About

My name is Ross Noble. I was born on the Greek/Turkish island of Cyprus to English/South African parents. After a stint in South Africa, our family moved to Canada, which has been home ever since. I grew up Vancouver, BC and later moved Montreal to study and where I would eventually live through most of my twenties.

I have spent most of my working life as a software developer, writing code and building websites. In 2016, I set aside my computer, sold most of my possessions and walked from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. This sparked a burning a desire to spend more time in the outdoors and I haven’t looked back since. After backpacking, I lived out of a carry-on bag for a year while working and travelling. In the summer of 2018, I moved into a comperized Sprinter van named Betsy which continues to be my home.

I took up running seriously in 2013 and have gone on to run a number of road races, trail races and ultramarathons. Whether it’s race reports or more general posts, running is a topic that has and will continue to pop up on this blog. While this site is primarily dedicated to my outdoor adventures, I may write about more serious topics from time to time. I also run a film podcast and use the blog over there for movie related writing content. You can also find me on Instagram.

Selected Projects

Here are a few other things I’ve been involved in. Some are defunct, others are ongoing:

Cinema Esoterica Podcast

I launched this podcast with my talented and creative friend, Emma Valentiner in early 2019. We recorded 8 episodes over the course of the year and will continue to do so in the years to come. The show combines our shared love of cinema with our interest in the weird and paranormal.

PJM Softball

When I lived in Montreal, I played in a summer softball league. After two frustrating seasons of trying to navigate the league website, I decided to build a replacement in my free time. The following season, I unveiled the project to the league commissioners and they accepted my donation. As of 2019, the website has been active for six years. It was built with Ruby on Rails.

15x365 Run Club Project

My interest in running started with an attempt at running every day for a calendar year. The concept of running for “at least 15 minutes” for 365 days in a row was started by a couple friends of mine who completed the task in 2011. I didn’t quite make the mark when I tried in 2013, 2015 or 2019, but it secured a love of the sport anyway.

52 Films Project

My friend Adam and I created a list of 52 “must see” films for a friend of ours to watch over the course of a year. We ended up joining him every Sunday, accidentally starting a weekly movie club in the process. This is the list that kicked it off.

Burnreel

Robert Brockie and I started Burnreel as a way to share “micro” movie reviews. Our goal was to combine the brevity of Twitter with a customized recommendation algorithm that avoided simple aggregation or star based systems. While we believe the concept was sound, we didn’t get the critical mass of users required to really make it work. Still, it was a fun project and great learning experience.