Training Log Archive: Trav

The granuloma in Trix's paw is just not going away. The likely problem: a remaining piece of thorn embedded deeply in the webbing between her toes. So today the little girl goes in for surgery. We're sending in a team with tools. After that, 10 days of conehead and protecting of the wound. After that, she'll be back better than ever.

C • Sucks 4

Started out feeling like bullets bounced off. That was the first rep. The second rep didn't go so well, Then the wheels came off altogether. 20 minutes in, I was walking. Complete crash. Oh the shame.

Warm up for stage one of the Cabot trail relay

C • prisoner of artaban 3

Good first stage. Think I managed a sub40 10 k somewhere in the 17 k of this stage. Average pace was 4:03 with some mild climbs.

Warm up for stage 10

Nasty stage. Still a bit beat from the morning. 14k this time, but 1000 foot climb thrown in just for grins starting at kilometer 4. Finished honorably in 9th.

C • MacKenzie Mtn.? 4

Quick loop around the valley. Still no Trix. The granuloma between her toes in her left rear foot is still not healing as fast as we'd like.

So she's going a bit freaky with pent up energy. In any event, this morning before the run I took her on a small walk out back. I was casually pulling out some pesky garlic onion, when she takes off like a rocket alongside the house. I start running after her, asserting myself in my usual commanding voice kind of way, and then see that she is bearing down on a fawn about the same size as she is, which I realize to my horror she will certainly catch. And then she does. In slow motion. Holy shit. Trix has now just run down her first prey.

Course the poor toddler deer tumbles, gets up and starts running again, making an awful despairing wrenching wailing sound, the kind of sound I imagine would come out of a young deer confronting its doom.

And then I realize that Trix is thinking hey what a blast this is. A forest creature that likes to run around and play, just like Greta.

The two animals tear along the side of the house and onto the front lawn, the fawn as the very picture of terror. Trix? Well, this is just plain old WAY too much fun and so she's nosing the fawn and trying to trip it and make it do all kinds of cool stuff and isn't it all just hilarious.

Course, then MOM enters the picture and the slow-mo thing in my head ends.

All three animals are now racing toward some sort of cataclysmic universe-ending explosion, one out of it's mind with fright, the other in a state of high fury and our poor little innocent dog in the mix for the sheer joy of being alive. My heart rate is now at 220 because of course all trajectories have these three converging right in the middle of morning rush hour traffic on Old Dundas Road. TNT people, you have not seen me run like I was running now.

As it turns out not all drivers on Old Dundas are idiots. One in particular had the sense to slow down and then actually honk. Which got all the critters in this strange tableau to look around for a very small moment and realize that things had gotten just a LITTTLE out of hand.

Whatever rushing was going on in Trix's focussed little mind, stopped just long enough for my crazy-man screaming to enter that part of her little brain that suggests to her that I really, really, really meant business. And so she stops cold--in the precise mathematical center of Old Dundas road where sits calmly down. Mom and fawn run off into the woods. I do the scuse me, scuse me, scuse me thing to the nice drivers who have now stopped to watch this train wreck unfold. Pick up Trixy in my arms and walk shakily back to the house.

C • Wow 1

4 -7 minute intervals x 8. Included a blast up K2 from sea level in 5:42 (previous best: 6:02, so I'd say training is going well). I think I could do it in 5:30 if fresh. I wonder if there is anyone in our circles who could do it under 5? Probably not.

C • gauntlet 5

Another good run in the slowly drying valley. It's like a chlorophyl bomb went off. Wonderful smells.

Sunday cruise. Just piling on some day over day volume. Tomorrow, likely the same. 20 minutes in came across Mike Murray and his daughtor Hailey. Hailey is just getting used to mountain bikes and so Mike and I ran up and down the trails throwing all kinds of nasty conditions at this poor unsuspecting 8 year old. She was game though and we never had her in any real danger.

SMT with Turbo and the Greta One. A big hole in the lineup without trix in the mix, but she must continue to heal. Good pace. A travesty early on, so ran caked in mud as my grey badge of courage.

Pleasant way to spend the day that the world will come to an end. Though reports from New Zealand seem to have dashed expectations that today's the day that it's curtains.

C • coitans - aaack 3

7 times artaban. The warmth and lightness of a real spring day made it feel springy and effortless. A good run. Did it solo though. No Trix to keep the forest critters cowering in their dens. So felt kinda eerie. Like I was being watched. Trix is on the injured list for at least a few more days.

Another rainy run in what I have decided to call Mayvember. Feels like winter is just around the corner. Threw in 2 K2's just to get out of my head a bit.

Tarno shows up in Outside magazine:

http://outsideonline.com/fitness/travel-ga-201106-...

Bust a gut night. Which is literally what happened tp PH at the finish of the 6 minute honker. Great fun trying to stay with PH. Faded on the last two shorter sets. Filthy conditions. Good warrior vibe to the whole thing, but stairs? Come on. Enough was enough.

Wet and muddy run with Turbo, Greta and the cross country team.

SMT with PH and Turbo (! He's alive!), the quadrapeds and, for the last half, Balogna. mysterious foggy spring conditions. Trix, once it was all over, confirmed to us that her paw was still really, really sore. Injured list for her until this clears up.

Pleasant Tall Boy cycle into work

7 times up and down Artaban. Trix still nursing her paw; Balogna still nursing her back. Though both gamely loosened up as the reps went on.

Run to work. Toes still a bit pronged from yesterday's travesty, but manageable.

Run home from work.

tnt. Perfect evening for it and felt good for the first four sets. Then at the beginning of the fifth rep, I laid out a monumental travesty. Hooked the only big rock within 15 feet, smashed three toes and went down the hard. Bounced up thinking I was fine, but never fully recovered. No lasting damage, but that sure takes the edge off of one's ambitions for a work out.

another ascent up camelback mountain with balogna. much cooler today. made a huge difference in perceived effort.

early morning cruise around the improbable canal that runs through Scottsdale. 80 to start; 95 to finish.

Flew into Phoenix to join Balogna who had been here for the week. 100 degrees. That definitely makes a difference. On arrival to Scottsdale, changed into running stuff straightaway and Balogna and I struck off for Camelback mountain. And, yes, we wore Camelbacks. Coincidence? I think not. 1200 feet in a mile and a half. Not quite as harsh as Grouse, but still a pretty serious kick in the head. And with the heat, I'd call it a tie. On the way down, got passed by 3 guys tearing down the mountain at a dead run. Amazing descending skills; obviously well-practiced.

Now relaxing back in the room in a leopard print housecoat. I am not making this up. This is what happens in Scottsdale.

C • Leopard print housecoat 2

7 times artaban on a bright sunny morning. The haze of green is such a fine thing to see.

recovery run around main loop

Strange little loop at the top of the chedoke radial trail on the other side of the hydro lines. PH was the only other person who understood that TnT means Tuesday and Thursday. Not Tuesday and Thursday as long as it's not raining. That would be TnTalainr.

And what a mess it was. At the beginning of this fantastically muddy set of intervals I predicted at least one travesty. And I was right. I got flattened twice and PH went down once, more to be polite than anything else. We did Aussie intervals, which, I am led to believe, is 1,2,3,2,1,2,3,2,1. With some kind of doubling up that had PH pounding RIGHT behind me most of the time. Then a 6 minute honker back to the bridge.

All in it was epic and awesome, with just the right dash of self-righteous.

commute home

Wet ride into work. Tall-boy holding up well under the weather, though it's a little miffed that it's just being harnessed for commuter duty. Still haven't tried the 29er in the dirt.

Pleasant Sunday run with Trix. Still feel pretty loose even though I've begun to add distance. Yoga yesterday was a definite help. 9 weeks to Spain.

C • Spain? 7