Training Log Archive: Bash

As my ankle continues to turn different shades of the rainbow, I thought I'd give it a bike trainer workout that wouldn't hurt too much. (Until I unclipped at the end - OW.) Also, it was raining, and history has shown that the mere act of me getting on my trainer creates sunny weather for everyone who wants to train outdoors. That worked pretty well, but the rain is back now. Sorry guys - maybe I'm losing my touch. Watched The Daily Report, pedalling hard in the big ring on commercials. Jon made me laugh out loud a couple of times.

No risk to the ankle while working my biceps - phew. Watched the Colbert Report with one of George Bush's former speech writers as the guest. He claims not to have written anything using the words "misunderestimated" or "decider", but he used "freedom", "bold" and "democracy" as much as possible!

The Blaze Run will be featured on The Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel at 7pm and 11pm eastern time tonight. Don't miss it!

Photos and details now added for Algonquin Park trip from Friday to Sunday!

'Bent and I paddled kayaks on this grey morning.



We headed over to visit the rocky canoe campsite on Joe Lake where we got married, but unfortunately it was occupied so we couldn't go ashore. Even so, it's nice to be able to go back there every year - so many memories.



Autumn colours look fantastic on a cloudy day - really intense.

We were sitting outside the lodge when a parade of red canoes approached from the east. We hopped into a nearby canoe and headed across Little Joe Lake to say hi to Goose, Gosling and their gang. (Yeah, we're still speaking to them after yesterday.) We couldn't tempt them to join us for Sunday lunch at the lodge though - apparently they had Balderson cheese in their lunch bag.

It has become our annual tradition to park at the rail trail south of Arowhon Pines, then run to meet up with the Mizzy Lake Loop - a popular wildlife viewing trail in Algonquin Park. About halfway around this very scenic loop, I said to 'Bent, "This is really fun! Running on the rail trail felt like work, but this technical trail running feels awesome." About 60 seconds later, I twisted my frickin' ankle again. It felt like it crunched a notch or two farther than last weekend, but it was impossible to hear it over my scream. We stopped. I hobbled back and forth saying bad words. 'Bent gave me Advil. And then we continued on more slowly with me in the lead. It was still fun, but I was soooo disappointed at the setback. This might take awhile.

Around mid-afternoon, we headed off on a Wild Goose Chase. I mean that quite literally; our friend Goose was camping on Burnt Island Lake along with Gosling and several others. We are such devoted friends that we made the trip even though there were only heavy Grumman canoes left at the lodge, and we didn't want to disappoint them when we'd promised we would visit even though it meant some nasty portages for 'Bent's bad neck. Little did we know that our so-called "friends" had craftily selected a remote campsite at the far northeastern corner of the lake and hidden their red canoes in the forest so they couldn't be spotted from a distance. To make up for this, they are going to have to invite us over for dinner some time soon!! ;-) Instead we found these guys, who couldn't have left their red canoes in a more obvious location - thus convincing us that we were in the right spot until we had nearly pulled ashore by their campfire. Oh well, nice day for a paddle. (Portaging time included.)

'Bent and I headed up to Algonquin Park for our annual weekend at Arowhon Pines where we spent our wedding weekend. As with our wedding day, the weekend started with a ride on the Minnesing mountain bike trail.



It was a gorgeous day. The leaves were still a couple of days away from their peak.



Due to injuries and bike problems, it's been 3 years since we last rode Minnesing. A number of rocky areas in the first half of the trail have become very rough over the years as the soil has eroded. 'Bent described these long sections of trail as having rocks the size of pumpkins - sometimes surrounded by mud pits. This meant a lot of hike-a-bike for me, especially once I remembered (after a tweak) that quickly unclipping could wrench my sore ankle. It was hard work and not super-fun, since I'd rather be riding. 'Bent did better, since he doesn't have as far to fall off his recumbent bike. We didn't take many photos of the rocky areas because we were focused too hard on staying upright!

The second half of the trail is an old carriage road - lots of long, fun hills, both up and down, with more manageable loose rocks - let's call them baseball-sized. Awesome and fast!



We met two other couples along the way - a Turkish/Kazakh pair and two Germans. This was a continuing theme for the weekend, as the guests at our lodge included people from China, Germany and several other places. On our trail run, most people had an accent when they said hello. It's interesting to see that some people from other countries appreciate Canada's wild areas more than a lot of Canadian-born people do. It's not just Algonquin - I've often run into foreign hikers or paddlers in the Yukon, the Rockies and other amazing Canadian backcountry places that many native Canadians will never explore. Good for them!

And then on to Arowhon Pines to enjoy good food and Algonquin scenery.

Caledon Navigators mountain bike orienteering training night at Albion Hills. Fun course set by Rocky with nice new training controls. We got a good tour of some of the lesser-used areas of the park, and it got just dark enough that I could try my new light for the last half-hour - mostly to read the map, not to see the trail.

'Bent and I went around the score-O course in a similar loop, but often seemed to be approaching controls from different directions, so we saw a lot of each other. We both got all the controls, and I managed to get them a little faster. :-) Best of all, we were both beaten by Matthias Herzog, a 20-year-old novice orienteer who also cleaned up in the junior category at CN's MTB-O event in the spring. I was really happy about that!

Then we had an awesome bonfire with s'mores, hot chocolate, popcorn and excellent company. Thanks to Rocky for organizing a terrific training night, and to Goose for helping with course vetting until well past his bedtime on Tuesday.

Since there are no events coming up for awhile, I thought I'd give my twisted ankle a few days of complete rest with occasional icing. I'm sure the body part that went "crunch!" is still in there waiting to surprise me again, but it's down to mild pain and swelling with pale rainbow colours. It feels like the ankle is ready to start building strength again. The next few days will include some paddling, mountain biking and rocky trail running, so I'm hoping it's ready to hang in there for me.

Just booked a trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon! This has been on my Dad's "bucket list" for a long time, and there was a lucky cancellation, so we're taking him for his birthday. (Although actually we're going on 'Bent's birthday!) Dad wants to go down to Phantom Ranch by mule, and 'Bent and I will go on foot. I've been trying to find a date to arrange this for a couple of years - it's tough when bookings are made 13 months in advance, and very few cancellations pop up. Also, there aren't that many dates that work by the time you remove the really hot summer months, the ice-on-the-mule-trail winter months, my parents' vacation dates, our race dates, family holidays, etc., etc.

I can't remember another trip that was so complicated to book. When I've tried to pull it together in the past, I've been told 8 months in advance: "I'm sorry, ma'am, but all the vegetarian dinners are sold out." People, you've got eight whole months!! You couldn't add a few more vegetables to your shopping list?! But no, these national parks run a very, very tight ship. We will have to carry a dinner down for 'Bent if no vegetarians cancel before we go, because they are only able to serve 6 vegetarians each night at Phantom Ranch.

My favourite part of making the reservation was when the agent asked, "And how did you hear about us?" "Um, you're asking me how I heard about the GRAND CANYON?!!" "Yes, ma'am." Wow, I had to admit that I couldn't remember a time in my life when I *hadn't* heard of the Grand Canyon, so unfortunately I couldn't help him out. I mean *really*, are there actually people who say, "I read about it on the Internet"?

U.S. Ultra-Long Orienteering Champs - This wasn't as bad as my only other Ultra-Long race in early 2008... it was much, much worse. The disturbing thing is that I'm not sure what lessons I can take away from it. I knew I'd be moving cautiously because of yesterday's ankle sprain, but that certainly didn't cause me to finish almost an hour behind the winner. (Great job, Peggy!)

The race started on a muddy track pockmarked with deep ruts and horse tracks. We had a 150 m marked run to the start triangle, and I knew it would be a great time to look at my map, but I was afraid for my ankle. I took a quick glance after about 60 m and caught my toe in a rut and went sprawling face first into the mud. The other members of my start group were still with me, and I said, "Well THAT's a great way to start", and a very serious fellow runner said, "No, it isn't." Um, yeah, no kidding. But following up on yesterday's goals, I found the start triangle easily and executed a good route to #1. So far, so good.

After that, my goal today was to remain focused for the entire race - stopping to review the map if necessary rather than making poor route choices. I thought I had a good route choice to #2, and I was really careful going there, but I still ended up wandering when I got to the general vicinity. Unfortunately, I can't put my finger on anything I would do differently. In this area - and also in the area of #3 and #4 - it just seemed that the map didn't fit my style of navigating. There's no question that visibility played a role - it takes a better navigator than I am to be precise in relatively bland areas when there are leaves on the trees. But it also seemed like I was seeing more features in the terrain than there were on the map - although I don't know much about maps. I do know that some other people did just fine in this area of the map, so I have to take responsibility for not being skilled enough to deal with it.

I was one of the earlier starters, and eventually the woods around #2 became crowded with other wandering orienteers looking for the same control. I was the one who eventually found it, but as the first person to arrive, I got the longest split - yahoo. My journey to #3 was a similar experience of matching map and terrain - but far more disastrous when I overshot the control by an embarrassing distance, arriving at a water control on a road (!!!) I briefly considered dropping out because it had taken me so long to get just to #3, and my ankle didn't need more exercise. But that would be a really dumb thing to do on a day when my goal was to stay focused for the entire race. (Woo hoo - I stayed focused for 3 controls, two of which took me longer than an average middle distance race.)

Things actually went OK after that. I wasted a couple of minutes around #4 because I hadn't read the control description, and it looked like a hilltop on the map when it was actually down by a stream. Yay - finally an error that's easy to fix in future races. From there until the end of the course, my only problem was a minor overshoot at #6, but only a couple of minutes wasted, which isn't much in a race this length.

So... my goal of staying focused for the entire race was achieved. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm so rusty at competitive O that being focused didn't help. I just wasn't skilled enough. I'm not beating up on myself - that's just a fact. If it really were possible to be good at O with as little practice as I've been doing, then it wouldn't be the awesome sport that it is. So hopefully I'll find opportunities to get more training!

UltraLong: Green Y - Splits

U.S. Sprint Champs at Mendon Ponds Park. My main goal for today was to stay relaxed at the start - find the start triangle quickly, then plan and execute a reasonable route to #1. It will be interesting to see how my splits stand up, but in both my races today, I felt reasonably calm at the start, found the start triangle without going cross-eyed from nerves, and took a decent route (I'd give myself a mark of about 8 out of 10) to #1.

After that, the rest of the sprint had no particular goals, but it went reasonably well. It wasn't until #11 that I messed up. It should have been easy - behind a thicket just off the trail, but I briefly forgot about the 1:4,000 map, so I went looking too far at another thicket. Turns out Peggy messed up the same control (before going on to win the gold medal), and we had virtually the same (long) split. I figure it was a 1+ minute error, which is a lot for a sprint, but I have to be happy to only mess up one of 14 controls. Congrats to Peggy & Clare for taking 1st and 2nd, and I was lucky to finish 3rd, about 1:50 out of the lead.

Our sprint today had been designed for maximum spectator friendliness and sociability, which was great. We ran to a spectator control partway through the race, then ran all the way around a field - up and down a hill - enroute to the finish. The elites started together a little after the rest of us, so we could all be there to cheer for them. The emcee was great at giving us an idea of how racers were currently ranked as they approached the start control or the finish, so it really worked well as a spectator event. Bravo to the Rochester Orienteering Club for a great job.

Middle Distance - I'm not a great warmer upper, but today I decided to run for about 10 minutes before the start. And wouldn't you know it, as I ran down a perfectly flat forest trail, averting my eyes from the male orienteers peeing off to each side, I twisted my ankle hard. I'd wrenched it lightly in the playground with AdventureGirl! yesterday, but today I heard a couple of crunching sounds and knew it was the real deal. Not so bad that it turned into a baseball, like it has before, but there is acute pain and a bit of swelling. This happened just a few minutes before I was called to the start line - grrr.

Even so, I got off to a reasonable start. I was very conscious of finding good footing but felt like I was racing well for the first 6 controls. Then I went BOOM on the way to #7. Just wasn't concentrating - passed a few major trails and couldn't place exactly where I was. Saw the pond behind the control and thought it was an earlier pond. Climbed the big ridge thinking it was the big hill in front of the control, even though I should have known better because I'd been on the ridge before. Got on a trail going northwest and had to stop and convince myself of how far wrong I had gone - and that is when I relocated - yikes. Should have stopped much, much earlier.

That wasn't the most memorable moment in the race though. As I approached #12, a cadet said, "Don't step in the mud!" I thought to myself, "What a friendly cadet! Surely he realizes that I am an experienced orienteer who doesn't mind a little - KERSPLASH!" Holy CRAP - after punching the control, I thought I was stepping into mud that might be ankle-deep, but I went in somewhere between waist and chest-deep into stinky liquid mud, and had to extract myself with a combination of swimming strokes and random vegetation grabs while Jon T ran past with a look of sympathy. I guess I should have realized that it was a real emergency when the cadet forgot to call me "Ma'am". He was clearly feeling stressed. AdventureGirl! operated a big hand pump to help me wash off all the oogie stuff.

Nice to chat with friends in the sunshine and eat yummy sundaes from the junior team's fundraising ice cream social. Last time I checked, I was 4th, less than 4 minutes behind 1st. I figure my error was about 6-7 minutes, so it was mostly a good race - but you have to do better than "mostly" in orienteering! At least I met my goal for the day - relaxed starts and good route execution to #1 on each course.

Not sure how the ankle is going to fare with tomorrow's Ultra-Long. If I hadn't come all this way, I'd probably skip it. On the bright side, the need to go slower will fit well with my goal of staying focused for the entire race.

Sprint: Green - Splits

Middle: Green Y - Splits

Off to the U.S. Sprint and Ultra-Long Orienteering Champs while 'Bent and the pooches hold the fort. First A meet in a year and a half, and I am feeling rusty! There haven't been many O events lately, so I've mostly trained by:

- Downloading and studying the 29-page document of IOF control symbols

- Flipping over old race maps and trying to find the stoopid start triangle (one of my worst O skills under pressure). Since my second worst O skill is finding control #1, I practised some route choices on the old maps as well. I can't believe how hard the 2005 COC courses were - I must have been smarter then!

Drove to Rochester with Hammer and AdventureGirl!, then went to Mendon Ponds Park for some pre-event training. Fantastic weather. Some large areas of nasty black-swallow wort - a vine that acts as a lasso around your ankle offering the potential for spectacular face plants.

My goals for this weekend's U.S. Champs meet are modest after doing so little competitive A meet orienteering over the past couple of years. For tomorrow's Sprint and Middle races, I'd just like to practise a smoother, less stressful start - finding the start triangle without the usual "frantic squint with blank brain" moment, then relaxing for a moment to choose a good route to #1 and executing it thoughtfully and accurately. That's really all I'm trying to achieve in these two races.

I have bigger goals for Sunday's Ultra-Long race... I'm planning to make a concerted effort to break my "long O event curse". Building on Saturday's practice in good starting, I'm going to try my darnedest to stay focused for the entire race (about 2-2.5 hrs) instead of losing my mind somewhere on the course as per usual. It's not like I haven't been trying in past long races, so we'll see... But that's the plan! (Rather pathetic compared to the racers whose goal is the podium, but oh well.)

I'm not sure why this "forest mystery" has become such a big deal. Does anyone recognize it? There is a hint that it may be somewhere near Toronto. It would be cool for some orienteer or trail runner to identify the location and alert the Globe and Mail - thus achieving fame (if not fortune) for our sports. (Although I'm not sure what important issues our media and politicians would have left to talk about after that.) Watch the video.
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-m...>

More sets to see if that will make me less of a weakling! Getting tired of having sand kicked in my face. While watching the Colbert Report.

Rodney Yee Yoga for Strength. Haven't done this one in awhile, and didn't think of it as being particularly strength-oriented. However, it felt different when I did half an hour of upper body work immediately beforehand!

Easy run around Palgrave West

After my slow 10K time on Sunday, I wanted to see whether I really am limited to a single running speed these days. I've been told that you can't develop much fast twitch muscle past your mid-40s, and I certainly haven't worked at it. But just to see... I picked a short interval distance of 202 m on smooth double track trail with a couple of small climbs and descents. Five repeats - :54, :53, :54, :56, :53. Not very fast by real standards, but for me, that was flying. Jogged back to the start point between intervals.

Slow jogging between intervals followed by cooldown run home.

While watching the Colbert Report

'Bent is always getting boxes from everywhere (as DLevine knows), and as I tried to clean up some packing material today, a big spider crawled out of the crumpled paper. For all I know, the spider could be some invasive species from Korea or Texas - or he might just be a harmless visitor from downtown Toronto. Regardless, I didn't want him in the house, so I grabbed the box and headed down the driveway. He jumped off and started walking back toward the house, and I confess that I killed him using nearby natural materials. Then I noticed the blood on my finger. Strange, spiders don't bleed bright red, do they? Into the house immediately, wash my hands, and - gack!! - it's *my* finger that is bleeding!! What the heck did that spider look like again?

Soap, water, hydrogen peroxide, bloodletting - even some Benadryl for good measure - followed by a bit of googling. OK, only two lethal spiders in North America - the black widow and the brown recluse. Definitely not the former and probably not the latter - and based on reading the package info, the spider probably came from North America. No explanation for the injury though - maybe a paper cut from taking the box apart. There's always some excitement in our neck of the woods!

Terry Fox Run - always a nice community event with a pancake breakfast served up by the Palgrave Rotary. Since we were running on rail trail (boring!), I wore my iPod and listened to my marathon mix - which worked about as well for speeding me up as it did in the marathon (i.e. NOT). It's been a couple of years since I've run a marked 10K, and I've slowed *way* down. Oh well... Running - particularly on flats - isn't my thing. At least I finished at the same time as some slim, younger people in expensive running clothes!

'Bent had a great run, finishing first (not that it's a real race) in 43 minutes. Phatty & Leanimal were up near the front, and I high-fived Coach LD, Goose and Tavish on the course.

Before the start, the warm-up leader mentioned that Terry Fox would now be 50 years old. That's so hard to imagine - he is forever young. I love looking around at all the people who come out to these runs - pushing strollers, riding bikes with training wheels, pulling wagons, walking with dogs (75% golden retrievers by my count), and (for a minority of us) running. It's cool that Terry is a hero to so many, even though about half of today's participants would have no memory of his Marathon of Hope in 1980. I can remember exactly where I was when I read that he had been forced to stop running - and I can still see my tears falling onto the newspaper and obliterating the text. An inspiring legacy... Whenever you wonder how much difference one person can make in the world, this shows you what is possible.

Jog on trail + warm-up exercises.

'Bent and I did an out-and-back trail run along the HVT, starting at the north Duffy's Lane entrance and turning around at the south entrance. We took a break before we started because we thought we saw some giant hogweed - all of it dead or dying - along the trail. Now that I've googled, I'm thinking it might have been Angelica because of the leaf pattern, but we'll keep watching because we know that giant hogweed has been sighted at a few locations in Caledon. This stuff was about 8' tall with thick stems.

Nice run - a little too warm and humid for me, but I'm a heat wimp. We met The Archer near our turnaround point and ran with him for about 10 minutes before he reached his own turnaround. Nice to catch up.

To Gore Road and back via country road and moderately hilly Bruce Trail. Only 8 seconds difference between the out and back splits, and I wasn't particularly trying for that. Cool... (I'm such a geek.)

Three 650 m intervals on rolling trail from our place via F&M double track to Mad Dog Junction. 3:11, 3:18, 3:12

Rests between intervals (350 m from Mad Dog junction to home) and cooldown. A little too hilly for the rest sections!

Hard Core DVD - with an increased level of difficulty because the 130-lb mastiff we are dogsitting occasionally leaned affectionately on my chest while I was trying to do crunches.

Got my first-ever distance vision glasses today. I don't really need them, but I'm so used to being spoiled with 20/15 vision all my life that I wanted to be able to see things with crystal clarity again. I love them! My optometrist noticed a couple of changes in my eyes that I'm a bit young for - one that can be (but is not necessarily) associated with UV exposure and one that can be associated with banging your head around, e.g. mountain bike crashes. Hmm, I've never been thrilled about the risk of wrecking my joints from adventure sports, but that hasn't deterred me at all. But my vision is a completely different story. I'm *not* pleased about this - although these things might have happened anyway. Wear your sunglasses, boys and girls - and try not to bump your head too hard!

No resting between sets because there was no time!

It's hard to fathom that our multi-sport racing season is already over for 2009 - a few weeks earlier than usual. We had to make some tough choices this year. From now on, we paddle and bike only for fun. Maybe that's not so bad.

Next up for me is the U.S. Sprint and Ultra-Long Orienteering Champs in 10 days. It's been a year and a half since I've done a competitive orienteering A meet, and I'm feeling woefully underprepared. Last year I purposely skipped the North Am O Champs because I didn't feel qualified to race in them - pretty sad after medalling in both Canadian and North Am Champs in 2006. At least I know what I need to do:

(a) Run. Since the championship races are very different distances, any running will do.

(b) Practise navigating. This is more difficult. Guess I should dig out some old maps and try making quick route choices. My biggest problems in A meets are usually finding the start triangle (in these events, you are already on the clock when you first see the map) and taking a panicked, dumb route to the first control. After that, I'm usually OK, although in longer O races, I sometimes get stupid after about 75 minutes, so that will definitely be something to watch out for! Should be interesting to see how it goes.

Headed to Albion Hills with the orienteering map from the 2007 Tree Hugger Invitational race. It was good practice to follow a map again. I've become sloppy about thumbing and folding the map properly. I hit a mountain bike trail just as two bikes were approaching. The leader said, "Hi Barb!" It was former Tree Hugger Logan Tacoma - a nice surprise! We chatted for a minute before he pointed out that the rider standing behind him was... VO2Max!! Awesome to see him after 6 months out west! On my way back, I ran into The Archer. Turns out the Albion Hills are full of friends. Who knew?

Interesting news from the world of science. People with thin thighs die younger than us normal women, and the more people drink, the more likely they are to exercise.

Ran hilly trails around Palgrave West. I was pushing hard but didn't set any speed records, so I guess the humidity and fatigue were taking their toll. I confirmed that the F&M Loop (front patio to main F&M Doubletrack to Mad Dog Meadow to Pine Trail to front patio) is exactly 1 km and reaches the 2/3 km point at the turn-off from Mad Dog Meadow. That should be useful for some rolling trail intervals.

Rodney Yee Yoga for Flexibility

Relaxed Labour Day paddle at Island Lake with Coach LD, Gosling, Tavish, Susie, Pops, 'Bent and ThunderDog. Logged @50%. In honour of our 13th anniversary today, they surprised us with a wonderful picnic including homemade brownies with whipped cream and Bordeaux in wine glasses. Thank you!! :-)

Event: GUATS Logs Rocks and Steel Multisport Adventure
 

Logs, Rocks & Steel

Garmin Forerunner Data
Trail Running - 15.1 km, 2 hrs 5 min
Transition - 3 min
Paddling/Portaging - 13.4 km, 1 hr 44 min
Transition - 7 min (I was inefficient...)
Mountain Biking - 44.7 km, 3 hrs 14 min

Our 13th wedding anniversary falls on Labour Day this year, and - as with most couples - the burning question for 'Bent and me was, "What race shall we do to celebrate?" September is chock full of great events, but this year we decided to go with Logs, Rocks and Steel co-organized by our friend BobTheNavigator.



Thanks to our trip overseas, I logged 10 whole hours of run/bike/paddle training in August. So - although I hate to brag - I'd probably done the best taper of anyone in the race. 'Bent had his tow rope ready.



The Male Solo category had the most competitive field of any event in recent memory, and there were 4 or 5 very strong women competing for the Female Solo title. We weren't sure what the Coed Team of Two category would be like, but on the night before the race, we got our answer. Coach Bill Trayling (our former paddling coach and Pan American Games kayaking medalist) and Kari Ferlatte (who placed 3rd in the TransRockies MTB Challenge and 10th in the 24-hr Solo MTB World Champs) were in the race. Yikes!!



Coach showed us the C2 he had brought along as their "canoe". It's the same model of boat that the Buday brothers used in the Olympics. Heck, knowing Coach, it probably IS the Budays' boat! In this photo, FB's son Will demonstrates how much wider he is than this sleek racing craft.



It was great to see Bill & Kari, but looking at that speedy boat sure knocked my optimism down about 10 notches! In fact, I resigned myself to our fate and had a margarita with dinner - not part of my usual pre-race nutrition/hydration plan.

It was awesome to see so many friends - especially fellow Attackpointers - at this event. Here is Funderstorm with her teammate Marcus.



Here's FB with Hammer Lane and Kirikou in the background.



Wanda and Dee



STORM and Gally



Nosnhoj (although we prefer to call him Fast Eddie)



T Rex



And many more! Some other friends and Attackpointers will appear later in the finish line shots. BTW, ace AR photographer Bill Young and our friend Jildo took almost half the photos in this report - and probably *all* the good ones. :-)

Racers were bussed or driven to the starting line near the Stanhope Community Centre. We assembled on a bridge over the beautiful Gull River. Keep a close eye on on those two guys at the front right... you'll see them again in this story.





We started by running up a hill on double track trail. Within 2 minutes, I went on 'Bent's tow rope and stayed there for almost the entire 15.1 km run.



We crossed back over the river to the north side of the road, following a beautiful, rocky single track trail along a ridgeline. It was an awesome run - loads of fun. I had to keep a close eye on my feet to avoid tripping on rocks and roots, but once in awhile I stole a glance at the beautiful views.



Mostly though, my view was of 'Bent's back as he worked to keep us moving well through technical terrain without pulling me onto my face! There was a strong-looking female runner close behind for the first 10K, but otherwise we didn't see anyone after the first kilometer.



At the paddle transition area at Big Hawk Marina, someone told us that Coach Bill and his speedy C2 had departed about 10 minutes earlier. We didn't know who else might be ahead, but we figured they were probably leading our category. Although we had no support crew, Leanimal's sister Jildo did us a *huge* favour by transporting our pre-assembled paddles and laying our paddle gear out in our canoe. That made for a quick transition. Thank you!!



The only bad thing about the 13.4 km paddle was that we couldn't stop and hang out at one of the beautiful campsites we saw along the way. I would have loved for the paddle to go on twice as long - it was a great canoe route and loads of fun.



Although I hadn't expected my nav skills to be of much use in this race, we did gain time on some other racers who took less direct routes across the water - especially on Big Hawk Lake. There were four portages ranging from 70 m to 815 m. 'Bent and I always say that portaging is our best discipline after doing 37 portages in five days on our honeymoon. We passed a number of racers in this paddle/portage section. (Now that results are published, I see that we had a faster paddle split than any of the male teams - yay!) However... our most spectacular wipe-out of the day happened on the second portage when 'Bent caught the tip of our canoe in a tree, wrenched his injured neck and flung the canoe down at the same time as he crashed noisily onto some rocks. It left a big dent in his shin, but the silly boy still wanted to run the portages.



We paddled through Sherborne Lake, then passed Crash (with her plastic tub boat) and Nosnhoj on the final portage into St. Nora Lake. We knew we would see both of them again in the mountain bike section - it's a lot tougher to portage a kayak than a canoe. As we started paddling toward the Frost Centre, we did a double take. Could that really be a C2 heading south of St. Margaret Island? We came into the paddle/bike transition 3 minutes behind Coach Bill & Kari - we'd gained over 8 minutes on the paddle section! (Although we've had some great paddling instruction from Coach Bill, I'm sure we gained our time from the nav and portage aspects of this race leg - not the paddling itself. C2s aren't the easiest boats to portage.)

I had an inefficient transition, forgetting the map on the canoe till the last minute - that sort of thing. It seemed to take forever to switch shoes and packs and get my helmet on, but my GPS says we were only there about 7 minutes. We headed across to the west side of Hwy 35 for 45 km of tough and varied mountain biking.



The first section was fun and almost all rideable, although my semi-slick tires felt heavy in the mud. 'Bent was riding really well. About 18 km into the ride, we came around a bend to see Coach Bill pushing two bikes and Kari looking pained. They had been towing on the technical trails, and Kari had crashed hard. We stopped to see how they were doing, and 'Bent gave them some Advil. We assumed that they would start riding again (and they did), so we spent the rest of the race telling ourselves that they were just behind us.

The next bit was the part that racers described to one another as "the part that wasn't really a trail" - an old logging road with big holes, random boulders and lots of raspberry bushes. I kept looking at my bike computer and wondering if we would finish before dark. Then we came out onto nice ATV trails and finally a long rolling dirt road that took us back toward Hwy 35 with some good hill climbs and fun descents. The last 3 km were on pavement on Hwy 35. It was the only time we considered towing in the bike section, but the traffic was moving so quickly that I vetoed it in favour of drafting 'Bent. The entire bike section had felt like a near-wilderness experience - not as consistently fun as the run and the paddle, but still pretty good. We were passed by 3 people - Crash, Ursula and a male solo we didn't know. Nosnhoj passed us temporarily, then got sidetracked by a call of nature.

We had a moment of confusion trying to find the finish line at the Frost Centre, then it was time to enjoy the great post-race set-up - cold chocolate milk, wet face towels, hot showers, BBQ, picnic tables, shopping for nice GUATS shirts, and sitting in the sun talking with friends.





Our good friends from Caledon, Leanimal and Crash, placed 1st and 2nd respectively in the female solo category, with Ursula placing 3rd. Congrats to all - you ladies are awesome!!



There had been a lot of speculation about the male solo category. In the end, Frankenjack placed 1st in his first-ever adventure race. Well done! Dr. Wells was 2nd, and Relentless was 3rd, just 2 seconds back. Winning time was 5 hrs 28 min (compared to our 7:11).



Bill Logie was 4th, and Hammer Lane was 5th. STORM had been in 4th place when he got his 2nd flat tire in the bike section. Rather than drop out, he ran 13 km to the finish. Good training for the AR World Champs! (And he still beat us.) FB, Gally and Kirikou were in the top ten, and I'm undoubtedly forgetting other friends who put in great performances.

Frankenjack and Leanimal got champagne and sprayed the crowd!



'Bent and I were pleasantly surprised to win the Coed category, with Coach Bill & Kari placing 2nd and a team from Mansfield placing 3rd. We were 3rd of 13 teams (including the male teams and one female team), but got our butts kicked by a lot of solos! :-)



Congrats to Harper and John R who won the Male Team category! John Yip's team was 3rd.



It looks like Kari's arm might be broken - she'll need an X-ray. Ouch.



For me, there were a couple of highlights from the shorter Frost Centre course. 2-Min raced for the first time in 9 years, placing 5th in the female solo category.



And 80-year-old Robert Schad, a businessman and philanthropist well-known in our area, completed his first adventure race. Wow!

PhattyJR sat the race out to heal an injury. He tested 'Bent's recumbent bike and did really well. Most people are afraid to lean back so it doesn't work for them.



The post-race festivities concluded with a big bonfire, and the organizers even provided ingredients to make S'mores - yum.



'Bent and I focus on navigation events, so I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy LR&S, but we had a great time. The race was well-organized, the course was carefully marked (although we still managed a couple of brief moments of confusion), and the Frost Centre was an excellent host site. It was fun to hang out with so many friends in one place and see so many top competitors go head to head in a fast, tough race. Good times!

Rode mostly trails to Foodland in Caledon East. Turns out there isn't really a good place to park a bike, so I locked it to a garbage bin by the carts then ran inside to do a very efficient Tour de Store. I was kinda proud of how much I squeezed into my pack, including a big basket of Ontario nectarines! Even with the heavy groceries and the uphill at the end, the ride home took 9 seconds less than the ride there. (It's over 12K each way.) Consistency is nice, but that's just *weird*!

'Bent and I still aren't sure if he'll be able to race LR&S due to the flaring up of an old dental-related neck injury - the same one that forced him to switch to a recumbent bike many years ago. Some tough dentistry on Monday put him in a lot of pain. He needs to turn his entire body to look around because he can't turn his neck. It hurts to watch! Leanimal and Thumbs of Death going to do their best to duct tape him back together, and we've got our fingers crossed. It's strange to be packing when I don't know if I'm actually racing. Or maybe I will race solo, but probably not with an appropriate boat at this point, so it would just be silly.

Basked in cool, sunny weather on shady trails!

Then got sprayed by a chemical truck putting dust suppressant on Humber Station Road. :-(

But mostly it was a good run, and my legs felt surprisingly zippy - for me, anyway. I met Crash and the pooches out for a walk and stopped for a chat. I love September.