Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: Flying Pig X (OCIN)
 

Flying Pig Middle Distance

A good race (for me), although a bit on the slow side. Not much time lost to navigation errors, and minimal regret over route choice when I reviewed it later. Based on unofficial results, it looks like I was 1st woman of any age (out of 11 women) on the Green course, and in the top 25% of all Green course racers (11th of 46).

Sudden got us off to a good start by winning this race, with Griz taking the silver medal, and Hammer and MrPither close on their heels.

I always think that I should have my best results in Long Distance O races because I train for multi-day adventure racing, but Hammer keeps telling me that I'm a Middle Distance specialist. I don't know - maybe he's right, and if so, I should do more speed training before all the big O races later this year. My Long Distance O race results have never been too impressive, in spite of my belief that they should go well.

After 10 days of taking it easy, I was afraid that this race would aggravate my foot injury and possibly end my weekend of racing. Well, I was focused so hard on my foot that I forgot to wear my knee brace - so guess what hurts! I was limping by dinnertime, and spent awhile icing my knee later on.

While watching the Daily Show. (Laughing out loud is good for the abs.) It's time to add weights to increase the difficulty of some of the exercises.

Such a beautiful spring day! I wanted to get my heart rate up without putting any stress on my injured foot, so I rode Duffy's Lane to the rail trail. The rail trail was nice and dry - great for pushing hard, but the portion of Duffy's Lane that is closed in winter still has big sections of slick ice and soft snow, with some goopy mud for variety. I got covered in mud from head to toe - good practice for The Pig. There was so much water that I stopped to look for our local beaver family in their favourite area beside the road, but they didn't seem to be out yet.

Here's that article on the relationship between core (including hip) strength/flexibility and running injuries.

Light trail run with ThunderDog. This was a test to see if I'll be able to go to the Flying Pig this weekend. I stretched and warmed up much better than usual, then ran with a cautious almost-flat foot for the first half. My foot hurt, but didn't progress to the knife-sharp pain I was getting that felt like I was ripping it apart. So in the last 10 minutes, I tried running off-trail up hills (I remember the odd hill in Ohio), and it went OK except for some weird stiffness around the upper back of my heel by the end. Anyway, since it doesn't feel like I'm causing damage, I'm off to the Pig - yay! It may not be my best-ever performance, but it's better than missing it entirely. The longest race is last, so I can always skip it if my foot isn't feeling good.

No rest for the weary! I hadn't even been home from Calgary for an hour before 'Bent reminded me it was Hard Core Monday. I'd read an article on the plane about the significant role of core and hip strength in preventing running injuries, so I was keen.

After a week off running, I plan to test my injured foot tomorrow with a short jog. As I travelled home today, I realized that I was carrying more than 50% of my body weight in luggage last Monday when my foot began to hurt. I had to walk much more distance with luggage than I'd expected that day, which was likely an exacerbating factor, in addition to the hard-soled shoes and the 21 km run the previous day. Still, walking around airports is a dumb way to develop a foot injury. If it goes on much longer, I'm going to come up with some story about banging my foot on a rock while saving a drowning child.

Hill intervals on the LifeCycle at the Talisman Centre. I was so absorbed in Impact Magazine, published by the Canadian Sport Centre Calgary, that I didn't stop after half an hour, even though I'd planned to. Great article on strength exercises done by the national speed skating team, with emphasis on movement and velocity specificity. One-legged squats (holding a bar with weights across the shoulders behind the neck) were a featured exercise.

Back to the pool for more deep water exercises. It wasn't nearly as inspiring without the horrible music and amusing instructor, but I kept going for awhile. My favourite is the deep water XC skiing (classic style).

My stupid foot hurt more this morning again. Could this really be the result of just 25 calf lifts last night? I've been walking on eggshells most of the week, trying not to bend my foot when I walk, so I suppose my right calf has had an easy time until I put some stress on it. Today's non-weight-bearing workout at the Talisman Centre had no effect on my foot, fortunately, and it got my heart rate up nicely. But I really wish I could RUN, darn it.

Tried a couple of sets of one-legged calf lifts, and the injured foot didn't feel as fragile as it did earlier in the week. I'm not going to risk running until I get back to Ontario, which means Tuesday at the earliest. If I aggravate the injury again this weekend, there won't be enough time to recover before the Pig, so I'm being extra cautious. Too bad, because there are wondeful riverside runs in Calgary, and I'd brought along an orienteering map of Nose Hill to practise on. I will need to confirm that I am able to run before I make the long drive to Ohio. I'm optimistic, but it's hard to tell. I'm actually more worried about the Giant's Rib Raid, since that will be an extended foot abuse session! I still don't have a clue what happened, but I'm guessing it's an inflamed tendon.

Lower body and core strength class at the Talisman Centre.

Hill intervals on a stationary bike.

My foot injury needs more time to recover, and fortunately it feels like things are improving - phew. I tried a Deep Water Cardio class, since I've never tried deep water running and thought it would be interesting to see what it's like. I was impressed! It had lots of variety (including deep water XC skiing) and was surprisingly effective at getting my heart rate up. It was clear that you only get as much out of deep water resistance training as you put into it. It was possible for people of all levels to go at their own pace, which was great.

The music was the usual high-speed, throbbing-beat disco-ized medley of miscellaneous songs. My personal favourite was the high-speed-cheery version of American Pie. The instructor was entertaining: "Come on, squeeze that tushy harder, girls!" Once again, I mistakenly thought this was a 30-minute class, but at the half-hour mark, the instructor started us on 15-minutes of pyramid intervals - eek! I had to sneak out after 45 minutes to meet my parents. I would do this class occasionally if I lived in town.

I'm not sure why the bottom outside edge of my foot became sore during the flight on Monday, but I assume it is related to Sunday's long run combined with a poor choice of shoes for travelling. I thought it was no big deal, but yesterday's classes aggravated it, and I was limping by last night. The pain isn't as localized as it was, so I'm worried it could be tendinitis. Crap. I've got the Flying Pig and the Giant's Rib Raid in the next 2.5 weeks, so I've got my fingers tightly crossed that a couple of days of TLC will resolve it.

Went to the Talisman Centre for a couple of classes. The first one was an 80s cliche - I didn't know there were still classes like this. Perky instructor in cute purple aerobics outfit, calling out motivating comments like "I want you to give it 110%!! Remember this is your workout, and you only get what you put into it!! If you came in feeling bad this morning, you're going to feel happy and confident when you leave!!" The music was particularly annoying - Abba and Michael Jackson material performed by Chipmunks-like cover bands - and even worse, the instructor could turn up the speed of the music to make us work harder. Having said all that, the class did get my heart rate up, even though it was BORING compared to a nice run on a trail.

The 2nd class had a great name: "Ripped for Results". How could I resist? And actually, this one was excellent. It was a tough combination of strength training and aerobics, using hand weights, a step and a mat. The leg and core strength part went well, since that's been my focus over the past few months. However, the upper body stuff was really hard for me, and it will be interesting to see how much I hurt tomorrow! I misread the schedule and thought that it was a 30-minute class, and it was discouraging when I pushed hard for the "last" 5 minutes - only to discover that I had another 30 minutes to go. Eeeek!! A worthwhile way to spend an hour.

Light run to and from the Talisman Centre for Sport and Wellness. Wow!! Calgarians are so lucky to have a huge, spectacular, well-equipped facility like this - several large swimming pools of different sizes, several gymnasiums with mult-storey ceiling height, rows and rows of fitness machines and weights, a "nutrition kitchen" for cooking classes, meeting facilities, etc. I picked up the class schedule and checked it out for a future visit or two. It sits on the Elbow River, which has a paved running trail beside it. That might be nice for a flat run in my medium-traction shoes. (I didn't bring Ice Bugs, and Calgary has more snow than it had a few weeks ago.) I didn't run far today though. During yesterday's journey, the outside bottom of my foot became quite painful. It is probably related to Sunday's long run, combined with wearing hard-soled shoes for the flight, I suppose. Anyway, I don't want to mess around with it too much. It seems to be improving, but was borderline incapacitating last night.

A few of my usual exercises that can be done in a hotel room without special equipment.

Rest day - if you can call it that when you fly a couple thousand kilometers on only a few hours of sleep. On the bright side, I got upgraded to business class, but the fellow behind me snored loud as a chainsaw for 3 hours, which detracted from the experience somewhat. And the hotel in Calgary is such a long story that even I can't type that much into AP. I'm sure it will be a nice place once they close off all the outside walls and finish building it - and when they stop filming the movie next to my room, in the lobby and in the hotel restaurant (which has been closed as a result).

It's a rare treat to have access to high-speed Internet, so I just downloaded the full version of Catching Features - yahoo!

It seemed like a good idea when someone suggested it at the St. Patrick's Day party... so today 'Bent, BulletDog and I joined Adidas Pete, Leanimal and The Bakes for a long slow distance trail run from our place northwest of Palgrave to their place in downtown Bolton. I started the run with every intention of turning around after 45 minutes and returning home to finish packing for my early morning flight. I also expected that they would have me gasping for O2 by then. However, at the 45-minute point, Leanimal and The Bakes decided that the pace needed to drop, so I decided to continue with them to Bolton after all. Adidas Pete and 'Bent went off ahead and burned a few more calories. Running was a real mix of snow, treacherous ice, mud and nice dry trail. There were several spectacular wipe-outs in our group, and luckily none of them was mine. I felt surprisingly good out there after the first hour, and was strong at the end. (My problem with orienteering is that there is no appropriate event for someone who takes 2 hours to warm up.) I guess I'm ready for the Giant's Rib Raid now!

I asked Dr. Leanimal about my recent hip pain flare-up when I did hill intervals. Since the only previous occurrence was during the 2005 Raid The Hammer, I'd suspected it was related to my knee injury in some way. It turns out that the pain is in the muscle at the upper end of the IT band, so it is all connected to the knee, which makes perfect sense. Apparently it is hard for people to stretch that muscle through exercise, and it can be more effective to do physical things to loosen it up, e.g. rolling a tennis ball or a foam roller over the muscle. Interesting... and glad to hear there is something simple that could help.

Brisk cooldown trek through Bolton after leaving the Humber Valley Heritage Trail.

The orienteering shoe was on the other foot today, as 'Bent, BulletDog and I took Crash and Rocky into Palgrave CA for some navigation coaching to help get them ready for the Giant's Rib Raid. They are both excellent cross-country runners, strong competitors and comfortable in the woods, so they will be awesome orienteers once they get a bit more practice. We just focussed on the basics today. By the end, we were able to give them interval starts to the next control, confident that we would all find each other again. For the last leg, they even decided to test-run different route choices to see which was better. Good work!

We caught a distant glimpse of George of the Caledon Navigators, running with a map. I don't think I've ever run into someone else practising orienteering. He and his wife Janet are new to the sport, and finished last week's Thomass after the cut-off, so it was great to see him out there working on his skills again this weekend.

It looked like a nice, sunny winter day, but it was bitterly cold out there. My fingers are still chilly.

Running to Palgrave CA and back. Whenever we had trail sections with good traction today (somewhat rare, actually), I focussed on MrPither's advice of driving the knees forward. It felt like it should make a difference.

Did Caron Shepley's "Power Yoga for Endurance Athletes" DVD to try out my new princess-purple yoga mat. I should do this routine more often because it's good for balance and stretches almost every muscle, even though it doesn't get my heart rate up. My attempts at yoga push-ups are still rather feeble and inevitably result in a face plant. And that's where the new yoga mat comes in...

While watching the Daily Show.

And now it's time to go out for the evening and sip some Bailey's Irish Cream. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all! :-)

With some strides added, now that most of the ice is gone from our driveway.

It's almost spring, so it's time to get running for real. I drove to Coolihan's Sideroad, a quiet country road bisecting Glen Haffy Conservation Area. It has a long, steady uphill grade with a nice steep bit around the middle. I measured a distance of just over 1 km, then did three repeats of down + up. Each hill ascent was a little faster than the previous one. I felt great aerobically and my knee was fine, but unfortunately, my hip began to hurt. This happened for the first time at Raid The Hammer, and it was excruciating by the end. I assumed that it must have something to do with my favouring my damaged knee when I run - and apparently, this hasn't gone away. So... I may be limited to relatively short runs. I'll have to visit Thumbs-of-Death and see what he thinks.

The good news is that only a couple of years ago, it would have been a huge news flash if I'd been able to run 6.5 km without stopping, even on the flats.

It's been a long time since I've run somewhere where I could focus on running style, so today I thought about:
- Pumping the arms straight forward
- Rear leg push-off. (Like the treadmillers, those of us who run in low-traction conditions all winter don't get much practice doing this.)
- Good posture. (When Etoile sees me running, she says, "C'mon - titties up!")

We often talk about which hills would be good for hill training, and I'm not sure why we haven't come to this spot before. At this time of year when the trees have no leaves, it has one of the most awesome views on this side of Caledon. In 50 minutes on this stretch of road, I saw 4 vehicles, and the same horse went by twice, but otherwise I was spared the usual fog of toxic road dust that we get on busier dirt roads in our area. The Bruce Trail crosses the road at the top of the hill I was running, so there is lots of potential to build a nice longer run.

Orienteering at Hilton Falls West with Hammer and MrPither. I had mixed feelings going into this session. Every time I step onto this map with its sea of lookalike rock features and puny 2.5 m contours, my ability to match map to terrain decreases by 50%, my IQ decreases by 60%, and my confidence in my nav decreases by 90%. That's bad enough when I'm alone, and I wasn't sure I'd enjoy sharing my incompetence with anyone else. On the other hand, I can only improve by continuing to work at the things that frustrate me, and with the 2006 North Am Champs happening nearby, it's worth becoming familiar with this type of terrain. And who better to run with than the NAOC course setter?

Hammer allowed me to lead most of the way today, with considerable useful discussion enroute. I usually (but not always) got us into the control circle, but once there, I was unable to choose the correct feature about half the time. If NAOC has any micro-O, I'm in trouble big time! Fortunately, in a race, I can scamper around adjacent boulders or cliffs looking for flags, but that strategy definitely lacks finesse, and it would be nice to do better than that.

For obvious reasons, today was a good day to practise relocation techniques - and also to try to relax, take a deep breath, and have more confidence in the things I know for sure, rather than spiralling into complete confusion unnecessarily.

An example of the latter:
"What is that feature?"
"Well, it might be this hill."
"What else could it be?"
"Um, I guess there's nothing else it could be."
"Then it IS that hill." (Unspoken: "You fool!" ;-) )

It was great training for me (not so much for Hammer, I'm afraid) - also a good opportunity to practise running through this ankle-busting terrain on a day when a fresh dusting of snow made everything nice and slippery!

Leg strength exercises while watching The Daily Show.

You know you're having a bad day when... the Hard Core Conditioning workout is one of the best, most fun things that happens to you. Sigh...

Well, back to my flooded basement now.

Thomass Heart Lake - the inaugural race for the Caledon Navigators.

I always feel like I have a bad start in these things, but I think it is more that I tend to run the same speed at the start as I do at the end. This doesn't seem to be the case for a lot of people at my level, so I usually end up feeling way behind at first. My legs were tired from yesterday, but my main AR injury was bad blistering on both hands from skate skiing without gloves on a warm day. So today I had to wear gloves so I could grab saplings as I skidded down the muddy hills.

There has been a tradition that when I meet Hammer in the woods wearing my fluorescent yellow SportIdent 6, he always makes a mistake. Well, it looks like things are turning in his favour. As soon as I saw him approaching today, I turned my ankle - CRUNCH. When I met him at the control, I was still half in shock, hopping more than running, and wondering if I'd hurt myself badly. I will use that as my excuse for not paying close enough attention on my way to the next control, but fortunately a herd of runners crossed my path, causing me to reconsider my location and realize my problem. After that, things went smoothly until the very end, when I made the same mistake that I made in one of last year's Thomass events. I got my last control in the Box, then headed for the finish line without glancing at my map. I ran within 2 meters of the final control in an open re-entrant, thinking to myself that it must be on the novice course they'd advertised on the web site (there wasn't one). At the top of the hill, I looked at the map to see if there was a straighter route than the one I was planning to the finish line. That's when I remembered that there was a control after the Box, and I'd just run by it. So... back down the hill, then back up again, then run to the finish line. I finished in 2nd place behind the indomitable Marianna Weber, who sealed her victory in the Thomass Series today. Hammer was 3rd and I was 4th overall in the series. (Races are handicapped by age/sex, so unfortunately this result does not indicate that my orienteering has improved enough that Hammer needs to worry about me...)

Picked up some controls from today's race. Coach Nick assigned me the farthest ones, just to keep me out of trouble.

ARC Winter Adventure Race at Horseshoe Valley.

After several years of winter races that have been fun, but very similar, this year's event had some great changes. Horseshoe provided an excellent new venue, the course was designed by Bob Miller, one of Canada's top adventure racers, and we believe we did Canada's first snowshoe-O section in an adventure race! It was a brilliantly sunny day, and the only problem was the high temperature of 10C, which just wasn't very wintry, and made the snow soft and slow to move through.

This was my third, and probably last, time doing this race solo. I wanted to try it once on skate skis, after spending much of this winter trying to develop my skills. For some reason (!!), there aren't a lot of female solos doing winter adventure races, so it's not a highly competitive category.

We started on snowshoes with an orienteering map (yahoo!) and 5 controls to punch in any sequence. The snow was deep enough that I only ran part of the time, but it went fairly quickly. After hitting all the controls, I took off my snowshoes and ran along a couple of roads back to the transition area. Next was a ski loop with a big climb and the flag at the top of the hill. The nav was simple, but the changing temperature of the snow between sun and shade forced me to pay close attention. As the snow got softer, the work got harder. I was thinking that anyone who was behind me after that section was going to go a lot slower in the soft snow as the temperature continued to rise. I was surprised to run into 'Bent and his team (Gazelle and ThreePinJim) in the TA, which meant that I'd caught up on the ski - and I knew they mustn't be feeling good, because I definitely hadn't skied my fastest.

Next, I rode my bike to the main resort and took the lift up and rode a snow tube down. There was no line-up, but we had a mandatory 10-minute stop, so I ended up with 4 minutes to chat with Molly (age 3) and Bill Trayling while catching up on my snack consumption.

From there, it was a nice bike ride through a quiet subdivision, and a relatively painless ascent of the elevation of the downhill ski hill. Then I rode some country roads that were a mix of mud, slush and very sketchy ice. Finally I hit the snowmobile trail where we had to "ride" > 2 km. When the course was set, it was cold enough to ride on the snow. Today I gave it a try, but sank immediately. For the first 500 meters, I had my head down and was trying different ways to push my bike, etc. Then I remembered that our checkpoint was "somewhere along the trail". I might have already passed it because I wasn't looking, but I wasn't going back! So the whole time I was struggling through the snow and pushing my bike, I was thinking that I might be disqualified from the race. I'd decided that I would complete the last section of the race anyway, to be a good sport. But then, fortunately, I saw the flag just before the road. Phew!

After a short ride down a long hill on a far-too-busy road, I was back in the transition area. Hammer and his team were standing there all relaxed, having finished the race in 1st place. The last section was interesting - three controls on the O map that we could do in any sequence. They were all close to obvious attackpoints on the ski trail, so it was back out in the soft snow for me! Actually, it didn't seem as bad this time. I'm not sure if the trails were in better shape, or if I was feeling better, but it wasn't as much of a slog as my earlier ski. I loved the mix of activities and things to think about - finding the appropriate place to leave the trail, then heading off to the controls. I did my first-ever ankle-deep stream crossing in skate ski boots, so I finished the race with soaked feet. I also did some skate-ski bushwhacking to comply with rules prohibiting skiing the wrong way on one-way trails, and this allowed me to avoid a large elevation gain. I didn't talk with anyone else who tried it, and the course designer said he hadn't thought of it - heh heh.

I ran into 'Bent's team coming out of the last control. They were with a male solo racer who had asked to travel with them because he couldn't figure out the nav for that section. (If they weren't such nice guys, I could have moved up one place in the solo division!) There was a bit of confusion near the end as our race route overlapped part of a biathlon race route. Some officials sent me 100 meters down a trail, then a different, frustrated official sent me back to where I'd come from.

I finished the race a few minutes after 'Bent's team (who came 3rd), winning female solo (not a difficult task) and coming 4th solo overall - 3rd of the solos who did their own nav ;-). I couldn't have asked for anything more, especially since I wasn't feeling 100% today. In addition to Hammer's victory, other Attackpointers included Tiny and MrPither on the 2nd place team. Congratulations, all!

Last year's ARC winter race was my first AP entry, and today marks the end of a full year of logging my training. It's a system that has worked well for me.

Total training time: 599 hrs, 9 min. If only I'd been a bit slower in today's race, I could have reached 600 hours! ;-)

Breakdown by Activity:

Adventure Racing - 181 hrs
Orienteering - 129.5 hrs
Running - 77 hrs
XC Skiing - 62 hrs
Cycling - 53 hrs
Strength - 32 hrs
Paddling - 29 hrs
Trekking - 17 hrs
Snowshoeing - 16 hrs
Yoga - 2 hrs

This was one of those days when it was mighty tempting to stay indoors. Rain lashing on the windshield, huge "lakes" in farmer's fields surrounded by deep wet snow, treacherous icy hills on the trails... But I'm taking tomorrow off because of Saturday's adventure race, and I skipped this run yesterday when I felt a cold coming on, so I had to run today or not at all. I'm not sure if all the Vitamin C, zinc and echinacea I consumed over the past 24 hours made any difference, but all the pre-cold symptoms are gone today - phew.

How crazy did I look going for a run this afternoon? Well, within 60 seconds of parking my car at the conservation area, a police officer pulled up beside the van and sized up BulletDog and me before driving off. I had about as much fun as it sounds like I would. It was the closest I've come to crashing hard into a tree in a long time, thanks to all the ice. As you can see, I didn't last long enough to make it really worth it.

And then it was time to test out my bike, which hasn't been used since our last adventure race on Jan. 21. Our long driveway and the dirt road we live on are so deep in "quicksand" right now that I couldn't bear to take a clean bike out and get so much muck all over it and embedded in its parts. I've brought it indoors for some final preparation, but I really do need to check that the gears and brakes are all working OK. I wonder if I can just ride back and forth in our basement. (Princess!!)

I'd planned to go running between meetings today, but I haven't slept much this week, and I'm feeling the first hints of a cold coming on. I want to be healthy for Saturday's adventure race, so I'll sleep on it and reconsider the run tomorrow morning - assuming that (a) I'm feeling better, and (b) the freezing rain doesn't come.

Reconnaissance mission to Horseshoe Valley in preparation for this Saturday's winter adventure race! I ran into Bob The Navigator in the cafeteria. He's one of the fittest people I know and a total natural at sports, but it was only his 2nd time on skate skis, so we decided to try the North Trail expert loop together. I could keep up just fine on the flats, but he doesn't need to take breathers in the middle of those long Horseshoe uphills, the way I do. ("Say, isn't that a Pileated Woodpecker over there? I'll just stop and check.") At least BTN had the decency to act like it was a lot of work for him to power up those hills! On one of the long, fast, curvy downhills, he did the first demonstration I've ever seen of nordic freestyle skiing, finishing on his feet, but facing backwards on the trail. Cool!

You couldn't ask for a more perfect day for skate skiing - temperature around -1C, woods full of powder snow, brilliant sunshine. Even though my heart rate skyrocketed into the stratosphere, I did notice a clear improvement in my skate skiing abilities from our previous visit to Horseshoe over 2 months ago. The big hills are still daunting, but they are no longer really, really scary.

West Trail expert loop on my own, at a somewhat more relaxed pace, although there doesn't seem to be such a thing as "relaxed pace" when it comes to skate skiing! I stopped briefly a few times to get familiar with the way certain places on the trail map look in real life. The snow was starting to get soft in a few places as the temperature rose. A wonderful day to be out in the woods!

Afterward, I did some driving around the area with the Backroads Map Book and the topo map, trying to guess where the bike section of the race will take us. It's not looking good at the moment. On the roads I took, there was about 75% glare ice, 15% slush and 10% goopy mud. Winter biking... it's the reason I love winter adventure racing so much. NOT!!

A cross-country jog-walk on snowshoes on a sunny afternoon. I wasn't planning to go, but ThunderDog gave me the Big Sad Brown Eyes Glued To Mine treatment, and all I could think about was how she couldn't exercise much last year at this time, before her back surgery. And since she's 9.5 years old now, her high level of fitness and desire to run won't last forever. So of course, I had no choice. It really was a lovely day to be out in the snow, and I owe it all to T-Dog's coaxing.

While watching part of a 1985 John Travolta movie I'd never heard of, called "Perfect". It included an aerobics class that was considerably more erotic than anything I've ever seen at a fitness centre! I resisted the urge to follow along, and just stuck to my usual prim and proper exercises.

Regular Monday torture session - the Shepley "Hard Core Conditioning" DVD. See Hammer's log from Saturday for a first-timer's impressions of this workout.

There are a couple of really good things about this core strength session:
1) It feels awesome when it's over. I want to kiss the carpet. The truth is, I can't get up off the carpet.
2) I can't imagine there is anything more than this that my core could possibly be required to do in real life.

Today I unveiled the grand prize for the most deserving GHO member attending the Flying Pig. It's a battery-operated flying pig, of course! I have committed to developing stringent criteria for awarding this prize immediately following the last race at the Pig. It could reward the top orienteering performance, but maybe it will go to someone who distinguishes themselves in some other way. :-)

Thomass orienteering race in Palgrave. I often have to drive over an hour to get to O events, and road conditions can be bad in winter. It was a real treat to just grab a house key and run 800 meters down our road to the starting line of today's race!

As I already knew from my run earlier this week, it was a tough slog with all the snow today. My legs weren't feeling too springy on my warm-up run, and I realized that I will need to start incorporating more running into my training soon. I've been doing lots of other stuff, but running didn't feel as natural as it should.

I don't think I dropped the best controls in the Thomass Box (based on age/gender handicap), but I was first out of the Box anyway, and was surprised when I continued to see no other footprints in the snow ahead of me. But within 150 meters of the finish line, with one control left to go, Hammer passed me. Grrrr! I forgave him immediately because he took 2nd prize (an orienteering calendar) and let me have 1st prize (ice wine and chocolates). Yes, I can be bought pretty easily - and hey, let's face it, I've gotta be happy with 2nd place. GHO runners were also 3rd (Marianna) and 4th (Bob), and we had others in the top 10, including 'Bent!

Snowshoeing with 'Bent from our place to and from the Duffy's Lane entrance to Palgrave. We encountered a very embarrassed gentleman with a chocolate Lab, standing in this remote parking lot beside his car, which was locked with the engine running and the keys inside. After some cell phone trouble as we tried to reach his wife in Bolton, we delivered him to our neighbour, another chocolate Lab owner. When we finished our excursion much later, his car was still in the parking lot, but no longer running, so I guess the poor guy didn't have a great day.

Contours-only Line-O exercise with 'Bent in Palgrave on snowshoes. We didn't finish the whole thing today, but we'll go back again. It went fairly smoothly with a few minor bobbles. We tried to go for several minutes at a time without looking at the map, and just talked about what we expected to see next. I've done a lot of map memorization lately in different contexts, and it is becoming a more natural skill.

Snowshoe orienteering at Glen Haffy on a crisp, sunny afternoon with 'Bent, MrPither, Hammer, Etoile, Adventure Girl!, ThunderDog and BulletDog. Hammer kindly agreed to give a running commentary on what he was thinking about as we went around our training course. One of the things I noticed was that if you have absolute confidence in your ability to match map to terrain (which I still do not), then you approach things differently sometimes, e.g. you choose routes that are less safe, you know when the map is drawn incorrectly vs. you being lost, etc. It was a useful exercise for me, since I've found that progress for an intermediate orienteer is slow, consisting mostly of individual practice and lessons from trial and error.

Wonderful sunny ski around Palgrave East and West with 'Bent, ThunderDog and BulletDog. Much nicer than post-holing in the snow yesterday as I ran beside the trails. Conditions are awesome for snowshoeing and very good for skiing (best on the less-used trails). We figured that we'd better get out and enjoy the trails now before everyone (including 50 orienteers) puts footprints in them over the weekend. Pooches are comfortably sprawled by the fire now, and I'm wishing I had time to join them.

While hiding from view on the southern part of our long country driveway, which can't be seen from the road. But my clever scheme didn't work, because Crash drove up to the house and caught me in the act!

Running to Palgrave Conservation Area and back. It took 7 minutes to get to the closest access point by road - and 18 minutes to come home cross-country, slogging through the snow!

Ran around Palgrave East, taking down flags from the Tree Hugger race. I'd planned to take them down much earlier, but people kept wanting to use them for training. Anyway, the time has finally come - I promised the race organizer for this weekend's Thomass that I would get rid of the ribbons to prevent confusion.

Wow, this was TOUGH. I always try to avoid running on XC ski trails, which meant that I was slogging through powder snow on top of breakable crust that made each footstep feel like being caught in a leghold trap. Most of the time, the snow was up over my ankles, and in a couple of places, it went over my knees. The most annoying thing about it was being forced to go on foot because the flags were well off-trail, when I would have loved to have been skiing out there today. It would have been better on snowshoes, but I haven't gone for a run in awhile, and thought I should do that. I must get out for a ski tomorrow before the trails are trashed by Sunday's O race. The winning speeds will be lower than usual, I think.

Unscheduled rest day - there is something energy-draining about spending the day in downtown Toronto, and it totally sapped my desire to work out. I have a lot of respect for the folks who are able to keep up with both commuting and training, because it sure never worked for me. The lucky ones are people like Bent and Jon T, who can combine their commuting with their training. And now Wil S is actually training *while* he is working - as a medical doctor, yet - which really takes things to a whole new level of training dedication.