Training Log Archive: Bash

Phantom Ranch to Grand Canyon Rim via Bright Angel Trail (time discounted for photography).

Another day, another alarm clock going off in the dark. After a hearty ranch breakfast, we headed to the corral to see Dad and the other mule riders off.



After a bit of fiddling with my pack to recover from a bladder explosion (the Camelbak, not me), 'Bent and I headed down the trail too.



We took a different route across the Colorado River today - the Silver Bridge, which provides a shortcut to the Bright Angel Trail that mules aren't allowed to take. So even though we started behind, we got ahead of the mules near the start and ultimately reached the top 75 minutes before they did.



The trail followed the river for awhile, giving us a different perspective. Because the Bright Angel Trail has mule traffic, the surface is in rougher shape, not to mention the omnipresent mule, um, leavings. Along the river, the trail was soft and sandy with scattered fist-sized rocks buried in it. One of these grabbed my foot and re-twisted my gimpy ankle - YIKES. First ankle roll in 10 weeks, and no better place for it than the bottom of the frickin' Grand Canyon!!



We moved away from the river and started climbing. The Bright Angel Trail takes longer to climb to the rim than the South Kaibab Trail, but it mixes relatively flat sections with steep switchbacks.



Near the top of the first big series of switchbacks, we looked far below and saw the mules clip-clopping along.



In places, the trail was just carved out of the cliff.



We headed to Indian Gardens, another treed oasis about 500 m above the Canyon floor. There is a campground, mule corral and water pumping station here, surrounded by huge cottonwood trees.



About 15 minutes after Indian Gardens, the trail headed uphill for the final 1000 meters of non-stop climbing.



The view kept changing as we marched up switchback after switchback.



Success!



And success for Dad too.



This was just a sneak preview of what we can experience in the Grand Canyon on a longer trip some day. It's a huge place with lots of trails and side canyons - plenty of exploring left for us to do! (And maybe an R3 some day too.)

Grand Canyon Rim to Phantom Ranch via the South Kaibab Trail. (Time discounted for photography.)

When we headed to the mule corral this morning, we couldn't help noticing a slight change in the weather!



After a detailed pre-mule briefing from the wrangler, Dad and the other riders headed down Bright Angel Trail.



'Bent and I took the shuttle bus to the South Kaibab trailhead. It's 400' higher (7200' instead of 6800') and there was a good ol' snowstorm blowing by the time we were dropped off. (Sniff - I miss snow.) I'm used to the weather getting colder as I hike (usually uphill), but the hike into the Canyon is the other way around, getting milder as you go lower. It felt weird starting down the trail with a pack that seemed too light for the weather conditions.



We used trekking poles to save our knees during the 4,900' vertical descent - and to prevent us from slipping off a cliff. We thought about Urthbuoy portaging his kayak down this trail!



As we got lower, the snow turned into cold rain, and we got below the main clouds into better visibility. The South Kaibab is very exposed, which makes for spectacular scenery.



I got at least a dozen rainbow pics when the sun started to emerge - wide angle lens, telephoto, polarizer, no polarizer, yada yada.



The reason I had so much time for photography was that 'Bent dropped his sunglasses somewhere on the trail and disappeared uphill for a 15-minute exploratory tour. Sadly, he was unsuccessful - and I got chilled.



The weather kept improving and so did the views.



This photo shows the Colorado River with the treed valley of Bright Angel Creek heading north. That's where Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel Campground are located. I'm now reading a book that talks about accidents in the Grand Canyon, and one of the common mishaps is for people to stand too close to the edge of a cliff (like I did) to take a photo (like I did) but the edge of the cliff crumbles away while they stand there. So I'm glad I got this pic because I probably shouldn't have been there, so I won't be doing it again!



We crossed the Kaibab Bridge just before Phantom Ranch.



Then we looked back across the river and noticed the mule train following the River Trail which is carved out of a cliff. It's just as well Mom didn't come with us, as she wouldn't have enjoyed watching Dad up there!



We waited for them to cross the bridge, then headed to Phantom Ranch together.



Phantom Ranch is located in a rare oasis of trees and running water - an area that humans have used for centuries. We did some exploring but didn't venture too far away from the cold beer, hot steak, soft beds and interesting ranger stories.

Morning hike around Red Rock State Park in Sedona. There is soooo much good hiking, trail running and mountain biking in this area - 'Bent and I should spend a week here some time. (Although I wonder if I could ever stop thinking about mountain lions...)





Dad and 'Bent sat on the Wildlife Watching Bench. It didn't actually work.



Late afternoon walk along the Grand Canyon Rim Trail. Dad had the orientation for his mule ride, including a mandatory gear review and weigh-in.





Happy Birthday, 'Bent! :-)

Arrived in Arizona for the first leg of my Dad's long-awaited "bucket list" trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. 'Bent, Dad and I flew to Phoenix, drove to Sedona and ate far too much Mexican food.

The Plan: Get lots of stuff done followed by a relaxing hour of yoga and strength.

The Reality: I'd sent a sensitive e-mail on a local political issue to a few friends, and someone accidentally forwarded it to a group e-mail ID that includes pretty much everyone in town - and out of town - who might be interested in the issue, including folks on the other side who now know exactly what my strategy will be. Sigh. That is one of the risks of using e-mail, of course, but... shite!

The Silver Lining: The conservation authority enforcement truck was spotted in the vicinity of the hunter's house. Too bad he chose this week to move his tree stand back from the trail after leaving it there all year. We'd told the enforcement manager about the deer baiting last weekend, but their initial response was that they couldn't do anything. Maybe they just went for a hike to check things out, or maybe they dropped in to say hello. I'm curious!

Lots of great CNYO events coming up in New York state! My 2010 calendar is all marked up now.

1) Ski-O races most weekends leading up to the U.S. Ski-O Champs Feb. 11-16 in Craftsbury, VT. (When we went to VT, everyone told us that Craftsbury was the best place to XC ski.)
2) Snowgaine (a perennial favourite for Canadian adventure racers) - Feb. 27-28
3) 24-hr Rogaine (and shorter versions) - July 31-Aug. 1

I can't remember which of the folks at our place last night were interested in the video made at a Sarah Palin book signing, but here it is, courtesy of Urthbuoy. Be prepared to cringe at her supporters' comments, especially later in the video. I don't know how the interviewer kept a poker face.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKgua7wQk

I put on blaze orange and went for a run past The Hunter's place. There has been progress over the past week since my letter to the editor was published and another local resident removed his hunting scent pads from conservation land. For the past year, he's had two hunting tree stands right on his property line, pointed outward. Suddenly in the past few days, he's down to just one, and it is 15-20 meters inside his property line. It's still pointed toward the trail on conservation land where his scent pads were hung, but this is progress.

I've also learned from the municipality that his property zoning forbids hunting, but I'm mostly interested in keeping him off conservation land.

Congratulations to Crash, 'Bent, Gorgeous and Goose for winning last night's Caledon Community Map trivia night at the Toby Jug pub. I was surprised to see it evolve into a seriously competitive event with church ladies pushing town planners aside in their race to be the first to answer a question. The Town Councillor was on the last place team - hmm. If there's another one, we need to get Phatty, Leanimal, Rocky and Slowrunner to team up and challenge the defending champions. (I'm ineligible because I worked on the map.)

Ski bounding session at our place led by Coach LD. It was a weird, warm night with heavy fog, so our headlamps didn't create much light in the darkness. We saw copious evidence that the local deer population is enjoying the clover we planted over the geothermal loop. This meant we had to choose our locations *very* carefully when Coach LD made us drop down for push-ups, sit-ups and burpees. I'm pretty useless at all this stuff, so this was good for me! Goose, Coach LD, Phatty, Leanimal, Rocky and Scooby made it look easy.

We followed this up with an early birthday bash for 'Bent. Thanks to everyone for arranging a terrific celebration including crab legs, homemade cookies and an excellent surprise gift.

The plot thickens... The nearby hunter who put up a camouflaged tree stand on his property boundary pointing at a trail on conservation land has gone a step further. Now he has hung scent pads (normally doe urine) across the trail to attract bucks to his tree stand. After a series of phone calls around Ontario, I've confirmed that this is legal. All he has to say is that he enjoys looking at deer from his back yard. It's no different from putting out a salt lick or apples, and apparently he's allowed to do that even though it's not his land. Until he shoots a trail runner wearing a white hat or a child who is bushwhacking with an orienteering map, the authorities can do nothing.

The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters agrees that it's unethical and reflects poorly on good hunters, but a guy pretty much has to shoot someone to get his OFAH membership removed - and maybe not then. I asked them if they have a higher standard for their hunters, given that Simcoe County Forest now permits hunting only for OFAH members in the forest where the local woman was killed on the hiking trail. It turns out the real answer is a practical one, not a matter of higher qualifications, as the news stories suggested. OFAH members carry $3M of liability insurance, so if they shoot someone, there is coverage.

Thomass Kick-off at Guelph Junction. More of that perfect spring weather we've been getting this fall. Nice to see lots of people out! It was a fun and very complex course. Counting the start and finish, there were 38 different locations marked on an 8.5X11 map at 1:7500 scale - and the course was confined to half the map! It was a great test for my fancy Swedish orienteering glasses - several strong racers got mixed up and missed controls or mispunched. For my handicap, the race had the feel of a forest sprint because the controls were rarely more than 200m apart and there were lots of changes in direction. It took longer than a sprint, but I approached it in the same way - except that I almost never checked a control description because there just wasn't time!

Great to hang out with friends in the sun, and we had a productive meeting afterward with the Orienteering Ontario Board and all the Ontario club presidents - including the Ottawa club. I'm not sure when that type of meeting last took place, but definitely not for many years. Nice job by Prez Sid.

Dr. Leanimal gave 'Bent the go-ahead to do light biking with his injured knee. He wanted to hit the Palgrave trails in this gorgeous "spring" weather, but his Evil Wife (the same one who makes him ice his knee multiple times a day) would only allow a short ride on the rail trail. His knee hurt after half an hour, so he ended up not minding too much. It took years to arrange next weekend's trip down the Grand Canyon with Dad, and - to put it mildly - the timing is a little unfortunate for 'Bent to have trouble walking downhill.

Rodney Yee - Yoga for Flexibility - while dealing with considerable interference from two enthusiastic dogs. (And I don't mean "Upward" and "Downward".)

Following up on an earlier discussion, here's what we did tonight.







Rick announced at the start of the show, "First a note about flash photography. We *encourage* it! It's the reason I became a performer." Too bad my camera was set on the wrong ISO. He spent far more time after the show greeting everyone who came than he spent on stage.

For fans of the show, the free tickets are all gone for the 2009/10 season, but apparently if you're passing by the CBC building on John St. at 7:15 p.m. during a Friday snowstorm, they sometimes beg people to come into the studio. Tonight there were 380 people in the audience - filled to the rafters. It's a complicated process to get that many people through the reserved ticket line-up, up to the 10th floor in two elevators, through a toy drive line-up, past coat check, into the studio, instructed to do the right things in the studio, out of the studio, etc. But the organization was impeccable and perfectly coordinated across a large group of event staff. We could do worse than to hand responsibility for ARWC over to the RMR team.

A group of women had made a quilt with a huge Rick Mercer face on it. His jaw dropped, then he said, "How did you know I sleep in a single bed?"

Interesting to see how the show comes together. 'Bent and I always chuckle at the camera lurch behind the plexiglass pillar that happens predictably near the start of every show. It was hilarious to see the cameraman practising his lurch move a few times as a warm-up before the show began.

KBomb, BulletDog and I returned to the Scene Of The Crime - the place where KBomb and Dee got turned around on Sunday while trying to complete the 21K Bruce Trail loop around the Hockley Valley.

We started at the top of Anderson Tract on the northeast corner of the loop, then followed the blue BT side trail blazes to 5th Line. KBomb recognized a number of places where she had been before - both on her run with Dee and on her reconnaissance mission from the south on Monday. Meanwhile, I realized that I'd taken an incorrect fork in the trail on Sunday too, although I was fortunate to rejoin the marked trail a few minutes later, so it didn't matter. It turns out that the side trail is fully blazed all the way through Anderson Tract, but sometimes with all the leaves down, it's hard to see the trail you're supposed to turn on, and there may be a much more visible (but wrong) turn near the correct turn. It wouldn't be a great place to get lost, since it's a large area filled with the most insanely steep hills of the entire Hockley loop!

We crossed to the south side of Hockley Valley and ran the BT the rest of the way back to the parking lot. Dog lovers be warned that there is one stile on the main trail east of Hockley Resort that has no "doggie door" in the barbed wire fence beside it. Thanks to KBomb for helping me get my muddy 30 kg pooch over a big Bruce Trail stile. BulletDog was *not* happy about negotiating the ladder steps, and given the cost of her bionic metal-plated knee, there was no way I was going to allow her to leap to the ground from 5 feet up, as she attempted to do. Other than that, she was a perfect running companion and had a terrific time.

It was a cold, rainy day where, if I hadn't made plans to meet someone, I would probably have made an excuse to skip this run. So thanks to KBomb for making it happen!

Hard Core Live with Caron

Class with lots of upper body twisting. I missed 'Bent's company, but his injured knee can't handle extreme sports like yoga.

While watching The Daily Show where Jon Stewart interviewed U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. A couple of weeks ago, Al Gore was on. The American comedy shows still don't go as far as ours, e.g. when Rick Mercer got tucked in on the couch by Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his "sleepover" at 24 Sussex Drive - and played hockey in the main foyer in his pyjamas with the PM's kids. But Jon is getting pretty close.

Races are over for awhile - it's time to work on strength again. Stoopid, pathetic toothpick arms!

Doc says I'm such a paleface that I need to wear SPF 30 every day of the year. I guess I would have done better in one of those cultures where servants held umbrellas to protect women's lily white skin from the sun. Yet another sign that I wasn't genetically destined for endurance sports!

Phatty and Leanimal stopped by this evening and shared a few more stories from ARWC. It was every bit as frustrating as we've all been imagining - and much more. On top of everything else we'd heard, it sounds like some of the race organizers behaved like complete jerks toward teams and support crews, the race briefing was uninformative and stressed the extreme importance of meeting race cut-offs (when actually it was better strategy to miss some of them), and the rules were enforced very poorly during the race, which explains why a top team was able to separate for hours and still win money. :-( But at least Portugal was beautiful. Looking forward to race reports from Leanimal, PhattyJR and STORM.

Congrats to Slowrunner and Hingo for sailing through the tough Ultimate XC Challenge 50K trail race in Moab this weekend with flying colours!

Rodney Yee - Yoga for Strength. Still waiting to get strong.

Congratulations to Crash on her graduation today! :-)

(21.8 km according to Bruce Trail folks, but I'll use the Garmin distance.) Met up with Dee, Aud, KBomb and their friend Paul at Hockley Valley to do the infamous, hilly Hockley loop. (The serious runners were doing it twice!) Aud and Paul were in the lead group, and I tried to surreptitiously join the back group where Dee (with injured hammy) was running with KBomb. Aud was having none of that, so the three of us ran together for 5 km, catching up on news. She and Paul are both preparing for races and running really well. I knew my sluggish pace wouldn't do their training any good, so even though they were being very accommodating, I asked them to go ahead. (Paul is aiming to break 60 minutes at a 10-miler next weekend, fergawd's sake!)

I wasn't 100% sure that the others were coming from behind, since Dee had brought her bike in case she was hurting too much, and KBomb had mentioned doing some of the nice loops in Hockley Valley Provincial Park. So I just kept going and looked back on the open stretches in case they were approaching.

What a perfect day for running! Overcast and cool, but warm enough for short sleeves and capris. In 3 hrs, I saw about a dozen other people on the trail, and the forest was beautiful with all the leaves down. This loop includes a number of steep climbs and descents, and I walked a lot of the uphills. I had the option of bailing back to the car at Hockley Road, but I felt good and decided to run the trail on the south side of the valley as well. It's funny - even though I was alone, I felt the presence of the other runners on different parts of the loop, and I was in good spirits. I never would have done this long run today if they hadn't got me out there! Every once in awhile, I'd see a running shoe print on the trail, and that was a relief. The trail has been rerouted more than I knew since the last BT book was printed, and I was hoping that the others would recognize the new location of the Hockley Heights Side Trail turn-off, which used to be the junction of two roads, but is now on a new forest trail.

Toward the end, I tried to break 3 hrs, but missed by 31 seconds. Since that includes 200 m each way between the new Hockley Road parking lot and the Bruce Trail, I'll call it a success anyway! I was happy to see Dee's bike still in her car. Hope that means her leg felt fine for the run. Can't wait to hear how everyone else's run went!

Huge congratulations to Team ATP/Salomon - Leanimal, PhattyJR, STORM and Scott - for completing the very challenging Adventure Racing World Championship race. They were tough competitors to the end, going out for a final bonus point near the finish after almost a week of racing. It's been a confusing event to follow, and it sounds like it was almost as confusing to race it. Can't wait to hear their stories and see some pics!

At age 13, ThunderDog's exploration range is limited if she always starts from home. To keep things interesting for her, 'Bent and I drove the pooches to the north entrance of Palgrave East and hiked around there for half an hour. 'Bent is on the injured list with a swollen knee, so he hobbled along with ski poles. It was probably at the edge of what both 'Bent and ThunderDog can do.

After dropping them off at the car, BulletDog and I set off for a light run home on trails. We met Crash and Skyerocket in the middle of the conservation area and hiked back to their place with them before running a final loop in Palgrave West. What a spectacular day! Dogs are now stretched out and snoring, lying bum-to-bum on the loveseat and waiting for someone to light the fireplace.

I'm scheduled to run the tough 21-km Hockley Bruce Trail loop with Dee and Aud tomorrow. Not sure I'll be able to keep up with two serious ultrarunners even on a long slow run, but it'll be fun trying. (I hope!!!) They'll be going out to do a 2nd 21-km loop after our "warm-up".

Rodney - Yoga for Flexibility
Didn't feel very flexible after 9 days without yoga - and a 30 km cross-country race.

Coach LD and I did a pole run around Cold Creek Conservation Area. Not sure how I've lived in Caledon - and before that King Township - for almost 20 years without ever going there. It used to be known for its shooting range, then it was officially closed for awhile. Now it is looking well maintained again. Nice hilly trails, beautiful forest and bogs, very cool long boardwalk. Great company and a yummy dinner afterward!

Donated blood today and, as often happens, came close to being rejected due to low iron level. Sigh... it's not fair that I have to race against people with hemoglobin!

Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Raid The Hammer

We couldn't have asked for better "spring" weather for this sell-out event to kick off the adventure running season.



This was the 10th anniversary Raid The Hammer, and it's been 7 years since the Tree Huggers did RTH as our first-ever orienteering race. We were back yesterday with our original teammate, Hingo. (Yes, the camera IS attached to my pack strap with the retractable cord that takes up a quarter of the photo!)



To celebrate the anniversary, we raced across Hamilton from the Redhill Valley in the east to Dundas in the west. I'm told that we spent 1 km on pavement and crossed only 4 roads, which seems about right - and is downright amazing when you consider the large population of the city. The nature of the race meant that we were never far from urban areas and could often see or hear nearby civilization, but we were treated to spectacular views, waterfalls, towering forests and beautiful mossy boulders along our journey.

It wasn't a stellar race for our team, but neither was it a disaster. I awoke feeling headachey and unwell, and I took my temperature since I thought I had a fever, but fortunately no H1N1! The warm weather made it worse, and I'd forgotten my hat, so I spent most of the day feeling blah until the last few kilometers when it got cooler. Too bad because both Hingo and 'Bent were in great running shape this year, and I was a real boat anchor.

We got off to a decent start, pacing ourselves to save energy for later. We lost a few minutes at #5 by descending through some unexpectedly thick vegetation but were pretty much on track as we approached the start of the matrix. It was mandatory to stay on the Bruce Trail during this section but we were alone on the trail, and we saw several teams saving distance, elevation and difficulty by running half a kilometer on the rail trail instead. (The mandatory route was marked on the map, and the instructions said that teams would be disqualified for doing so, but unfortunately the assigned volunteer stayed home, leaving us to rely on the honour system.)

So I went into the Matrix a little distracted and made the same error that Gally and BobTheNavigator made - didn't notice that the scale on Map #2 was 1:15,000 instead of 1:10,000. I had three of the lower CPs to visit, and because I was relying on pace counting in an area of vague features, I slowed down and started to circle before I located the first CP. Once I finally got there, I realized my error and found the next two CPs OK, but I was already expected to be the last teammate to CP7, and this delayed my teammates a few minutes longer.

That marked the beginning of a bunch of escarpment climbs that were used to crown "King and Queen of the Mountain" teams. We went up steep escarpment steps, ran along a sidewalk, scrambled up muddy trails and climbed through the forest - lots of different ways to climb through beautiful terrain.



At CP11 at Chedoke golf course, there was an aid station where we each took turns doing a different hill climb to a control. 'Bent started his climb too far along the trail and crawled up a huge cliff through broken glass and rusty tins, wondering where everyone else was. Teams passed us as we waited, and nobody returning from CP11A had seen him. I was wondering whether we should form a search party to look for my injured husband when he appeared at last - phew.

We continued along the southern edge of the 403, finding a few more CPs (overshooting #15 a little) and doing Walk The Line. I began to feel worse and had searing pain near my appendix that came and went, making it impossible to run or, really, to think. When we got down to Main St., I considered turning right toward McMaster hospital but decided to head left toward the aid station and re-evaluate. It stopped soon afterward and hasn't come back, so obviously not appendicitis. I know Leanimal has had some severe abdominal pains while running, so I'll have to ask her more about it because this was unfamiliar and scary.

The weather got a little cooler, and I started to feel better through the advanced section in the Dundas Valley, which went smoothly. Here, as in much of the race, we were disappointed to see so few teams observing the rule that all three members must touch the flag. We commiserated about this with a few of the teams who followed the rules - and met others who started that way, then gave up when they didn't see anyone else doing it. We spoke to a few teams, and noticed a couple of them starting to do it. Others said they would, but we saw that they didn't. Since we were racing across the city, there were many occasions when it was possible for a strong member to ascend or descend from a trail to a CP then meet team members later, and we saw far too much of this. We saw one individual from a team that beat us who often travelled alone with teammates nowhere in sight. Our team could have easily saved 30-40 minutes by breaking this rule, given the difficulty of the terrain and how rotten I was feeling. But I'd rather race clean and know that our true ranking was higher. Too bad there aren't enough SI cards in Ontario to do what they did in our mountain marathon in Sweden - attach SI cards to a non-removable wristband on each team member, and make us punch within 15 seconds of one other.

We finished in 3rd place in the Masters category out of a dozen teams - better than we felt we deserved. (In case it may sound that way, I absolutely do NOT believe that either of the teams who beat us in our category broke the rules.) Trav crushed us by an hour to take the win - nice work! Congrats to Nick and the Foreigners for yet another overall win, and great job by BobTheNavigator, Frankenjack and KatieMac for winning Coed and taking 2nd overall!

An event like this always has lots of stories. The most heartbreaking was The Plodding Plotters, who raced as a team of two in honour of their 3rd teammate Matt Tatham, who died recently at the finish line of a triathlon after winning his age group. One of the more inspiring stories was the Doughty family, including Mom (Coach LD), Dad (Goose) and 13-year-old daugther Kynyn, who placed 2nd of 35 Enduro teams, and 1st Coed. I was thrilled to see some other teenaged heroes - the Kempster led Robbie A. and brother Eric to a 2nd place finish in the Coed Raid. We're also proud of our Caledon friends Rocky, Crash and Dunc, who had a great race. Both the other Caledon teams made the same observation about teams who didn't touch the flags.



The funniest story was Team Silence Beckons' reason for not all going to the first control on Walk The Line... there was a naked man beside it. He'd just biked up and taken off his clothes to enjoy the sunshine. According to GHOSlow, this guy has been spotted in the Dundas Valley a few times.

Thanks to all the volunteers who put so much time into this terrific event - especially Sudden, Hammer and Backwoods for all their work beforehand, and to many volunteers who helped out on race day. We couldn't have all this fun each year without you! :-)

Easy ride to and from Palgrave to eat local goodies and shop at the fair trade cafe and bazaar at the little United church. They sell fair trade goods in part to subsidize their purchase of green electricity from Bullfrog Power. It was all so darned virtuous that we could hardly stand it - so we just had to buy some fair trade chocolate too.

As of 90 minutes ago, Sherpa was within a 7-mile run of completing her first Ironman in about 14 hrs. It's going to be an early morning for Raid The Hammer, so I have to go to bed now and can't watch her finish. It's been fun watching the race all day though, and I'll dare to say a premature CONGRATULATIONS, Ms. Ironman-at-any-moment-now!

Attended a photography auction at the U of Toronto Faculty Club last night to benefit the Georgian Bay Land Trust. Quite exciting to be one of the "artists" who got a special name tag and to see people bid on a framed copy of one of my photos in the silent auction. The photo, from our rainy kayak trip in July, is also included in the new "Rocks of Georgian Bay" poster that they will sell in outdoor stores to raise money for the Land Trust. The most expensive photo by Edward Burtynsky sold for $15,000. One of the other photographers was federal minister Tony Clement. Quite a different night out for 'Bent and me!

Hard Core Live with Caron. Every exercise was done with one leg crossed over the other. And then the other way around. Ouch. I teased 'Bent mercilessly as we did one of his least favourite core exercises (crunches with legs straight up in the air) and made helpful comments about whether he appeared to be nose breathing as he should. He threw his jacket onto my face while I was crunching. Some people are sooooo immature.

Class with C3.

:-( The organizers of the Rock & Ice Ultra are only holding the 1-day event in 2010, but hope to return in 2011 with the 3-day and 6-day events. Glad we went last year.

I love headlines that are impossible to resist clicking on! (I just hope this didn't cause a heart attack for anyone in attendance.)
Brazilian man shows up at own funeral

New shoes - so cushy!

BulletDog and I headed to Palgrave East, ran the Salty Stephen single track backwards, then headed to the north end of the conservation land, running on a mix of single and double track before returning home on Finnerty Sideroad. We timed it perfectly, heading in the door just as the first sprinkles of chilly rain turned into big, cold raindrops.

You know that little psychological dig when someone trains with you, then logs it in Attackpoint with a lower intensity than you did? (Like FB did to Urthbuoy this weekend?) Well, when BulletDog comes home from a 25-minute run with 'Bent, she pants frantically for 10 minutes. When she and I got home today after almost 10K on trails, she wasn't even breathing hard after the first minute. Ouch. At age 6, she's at the top of her game, fitness-wise. Considering that two years ago she barely had an ACL, she's done pretty well.

Really fun run through both Palgraves, much of it on twisty single track. There sure was a lot of different weather - brilliant sunshine, dark purple-grey clouds, wind gusts and ice pellets. Then it was time to drive Leanimal, STORM and their pile o' stuff to catch their flight to Portugal for the Adventure Racing World Championships. Nice to chat with them before they headed overseas for two weeks. Cheer on Team Salomon/Suunto starting this Sunday at http://www.arwc2009.com.

Our 3-year-old niece is visiting from Yellowknife, and today was our day to take care of her. We went to the Toronto Zoo - the first time in many years for me. She enjoyed the jellyfish exhibit the most, followed by the gorillas. 'Bent and I were a lot more interested in the lions, tigers, rhinos and giraffes than she was. She was a lot more interested in the fencing, vehicles, coloured leaves (uncommon in Y-Knife), and painted symbols on the pathways than we were. A hike around Palgrave would probably have been just as exciting for her, but this option was more entertaining for us! Given our inexperience with the younger set, things went surprisingly well.

As you can see, if 'Bent logs any running for today, it's perfectly legitimate. One of our tricks for keeping up the pace between exhibits was to stage races between 'Bent with toddler on shoulders vs. Bash pushing stroller.