Training Log Archive: Bash

Pre-WT week = Long days of preparation, communication and (hopefully soon) some packing. A few breaks for Orienteering Ontario and Star Tracks Mountain Bike O work. No time for training but at least I'm catching up on sleep before I wreck it with another all-nighter on Saturday!

So apparently it's a really good idea to train properly.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/15061...

Impressive service from our "free" healthcare system! My family doctor phoned me with results from my MRI less than 20 hours after I had it done.

My rotator cuff isn't torn but there is tendinosis in my shoulder. I'll have to read more but I don't think there is much I can do other than continue to strengthen everything around it. Maybe I'll be excused from doing full pushups forever. Never thought I'd be so disappointed about that. :(

Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Orienteering Ontario Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Star Tracks MTBO Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse Wilderness Traverse. Busy day.

Plus an MRI on my longtime (4.5 years) gimpy shoulder that almost knocked me out of UTMB in 2014. I'm not normally claustrophobic but even I didn't want to keep my eyes open for 25 minutes in that tiny space!

Spectacular autumn morning after the wedding campfire. First we had a yummy breakfast buffet and said thanks and goodbye to the newlyweds.



Then 'Bent and I went for a paddle around Bark Lake. It started out like glass but the wind came up after awhile.





We paddled past the wedding island.



When we got back, we found out what the morning after an AR wedding looks like. The honeymoon begins with filling the gear truck!

1st leg of STORM The Altar: the wonderful bike/paddle/trek wedding of STORM and Browner.

What do you wear to an adventure race director's wedding? Bike shorts, of course - at least for the pre-wedding festivities. 'Bent's rib is still recovering from STORM the 'Scarpment so he joined the aid station crew instead of riding.



There was a bike truck and a school bus, and Bark Lake even made us sign two waivers, which made us feel right at home.





Led off by the bride and groom, we were treated to the opening ride of the RockstAR long course - a perennial favourite.



It was a fun social ride with chatting, photos and regular stops to regroup. The trail was wetter than I remember it from last time.



I was carrying a good non-waterproof camera in my right pocket when I slipped down onto my left side in the mud. (Phew!)



It's not every day I get to draft a bride.



Without revealing too much, the aid station did *not* serve water.

More pics on Facebook if you're there.
https://www.facebook.com/Barb.J.Campbell/media_set...

Richard and I paddled to the island ceremony site in the 'Bent-built canoe we paddled at our own wedding 19 years ago.



A drone filmed Heather's arrival - very cool.



Looking glamorous on their wedding day!



Beautiful ceremony - so happy for these two wonderful people. Congratulations, Sean and Heather!





Island trekking not logged but the "wedding leg" of the event can be seen on the GPS track. STORM rules say it's OK to wear a GPS watch to record activities.

Packed mandatory gear for a wedding.

Totally wiped. Apparently, I'm not tough enough to handle three nights with 3 hours of sleep over the past week plus an adventure race and a couple of runs. Go figure.

Mrs. Gally's greatest fear - an Alberta trail runner meets cougars on the trail. Good news: he was wearing a video camera. Even better news: bear spray seems to work on them. Thanks to Cedarcreek for sending this and giving me nightmares!
http://gearjunkie.com/mountain-lion-bear-spray-vid...

Virginia Gingras finished running the 900 km Bruce Trail at 11:58 a.m., arriving 13 days, 6 hours and 28 minutes after she began in Tobermory.





Her primary goal was to raise funds and awareness for Positive Mental Health in Youth - a very personal cause due to her own battles with an eating disorder and depression. Her secondary goal was to finish the entire trail. Her stretch goal was to be the fastest woman ever to do that. She achieved all three.



As the overall Run Manager, Mrs. Gally was instrumental in Virginia's success. She somehow managed to juggle her home life, work and 3 kids while directing a complex event with dozens of volunteers across a huge province. Respect.





Lots of people, including some of you, joined Virginia as pacers. I don't think she ever had to run alone. A few of us worked as trail captains, organizing one or more days of the run. People along the route hosted the team overnight at their homes. It takes a village.



One of the most moving moments was when we ran across the park at Queenston Heights today. Four busloads of teenagers were there doing various phys ed activities. When I ran out from the finish line to meet Virginia on the trail, I had to weave my way through them. On our way back, the crowd of kids parted like the Red Sea. They'd stopped their activities and were all lined up along our route; they cheered and ran beside her, calling out encouragement. It was like a movie.

Congratulations, Virginia - and Mrs. Gally too - on a terrific achievement. Time to celebrate! (OK, sleep first, *then* celebrate.)

At just after 10 p.m., Virginia is running in the dark in St. Catharines with only one marathon left in her 900+ km Bruce Trail odyssey to raise awareness and funds for Positive Mental Health in Youth. She's been running 12-15 hours daily for 13 days.

Virginia is proud to have won her 5-year battle with an eating disorder that led to depression. She wants young people to realize that they don't need to keep their problem a secret like she did; there is help available and they can look forward to a healthy, happy future.

She will finish at the Brock Monument in Queenston tomorrow. If this cause moves you or if you are impressed by her effort, please consider donating now to give her a wonderful finish line surprise. Thanks!
http://virginiavsbruce.com/donate/

I paced Virginia on the Bruce Trail from a little west of Hwy 6 to the Dundas Valley, stopping at Sherman Falls.

She was going quickly on smooth flats and gradual downhills. I hadn't expected to work that hard! She slowed down on the more technical downhills and steeper uphills but she is doing a lot better than she was a few days ago. Apparently, acupuncture really helped her painful foot.



Her husband Ray joined us for this section. He may not have been an ultrarunner when he started up in Tobermory but he seems to be turning into one. (Reluctantly!)



It was a beautiful day to run around the outskirts of Hamilton - mostly cool (except on the long road section) and breezy. We had fun.



She's doing really well - about 114 km left to go. She will finish on Wednesday and might even set the new female FKT.

Time deducted for "aid stations".

After two fun weeks, we said goodbye to our dear foster dog Kato today. He has truly won the doggie lottery with his new family. So happy to know that he will have a wonderful life.



AdventureDog is really going to miss him. BazingaDog was kind of "meh!" about sharing his home but the two of them did have fun running around the yard.

Storm the 'Scarpment
Kelso

New format this year with traditional, sequential AR course. The race had a "lap" feel but with a different route each time we passed through an area. We had a nice mix of running, trekking, canoeing, SUP paddling and mountain biking with navigation throughout.

I teamed up with Jill Bishop in her first adventure race. She mostly races triathlon so this was a little different for her. She is an aerospace engineer and air force commander, which meant she brought some great skills to our team even without an AR background. As the race progressed, her technical biking skills improved to the point that I stopped looking over my shoulder; she was riding almost everything. She had a few falls but they looked surprisingly graceful and controlled. It wasn't until afterward that I learned she also has a black belt in karate. :)

Between the two of us, we had three bike mechanicals in the first lap. There was a team that had been riding and chatting with us earlier; they followed the directions I called out to Jill at each trail junction, joking that I sounded like I knew what I was doing. I was OK with it; they were friendly folks.

Karma paid me back later when one of them stopped when my chain got jammed and twisted tight against my bike frame. It took quite awhile to work free and we urged the guy several times to carry on with his race and let us struggle with it, but he refused to leave until my chain was working again. Then as a bonus, he fixed Jill's front brake. He can follow our team any time!

Jill is in my SUP yoga class so the 700 m SUP section was fun and almost relaxing. I did a 1-legged downward dog on our way to TA3, just for fun.

We decided to hike the foot navigation section since Jill hasn't been training endurance recently and we'd been out almost 5 hours by then. It was a good hike with no nav issues but we were hit by a torrential downpour partway through. We agreed that we wouldn't bother getting out our rain jackets since it was warm but it got breezy around the Farmer's Field and I started reconsidering the idea. That's when I remembered that I had left my rain jacket in my drop bag. Oops! We were fine - although not cozy warm - as long as we kept moving.

We missed the cut-off for the final bike section, which was fine by us, so we headed for the finish line. 'Bent and 3PinJim cheered us in; they had a great time racing together but unfortunately, 3Pin returned my husband broken (rib - we think).

Thanks to Storm, Browner and all the team for another fun day in the woods!



(Forgot to turn off the GPS so adjusted the data.)

Being trail captain for Virginia vs. Bruce for the past 48 hours was as exhausting as almost any AR I've done. When my fingers are less tired, I will type more.

If anyone is able to join the Virginia vs. Bruce run tomorrow (Wed.) late afternoon / early evening, probably in the Devil's Glen area, I'm looking for a pacer to help, as we just have one pacer for that section, and he has flu symptoms!

We prefer two pacers anyway - especially in the dark - to watch for trail markers. Unfortunately, the runners went more than half an hour out of their way this morning when they missed a tricky turn, which isn't much fun when you're running 890 km!

It's a slow jogging pace with a headlamp needed for a short while. We have water, etc. Virginia normally finishes running around 8 p.m. Please email or text me if you might be able to help. Thanks!

Btw she is doing really well but it's every bit as difficult as one might expect. By the end of today, she will probably have completed about 420 km, which means she will stop just before Kolapore, heading toward Blue Mountain. At the moment, she is still on pace for the female FKT although her main goal is just to finish and raise awareness and funds for Positive Mental Health for Youth.
http://virginiavsbruce.com

SUP paddling with our yoga class around the C3 Quarry. Three of us are doing Storm The 'Scarpment so Caron had us all do a 5-minute race around a triangular course marked by buoys. I was doing pretty well, leading the women and not far behind Commander Tim, who always leads the pack. Then I bungled my turn around the second buoy, losing my balance and falling backwards. By some miracle, I stayed on the SUP and didn't go swimming in the cold water. By the time I'd scrambled to my feet, the wily Lisa had snuck around the buoy and it was a sprint to the finish where she won by half a board. Fun! :)

Final SUP yoga class of the year - the first one where I wore thermal clothing instead of shorts and T-shirt. Caron made us live dangerously by focusing on balance poses. There were some splats onto the board but nobody went in the water. I'm going to miss my relaxing Monday nights at the quarry!

'Bent and I went for a 3-dog run in Palgrave West, mostly to tire out K-Dog before taking him to a friend's house for dogsitting. Unfortunately, he snagged himself on a pointy stick (or something) and got a pretty good gash. So he and I spent the afternoon together at the emergency vet clinic in Brampton where he was a rock star. The vet thought he would need a general anaesthetic but he was so stoic, she was able to stitch him up with a local.

Then on to 'Bent's family dinner, a few minutes later than planned. Shana Tova to all!

Blah, migraine from last night until early this afternoon - fortunately, not a really bad one. 'Bent went paddling with Goose, and I decided to stay home to munch Ibuprofen and work through a long "to do" list before heading north on Tuesday to spend two days helping with Virginia vs. Bruce.

My headache wasn't improved by Goose's phone call to tell me that 'Bent (whose phone had mysteriously stopped working, I suppose) had dropped his very full key ring into the murky river, including my expensive, programmed Subaru key. So I got to drive over to the river after all, to give them my other key; I just missed out on the canoeing part.

This may be the only time I will ever log a "Celebration of a Life" as training but when it involves a triathlon club, a hilly Bruce Trail loop, and Fast, Medium and Slow hiking groups (guess which one we picked), it can be a surprisingly good workout.

This was a hospital fundraiser in memory of Paula Coats: mother of two daughters, high school sweetheart and wife of Don Coats who owns Caledon Hills Cycling, athlete, accountant and member of our yoga class. She passed away after a brief illness earlier this year. There was a terrific turnout and we adjourned to the Busholme Inn in Erin for pub food, conversation, memories and drinks.

GPS missed part of the loop.

Bob, Greg Diamond and I tested parts of the Wilderness Traverse race course with Joel Perrella of Breathe Mag along to film some of the fun.

As we have all come to expect from Bob's course designs, the biking was mostly downhill on smooth trails, the trek section looked like Rivendell and only crossed a few contour lines, the paddle CPs were easy to find, and the portages - if you can even call them that, they were so short - were wide, smooth trails sprinkled with fairy dust.

I'll post more photos later. This pic shows us getting ready to ride from somewhere to somewhere.

Anyone looking for a running partner who will really push you during your intervals but won't leave you by yourself on the trail?

Kato has been staying at our place for the past couple of days while he looks for a new family. (His original Mom went to Saudi Arabia for work.) Coach LD is his aunt so she knows him really well. He is a very good boy, polite and quite affectionate. He is close to 5 years old, quiet, healthy, 50 lb, tall, loves to run but is trustworthy off-leash, and gets along great with our dogs. I'm sure he'd be fine with kids too. He reminds me of our Labs with his personality and friendliness but he isn't as food-motivated.

He will go on Petfinder.com next week where he will be adopted out through a rescue organization. In the meantime, I thought I'd see if any runners might be looking for a loyal training partner. If you live near Coach LD (who lives near us), you might be able to line her up for occasional dog care since she loves Kato but isn't able to take him. Cuddly people only, please - that's what Kato likes.

19 years ago today, 'Bent and I enjoyed some mountain biking, paddling, trekking, socializing and a few speeches in Algonquin Park.

That was before most people had heard of digital cameras so we don't have many digital photos of our wedding since we haven't embarked on a scanning project. Luckily for us, Veinbuster recently did! Thanks for giving us our first digital wedding album. :)

A few of the photos are below. More are on Facebook. And there are more still. Yay!

Our wedding weekend was based at Arowhon Pines lodge in Algonquin Park. The ceremony was a 2 km paddle from the lodge, on a canoe campsite on Joe Lake. We worked with a rabbi and a minister who presided over an interfaith ceremony, hence the chuppah.









Back then, we only knew a few people who have since become Attackpointers.

Wasn't Flight a cute little thing? :) Veinbuster is her Dad but he was taking these photos so he doesn't appear in them. (We didn't have selfies back then.)



Hingo, one of the four original members of team Tree Huggers, was there. He married Lucy the following year. Now that they have 4 kids, they have less time to stand around looking glamourous - but they could still pull it off if they wanted to.



Our other original teammate, TheMinister, was there too, along with his wife Rose. He was the father of the bride at yesterday's wedding.



We paddled back from the ceremony to the lodge in the cedar strip canoe that 'Bent had built a few years earlier.





Happy Anniversary, 'Bent!

So... last night both AdventureDog and BazingaDog snuck out the front door of the relative's house where they were staying and enjoyed a brief, unaccompanied stroll along a busy street in North York in the dark. All's well that ends well but I was too stressed to get much sleep.

Luckily, I'd made an Albion Hills biking date for the morning so I didn't waste the "coolest" part of the day when it was only 42C with humidity. (Or so.) Jill and I are racing Storm the 'Scarpment. She is a triathlete who owns a little-used mountain bike so we wanted to ride together and figure out what kinds of trails or obstacles we'll want to walk, etc. Her improvement in confidence in an hour was impressive, helped by her good bike fitness, although we have no rocky Kelso-like trails here so it wasn't a full test of what we will face.

'Bent started with us, then headed onto some tougher single track to test his new bike. Fail.

(Also an Ambit button-pushing fail so I've updated the numbers.)

Around Island Lake with 'Bent, Coach LD, Goose, T-man, Pops and Susie on a *very* windy day, followed by our semi-regular Labour Day picnic on the beach with Coach LD's yummy cold salads and Susie's fresh-off-the-vine garden produce. To close off the evening, we had a 3-car, 3-route race to DQ. It was a terrific back to school and anniversary celebration!

In case you've ever wondered what it would be like to get caught in a flash flood... This one was on Maui.

Some days you feel like you're in a Salomon running video - as if you're flying through old growth forest with Anna Frost and Kilian Jornet while your feet bounce lightly over a bed of pine needles.

And then there are days like today. For some reason, I've had extra trouble with heat and humidity this year, and today was another steam bath. It feels like running is unhealthy on days like this - not sure whether it's the humidity or the air quality or maybe it's mild asthma (which I've never had, to my knowledge). Anyway, I survived but didn't have much fun.

Trying to make lemonade from the lemons, I decided it was a perfect opportunity to test Sugoi arm coolers and a Columbia cooling T-shirt, neither of which have seen much use. I didn't wet them down since I wanted to see how well they worked if I just got sweaty. The arm coolers worked pretty well - much more effective than the T-shirt, which felt the same as any sweat-soaked shirt. To be fair, the back half of the shirt was covered with a running pack. I also suspect that a cooling sports bra would be more important than a cooling T-shirt. Is it possible that Harps has one and that's why he likes hot weather so much?

Bottom line: I could see myself using the Sugoi arm coolers more often, partly because they also eliminate the need for sunscreen on arms.
http://www.competitivecyclist.com/sugoi-arm-cooler

I parked at Finnerty Sideroad and Centreville Creek Rd. and ran (slowly) over to the Bruce Trail, through Glen Haffy and up to Hwy 9 before taking a more creative (and slow) route back. I met exactly one group of people on the trail. Everyone else in Ontario was probably lying on a dock by a refreshing lake or sipping a frozen Margarita.

Are you a Super Recognizer?
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/01...

If you're curious, take the quiz! I got 8 out of 14 so I'm not too good but apparently I'm better than Oliver Sacks was. I predict 'Bent will beat me.
https://jfe.qualtrics.com/form/SV_e3xDuCccGAdgbfT

Slightly less furnacelike today so I did some Bash 'n' Crash 500 intervals. It's been way too long and I hope to do more speedwork - not because I'm that concerned about speed but it would be healthier to have a little more intensity in my training. Because of the heat, I only tried to run them at 10K race pace instead of my usual "fast as I can" interval pace so it's not a fair comparison but I've sure gotten slower over the past 5 years! 500 meter trail intervals were 2:32 to 2:36 today but my PR was 2:05. It sucks getting older but it sucks a lot more if you don't, so I won't complain. My gimpy foot was just fine in these lower-drop shoes on relatively flat terrain.

I opened my Swiss Army knife incorrectly today. :( Turns out I use my right index finger for a lot of things.

In reviewing my AP log for the first 8 months of 2015, I realized that I spent more time doing orienteering volunteer work on just one day last week than I've spent orienteering all year. That'll probably happen again today. Yikes.

Hot, steamy Harps weather today. (I mean that the *weather* is hot and steamy. You'll have to make up your own mind about Harps!)

For those of us who were thinking about it, the North Face Endurance Challenge Championship (San Francisco) 50-miler is now sold out with a waiting list.

In the short term, 'Bent and I and several other friends so far have signed up for 50K at The Bad Thing.
http://www.racethebadthing.com/

With 4 months left in the year, I looked back at my 2015 training goals today. There is one that has been on the list for the past 3 years - finish a 100-mile trail running race. As some friends know, I've been feeling ambivalent about this goal for the past few months.

I've built up this year with 50K, 100K and 90K races, and I spent my recent birthday doing an 80 km technical trek. I could have signed up for the Haliburton 100-miler next weekend but the truth is, I didn't really feel like it.

I think I wanted to finish UTMB because it's such an incredible, spectacular journey through three countries around the highest mountain in Europe - not because it was 100 miles. It used to be that a 100-miler was the pinnacle of ultrarunning but now there are 200-milers and more so it's just another stepping stone.

For now - and possibly forever - I'm not planning to take that step. I won't get to do that many more ultra races in my life, and I enjoy the 80-125 km distance range so that is what I will focus on in my trail running. I also hope to get back to more races that aren't running, and more outdoor experiences that aren't races.

There are lots of beautiful trail runs in the 100K-ish range all around the world. Time to get looking! :)