Training Log Archive: Trav

Wanna set up another Dontgetlost 100 mile relay team for Sulphur Springs? 12 hours looks doable.

C • down 11

Kneevember has been a gateway drug into full hibernation. As an exercise this week, I'm going to do no exercise this week. Just to see.

Well that was a bust. Infested with Balogna germs I had nuthin'. Cut it short at the trail centre and limped home. Time to convalesce.

So I take it SMT is on the road to Toronto tomorrow? My knee is still aggravated and so I'm a scratch. Likely go mountain biking from the hottage for a few hours.

C • Boo 8

Still taking it easy. 4 times Artaban with TRix who is running in fine form.

Sleep deprived run with Trix to shake up the legs. Still a bit tender in the knee notwithstanding 10 days off. Will continue with Kneevember until the very end.

C • Balogna races a camel 8

Wadi Rum to Aqaba. Desert camp was rousted at 6 am. The usual hummus and pita breakfast. Then off down the canyon. Which ended up bogging down badly in loose sand. Two hours of slogging got us 24 km. some super fun parts,though, when we did manage to get rolling. And little we've seen can rival the scenery of this particular ride. Then an into the wind highway rush for the finish at the red sea.

Petra to Wadi Rum of Lawrence of Arabia fame. Cold start, but the descent brought us to warmer air. Still some tough climbs, but then it just rolled at a steady pace on a very gentle decline for hours. Spectacular country. Old lake flats and slick rock made for some serious play on the bike Balogna and I made like jet fighters busting up the formation of the other riders. Got to Wadi Rum (wadi=canyon) an hour before sunrise to settle in at a Bedouin camp.

Hike with Balogna around mindboggling Petra. Ruins on an almost unfavorable scale.

Started at 1800 meters in the bitter cold--probably 2 or 3 degrees. Then did a traverse across a range of mountains on a jeep track that has to rank amongst the most beautiful on earth. The cold and the wind never really let up until we made the 30k descent into Petra. We will stay at this storied place for two nights.

C • Petra 1

More huge climbs and descents. Now in the mountain village of Dana. Wonderfully picturesque

One of the great descents of all time to 400 meters below sea level and a float on top of the dead sea. And I mean on top of. You just bob like a cork. Strangest experience. Then one of the great ascents of all time. 25k and 1800 meters up, up and up some more to a fine hotel beside a crusader castle. Unspeakably murderous them crusades.

The guide is an ex-Jordanian cycling team member and, while that may not mean much on a world scale, he can ride like stink. Fun day, amazing scenery.

Madaba to mt. Nebo with mandatory lookout to the promised land. Looked kinda dusty and nasty to me. No milk nor honey for miles and miles. Hard to see what all the fuss is about. Then off to the village of Mukawir where we stayed on the floor of a Bedouin family. Excellent dinner eaten on a floor covered in plastic.

Beautiful kneevember pre-flight run with Balogna and Trix.

C • Have an amazing time in Jor... 2

Kneevember run to the top of K2, down the main loop, up the sulphur creek trail and once up Artaban. Weather was perfect. I was trying to puzzle out why and then realized, oh yeah, it's not Wednesday evening.

I've declared November to be Kneevember--not to be confused with the very worthy Movember--where all AP-ers attend to their knees and other chronically abused joints.

C • Great Idea 2

Lessee here. Hmmm. It's Wednesday and I'm looking out the window and...what the?...RAIN. Rain right through the evening. Rain, rain, rain. A quick look at the Intertubes shows...well, lookee there!...NO rain tomorrow evening. Amazing. How DO they do that?

5 times figure 8's then a jog around with Turbo. He's tapering; I'm taking early hibernation. Back in December.

I'd say this is one of the more pleasant fall seasons in memory. What a perfect day. Rode around the valley on the Tall Boy prior to packing it up for the flight to Jordan.

Knee still a bit sore so will lay low on the running for awhile. I might hibernate for November and then start up again in December.

Easy peasy run with Mike and daughtor Hailey, 8, on a bike; with Trix of course. Out to Martin side road and back.

Some good hill pushes when Hailey needed a hand. Remarkably talented girl. Lots of courage on some of the downhills and rooted trails. Inspiring to watch a kid learn right in front of you. In the hour and a half that we were out, she had no idea how much better and more confident she'd become, but the difference as we rode/ran by the Trav tree on the way back compared with the way out was a thing to behold. Maybe there is hope for this world after all.

SMT from the hottage. Usual time. Bring dogs.

C • shooting 1

Very pleasant run in the valley. I'm going to call the knee healed. I realized that my running form had changed in the past few months. I had lengthened my stride and begun to push off with my toe. That put unnatural strain on my knee as my leg stretched out behind me.

This morning, determined to pay more attention to the way I ran and fresh from reading MacDougall's primer on running form in the NYT yesterday I realized that rather than push off with the toe, I simply had to bring the rear knee forward. It's subtle, but that changes everything. Felt nothing in the knee this morning even with some speed.

Not to reopen the debate, but there's a great article in today's NYT about The One Best Way of running by Chris McDougall of Born to Run fame.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/running...

What's interesting to spend a moment on is the exercise he talks about called the 100-up. Interesting. More challenging than it looks.

tnt with 3/4 speed intervals. PH waddled around with me for the first half and then, having loosened has mangled heal, took off. I put in a bit of an effort for 5,6,and 7 but babied the knee. Don't want to end up a burden on society.