respect, be quiet when they play their ball, replace divots and generally leave the course in better shape than you found it. Treat the course and your fellow golfers with respect and no one is going to care about your final score of 168.

And so it was that I took to the course with my cousin Paul and our friend Kyle for an annual tournament which raises both money and awareness to fight Cystic Fibrosis.

Of the following, which have each occurred every year of the tournament, only one would be different this time around (the answer is C):

a)      Neither Paul nor Kyle had touched a golf club since last years tourney.

b)      There would be wildly varying and inconclusive claims about what occurred during the day, with distracted witnesses and memory-loss blamed for the incongruities.

c)      I was told Paul’s brother Steve (the only chance for our team to be competitive) would join us, only to find out on the day of the tourney that I had been tricked again.

This year Steve arrived in the flesh, in fact, he drove us there. We didn’t emerge victorious, but for a day that was supposed to be full of rain showers we more than entertained ourselves. We still had to use at least one drive from each team member, and if you watch the video you’ll notice that was a challenge, but as I said – there are no expectations here.

“Is there a specific place you had in mind? Have you been to some great little restaurant there before?” I asked.

“No, I just love finding little ethnic food places. I don’t know what Stoney Creek has, but my expectations are sky high!”

30 minutes and about 6 ethnic food comments later, we’re trying to locate the Hamilton Gun Club when Paul shouts: “That’s it! The place from in my head!” as he points out the window at this:

Tarboosh Restaurant - Set to live forever in the Saga of Paul

With our stomachs full and our minds open, we made it to the Hamilton Gun Club and hooked up with our expert for the day – Florin, from learntrapshooting.ca.

We went through the usual waivers routine and picked nicknames. It was then explained that girls often have a natural ability to quickly learn trap shooting, I didn’t catch the full explanation because Thunder kept making funny faces, but I think it had something to do with girls being able to focus on the task at hand.

The Hamilton Gun Club is the second oldest continuously operating gun club in North America, established in 1882. The history of modern North American shooting, Florin explained, was that North Americans used to get beat rather frequently when they went over to Europe for the shooting competitions. They would practice and practice, but it rarely made much difference – the Euro’s had it down. Finally, one man decided that the European version wasn’t the way to go, and rather than practice, he invented his own game. He modified some measurement and made the North American version we were about to try.

Florin asked us each how many traps we expected to hit on the day, and we each replied with a number between 0 and 4. “You’ll all do much better than that” he explained, and with that the pressure was on.

As I took to the field and went through my first round, I was worried that trap shooting may have represented the end of the search for “my sport”;  I hit 5 of my first 6 shots, and 9 of my next 10. But when the pressure was on, and we were doing our end of day competition with only 2 shots each, I only hit one, while Amy and Alex each shot 100%.

Aside from the peculiar finding of food, the shooting, the great coaching, and the weather, Alex’s commentary provided the cherry on top of this Sunday outing. With his unique approach and untamed remarks, he’s shaped the history of gymineering, as we break away from our usual musical montage and enter into the world of colour commentary.

I was told that all we needed to bring was ourselves and a pair of socks. The temptation was strong in the hot may weather, but we all opted to come fully clothed. Still, we were hooked up with the full power-suits: knees pads, pants, boots, elbow pads, shirt, helmet, goggles and gloves. There are even instructions posted on the wall inside the change room on how to gear up. Somehow Krischele still managed to come out of the change room after five minutes and ask us all “How sweet do I look?” followed by “And where do these go?” as she held up her knee pads – the first thing you put on underneath everything else.

Once the gear was on, we were on the bikes and getting familiar with our machines. At first it was a bit intimidating – like many first timers I was excited, but worried that my lack of experience would embarrass me.

The bike’s controls come down to this – your right hand controls the throttle, as well as the front brake. Your left hand controls the clutch. Add in steering and the responsibilities for your hands are covered. Down below, your right foot control your rear brake, and your left foot shifts gears. I know, it makes other first time activities sound easy. The first couple times around the track you have to be very conscious of what each of your limbs are doing.

After 30 minutes of instruction and practice we had it down, all three of us were ripping around the track and what had initially seemed like a complicated alien control system was already becoming intuitive.

Our lesson ended with us heading out to kick up some sand on the forest trails. As I became more and more comfortable on the bike the temptation grew to pop the bike into 5^th or 6^th gear and just open it up. There were some moments where we were really tearing through the bush, and while I expected some more wipeouts, Amy was the only member of our crew that pushed herself hard enough to take a spill. She wins the soon-to-be-named award for the person who shows the most dedication to a quick learning curve while providing entertainment for those in the immediate area and the online community.

Full credit to our instructors, Allan and John, as well as Jen and Tori who helped us get a lot of the footage. If you’re looking for a place to give dirtbiking or ATVing a try, get in touch with the crew at www.ontariooffroadadventures.com. You can go solo or bring a crew as large as fifty if you’re thinking about a corporate getaway.

When I joined the Hurlin’ Hooters for a Dodgeball tournament I thought we could be part of that elite group.

The Saturday event was a fundraiser for Variety Village, an inclusive recreation and training centre, and a centrepiece of my childhood and adolescent development.

The rules were standard dodgeball-fare, and identical to the film that shares the sport’s namesake. The idea of playing on a full basketball court had me concerned; frankly I didn’t think anybody could hit me with a ball from 40-feet away.

With our uniforms together, we took to the court for our first game with no signs of a strategy.

About 60 seconds into the first game I was still alive, and standing in the centre of the action looking to snag a fast moving sphere. Two of my opponents, both holding their balls, stepped up to the half court line. One threw a high lob above my head, as his teammate held his ball for a split second. My senses tingled and the flashback happened: I had seen this before, in grade 6 when I invented it. I pretended to glance skyward, waiting for the direct throw from his teammate, as I saw his arm cock back I stared him down, tensed myself and pinned his line drive to my chest as I side-stepped the aerial attack previously mentioned.

First lesson of the tournament learned: things that worked in elementary school don’t work here in the big leagues.

The second lesson would soon be comprehended, which also threw me back to my elementary dodgeball days: accusations of cheating are integral to the sport of dodgeball, they have nothing to do with childish, immature, grade school behaviour. It’s part of the game.

By the time the semi-finals rolled around, the Hurlin’ Hooters had long grown accustomed to our rightful place on the bleachers. But during these final games, the refs, who had all been on their own courts for the preliminary action, conjoined to follow the NHL’s lead and put two officials on every court. Chaos ensued. The refs had each been calling their own slight variations of the official rulebook, which had no real impact until the end of one semi-final when a controversial “holding two balls” rule was called to end the game and send the “Blue Balls” or “Handle our nuts” through to the gold medal game.

By the time the gold medal game rolled around the Hurlin’ Hooter’s focus had shifted to the “social” part of this “sport and social” evening, but I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mark and Zoe at the Village for running an excellent first annual Variety Village Dodgeball Sport and Social. Well done Mark and Zoe, well done.

A month and a bit ago, my friend Alyson mentioned the CN Tower climb to me. I believe she was mostly into it with the goal of fundraising for the World Wildlife Fund (she really likes saving frogs). It sounded good to me, so I got excited and signed up. A week later, my friend Natalie (of rockwall climbing fame) also invited me and a few other people to join her for the CN Tower climb.

“Sweet” I thought, “a big group of good friends.”

I went out and found sponsors and was locked in. Then I really started thinking about it; about how many flights of stairs it was (144), how tight little stairwells can be, the consequences of keeling over on the 80^th floor – the typical paranoia that can strike before taking on any daunting adventure. At least I’d have my friends with me.

A week before the event I got in touch with Alyson to see what her plans were.

“Hmm, yeah I think I am going to have to still be in Ottawa for some work stuff” she shamefully uttered over the phone.

So I called up Natalie – “Yeah sorry Jame, looks like I am going to have to be in New York that weekend.”

And so, that’s the story of how I entered into an event to support friends and then ended up taking the GO Train into Toronto and running 144 flights of stairs by myself. Whatever, no one to hold me back… right?

I opted out of the 5am arrival I had originally planned on and in doing so forfeited the free return coupon to the CN Tower. With that $23 value gone to waste, I had a bone to pick with this southern Ontario landmark.

So I got in line – one to register, one to check my bag, one long one to leave the skywalk, one to get into the tower’s main entrance, and one to get through tower security. Then I cautiously began the climb. I had visualized it numerous times, and was very concerned that, like so many cross-country races in my past, I would go out too fast and end up with the proverbial “bear on my back” as I battle through each stride.

As I began the march up the stairs I had a sudden mental lift. I had only done three stair specific work outs in the months before this climb, and I had done them at a downtown hotel which had a fairly typical staircase: 7 steps + a turn + 7 steps = 1 flight. That’s what I was banking on in the CN Tower. Instead, what I realized at flight number 3, was that here, on this journey: 12 steps = 1 flight, then you turn and do the next flight. In my mind this cut the work in half. Sure, I still had to climb about 85% of my anticipated steps, but I only had half the turns, which was huge! So I started running.

I hit floor 18, the 1/8^th mark, in a minute and 30 seconds, well ahead of the pace I had envisioned. Soon after that I was at the 60^th floor and my confidence was matching my elevation.

As floor 70 approached I took a break for a few seconds to stretch out my calves, where the reality of sprinting up so many stairs was catching up with the resolute swagger in my head. I carried on; at the time I was rather upset at anyone who was in my way, as I was sure I was headed for some sort of record. In reality, having to think of ways to pass people probably took my mind off of the repetitive cycle of the climb.

Around floor 90 I passed a girl who was comforting her boyfriend while he held a small ziplock bag full of light brown fluid. He seemed to be in good spirits though, and the paramedics, located on every tenth floor, had everything under control. As I stepped up to floor 91, I heard her ask the paramedic “what do we do with it now?” As I climbed I heard a response indicating that the climbers had a new, pocket-sized companion for the rest of their journey.

I took another brief rest around floor 105, and then entered the final stretch. I ended up reaching the top of the tower in 14:43, a time much quicker than I was anticipating. Looking back, there was a big difference between the perceived difficulty of this activity – climbing the friggin’ CN Tower – and the actual difficulty in getting up. It is by no means easy, but there are young people and old people, very fit people and not-so-fit people – all doing it at their own pace mind you, but all doing it.  I had originally envisioned this as a one time “check it off the list” activity, but now I am feeling some motivation to head back in October and make a run at a good time. I am also trying to convince some of the old track crew, and one mountain running steeple chaser in particular, that the CN Tower world record of 7:52 is within their reach.

As I handed in my time card at the top of the CN tower, I stepped out onto the main deck tower and – got in line. The whole deck was filled wall-to-wall with two lines of concentric circles running in opposite directions. It was all very well organized, which is never easy with 10,000 some odd people, but they managed. But I needed some fresh air, so I grabbed a bottle of water and headed out onto the open deck – Not a bad post-race view.

I was long overdue for a trip back to my old schoolyard, and after missing all of the Olympic festivities, I decided to make the hike out west while prices were reasonable and exams were still a distant forethought for my student-body friends.

I had a number of things set to accomplish in Vancouver, and along my search for sports, my buddy Jay suggested dragon boating. Like myself, Jay had never been dragon boating, but had friends on a team called Riptide who accepted as us their own and taught us the ropes.

Our journey started at the False Creek Yacht Club, found right across from Granville Island. For the mid and eastern Canadian readers who are unaware, Granville Island is Vancouver’s version of the St. Lawrence Market, combined with the buskers and arts of downtown Montreal. (It’s also the birthplace of Granville Island Winter Ale, a brew I highly recommend indulging in to bring some cheer into your winter months). Aside from that, we had to deal with the backdrop of GM Place (aka Canada Hockey Place), BC Place, Science World, and the mountains of northern Vancouver. Basically, there was a lot to distract us from the skill we were attempting to learn, but we persevered.

As we set out on the water, we had all of the newbies, four of us in total, riding at the back of the boat with one veteran. The idea is to keep your strokes on pace by looking up front, so if they had us rookies up there we’d be throwing everybody off time and the boat would be doing figure-eights. Putting the regulars up front allowed us to watch them as we worked to keep pace. But there was a secondary consequence to this set-up – we were told before showing up that we may get a little wet, “splashes happen” – but my goodness, four first timers side-by-side in a dragon boat and I swore I was a dodo being thrown off Noah’s Ark.

We switched sides half-way through our workout, something that was optional, but my right arm insisted. I was concerned about being able to jump in and keep up with the group right away, but if you fatigue or start to fall behind, you can keep more of your paddle out of the water to lessen the load, or take shorter strokes. Or, if you’re really concerned about it, you can say that you run a website where you’re trying out a bunch of new sports and that you have to take a break from paddling to get some footage from the front and the back of the boat. Free ridin’! (Sorry Jay).