Training Log: Bash

Running (Trail) 53:45 8.1 km (6:38 / km)

BulletDog and I ran around Palgrave East - a mix of goopy mud, slick ice and a few nice dry trails. I accidentally locked my key in the house so I needed to run until I was pretty sure 'Bent would be home from work. Not a bad training strategy although it would have been more effective if I'd started running at noon instead of 4:45! (As it turns out, I still beat him home - doh.)

Note

Recent interview with Ian Adamson. I'm hoping the video portion is a little less recent, since it calls him the "Tiger Woods of adventure racing". Ouch.

Note

Thomass Eliminator - 3 short orienteering races in Palgrave this Sunday. Great format for beginners since they don't have to do all races. It's a fundraiser to help cover the hefty maintenance costs on the SportIdent timing equipment we all use. Attendance could really use a boost! Registration is open till Friday night with race day registration available for $3 more.

Note

Congrats to VO2Max, Canadian XC Ski Championship bronze medalist in the 15K Free!

Strength (Core) 40:00 [2]

Hard Core DVD - inspired by Phatty.

Note

OK, I am finally done posting reports and photos from Quebec. Because our trip started more than 7 days ago, it's easier to see the 6 days of reports if you use this link (for those who enjoy that sort of thing).

http://www.ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920...

Running 30:00

Ran with BulletDog in Palgrave West. Winter is over. Muddy dog foot season is here. :-(

Snowshoeing 2:20:00 [2]
shoes: Salomon XA Pro GTX - Black

Sentier de la Ligne d'Horizon and Lac Beauport with 'Bent, BulletDog and Knobless. If you look closely, you can see the 3 km skating loop on Lac Beauport. Too bad, we missed it by a week or so!

C • Great report! 4

C • great pics! 1

Other (Short Track Speed Skating) 20:00 [3]

Awesome!!!! (Although Charles Hamelin has nothing to worry about.)

In case you ever wondered why the Quebecois win all those medals in short track, we saw why. At a large local shopping centre that includes a highly visible rink, several speed skating clubs presented a few hours of racing and opportunities to try the sport, with club information and registration booths set up outside a busy Imax theatre.

Sam, the 9-year-old daughter of our friends Jill and Jeannot, skates several times a week as part of a kids' racing program. The adult nearest to me in this photo is Francois-Olivier Roberge, a long track speed skater at the Vancouver Olympics.



The kids idolize their speed skating heroes. Sam has a poster on her bedroom door with photos of the Canadian Olympic short track team with all their signatures. Charles Hamelin is her sweetie.

Sam is 2nd from the right at the start.



She was faster than the skater who won (a boy) but couldn't get past him in the short race after he won the start. The kids race together according to their best times for certain distances - not according to gender, age or size.



They offered the public a chance to try the sport and Sam got permission to act as my coach. She took her role very seriously.





The skates feel sooooo different from the figure skates that I'm used to. They are angled to make it easier to go counterclockwise, which is all you ever need to do. I thought it would feel impossibly weird but actually it wasn't bad. Those skates *want* to go fast. Once I got comfortable, the biggest problem was avoiding other skaters, since there were a lot of little kids trying the sport for the first time and they did a lot of splats. One of the first things Sam did was take me over to the mattresses on the wall so I could feel what it would be like to skid out and hit the boards. Luckily I stayed upright.

Sam brought in reinforcements to help coach me, some of whom had more English than others. Apparently the ones with less English were skating up to her and giving her advice to pass along to me! She taught me to do crossovers, which were similar to figure skating as long as I remembered that my skates were super long and needed more space.



After Sam saw that I wasn't falling, she tried to teach me some technique - how to blast off the starting line (she won), how to swing my arms when pushing off with the skates. Looking at the photos, I see that I needed to bend over much farther from the waist. I thought I was bent over but I should have noticed that I wasn't dragging my fingertips on the ice. I was wearing the cool special gloves so that would have been fun.



So much fun!! I've always thought that I would have liked to be a long track speed skater (because I have big thighs!) and I still hope to try that one day, but this was an awesome first speed skating experience.



P.S. Notice that I am the only skater going so fast that 'Bent couldn't keep me in focus!

C • Hamelin 3