Hello world, on trail running, film and writing…

Since I was a six I have always kept a journal.  In fact my first private thoughts were contained in a red Annie diary that had a silver lock and key, protecting them from curious minds.  Inside was filled with movie pictures of little Annie with quotes of friendship underneath her.  Though the movie was before my time I remember watching little orphan Annie at some point in my childhood and admiring her and all her friends.  The first entry was printed in big letters covering two lines about visiting a friend.  Since then I have always kept a journal, all through the over dramatic years of high school ( mostly talked about boys) to more intelligent thoughts leading into early adulthood.  I have kept them all and on occasionhttp://livewhatyoulove.ca/wp-admin/post.php?post=19&action=edit I will open one of my colourful journals and read a story from a moment in time.

Now I have decided to share some of my story with who ever wants to listen.  I’ll still keep a written journal for internal reflection as there is something romantic about writing with a pen and paper.  I have recently started reading other peoples blogs and have been inspired by their stories.  Everyone has a story and most of the time we think our own story is not worth telling but to others it may brighten their days, inspire to try new things, fill them with laughter or motivate them to push past their limits.  I know others have inspired and touched me by reading and hearing their stories.  The next few months will mostly focus on my biggest challenge: Leadville Trail 100 Below is a video that my boyfriend Andrew and I made about my love of trail running and my goal to finish Leadville.

The video started out as a suggestion made by Andrew to do something for my work while producing a film that he could use to showcase his skills with video.  It started off small and slowly transformed into an epic first time filming adventure. He shot over 16 hours of film between nine locations and spent close to 30 hours editing a four and half minute piece. It probably didn’t help that I was hovering over his shoulder now and then making suggestions.  My unexpected part other then to run and to speak was finding places to shoot that had either great light or would make a great scene like the river crossing.  All the creative shots where thought of by Andrew, though I had input into some of the shots.  Andrew is so patient to work with and very meticulous as I had to cross the freezing river 20 times to get the shots he wanted for the river crossing sequence.  The title Set Free was appropriately chosen because running brought out confidence in me as a child (I was really shy) and as an adult, running gave me a chance to strip away all the layers down to the core root and become free and vulnerable as nature intended us to be. I had so much fun working with Andrew on this short film that I want to take a course at the Gulf Island film school for fun one of these years.  We are never too old to try and learn something new.

We plan to document the lead up and aftermath of the race with another short film.  In the meantime, I’ll share the funny, scary, inspiring people and challenging road to Leadville, among other events that may come up along the way.

Have fun out there!!!

Kristie

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