My Journey

THIS ISN’T A RÉSUMÉ OR A LIST OF RESULTS.

IT’S THE STORY OF WHERE I’VE BEEN.
 FROM A SMALL FARM ON HOWE ISLAND TO NATIONAL TEAMS.

FROM MOVING HOUSE MORE TIMES THAN I CAN COUNT TO FINDING STABILITY IN TRAINING. FROM CHASING FINISH LINES TO LEARNING THAT RESILIENCE IS THE REAL PRIZE.

THIS IS THE PATH THAT BUILT ME — SHAPED BY PLACES, PEOPLE, AND LESSONS I STILL CARRY.

I’M NOT TELLING IT BECAUSE IT’S EXTRAORDINARY.

I’M TELLING IT BECAUSE IT’S MINE — AND BECAUSE THE MILES WE CARRY STAY WITH US LONG AFTER THE RACE IS DONE.

the long way around

it took everything to get here.

Some journeys don’t get spoken about until they’re lived. This is mine.

Dedicated to the younger generation making their way.

A Note Before You Read

I started writing this because, even at 58, I still carry regrets — and questions about what I might have done differently. Over time, I’ve come to see that we all do the best we can with what we know at the time. Writing became a way to lay that weight down. I chose to share these memories so the next generation knows there is always a way forward — even when life feels heavy.

I haven’t found closure, but in writing, I’ve found peace.

These stories are drawn from memory, and like all memories, some details may have blurred with time. Dates, timelines, and results may not always be exact. But the feelings, the lessons, and the people who shaped them remain clear. These memories aren’t perfect, but they are true to how I lived them.

When I stepped away from Fast Trax, I finally slowed down. I trained, went to the office, trained again. I spent time with Shauna, just trying to be present. But even in that stillness, there was an itch I couldn’t ignore: the urge to build something again — and to finally tell my story.

At first, I wasn’t sure what form it should take. A book felt too big. I built websites, toyed with ideas, drifted on and off social media. Nothing fit.

Quietly, though, it kept building. It began as notes on my phone — fragments, memories, moments. Over time, those fragments became something more: a story I was finally ready to tell.

Now I’m back on Instagram, and I’ve built a website that — for the first time — feels like it reflects where I am today.

The road here hasn’t been simple. It’s been full of turns, setbacks, and second chances. Some parts are heavy, some are wild — all of them are real. So buckle up, maybe grab some popcorn, and come with me. This isn’t a straight line or a highlight reel — it’s a story of persistence..

There are chapters of triumph. Chapters of struggle. Moments where the weight pressed heavy, testing how much I could carry.  But there is also resilience, community, and a belief that even when things burn down — literally and figuratively — you can rebuild stronger.

What follows is the long way around — full of twists, false starts, and second chances.

Long before finish lines and podiums, before skis and running shoes, there was a small island on the St. Lawrence River.

That’s where my story begins.

roots & rise

From Toronto Streets to Howe Island

I was born in downtown Toronto, spending my earliest years in the neighborhoods just off Queen Street, not far from the Beaches. Life there was lively, but it carried its risks. One afternoon, my mother sent me to the corner store for milk, but on the way, a group of local kids stopped me and took the money. That moment changed everything. My mother decided the city wasn’t where she wanted to raise her son. Soon after, we left it behind for a very different kind of life.

We moved to Howe Island, just outside Kingston, where our family raised and trained quarter horses. Farm life was work from dawn to dusk, and being the smallest meant I drew the job of breaking in the horses before they moved further in training. It was dangerous, bruising work, but it taught me persistence and grit in a way no classroom could.

Still, I began to wonder if all that energy might be better spent training myself. By eight or nine, I started running — not far, just short loops here and there — but it was a spark. The beginning of something that would shape the rest of my life.

Looking back, Howe Island wasn’t just where I left the city behind. It was where I first began to discover who I was becoming — and how sport would anchor that story.

Howe Island School Days

Life on Howe Island was simple. We had a one-room schoolhouse where every grade learned together, and organized athletics were rare. The one highlight each year was the track and field day, and I trained on my own so I’d be ready when it came.

Outside of school, adventure was whatever I could make of it. I rode my bike for hours along the island’s quiet roads, stopping in to see friends, pushing farther each time. Once, on a long downhill, I let the speed get away from me. I crashed hard, blacked out, and was eventually found by family friends who carried me home. Looking back, it was likely my first concussion — a harsh lesson in risk. But instead of slowing me down, it sharpened my curiosity about limits and how far I could go.

Family Ties on the Island

For As long as I can remember, I had a special bond with my grandparents on my mother’s side. Their visits to the island were the highlights of my childhood. A few times each year, I would ride my bike down to the ferry dock and wait eagerly for their arrival. Eventually, their connection to the island grew so deep they purchased a trailer and kept it on the farm year-round. With our farmhouse being small, it gave them their own space — but it also meant they were never far away.

Those years were defined by family. My mother came from a family of six, and the island became a gathering place where everyone seemed to pass through. My aunt Wendy, the youngest of the girls, even chose Howe Island for her wedding. My uncles Alex and Rick both worked on the farm — Alex drawn to the horses, Rick always ready to lace up and challenge me on a run. My uncle Fred didn’t spend much time at the farm, but when I stayed with my grandparents, I often watched him at the piano — patiently honing his craft, showing me what quiet consistency looked like.

Each of them gave me something. Alex taught me discipline and care as we loaded horses into trailers and prepared the paddock for the track. Rick gave me the thrill of testing myself, of seeing what I could do. Wendy and Beth, with their kindness and warmth, gave me comfort and the feeling of being supported. Years later, I was honoured to stand in both Alex’s and Rick’s wedding parties — a reflection of the deep ties that held us together.

That bond with my grandparents never faded. I remember speaking at my grandfather’s funeral, calling him my hero — and he truly was. My grandmother was equally important to me, but sadly, I was unable to attend her funeral. Still, their presence has stayed with me all my life.

It was a time when family was ever-present, and the rhythms of farm life and family life blended into one..

Cracks in the Picture

Life on Howe Island wasn’t all sunshine and open skies. At an early age, I began to notice the tension money troubles brought into our home. More troubling were the signs of my mother’s drinking — something I didn’t fully understand then, but later came to recognize as alcoholism. What had once felt steady and secure slowly began to unravel.

We left the island and returned to Toronto, moving in with my grandparents. For a time, their home provided stability, but change soon followed. In grade four, I was pulled from school altogether. As a family, we piled into the car and drove south — all the way to Miami.

To me, it seemed the purpose of the trip was my father’s attempt to make his fortune betting on the horses — the “ponies,” as he called them. Whatever the plan, it didn’t work. We came back no richer, and I had lost nearly a year of schooling. Missing most of grade four left a gap in my learning that followed me for years.

A New Start in Shelburne

After returning from Miami, we lived for a time with my grandparents before moving to Shelburne, just outside Toronto. It was my father’s next big idea — starting a mink farm — while he continued his one steady line of work, selling clothing and accessories from the trunk of his car in Toronto.

For me, Shelburne felt like a second chance. I was back in school, regaining what I had lost during that missing year, and I started running every day. One moment at school stands out even now: a substitute teacher decided our class should run five miles — an unusual choice, but one I thought was pretty cool. I finished strong, and afterward he came over and said, “You might have something.” It was the first time an adult outside my family had recognized a spark in my running, and it stuck.

Life in Shelburne was good. I laced up daily on the country roads, joined hockey, and even tried downhill skiing. My grades improved, and the mix of farm life, open roads, and school success gave me a sense of stability I hadn’t felt in years.

Mississauga: Football and Hard Truths

When the mink farm in Shelburne failed, we moved again — this time to the suburbs of Mississauga. I kept running, but my father encouraged me to try football. I had a good arm and quickly found myself leading the team as quarterback. It was a different kind of athletic test — strategy, teamwork, responsibility — and I thrived in the role.

But life off the field told a different story. One evening, I walked home from practice to find our house surrounded by police cars. Confused, I stood on the sidewalk until my mother emerged and spoke with the officers. After tense discussion, it was decided I wouldn’t be taken away but would go to my grandparents instead.

And so, I walked from my house to theirs — cleats still dusty from practice — carrying with me a new understanding of the shadows behind my father’s “unorthodox” approach to making a living. As a kid, I’d assumed his work was simply unusual. That day, I realized it was something more serious.

Cobourg: Finding My Stride

After a period of uncertainty in Mississauga, we moved again — this time to Cobourg. As it was explained to me, part of the “deal” was that we needed to leave the city. Whether it was an arrangement with the authorities or just circumstance, I never fully knew. What I did know was that Cobourg marked a new chapter.

I kept playing football, but the real gift of school there was access to a proper running track — the first I had ever trained on. I loved it instantly, especially the 1500m and 3000m, where I discovered the rhythm of middle-distance racing. Still, my fascination with endurance stretched beyond the oval. One day in class, restless and curious, I walked out and decided to run home — 40 kilometres away. Somewhere along that road, my love for long-distance running took root.

Life in Cobourg had its balance of ups and downs. I did well in school and bonded with my father through work on the farm and in the shop, where we built furniture together. My restless curiosity also showed up in other ways. Once, I wrote a letter to Nike, pitching them an idea: adding an air bag to the sole of their running shoes. For my prototype, I carved a hole in a pair of Nikes and slotted in a cut-up bike tube. I suggested they refine the idea and send me a commission. To my surprise, Nike replied with a polite thank-you, noting they already had something in the works. A few years later, Nike Air was born. From an early age, I was always tinkering, always adapting.

But behind these bright spots, the storm clouds gathered. My father’s frustration often boiled over into bursts of anger. The power and phone — still a party line in those days — were cut off when bills went unpaid. One summer, while using a blowtorch to strip paint, the house caught fire. We dragged furniture onto the lawn and watched as firefighters battled the flames. To my shock, my father popped champagne while the house was still burning, calling it a fresh start. We had lost everything. That moment changed me: setbacks don’t have to break you.

When the house was rebuilt, the hardest blow came. I came home from school one day to learn my father had left us. Just like that, it was me and my mother alone. Without him there to buffer the worst of her drinking, I had to face her alcoholism on my own. It was a heavy burden, and it marked the end of one chapter and the beginning of another — one where resilience would become less of a choice and more of a necessity.

Picking Up the Pieces

Those years were difficult — not just for me, but for my mother as well. She was one of the smartest, sweetest, most beautiful women I knew. But having married straight out of high school, she had little work experience to fall back on, and with her predisposition to alcoholism — which I’ve come to understand as a disease, not a fault — she struggled deeply with our new reality. Life became unstable, uneven, anything but steady. Eventually, we returned once more to my grandparents’ house, a place that always seemed to catch us when we fell.

That period shaped me in ways I didn’t recognize at the time. It was the beginning of my minimalist streak, and of becoming highly skilled at moving house. Packing, adjusting, letting go — those became second nature.

As for my father, he was not a bad man. Quite the opposite: kind, creative, a dreamer. I see much of that in myself. But his refusal to accept a conventional nine-to-five job left him untethered, always chasing the next idea, the next possibility. A man like my dad was better suited to working alone, but it meant he could never provide the stability our family needed. When he walked out, it wasn’t out of malice, but out of struggle. Still, the absence was sharp. I wouldn’t hear from him again for more than two years.

Back to the Beaches

In time, we settled in the Beaches, just west of downtown Toronto. In some ways, it felt like coming full circle — my grandmother had grown up there, and it was close to where I had first lived as a baby. I entered Grade 10 at Malvern Collegiate, eager to find my footing again.

I picked up football, quickly catching the eye of the head coach with my throwing arm. At the same time, I joined the cross-country team, where I met Dan Howat — a pivotal figure in my life. From the first practice, he took an interest in me, seeing potential not just as an athlete but as a person. I remember him once saying, “With everything you’ve been through… if you get out of this and accomplish your goals, you should write a book.” It stuck with me — and maybe, in some way, this is me finally writing it.

But football was tied to my father, and with him gone, it lost its pull. I was also tired of being driven into the turf by defensive linemen. My strategy had become simple: count to three and throw, whether anyone was open or not. Eventually, I let it go and focused on running.

Life outside sport was far less steady. Schoolwork slipped — distractions, parties, and no accountability at home. Living with my mother meant mostly living alone. She was rarely there, and when she was, she was hungover. We moved often when bills went unpaid, but I managed to stay at the same school.

Running was up and down. Some weeks I won city championships; other weeks I barely scraped through qualifiers. I trained hard with the Toronto Olympic Club, but instability at home seemed to seep into my results. A nagging back injury didn’t help. Years earlier, when my father was renovating a lake resort, I’d fallen from a ladder and landed badly. Medical care had been limited, and though little was explained at the time, the injury lingered. It flared in hockey, then running, and later skiing — undermining me just as I was pushing harder.

Eventually, life with my mother became too much. Barely scraping by in school, I reached out to my father, who was then living downtown. He took me in, but it didn’t last. His need for independence outweighed any sense of family ties. In his own way, he cared, but living together wasn’t something he could sustain. He gently suggested I move in with the Howats and even offered to pay them board.

Dan’s parents refused payment and welcomed me into their home. Their generosity allowed me to stay at Malvern, giving me the stability I desperately needed. Had I gone back to my grandparents, it would likely have been fine, but it would have meant yet another new school. Instead, I was given a place where I felt safe, supported, and able to keep moving forward.

It was also at Malvern that I was introduced to cross-country skiing. I joined the school team almost on a whim, but at one of my first races, I was spotted by provincial coach Larry Sinclair. He became another mentor, opening a door that would define the next stage of my journey. By the end of Grade 12, skiing had eclipsed everything else. I dropped out of school and moved north to Barrie, determined to train at Hardwood Hills and chase this new path.

Summer Jobs and City Lessons

While at Malvern, I picked up a string of summer jobs, each leaving its mark. I worked downtown at a bar — first as a busboy, then waiter, eventually cook. I loved the creativity of plating dishes with care, until the manager pulled me aside and told me to tone it down — the food looked too good, and it was cutting into margins. Even then, my creative side sometimes outweighed the practical outcome — a tendency I still carry today.

I also worked construction, renovating older homes in Toronto for a friend of my father’s. It was hard, hot labor, but it taught me the value of showing up and grinding through.

One summer I landed in a stranger role — driving for a man I later realized was either a small-time mob boss or a drug dealer with a big ego. I picked him up each morning and ferried him around the city. The pay was good and it beat swinging a hammer in the July heat, but when my father discovered the man was dealing drugs out of the car, he told me to quit. I did — by then, summer was nearly over anyway.

Part of the reason I got that job was because I knew Toronto like the back of my hand. Another summer, I had worked as a courier, zigzagging across the city making deliveries. I thrived on finding shortcuts and learning every side street. At one point, I even managed to get my mother hired. She did well at first, while I rode with her and navigated. But when I moved on, the company quickly realized her efficiency had been mine. Not long after, she lost the job.

Barrie and Hardwood Hills

Moving to Barrie was an escape — from family turmoil, from my mother’s struggles, from the absence of my father. By then, even the idea of a “family house” felt more like burden than comfort. I left before finishing Grade 13, though the truth is I wasn’t showing up much anyway. My grandparents were unhappy, but my uncles backed me: “A man has to do what a man has to do.”

I rented a basement room in the house on the Hardwood Hills property. Back then, Hardwood was little more than a small lodge and the owners’ home, where Kim and Dave Viney lived. Shortly after I arrived, the Ontario Ski Team held a camp there. A few days in, my coach Larry Sinclair pulled me aside. “Do you have a plan? How are you going to pay rent, cover expenses?” I didn’t. Within days, Larry had found me work at Hardwood.

Dave and Kim had big expansion plans, and I was hired to help cut new ski trails and build the chalet. The first time I was handed a chainsaw, I smiled and said, “Certainly, I’m familiar.” Truth was, I had no idea what I was doing. If YouTube had existed, I could have saved myself the scar on my leg from coming too close to losing it.

Dave would mark the trails with tape, and I would follow, cutting an eight-foot swath through the forest. One of those climbs would later be named Cook’s Climb — a small reminder of those long, humid days carving trails out of the Ontario woods. I worked on the chalet too, just me and a contractor in the relentless summer heat. It was backbreaking work, and balancing it with high-volume ski training was a constant struggle. Some days, I crawled into bed at lunch just to escape the exhaustion before lacing up again.

In many ways, I think of those long, silent hours like watching my uncle Fred at the piano when I was a kid. He would repeat the same passages until they were flawless. That image stayed with me — the patience, the discipline, the idea that mastery comes from showing up even when no one’s watching. Out there on those trails, I was doing the same thing.

Hardwood Hills was rough and raw in those years, but it gave me something precious: structure, purpose, and a foothold in the life I wanted to chase.

Building a Life Around Skiing

As Hardwood Hills grew, so did my role in it. The trail network expanded, the chalet rose from the ground, and the place was beginning to transform into something special. I, too, was outgrowing the basement room I had rented. With the house on the property being renovated, I took a leap and rented one of the nearby homes Dave and Kim Viney had purchased as part of their expansion plans.

It was a three-bedroom place, and I couldn’t afford it on my own. My first thought was to rent to fellow athletes, but not everyone shared the same single-minded drive I did. Ads went in the paper, tenants came and went — some even slipping out in the middle of the night. Stability finally arrived when Rick Dickey, a fellow skier, and his girlfriend moved in while working at Hardwood. At last, the house felt steady enough to focus.

Around this time, I launched a small import business called Jack Cook Sports, bringing in Rode wax — a niche Italian ski brand with a cult following that was nearly impossible to get in Canada unless you knew someone on the national team who could bring it back from Europe. I saw an opening. My lunch breaks were spent in the basement, sending faxes, filling orders, and slowly building a side business in ski goods.

By then, I had rented out every upstairs room and moved myself into the unfinished basement — just a mattress on the concrete floor and a desk made from crates. It might not have looked like much, but it was the spark of my entrepreneurial spirit. I lived like that for weeks, until one night I woke to find a snake curled beside me. That was enough motivation to finally build a bed frame.

Always experimenting, I even branched into rollerblades, hoping to bridge the idea into roller skis. Back then, rollerblades were common cross-training tools for skiers, long before roller skis became standard. I was always looking for ways to stay one step ahead.

But none of it came easy. Between managing the house, training, and running the import business, I picked up yet another job to make ends meet — this time in Barrie, thirty minutes away, building a bar at the Legion. Mornings started with training, then trail work at Hardwood, another training session, and finally the late-night construction shift. Some nights I worked past midnight before collapsing into that basement bed.

Those were exhausting days, but they laid the foundation: work, train, hustle, repeat. It was the rhythm of a young man determined to make sport his life, no matter how many hours it took.

Finding My Mileage Game

Hardwood was slowly becoming the place to ski in southern Ontario. Without the internet, training knowledge was hard to come by, so I studied everyone around me — watching how the best athletes trained, asking questions, piecing things together. I wasn’t there just to ski locally. Hardwood was my pathway to the world stage.

That drive had been with me for years. I remember after a workout at the Toronto Olympic Club, my high school coach Al Baigent asked what I wanted to accomplish. Without hesitation, I said, “World record in the 10,000 meters.” He laughed, but I wasn’t joking. That was how I thought back then — and in truth, I’ve never really changed.

One person who reshaped my path was Al Pilcher — “Pilch.” He was already breaking through internationally with the national team, while I was still on the provincial team. Larry Sinclair invited him to help at a summer camp at Hardwood, and looking back, I think Larry sensed I needed guidance he couldn’t fully give. Pilch offered that. Over a weekend of training together, he told me plainly: I needed more volume. At the time, I was training 12–15 hours a week. After Pilch, I pushed that toward 20–30. It wasn’t easy, but he assured me it was the only way forward. That was the start of what I would eventually call my Mileage Game.

The results soon followed. That winter, I earned a few trips with the national team — not enough to secure a full-time spot, but enough to feel I was closing the gap. Around the same time, my mother’s struggles in Toronto deepened. Wanting to help, I encouraged her to move north with me. We found a place in a little hillside community called Sugarbush, surrounded by forest. For me, it was perfect — a 90-minute run to Hardwood each way. Many mornings I’d run to work, work all day, then run home — often stretching those runs to two hours. On weekends, I drove to Orangeville for three-hour runs with Pilch.

For a while, things felt good. My import business had a corner at Hardwood, the bar construction job was done, and my world was streamlined: train, work, rest, repeat. But my mother began to lose her way again. One day I came home to find she had attempted suicide by drinking Javex. I managed to save her, but it was a harsh wake-up call. Soon after, the missed payments piled up and we were forced to move. I packed her things and brought her back to my grandparents, hoping their support might help.

With her gone, I had to figure out my own next step. The basement at Hardwood was no longer available, and the house I’d once rented was being demolished for parking. With winter approaching and little money, I moved back in with my father.

Even amidst the turmoil, the training never stopped. That fall, I ran the Toronto Marathon in 2:32 — although no official result can be found online, so I suppose it doesn’t count. This was long before Garmin or Strava kept records for every mile, so all I have are fragments of memory from that day. One detail remains clear: passing Alberto Salazar around the 10k mark and thinking I’d gone out too hard — only to learn later he was there just for the appearance fee. Going out too hard was kind of my thing back then, and in some ways, it still is.

Later that autumn, Larry reached out to Marty Hall, head coach of the national ski team, on my behalf. He asked if I could join their fall camp on the Dachstein Glacier in Austria. To my surprise, I was invited — and ended up rooming with Pilch. In my mind, it was simple: if the top guys were there, I needed to be there too. Just like the early days in Labrador chasing early snow, I knew that was where I belonged — putting in the hours, building my Mileage Game, chasing the edge of possibility.

First Taste of Europe

That season brought real breakthroughs. I earned a spot on the B Tour, crossing the Atlantic for my first early-season races in Europe. The racing was intense, but it was the entire experience that lit me up. While most athletes rested between events, I was out running — winding through forest trails, exploring old castles and cobblestone villages. It wasn’t just competition; it felt like stepping into the heart of the sport.

Before leaving, Pilch and I had traveled south for a series of North American Cups. Those races sharpened my edge, and Pilch passed along advice I carried for the rest of my career: “If you want to be strong at Nationals later in the season, you have to keep your mileage up even during early-season races.” I took it to heart, weaving long training miles into every stop, knowing the real target was still months ahead.

Europe was a different world entirely. The races were harder, the athletes hungrier. In former East Germany, I learned just how aggressive it could be. In a rare mass start, I slipped ahead of a German skier — and he jabbed me in the back with his pole. If nothing else, it was good motivation to build a gap, quickly.

Each race, each encounter, pushed me forward. My results improved, my confidence grew, and I was steadily climbing the Canadian Points List. By the time Nationals came around, I believed I had a real shot at making the World Championship team.

Nationals: A Second Chance

Coming home from Europe, I jumped into local races. Not long before, those events would have stretched me to my limit — but now I was on another level. The training, the racing, the experience overseas had lifted me. And I carried that momentum into the 1991 Ski Nationals at Cypress Mountain in Vancouver.

But beneath the surface, the strain was real. The travel, the training load, and especially the financial stress of keeping my import business afloat were grinding me down. Rode wax had been easy to sell at first, but it was niche — once stores bought in, they rarely reordered. My investors wanted returns, and back home they were becoming more and more difficult to deal with. I was trying to juggle it all: elite-level training, running a business, and managing the chaos of life.

At Nationals, CTV Sports was filming athlete profiles. Pilch, always looking out for me, grabbed one of my Jack Cook Sports Rode T-shirts. “Let me see if I can get you some advertising,” he said. Sure enough, in his interview, he wore it proudly on national television. A small gesture, but one that felt huge — my first glimpse at what branding could do.

Still, my first two races were disasters. Buried back in 30th place, I felt crushed. Larry pulled me aside. “What’s happening?” he asked.

I told him everything — the business, the bills, my mother, the sheer weight of it all. I was always traveling with a briefcase stuffed with papers. “Go get it,” he said. When I brought it back, Larry opened a drawer in his dresser, dropped the briefcase in, and shut it, “This will be here when you’re done,” he said. “Now go for a run.”

Running had always been my refuge, and that jog steadied me. The next race was scheduled as a night event, giving me extra time to reset. I lined up with a fresh mindset — and still, nothing. I was buried again. But then, partway through, the lights failed. The course went dark. The event was canceled.

I had been given a second chance.

The following night, I approached the start line with a sense of purpose I had never felt before. It was pouring rain, fog so thick you could barely see three feet ahead. The race was the 10km Classic, a mass start. The gun went off, and I went with it — hard. Two laps: 2.5km up, 2.5km down, repeat.

At the top of the first climb, Larry shouted: “Jack, you’re in third!” I couldn’t believe it. Ahead of me were only Al Pilcher and Yves Bilodeau — two of Canada’s best. On the second lap, I pushed harder, climbing with everything I had. This time, at the top, I was in second, right behind Pilch.

Crossing the finish line, the emotion poured out of me. I sprinted back up the trail through knee-deep snow until I found Larry. “We did it!” I yelled. It was as much his victory as it was mine.

The aftermath was a blur: interviews, drug testing, the full treatment. It wasn’t just validation of the race — it was validation of the grind, the sacrifices, the belief that I belonged.

The next day was a rest day. Pilch, my roommate, turned to me and said, “We need to celebrate. This is big — and there’s no telling if it’ll happen again.”

In hindsight, he was right. That night at White Spot, over a slice of cake, I didn’t know it yet — but I was sitting at the height of my ski career.

Near Misses and New Beginnings

After the rest day came the 50km mass start skate — the decider. Place third, and I was bound for the World Championships. Place fourth, and I’d be headed to the Italian Championships — the B Tour.

It was a battle to the line. I finished fourth — within reach of third, and just one one-hundredth of a second ahead of fifth. The margin was razor-thin. I hadn’t secured Worlds, but there was still a path: perform in Italy and I might still earn my way.

Back in Toronto, reality wasn’t ideal. Training was patchy, the environment unstable, and this was long before I understood the value of structured cross-training. No SkiErg, no easy alternatives — just pavement and fatigue. By the time I returned to Europe, my rhythm was off, and my races in Italy fell flat.

Still, the season mattered. I had raced across Europe, sharpened my edge, and built enough results to finally achieve what I’d dreamed of for years: a spot on the national team. It was official — and with it came a move to Canmore, Alberta.

On that trip, Jack Sassville, the national team coach, asked to see my training logs. A few days later he handed them back and said, “At first, I wondered if your Nationals result might have been a fluke… but after reading these, I can see the opposite is true. You earned those results.” It was a small moment, but it meant everything — the start of a bond built on respect and a shared belief in the work.

Canmore was a world away, and exactly the break I needed from the weight of home. I wrapped up my import business, said my goodbyes, and joined the spring tour across western Canada. During a stop in Canmore, I lined up a job and a room at the Rocky Mountain Ski Lodge. The pieces were falling into place.

All I had left to do was get there. Back home, my mother had lost her license, so I bought her car, packed my belongings, and started driving west.

Halfway across the country, the phone rang — somehow a call reached me even though I didn’t have a cell phone. On the other end was Lyle Wilson, who was supposed to become my coach when I arrived in Canmore. Lyle was someone I truly admired — he’d coached the Alberta Team before moving onto the National Team — and I would have really enjoyed working with him. These days he owns and runs Nipika Mountain Resort, and I still love our visits catching up about those times. But that day, his message was short: funding cuts. Just like that, my spot on the team was gone.

I had left chasing a dream — and found the struggle that would shape the rest of my life.

collapse & reinvention

Canmore — Breaking Through Again

I arrived in Canmore carrying the weight of everything I’d been through — and the belief I could build something new from it. I had driven across the country chasing a dream, only to lose my place on the national team to budget cuts halfway there. Still, leaving wasn’t an option. Canmore was where Canada’s best trained. If I wanted to belong, I had to stay and prove I could rise again.

At first, I felt like an outsider. I found work at the Rocky Mountain Ski Lodge, living in a small staff room and doing whatever jobs they handed me — front desk shifts, shovelling snow, cleaning rooms, anything to stay close to the trails. When I wasn’t working, I was training. Alone, mostly. No team, no funding, no structure — just long sessions through the Bow Valley, quietly rebuilding the engine I knew I still had.

One afternoon, as I was working in the yard, a battered Toyota pickup skidded into the lot. Out jumped Hans Peter, the lodge owner. “What are you doing?” he barked. “Just what Nic (the manager) told me to,” I said. Minutes later he reappeared, calmer: “Sorry about that. From now on, you take your direction from me.”

That was the moment everything changed.

Hans wasn’t just my boss — he became a mentor and friend. He had once been a mountain guide in Switzerland, and often, after work, if I didn’t have a big training day, we’d head into the mountains together. Our first climb was Mount Rundle. To him, it was casual. To me, it was a trial by fire. He improvised a rope harness, yodeled his way up, and left me clinging in sweat. Three-quarters of the way up, I slipped — and for a split second, before remembering I was roped in, I thought it was over. Dangling, heart hammering, I gathered myself and climbed on.

That was my true introduction to the Rockies.

From then on, Hans and his wife Sylvia gave me more than work and lodging — they gave me stability, encouragement, and belief. When the car I’d driven to Canmore finally gave out, Hans sold me that same battered pickup for a dollar.

There was no safety net in those years. If I didn’t work, I couldn’t stay. If I didn’t train, I wouldn’t move forward. That kind of pressure sharpens your focus. Each week I added more volume — skiing, trail runs, strength sessions — clawing back toward the standard I knew I belonged at. Slowly, the results followed. Local races first, then bigger ones.

It took two full years, but I earned my way back. Through sheer consistency, I pulled myself onto the national team again. I was older now, not the rising prospect I had once been, but maybe that was an advantage. I knew how quickly it could all disappear — and exactly what it cost to return.

Finding My Place in Canmore

My connection with Jack Sassville went back to that first B-Tour trip to Europe, where he had been the national team coach and leader of the tour. By the time I moved to Canmore, Jack had already transitioned out of the national program. Politics had cut his tenure short, but rather than leave, he stayed in town, became the local golf pro, and over time started something called the Canmore Project — a small, tight-knit group of athletes who didn’t quite fit the system but weren’t ready to let go of the dream. He invited me in.

We trained hard, we laughed harder, and in that little crew — which included Robin McKeever, Chris Blanchard, and Sara Renner among others— I found the camaraderie I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. Jack became a steady presence in my corner, someone who believed in me without needing me to prove anything first. Over time, our bond grew deep. Years later, I would stand as best man at his wedding — and Robin would stand as best man at mine.

As my performances improved, I gradually transitioned from the Canmore Project into the official national team training centre squad — a quiet but meaningful shift that marked how far I had come. Around that time, I also began picking up small sponsorships, the kind that might seem minor but meant the world to me then. Altitude Sports supported me with equipment, and Earls Restaurant stepped in with meals. It might sound simple, but knowing there would be food on the table and skis on my feet gave me the breathing room I needed to focus on the work.

I had learned long ago that no one was going to hand you a place — you had to create it. Years of odd jobs, hustling to make ends meet, had prepared me for this. Whether it was construction, cooking, or driving strangers around the city, I had always been scrappy, finding ways to keep moving forward. That same mindset served me well in Canmore.

For the first time in years, I felt anchored. I wasn’t just chasing results anymore — I was part of something. There was pride in that. There was belonging.

The Shifting Landscape

While I was rebuilding myself in Canmore, the landscape of Canadian skiing was shifting beneath my feet. Since the 1988 Olympics, Canmore had been slowly transforming from a quiet mountain town into the heart of Nordic sport in Canada. The National Ski Team was moving its base from Ottawa to the Rockies, and with it came new funding, new infrastructure, and new expectations.

The Bill Warren Training Centre — the BWTC — was at the centre of it all. It rose from the ground as part of the Olympic legacy fund, and for the first time it felt like there was a real hub for high-performance skiing in Canada. Around the same time, early-season training camps began operating on the Haig Glacier, flown in by helicopter — or run in, in my case, always looking to add to my mileage.

That momentum opened the door for me. My results had been consistent, and in time I earned selection to the BWTC program. With that came access to resources I had never had before — wax rooms, world-class facilities, structured support — and, most importantly, a new head coach brought over from Norway: Steinar Mundal.

Steinar wasn’t just another coach. He embodied the standards of Norwegian skiing — meticulous attention to detail, an emphasis on volume, and a belief that accountability was everything. Even though I wasn’t officially one of his athletes, he shaped the environment I trained in. He had a way of looking at you — really looking — as if he could see whether or not you had done the work. That alone raised the bar for everyone around him.

II’ll never forget the first Canada Cup of the season at Silver Star Mountain, before the races were moved down the hill to Sovereign Lake Nordic, when I cracked the top five. Afterward, Steinar came up, looked me over, and simply asked: “Who are you?” It wasn’t arrogance, just curiosity — like he was trying to place me in the bigger picture of Canadian skiing. In his own quiet way, that small recognition mattered.

Around that same time, I forged another key connection: Tom Holland. Like Hans back at the Rocky Mountain Ski Lodge, Tom had a mountain guide’s calm strength about him. He had an incredible work ethic, and when he became manager at the BWTC, he immediately asked me to help him. Together, we set up systems to keep the building running smoothly, and I joined him on the glacier, leading camps and grooming the ski trails up there. The trails were an hour’s hike from base camp, and some days I would hike them twice — plus ski — just to keep them maintained.

Looking back, I think that might have been the fittest I’ve ever been. The mix of altitude, volume, and sheer workload was brutal but transformative. My mileage was higher than ever, my fitness was peaking, and early-season race results started to reflect it.

And yet, even as I was climbing higher, I could feel how precarious it all was. The ground under me was always shifting — new coaches, new politics, new expectations. I had fought so hard to claw my way back, but deep down I knew how fragile it could all be.

The Cost of Staying on Top

Even as my roots in Canmore deepened, part of me stayed tied to where it all began. I never joined the Alberta Ski Team — not because they weren’t welcoming, but because I couldn’t let go of Larry and the Ontario program. Loyalty runs deep; Larry had believed in me when few others did.

Every year I still flew back for the Ontario team trip to the Dachstein Glacier in Austria. It became a ritual: long days on endless snow, miles of repetition high above the clouds, slowly sharpening form while the rest of the world felt far below.

But staying at that level came with a cost. Injuries piled up, back pain gnawed at me, and the pressure to keep performing never really let go. Every choice, from workouts to weekends, felt weighted by the question: would this make me faster, tougher, better? The line between pushing limits and losing myself in them was thin, and too often I crossed it.

On one of those trips, the world cracked open. My mother had been struggling with addiction for years in Victoria, but nothing prepared me for the way the news came. As I stepped off the plane, the loudspeaker crackled: “Jack Cook, please report to the nearest information counter.” My stomach dropped. At the desk, the message waited — it was my aunt Wendy on the line, her voice carrying what no one ever wants to hear: my mother had passed. The words hollowed me out. In shock, I flew on to Vancouver, where I joined family for the funeral. Even now, I can still hear that announcement echoing in the terminal — the moment everything shifted.

Losing her left a silence I couldn’t fill. For years I had believed that if I could just succeed, it might somehow lift her too. Now she was gone.

Back in Canmore, nothing felt the same. I kept training and showing up, but the fire was dim. Around the same time, the back pain that had shadowed me since childhood worsened. I tried every treatment I could find, but nothing stopped the slide. Race after race I lined up ready to give everything, only to have my body betray me.

Through it all, I often thought of Larry. He wasn’t just a coach to me, but someone who had believed in me early and given me a chance to grow. I wish he could have read this story — to know how much his steady presence meant when the weight of performance felt crushing. He’s gone now, but his influence still lingers in how I try to carry myself in sport and in life.

Eventually I stopped — not in one dramatic moment, but in a quiet surrender. The harder I tried, the worse it felt, until I couldn’t see a way forward.

Starting Over in Toronto

Walking away from skiing wasn’t planned. The dream I had built my young life around had slipped through my hands, and for the first time, there was no clear next step.

My father reached out. He was running a business in Toronto and said he needed someone he could trust. With no plan of my own, I packed up what little I had left in Canmore and drove east, back to the city where it all began.

It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t belong in his world. The same instincts that once made him seem larger-than-life now left me uneasy. The pace, the chaos, the way everything teetered on the edge — I could feel old patterns trying to pull me back under. I needed distance. I needed something steady.

So I turned back to the one thing I could count on: running.

I took a job at a small running store in the Beaches and rented a tiny apartment in Little Italy. Without a car, I ran everywhere — often 90 minutes each way to and from work. To my surprise, running didn’t aggravate my back the way skiing had. It felt lighter, cleaner, and with each week my body and mind began to strengthen. I entered local races, nothing fancy — just toeing the line, testing myself again. No pressure, no expectations. Only forward motion.

During that time, I reconnected with Larry Sinclair. He encouraged me to channel what I’d learned into coaching, and I returned to school to complete my Level NCCP III certification. That program gave me more than theory — it taught me how to lead, how to support athletes through the same ups and downs I had faced. I began coaching Dan Roycroft, a young skier who would later join the national team. Helping him build toward that level was proof my time in the sport still had value.

Toronto also gave me time with my grandparents and my Uncle Alex’s family. My grandfather was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and Alex was battling cancer. While part of the draw had been my father’s call, the deeper pull was them. I wanted to be close, to show up in a way I hadn’t always been able to before.

It grounded me.

But I knew I couldn’t stay. The city was healing, but it wasn’t home anymore. When a coaching position opened at the Edmonton Nordic Ski Club, I knew it was the door I’d been waiting for. I packed my bags, said my goodbyes, and headed west once more — determined to build something new.

Edmonton — Finding My Place as a Coach

Coming back to Alberta felt like turning a page. I wasn’t chasing points or a national team spot anymore. I was coming back with something else to offer: the years of trial, the setbacks, the grind, and the persistence it took to survive them. Coaching gave me a way to turn that into something useful.

When I joined the Edmonton Nordic Ski Club, I didn’t bring a big title or a résumé stacked with medals. What I did bring was experience — the kind you only get from living both success and failure. I knew what it felt like to win against the odds. I also knew what it felt like to carry pain, to have life close in, and still lace up anyway. That balance became my strength as a coach.

At first, I was nervous. Edmonton had a deep ski community, and I was stepping into the coaching role previously held by Sean Kennedy. I didn’t know it then, but Sean would one day become my brother-in-law — he was married to Kerry, and I would go on to marry her sister, Shauna. Back then, though, I wondered if I’d be seen as just another athlete trying to reinvent himself. But the athletes weren’t looking for perfect; they were looking for present. And I knew how to show up.

My philosophy was simple: consistency, mileage, and belief. I didn’t ask athletes for anything flashy — just to commit, brick by brick, the way I had rebuilt myself after losing the team. I leaned on lessons from Pilch — mileage matters — and added my own: hours build character as much as fitness.

Over time, I became close with many of the athletes, from juniors chasing national dreams to masters pushing their own limits. Among them were Lorris and Kathy Williams, who became more than training partners — they became family. Their belief in me never wavered, and when the chance came to buy the small house I had been renting, they helped make it happen. For the first time in years, I had stability. A place of my own.

That foothold allowed me to go back to school and train as a Registered Massage Therapist. Coaching alone didn’t pay enough, and massage gave me both income and flexibility to travel with athletes. It let me build a life around coaching, not just squeeze coaching around the edges of work.

In time, I had the privilege of working with athletes like Tara Whitten, Claire Critchley, Madeleine Williams, Amanda Ammar, and Stephan Kühn — all of whom went on to the National Ski Team and international competition. Beyond Edmonton, I supported athletes like Graeme Killick in bridging the gap to the national program. Seeing them take that leap was deeply rewarding. It wasn’t just their victories — it was knowing I had helped them believe it was possible.

Edmonton also gave me community. The trails weren’t the Rockies, but they didn’t need to be. I had a team, a purpose, and a reason to get up every morning beyond my own ambitions. Coaching wasn’t a fallback. It was a calling.

Looking back, this was where the seed of the Mileage Game really took root. Not as a brand, but as a way of thinking — that the long game, the steady game, is where the real growth happens.

Back to School — Massage Therapy

The decision to go back to school wasn’t easy. I was in my late twenties, sitting in classrooms filled with younger students who all seemed so sure of where they were headed. For me, this wasn’t about a career change — it was about building a life where everything fit together. Coaching had my heart, but it didn’t pay the bills. Massage therapy offered what I needed most: flexibility. It could bend around training schedules, race weekends, and the unpredictable rhythm of sport.

Balancing school with coaching and training was a grind. My days often started on the ski trails at dawn, shifted into lectures and labs, and ended on massage tables or in the gym. Some nights I came home so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. But beneath the fatigue ran a quiet thread of purpose. Every class and late-night study session was part of building a future where I could coach, support athletes, and still stand on my own two feet.

Massage also changed how I saw sport. It gave me a deeper understanding of the body — how muscles connect, how injuries build, the small inefficiencies that quietly become pain. It gave me words for things I had always felt in my own training but never fully understood. That insight became part of my coaching toolkit, helping me guide athletes not just in their training plans but in how to recover, care for themselves, and stay resilient.

Through it all, the Edmonton community — athletes, mentors, and friends — kept me steady. Coaching no longer felt like a side note. It was becoming the foundation. Massage therapy was simply the structure that allowed it to stand tall.

fast trax years

Fast Trax — Building Something of my Own

It was through the Edmonton Nordic Ski Club that I met my wife. What started as a shared love of sport quickly grew into something deeper. With her by my side, the next chapter of my life began to take shape.

One day the phone rang. It was Harvey, one of the co-owners of Fast Trax Ski Shop. “Hi Jack — would you like to buy the shop?”

It was the kind of call that could change everything. Years earlier, I had planted the seed by asking Harvey if he’d ever considered adding running to the store. I knew running not just from training and racing, but from retail — importing Rode wax through Jack Cook Sports and working with Fischer Skis alongside Larry Sinclair. Retail had always been part of my world.

Shauna and I had just purchased our dream home, so the timing couldn’t have been worse. She was also busy stepping into her own future, recently taking over her family’s business from her father. But when the chance came, we made the jump anyway.

Buying Fast Trax wasn’t just a business move — it was a chance to build something of my own, a space that blended my skiing roots with my growing passion for running. That first spring, I kept coaching with ENSC while also launching the Fast Trax Run Club, merging my athletes’ workouts with this new community. But when winter came, I knew I couldn’t keep both commitments. I stepped back from the club and passed the reins to Lorris Williams Jr., one of my athletes who was ready to make the same transition I once had — from competitor to coach. Around that time, Lorris also started working at the shop, which gave him the flexibility to coach, much the same way massage therapy had once given me the flexibility to stay connected to sport. Lorris was more than ready for the role — he had already represented Canada at the World Junior Cross-Country Running Championships — and bringing that experience into coaching and the shop gave him a solid foundation to grow.

At first, things looked promising. Brooks agreed to open us as a run account. But three weeks later they pulled out, offering to buy back the shoes. A run shop without shoes is no run shop at all. I refused to send them back. Instead, I sold what little stock we had, one pair at a time, just to keep the lights on.

We had ski gear, but ski sales wouldn’t start until November. It was June. To bridge the gap, I moved my massage table into the back of the shop. Some evenings I’d finish helping a customer, then walk straight into a massage session. It wasn’t glamorous, but every dollar mattered.

I hustled however I could — hosting grassroots events, group runs, and clinics — anything to keep people coming through the door. With the help of my staff, we organized ultras, trail races, and winter ski events at Goldbar Park and the Strathcona Wilderness Centre. One of those, the Beat the Blues Boogie, became a fixture on the calendar and continues to this day. It was eventually voted Race of the Year in Alberta — a recognition that meant a great deal to us and to the community we had built around it.

For a time, the Fast Trax Ultra even earned a place on the international race calendar as a qualifier for the World 100km and 50km Road Championships. Runners came from across North America to compete, and for those few years, Edmonton became a small hub in the global ultra-running world.

These events raised our profile and cemented Fast Trax as part of the endurance community. But they also drained staff resources, and eventually we had to step back from directing so we could focus fully on the shop.

Behind the scenes, we lived lean. No extras, no safety net. Just enough to keep the dream alive. Each shoe sale was a victory, not just for cash flow, but for credibility. Slowly, the ski community carried us through with roller-ski sales, early service work, and loyalty that kept the lights on.

By the time the snow fell and ski inventory finally started to move, we had made it through. Barely, yes — but we had survived. And survival gave us something more valuable than profit: credibility. Fast Trax wasn’t just another shop trying to make a splash. We had been tested, and we had proven we belonged. On the ski side, we were also riding the momentum of what Harvey and Roger had built before us, carrying forward the reputation and trust they had established. That foundation, combined with our own grit, gave us a foothold to keep building.

One story from those early years still captures who we were. At the 2010 Birkie — later nicknamed Waxageddon — a skier broke a binding mid-race and thought his day was over. I’d thrown my back out and couldn’t finish, so I handed him my skis: “Just give them back at the finish. Ask for Jack from Fast Trax.”

He double-poled the rest of the 55 kilometres and finished. When he came to return my skis, he found his own repaired, freshly waxed, and ready to go — no charge. He’s been sending people to Fast Trax ever since.

To me, that story has always summed up what we were about from the start: helping people keep going, however we could.

Finding Our Lane and Fast Trax’s Rise

Surviving that first summer gave us credibility — but it also forced me to think differently. Most shops in Edmonton were already fighting over the same road-running customers, and without a steady shoe supplier, competing head-to-head wasn’t an option.

So I looked for a gap — and found it on the trails.

At the time, almost no one in the city stocked trail gear. That absence became our opening. We pivoted hard, carving out a space no one else was filling. What began as survival soon changed the shop’s trajectory completely.

To promote the shift, I laced up trail shoes myself and ran the same rugged routes we were outfitting customers for. The trails hooked me instantly — wild and raw, much like the business we were building. What started as a sales strategy quickly became part of who we were.

And it worked. In time, Fast Trax wasn’t just a ski shop dabbling in running — we became the trail shop, not just in Edmonton, but across Alberta. Athletes sought us out for gear, advice, and the growing sense of community around our little store.

The breakthrough came when I won my first Canadian Death Race in a Fast Trax singlet. That win put both me and the shop on the map. Suddenly, customers didn’t just see us as a place to buy shoes — they saw us as part of the sport itself.

Still, I knew we couldn’t stay a niche shop forever. To grow, we needed to earn our place in the broader running market. So I played the long game. Every month, I sent lighthearted updates to the major brands — New Balance, Nike, Asics, Mizuno, adidas, even Brooks. I never begged or complained. The message was always consistent: We’d love to have you on board. We’re building something special here in Edmonton.

In time, persistence paid off. New Balance came first, then Asics, Nike, Mizuno, and adidas. Finally — years after pulling out — Brooks returned. By then, we no longer needed them to prove we belonged, but having their shoes back on the wall still felt like a milestone. More than that, the relationships we built with those brands — and many others — became something I’ll always be grateful for. They weren’t just business partnerships; they were relationships built on trust and shared belief. To this day, I still count many of those reps as friends, and I’m thankful they allowed us to help tell their stories through our little shop.

Fast Trax had gone from a ski shop with a handful of shoes to a full-service hub for roads and trails — built not through shortcuts or luck, but through patience, resilience, and the belief that if you keep showing up, the rest will follow.

The Golden Years of Fast Trax

As the shop’s reputation grew, so did the community around it. What started as two or three people meeting outside the shop for casual runs quickly snowballed. Word spread, and before long, our group runs became a fixture in Edmonton’s running scene. At its height, more than sixty runners would show up on a weeknight, spilling across the sidewalks in Fast Trax singlets, buzzing with energy as they headed out onto the trails.

It wasn’t just about miles — it was about belonging. The shop became a gathering place, a hub where people knew they could find not only the right shoes or skis but also others who shared their drive. We built something bigger than transactions; we built trust.

For me, that trust mattered most. I wasn’t behind a desk crunching numbers — I was there every day. On the sales floor helping people find the right gear. Out on the trails and the roads running with them. Testing the shoes, the skis, the equipment myself, so I knew what I was talking about. Fast Trax was built on those real conversations, shared miles, and a community that knew I was living it right alongside them.

Of course, not everything we brought into the shop worked out. Some products, once in hand, didn’t live up to the way they had been pitched. One I remember well was an upstart clap ski boot. I strapped them on for a race at Goldbar, hoping to show off the latest innovation — and I could barely stand, let alone ski. Needless to say, those went straight back to the supplier. Experiences like that taught me an important lesson: you couldn’t always play the nice guy. Sometimes you had to hold your ground.

And that applied to customers too. I always looked out for their best interests, but there were times when I had to draw the line. If you didn’t, people had a tendency to take advantage of your kindness. Holding your ground wasn’t about being stubborn — it was about protecting the shop, the staff, and the community we were working so hard to build.

Those were the golden years: a thriving community, a trusted shop, and lessons learned not just in selling shoes or skis, but in learning how to stand firm, stay true, and keep moving forward.

Building Fast Trax — From Hustle to Hub

Before we even opened under my ownership, the first challenge was finding Fast Trax a permanent home. Under the previous owners, the shop only operated in winter, sharing space with Velo Cycle. But Velo needed their full space back each summer, and with my plan to add running and to run year-round, sharing wasn’t an option. If Fast Trax was going to grow, it needed its own space.

I found it just down the street — a small corner location with visibility, presence, and potential. At first, I only rented the main floor. Inventory was thin, storage almost nonexistent, and it was hard to imagine how big it might one day become. But I’d been preparing for challenges like this all my life — from breaking horses on Howe Island to cutting ski trails at Hardwood. I knew how to hustle, adapt, and squeeze every ounce from an opportunity. And when things felt overwhelming, I did what I had learned to do since I was young: I cleaned. If I could keep my space in order, I could keep my head in order. At Fast Trax, when the stockroom became cluttered or the floor too crowded, I’d stop and organize. It wasn’t just tidying — it was control in a world that often felt like anything but.

That mindset defined the early years. When the barefoot boom hit and Vibram Five Fingers exploded in popularity, I jumped early. Fast Trax became the first and only shop in Alberta to carry them. At the peak, we sold thirty pairs a day. Boxes piled into every corner, chaos everywhere — but the energy was electric.

As business grew, so did the need for help. I leaned first on the athletes I coached at ENSC. They weren’t just employees; they were part of the fabric of what we were building. We worked long days and late nights, tired but laughing, creating something bigger than ourselves. Even now, when I reconnect with those former staff — who I think of as friends more than employees — we end up laughing about the chaos of those early years and how it all came together as the shop found its footing.

Eventually, even that wasn’t enough. We expanded into the basement — first half, then the entire space — converting it into storage while opening the retail floor upstairs. The old massage room became the back shop. The front expanded to house new lines and what became our hydration room — the largest selection of packs in Alberta.

Fast Trax was no longer just a store. It was a hub — a place where athletes didn’t just buy gear, but came to belong.

Racing to Build the Brand

At the height of it all, as the shop grew, I never stopped being an athlete. In fact, the two were inseparable — every decision I made for Fast Trax was rooted in my own curiosity about training, gear, and the next challenge. I was either running or biking to the shop each day just to fit the mileage in. When we leaned into trail running, I did too, testing every shoe and pack myself. That’s what led me into ultras, and eventually the Canadian Death Race.

I’ll never forget that first win. Five mountain summits, 125 kilometers, terrain that chewed people up. I lined up in my Fast Trax singlet, carrying the weight of the little shop we were building in Edmonton. Hours blurred — heat in the valleys, cold wind on the ridges, climbs and descents until every muscle screamed. Crossing the finish line, mud-streaked and exhausted, I knew it wasn’t just my victory. It was Fast Trax’s.

I went back and won it again, and again — three straight years. Each victory didn’t just add to my résumé, it added to the shop’s story. Customers pointed to the singlet on the wall or asked about the race, and suddenly our little corner store carried the weight of something bigger.

Not every race was a breakthrough. My back pain was always there, sometimes manageable, sometimes not. At the Sinister 7 Ultra, I lined up several times but had to withdraw each one. The good days were easy to celebrate. The bad days were harder — because when you’re out there wearing the name of your business, you can’t just pack it in quietly.

As Fast Trax grew, we expanded beyond trails and skis, adding more road shoes. To connect with those runners, I went back to the roads myself — winning the Red Deer Marathon three times, claiming the Canadian 100km title, and representing Canada at six World 100km Championships.

It wasn’t that I was drawn to ultras in particular. It was about flying the Fast Trax banner — showing that our little Edmonton shop could stand on the same stage as the biggest names in the sport. That same mindset brought me back to the track. To reach younger athletes looking for spikes and flats, I had to prove I still belonged on the oval.

Performance became our marketing — not through slogans, but through action. Each race I ran seemed to bring new faces through the door. At one event I overheard a line that stuck: “This ain’t your mother’s running shop — but it should be.” Bold, a little irreverent, and entirely ours.

Even our reviews carried that spirit. One of my favourites read: “Small independent shop run by a super athletic dude who has other super athletic dudes working for him, so they know what they're talking about. Got great advice when I went in to get a new x-country ski set, would definitely go back.” It still makes me smile — because it captured exactly what we were: athletes sharing what we loved, and helping others find their way into the sport.

Racing drew people to our door, but results alone wouldn’t keep them. If we wanted their trust, we had to back it up with real expertise.

Raising the Bar — Knowledge, Credibility, and Community

As the first summer of Fast Trax gave way to winter, I quickly realized selling skis was a different ballgame. I knew skiing from years of training and racing, but I didn’t know skis the way customers deserved. And I was already stretched thin. I couldn’t do it all.

That’s when Patrick and Paul Moore — two brothers I’d coached at ENSC — stepped in. What I admired most wasn’t just their talent, but their commitment to the process: showing up day after day with purpose. Patrick gravitated toward the equipment side, digging into ski tech and helping raise our game in how we selected, fit, and sold skis. Paul had a knack for words and became the one I leaned on to proof copy for the website, the blog, and early social media. Together, they elevated the level of knowledge in the shop, especially around equipment and wax. Watching them grow — as athletes and as part of what we were building — was one of the most rewarding parts of those years.

From the start, I believed we had to be more than a retail shop. We needed to be a source of information and insight. That meant writing — long blog posts, gear breakdowns, training notes. It was time-consuming, and in those pre-Squarespace days, building a website was no small task. Without Will Critchley, another athlete I coached, Fast Trax might never have had a functioning site at all.

But the effort paid off. Those long nights of writing and refining helped us build credibility to match our passion. Fast Trax became more than a place to buy shoes or skis — it was where people came for knowledge, coaching, and connection. That’s what earned us recognition as Canada’s best run shop and Alberta’s best ski shop.

Patrick and Paul went on to be wax techs for the U.S. and Australian cross-country ski teams, further raising our profile. I still remember a few occasions when I made special deliveries to the U.S. team in Canmore during the World Cups. Walking into the wax room with gear from our little Edmonton shop felt surreal — a reminder of how far those early connections had carried us, from a scrappy start-up store to rubbing shoulders with the best in the world. I was proud to play even a small supporting role in their journeys. Their success reflected back on Fast Trax too — showing younger athletes in our community what was possible and inspiring them to dream bigger. Patrick and Paul were just two of many athletes whose paths intertwined with Fast Trax, but their growth reminded me why I built the shop: not just to sell gear, but to lift people up. They helped set the tone for what Fast Trax became — a place where curiosity, collaboration, and care mattered as much as performance.

Supporting Athletes and Community

From the beginning, sponsorship was central to how we built Fast Trax — not just as a shop, but as part of the endurance community. It was never just a singlet and a discount. Athletes received full kits, shoes, and a place on our website — a true sense of belonging. Alongside the run club, they gave Fast Trax a visible presence at every local race, not just as individuals, but as a collective.

I put my heart into that program because I knew what it meant to feel seen. I wanted to give athletes the kind of support I had once dreamed of — to feel like they mattered. Staff were included too: every spring and fall they received new running and skiing kits, so they felt part of what we were building together.

Over time, I expanded the focus to younger athletes. Our sponsored Athlete Program was mostly established racers, so I created the Fast Trax Junior Program for developing club and provincial skiers. It offered slightly deeper discounts and starter gear — skis, boots, poles, wax — enough to say, we’re in your corner. Supporting those kids and their families became one of the most rewarding parts of the shop.

But our reach wasn’t limited to athletes alone. We also sponsored local road, trail, and track events — helping races cover costs, offering prize support, and making sure grassroots events had the resources to thrive. Whether it was a small community 5K, a trail ultra, or a track meet, being visible at those events mattered. It connected Fast Trax directly to the endurance scene and reminded people that the shop wasn’t just selling gear — it was investing in the places where the community came together. Still, as meaningful as it was to support local events, I found the impact often felt fleeting — and in time, I began looking for ways to give back that carried a deeper and more lasting weight.

As we grew, our reach expanded to national-level athletes like Madeleine Williams, Graham Nishikawa, Philip Widmer, and Maya MacIsaac-Jones with financial support. We also partnered with the Alberta Provincial Ski Team, providing funding, equipment, and discounts. Having lived the struggle myself, I wanted to ease that path for others. Sometimes, if I saw an athlete grinding without much support, I’d reach out before they even asked.

That instinct hasn’t left me. Through Nakamun Group, I continue to sponsor athletes today — maintaining support for Maya and backing rising national team skier Alison Mackie. Like Maya once was, Alison was quietly grinding without much help, and I knew I had to step in.

But the work I’m proudest of went beyond podiums. With Spirit North, working with Laura Filipow, we helped equip Indigenous youth in rural communities — donating shoes and aged inventory, and providing skis at cost so kids could participate consistently. Unlike the fleeting visibility of race sponsorships, this work carried a sense of permanence. It showed me that the greatest impact came from supporting organizations focused on the younger generation, where the meaning and results reached far beyond a single event. With the ReRun Project, we donated both used and new shoes, including spikes, to schools where kids otherwise wouldn’t have access. And through Ever Active Schools, we donated over 300 pairs of shoes to AMA Youth Run Club students across Alberta, breaking down cost barriers to running.

One of the most powerful moments came during the Fort McMurray wildfires. Watching the devastation unfold on the news, I knew people would need shoes — not for racing, but for basic dignity. I put up a post on social media, and within days, more than 500 pairs were gone. Many evacuees showed up in work boots or flip-flops, stunned and exhausted. For a brief moment, shoes weren’t about sport at all — they were about relief, dignity, and the simple comfort of putting one foot in front of the other when everything else had burned down.

That spirit still lives on. Under its new owners, Simon and Mekita, Fast Trax continues to honour those roots — serving athletes while quietly giving back. What we created was never just a business. It was a culture, and it continues to ripple outward, long after my own chapter closed. In the end, what lasted wasn’t the banners at races, but the chance to help shape a future generation.

Order in the Chaos

Fast Trax had grown beyond what I ever imagined. What started as a scrappy little shop with a few pairs of Brooks shoes and ski gear from the previous owner had become a full-fledged hub — a community, a business, and a responsibility that never let go. Outwardly, things looked strong. The run club was thriving, the shop was full, and the Fast Trax name carried weight. But behind the scenes, the strain was real.

Running a specialty retail shop wasn’t just about selling shoes and skis. It meant juggling staff schedules, managing supplier relationships, putting on events, earning the trust of every athlete who walked through the door, and living up to the unspoken expectation that we would always be the gathering place for Edmonton’s endurance community. Success brought visibility — but it also brought pressure from every direction. Every thread tugged at me: business owner, coach, community leader, friend. And most days, it felt like if I dropped even one, the whole thing might unravel.

Looking back, I know some of that stress came from being unprepared to build something so big. I had the passion, but not the systems or business acumen to support it. Shauna helped with the bookkeeping, but she was also running her own business — having recently taken over her family’s company from her father — so her energy was divided. And whenever the pressure mounted, I fell back on the one habit that always gave me relief: cleaning. If the shelves were lined, the stockroom swept, the shoes stacked just right, I could pretend I still had a handle on things. But eventually, no matter how clean the shop was, the weight seeped through.

At times, the stress pressed in so hard it even triggered a few panic attacks — a clear sign that what I was carrying had followed me home. They came most often during the holiday season, when the shop was at its busiest and the pressure doubled at home. Days blurred into late nights, and the expectation to keep everything humming — customers, staff, family — left little space to breathe. It wasn’t just fatigue; it was my body sounding the alarm that I couldn’t keep carrying the weight in the same way.

What I did have, though, was presence. I wasn’t tucked away in an office tracking numbers. I was on the floor with customers and out on the trails, the roads, and the track with them too. I lived the products I sold, tested the gear myself, and built the shop not from spreadsheets but from conversations, shared miles, and the trust of a community that knew I was right there alongside them.

As the years went on, the back pain became harder to manage. On the outside, it may have looked like I was losing interest — after twelve years of leading the run club, I stopped showing up. The truth is, I loved those evenings, but my body simply couldn’t handle them anymore. It wasn’t a lack of passion; it was pain that forced me to step away.

Another weight pressed in too. I’d seen how alcoholism ran through my family, and I recognized the risk of those same tendencies in myself. As the stress grew, there were moments I leaned that way — but more often, I searched for healthier ways to cope. Running no longer gave me the same release, so I turned to something different. Yoga became a refuge — a way to quiet the noise, loosen the grip of pain, and remind myself I still had tools to rebuild.

In many ways, yoga carried forward what cleaning once gave me. Back then, lining shelves or sweeping the stockroom was my way of creating order when everything else felt chaotic. On the mat, it was the same impulse turned inward. Clearing space in my body and mind became like sweeping the floor: a quiet, steady act of reclaiming control when the rest of life felt uncertain.

For most endurance athletes of my generation, strength was an afterthought. The culture was built on miles, volume, and grit — not barbells, sleds, or wall balls. The unspoken rule was that if you were spending time in the gym, you weren’t serious enough about training on the road, the track, or the trails. The aerobic engine was king, and everything else was noise.

But for me, strength became the opposite of noise — it became order. What started with yoga as a way to ease back pain and calm panic slowly evolved into something new. Hyrox introduced me to movements I once avoided — lunges, sled pushes, wall balls. At first they felt foreign, even punishing. But over time they became a framework, a way of grounding myself when everything else felt scattered. Each rep was a small act of reclamation, the same instinct that once had me sweeping the shop floor late at night.

Strength didn’t replace my identity as an endurance athlete — it expanded it. It gave me balance where running alone could not. What others dismissed as “extra” became, for me, the thing that held the rest together.

Chaos wasn’t confined to the shop or my body. Life has a way of throwing its own tests when you least expect them. Sometimes it arrives quietly, sometimes violently, but always with the same reminder: you’re not in control.

One evening, a coyote leapt onto our deck and snatched our cat, Raven, by the neck. My instincts as a quarterback took over — I grabbed a piece of driftwood and hurled it. By some stroke of luck, I hit the animal square, and it dropped her. I scooped Raven up and we rushed her to the vet. She was battered but alive, minus a tooth. For days we nursed her back, shaken and worried, reminded that chaos can arrive out of nowhere, even in your own backyard.

As if that weren’t enough, another night brought an even greater test. A missing grease pan led to flames that spread fast, melting the propane tank and leaving behind more than $250,000 in damage to our house. Shauna and I stood on the lawn as the fire department worked to put it out, watching everything we’d built go up in smoke. They even pulled our cat from an upstairs closet, alive but shaken. For six months we lived with family, piecing life back together. It was a stark reminder: sometimes everything really does burn down — and all you can do is start again.

For years, my mantra was the old Pinky and the Brain line: “What are we going to do tonight, Brain? The same thing we do every night — try to take over the world.” One day I woke up and realized: I didn’t need to take over the world anymore. I just needed to take back my own life.

Looking back, stepping away from Fast Trax and moving into Nakamun was the right decision. It gave me time with Shauna, and a chance to see firsthand the work she was carrying on in her family’s business. After years of chasing, building, and rebuilding, being alongside her in that work has been its own kind of reward. It’s also given us more space to enjoy life together — and the flexibility to be present with Shauna’s mom as she transitions from independence into assisted living. That time has been a gift, a reminder that presence matters just as much as performance.

Stepping Away

Letting go of Fast Trax was one of the hardest choices I’ve ever made. It had been my identity for so long — my work, my community, my purpose. Walking away felt like failure. But in time, I came to see it differently: not as defeat, but as a necessary ending.

I had poured everything into the shop, and while that chapter was closing, I could take pride in knowing it mattered — that the community we built and the culture we created would live on long after my name was off the sign.

And it has. Under its new owners, Simon and Mekita, Fast Trax continues to honour those roots. They’ve brought their own systems and vision, but the heartbeat remains the same. The torch has been passed, and the flame still burns.

When I moved from Fast Trax into my new role working alongside Shauna in her family’s business, Nakamun Group Employee Benefits Inc., it gave us something we hadn’t had in years — weekends together, time to breathe, a rhythm of life that felt steady after so much chaos. For a moment, it seemed like we had found balance. And then the world shifted. COVID arrived, and suddenly the entire sporting world was on pause. For endurance athletes, whose seasons are built around training toward a race date, the sudden loss of competition left a void. Years of structure and purpose vanished overnight.

I felt it myself — that emptiness, the absence of a target on the horizon. But I also recognized how deeply athletes, from young skiers to masters, needed something to keep them going. So, even as I was stepping away from retail and learning the ropes of a new career, I organized virtual ski races.

The idea was simple: athletes logged their efforts individually, then shared their times online. We set up categories, tracked standings, and celebrated performances as if it were a real race. It wasn’t the same — but it gave people an outlet. A reason to clip into their skis, to push a little harder, to feel that spark of competition again.

For me, it was a way of giving back. A parting contribution to the Nordic ski community that had given me so much over the years. In the absence of finish lines, we built our own. And in doing so, we kept the flame alive during one of the darkest, quietest winters the sport had ever seen.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that those virtual races were also a lesson for me. Even as I stepped away from Fast Trax and into a new world at Nakamun, I still needed to build, to create, to find ways to keep people moving forward. That drive hadn’t left with the shop — it was simply taking on a new shape. In many ways, it was the beginning of what I now call my Mileage Game.

Mileage Game

From Fast Trax to Mileage Game

When Fast Trax was no longer mine, it felt like a part of me had been stripped away. For years, the shop had been more than a business — it was an extension of who I was. Every early-morning inventory check, every group run spilling onto Edmonton’s streets, every conversation over shoes or skis — all of it was tied up in my identity. When it ended, I carried not only exhaustion but also a quiet question: what now?

At first, I did what I’d always done when life felt uncertain — I trained. long skis, endless hours on the bike. There was comfort in the rhythm of heartbeats and breaths. But training alone wasn’t enough. Without the shop, I missed the sense of community, the feeling of building something larger than myself.

It took time — months, maybe years — for the fog to lift. Looking back, I see now that Fast Trax had been both my proving ground and my teacher. It showed me the power of community, but also the cost of trying to carry too much without the systems to support it. Passion drove me forward, but I wasn’t equipped with the business knowledge to match the scale of what I was building. I learned as much from the cracks as from the successes.

Mileage Game

Mileage Game was never meant to replace Fast Trax. It came from a different place — quieter, more personal. Where Fast Trax was about outfitting others, Mileage Game became about telling the story of what it takes to endure. It began as scribbles in notebooks, reflections on training, thoughts about aging and performance that I couldn’t shake. Over time, it grew into something more: a way to give shape to my own journey while creating a space for others to see themselves in it.

Fast Trax had been about a community gathered around a storefront. Mileage Game became about a community gathered around an idea — that endurance is not just about sport, but about life.

And now, that idea has a target: Project 1:15. It’s where everything I’ve learned, built, and endured is being tested — mile by mile, sled by sled, rep by rep. The shop may be behind me, but the chase is far from over.

Finding the Voice

The more I wrote, the clearer it became that Mileage Game wasn’t just about training logs or race recaps — it was about carving out a voice that felt true to me. After years of running a shop where everything had to be polished, professional, and customer-facing, I wanted this new chapter to be raw and unapologetic.

That’s where the Passive Rebel thread began to weave its way in. I wasn’t trying to be trendy or build a slick brand — I wanted something that reflected the contradictions of endurance: discipline and rebellion, grind and freedom, tradition and reinvention. Passive Rebel became a lens through which I could tell the truth about what it really feels like to push limits, to age and still chase, to balance ambition with life’s realities.

It wasn’t just about me, though. From the beginning, I wanted Mileage Game to have space for others. Supporting young athletes wasn’t new to me — I’d done it through Fast Trax — but now it felt even more essential. If I was going to build something from the ground up again, it needed to serve more than my own ambitions. Sponsoring skiers like Alison, creating pathways for others to believe in their potential — that became a cornerstone of what Mileage Game stood for.

And alongside all of that, I was still racing. Track meets, Hyrox events, bike races — they all fed into the narrative. Mileage Game became a way to braid those stories together: my comeback as a masters athlete, my coaching insights, the philosophy of endurance, and the shared pursuit of possibility.

In the end, it was less about branding and more about belonging. Fast Trax had given me a community tied to a storefront. Mileage Game gave me a community tied to an idea: that mileage is more than numbers, it’s the game of building your engine — and playing it for a lifetime.

Athletic Career Transitions

In sport, doors open and close fast — sometimes by choice, sometimes by circumstance. Funding shifts, injuries, personal loss, and the simple march of time can change an athlete’s direction in a heartbeat. Every endurance athlete learns this eventually: the path isn’t a straight line, it’s a series of pivots.

My first pivot came with skiing. For years, the Canadian National Team was my world — training camps, national championships, and the dream of climbing higher. But the passing of my mother, combined with a back that was already breaking down under the strain of training, forced me to step away. I wasn’t ready to retire, but grief and pain left me with no choice.

Running became the answer. Marathons offered a clean slate: no skis, no wax, no travel budget — just shoes and the open road. At first, the freedom was intoxicating. My back quieted in the transition, and I discovered that the engine I had built on skis carried me well into the marathon. For years, I chased times, trained hard, and proved to myself that I could stand among the best Canadians on the road. But as the pounding miles added up, the pain began to creep back.

So I turned again, this time to ultras and the mountains. The trails gave me reprieve at first — softer footing, new challenges, and a community built around resilience. The distances stretched longer, the races grew harder, and I thrived on the rawness of it all. But eventually, even the mountains brought their own toll. My back reminded me that no pivot came without cost.

Each transition had started as a form of relief — a way to escape pain and keep racing — but each eventually returned me to the same truth: the body always comes with you.

Then came Hyrox. On paper, it looked like the worst possible choice for a back already worn down: sled pushes, wall balls, lunges. Yet it gave me something no other discipline had — stability. The very movements I thought would break me down built me up. For the first time in decades, training didn’t just delay pain; it eased it. Hyrox didn’t only keep me racing — it gave me the foundation for a comeback.

The Racing Comeback

Hyrox didn’t just ease my back pain — it lit the spark for something I thought I’d lost. Years earlier, the passing of my mother and the constant grind of pain had forced me to step away from skiing. I hadn’t wanted to retire, but grief and injury left me with no choice. Every pivot after that — marathons, ultras, trails — had carried me forward, but always with the shadow of pain following close behind.

With Hyrox, that shadow began to lift. The movements that once looked like punishment — sled pushes, lunges, wall balls — became building blocks. Instead of breaking me down, they gave me stability. Each rep stitched me back together, until one day I realized I wasn’t just surviving the training; I was thriving in it.

And with that stability came hunger. Not just to race, but to believe again — to stand on a start line not as someone carrying loss, but as someone ready to chase possibility. What had started as survival training had turned into a second chance.

At first, I tested myself quietly. I wanted proof before I declared anything to the world. Workouts told the story: times dropping, strength climbing, my body holding together under loads that once would have flattened me. Small tests turned into bigger ones. Before long, I wasn’t just training for health; I was training to compete.

That shift carried me back to start lines I thought I had left behind. Track races where I tested my 800m and 1500m speed against men half my age. Local events where people who had once known me only as the Fast Trax guy now saw me as an athlete again. Each race felt like a quiet reclaiming of something I’d been missing — not just results, but identity. Every lap, every finish line, carried the unspoken truth: this wasn’t just about chasing times, it was about carrying my mother’s memory forward. Racing had become a way to stitch grief into resilience.

Then Hyrox itself became the proving ground. The format was brutal, but it rewarded the mix I’d been building all along: endurance layered with strength, pacing layered with grit. Every station was a reminder that my body wasn’t finished yet. Every finish line was proof that presence could still translate into performance. And as the results came — podiums, national rankings, the ticket to Worlds — I felt something I hadn’t in years: momentum.

But more than results, Hyrox gave me a community. It reminded me of the early days of Fast Trax — athletes banding together, chasing goals, lifting each other up. Except this time, I wasn’t the shop owner carrying the weight of everything. I was just another competitor, standing on the floor, lungs burning, shoulder to shoulder with people chasing the same test.

This wasn’t the comeback of my twenties, built on raw miles and youthful ambition. It was harder-earned, sharper, grounded in grief but shaped by resilience. Hyrox gave me back the engine, but more importantly, it gave me back the belief that there were still doors left to open.

The comeback isn’t finished — in truth, it may never be. But that’s the point. Each start line now feels less like a return and more like a continuation, another chapter in a story that refuses to close. Hyrox has given me a stage to test myself, but also a framework to keep building — strength, stability, presence.

That’s why I’ve set my sights on Project 1:15. It’s more than a time goal; it’s a way of pushing the edge, of asking how far this second chance can take me. Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, Sweden — each race is both a checkpoint and a reminder that the body, even one shaped by pain and loss, can still be remade.

The Racing Comeback isn’t about turning back the clock. It’s about proving that the doors don’t stop opening just because you’ve lived long enough to see a few close.

Project 1:15

Every athlete needs a target that scares them a little — something sharp enough to cut through routine and make the work matter. For me, that target became Project 1:15.

On paper, it was simple: break one hour and fifteen minutes in a Hyrox Pro race. In reality, it was the culmination of everything I had learned — from Easy Interval training to heat prep, from track intervals to long ski days in the cold. Hyrox distilled it all into a single, unforgiving test: could I build an engine strong enough, efficient enough, resilient enough to carry me there?

Project 1:15 wasn’t just about time. It was about proof — that at fifty-eight, I could still evolve. That endurance isn’t linear. That performance can be rebuilt, retooled, and reignited. That Mileage Game wasn’t a brand or a blog, but a lived philosophy.

Each workout became a brick in the wall: Echo bike sessions where my heart rate soared, track intervals where I chased younger legs, long ski days where I returned to my roots. Every threshold session reminded me that chasing limits is as much mental as physical. You learn to sit in discomfort, to lean into fatigue, to trust that the body will adapt if the mind stays committed.

By now, the pieces were in motion. Training blocks logged, protocols tested, setbacks absorbed, and momentum gathered. Project 1:15 wasn’t just a number on a page anymore — it had become a lens that focused everything I did. Like a staging area before the gun goes off, it was controlled chaos: strength aligned with threshold work, training synced with life, and readiness sharpened day by day. I’d learned that endurance is as much about timing as it is about toughness. You can’t hold peak shape forever; you have to build, back off, and build again. Trusting that cycle was as much part of the pursuit as the sessions themselves.

The bigger picture was always in sight: the 2026 Hyrox World Championships in Sweden. Qualifying was one thing — competing there, on the world stage, was another. But that’s what gave Project 1:15 its weight. It wasn’t just about being fit. It was about belonging at that level, standing on the line knowing I had earned it.

Mileage Game became the chronicle of that pursuit. Every session, every race, every lesson — they weren’t just logged, they were lived out loud. The philosophy I had been writing about — building your engine, chasing possibility, refusing to settle — all of it funneled into Project 1:15.

And in the process, I realized something I’d felt years earlier with Fast Trax but never quite understood: this was bigger than me. Yes, I was chasing my own goal, but I was also creating a story for others — proof that the chase doesn’t end when the years add up. If anything, it matters more than ever.

what comes next

The Chase Continues

My Journey now lives here on the website as an anchor — long-form, reflective, and timeless. It’s the place to understand my background and the ethos behind Mileage Game. From here on, the story doesn’t need constant resurfacing; it rests here for anyone curious enough to look back. The work forward — that unfolds in real time on the Mileage Game Instagram.

This story is still being written — just as my journey is still unfolding. The next chapter begins at Hyrox Toronto on October 4th, where Project 1:15 faces its first true test. From there, the road stretches to Vancouver, Ottawa, and ultimately to the 2026 Hyrox World Championships in Sweden.

What you’ve read so far has been about roots, reinvention, and renewal. What comes next is application: the Easy Interval Method, the structure of training weeks, the workouts that build the engine, and the rituals that carry it into race day.

But this isn’t just about one athlete. It’s about the broader picture too — supporting athletes like Alison Mackie on her Olympic journey, weaving Mileage Game into community, and exploring how endurance evolves with age.

For now, this is where the story pauses. The next chapter won’t be written at a desk — it will be lived on the floor of the Toronto Convention Centre, under the weight of a sled, the rhythm of the ergs, and the roar of the crowd. If you’d like to see how I’m building toward Project 1:15 — the sessions, the structure, and the philosophy that keep this engine running — I’ll be sharing the full blueprint in The HYROX Engine in the weeks ahead.

👉 Follow along on Instagram to see it unfold. The chase continues…

Forward

To the younger generation — and to anyone struggling to find their way — know this: there will be setbacks, and there will always be opportunities to make the wrong decision. But if you focus on the small things — even something as simple as tidying your space — and keep adjusting, keep moving forward, there is always a way through.

My journey has had its ups and downs, but I’ve arrived at a place where I’ve never been happier — and never healthier. Healthy enough to enjoy my retirement, and to finally take in the fruits of all those miles, all that work, all those lessons learned along the way. I am so grateful I didn’t give in, and I carry quiet pride in where it has brought me today.

And to the younger generation: your story is just beginning — write it forward.

Acknowledgments

This story is not just mine — it is the product of a lifetime of people, places, and communities who have carried me forward.
 
 To Shauna, whose support has grounded me through every transition. To my family, for believing in me even when I was at my most restless.
 
 To my teammates, training partners, and coaches — from the ski trails to the track to Hyrox — thank you for pushing me to find new gears.
 
 To the Fast Trax community, who turned a small shop into a movement. To Spirit North and the Indigenous youth whose resilience and joy left a lasting mark on me. To the athletes I’ve had the privilege to sponsor and coach — you’ve inspired me to keep chasing my own best.
 
 And finally, to the younger generation making their way — this story is for you...

the long way around

The Long Way Around is my story in sound — the hard roads, the setbacks, the rebuilds, and the quiet fire that refused to go out. I didn’t take the straight line. I took the long way, through the miles, the injuries, the years of grinding forward. Every step shaped me. Every detour forged me. This is the sound of the man the long way made.

My Journey

the long way around

Dedicated to the younger generation making their way.

A Note Before You Read

roots & rise

From Toronto Streets to Howe Island

Howe Island School Days

Family Ties on the Island

Cracks in the Picture

A New Start in Shelburne

Mississauga: Football and Hard Truths

Cobourg: Finding My Stride

Picking Up the Pieces

Back to the Beaches

Summer Jobs and City Lessons

Barrie and Hardwood Hills

Building a Life Around Skiing

Finding My Mileage Game

First Taste of Europe

Nationals: A Second Chance

Near Misses and New Beginnings

collapse & reinvention

Canmore — Breaking Through Again

Finding My Place in Canmore

The Shifting Landscape

The Cost of Staying on Top

Starting Over in Toronto

Edmonton — Finding My Place as a Coach

Back to School — Massage Therapy

fast trax years

Fast Trax — Building Something of my Own

Finding Our Lane and Fast Trax’s Rise

The Golden Years of Fast Trax

Building Fast Trax — From Hustle to Hub

Racing to Build the Brand

Raising the Bar — Knowledge, Credibility, and Community

Supporting Athletes and Community

Order in the Chaos

Stepping Away

Mileage Game

From Fast Trax to Mileage Game

Mileage Game

Finding the Voice

Athletic Career Transitions

The Racing Comeback

Project 1:15

what comes next

The Chase Continues

Forward

Acknowledgments

the long way around

jack cook