Training Archive: BashIn the 31 days ending 2006-05-31:
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| M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wednesday May 31 | ||
| Orienteering race 39:00 [4] *** | |
| GHO Adventure Nite at Crook's Hollow. As Griz said, you should darken everything on the map by one shade of green. It was nasty vegetation for someone like me, trying to be cautious with my sprained ankle and often not able to see the logs and rocks on the ground. At least the stinging nettles didn't get me, although they got the course setters, who had gone out in their shorts to hang flags - yikes.
In my continuing effort to prevent my injured ankle from healing, I arrived without insoles for my running shoes. It actually wasn't as bad as I'd feared, and the Active Ankle didn't give me any new blisters. I had a decent race, with the exception of #7, where I caught Backwoods Adventure Girl and ran past her. The catch is, she had her map oriented to north, while I had my map oriented to south. I ran merrily down a gravel road, then got suspicious when things looked wrong and turned myself around - sigh. Let's hope I get that map orientation thing right at Barebones - duh. | ||
Tuesday May 30 | ||
| Running 45:00 [3] | |
| Around Palgrave West on a sweltering hot morning, heading out early enough to breathe in "moderate" smog, rather than the "poor" quality air we're supposed to get this afternoon. This was one of those "crap, I suppose I really have to run" days, and I left BulletDog at home because it would have been cruelty to animals to force her to do the same training I was doing. (Not that she agreed with me.)
The strange thing was, it felt pretty good, even though I usually become a total princess in heat and humidity. I extended a planned 30-minute run to 45 minutes, sticking to shady double track trails as much as possible, since I'd left my Active Ankle off to avoid further blistering. Today's focus was running up and over hills, so there were a few intervals of level 4-5. As soon as I got home, I jumped in a cold shower - mmmmm. I've heard people talk about how hot it's going to be at Barebones, but the high temperature for Saturday is currently supposed to be 15C with rain - yahoo! | ||
| Note | |
| I've been looking at some of the maps for the Smoky Lake area, and I have this sinking feeling that the features will be so subtle and unfamiliar that I will just stand there frozen to the spot, squinting and trying to make sense of it. Gulp. Sunday will be my first time racing on a 1:15,000 map. Gulp again.
In the meantime, I'm going to look at the most familiar O map in the world (my world, anyway!), Palgrave. I need to design next week's training session for the Caledon Navigators. | ||
Monday May 29 | ||
| Strength (Legs) 22:00 [1] | |
| Gotta get back into the regular routine. My ankle is taking longer to heal this time, and I'm going to have to work my way back up to where I was before.
Best line from today's Daily Show: "If God is really on our side here in America, why did He put all the oil under people who hate us?" | ||
| Strength (Core) 40:00 [2] | |
| Hard Core Monday with 'Bent. Had to relocate our session to the basement for the summer, as it is too hot to exercise on the main floor of our non-air conditioned house. (Well, technically it came with an air conditioning system, but we are too full of enviro-guilt to turn it on.) | ||
Sunday May 28 | ||
| Note | |
| Gator Cup | ||
| Orienteering 1:30:00 [1] *** | |
| Well, this was NOT the most fun I've ever had orienteering. With stiff, fatigued legs from yesterday's adventure race, I debated going to the meet at all, but felt it would be good practice before Barebones. It turned out not to be an A meet, but my course was 7 km, so it still should have been a good workout. But the course setter had forgotten to put out our control #1, so a group of us congregated in the right spot and finally decided to move on. Enough time was wasted there on a hot day that it was hard to get enthusiastic about the race after that. I made an executive decision to stop racing at that point. My sprained ankle isn't recovering as quickly as I'd hoped, and I'm getting blisters from both the Active Ankle brace and my new O shoes. So I did much of the course at a brisk trekking pace, with a little jogging, and turned back close to the time cut-off. I noticed a number of people walking in, so I guess I wasn't the only one having a bad day. In retrospect, I wish I'd stayed home and worked on setting the course for the upcoming Caledon Navigators training night. | ||
| C • "A" meet "eh" 4 | ||
Saturday May 27 | ||
| Event: Emergency Services Adventure Race (ESAR) | ||
| Adventure Racing 6:00:00 [4] ** | |
| ESAR is an adventure race targeted at police, firefighters, paramedics and the military, but they allow a small number of civilian teams to enter. Like last year, I raced on a female team - Tree Huggers from Venus - with Luscious and Gorgeous. This was their 2nd adventure race. Gorgeous has been injured and unable to train, but she is strong. As a result of her preparations for last year's ESAR race, Luscious has discovered a talent for trail running, but she's not too keen on biking, especially the technical stuff. So... when we saw the course with 45 km of biking, including a good amount of off-trail riding, we didn't set our hopes too high.
We had a mass start from the Albion HIlls Chalet, heading through 8 km of single and double track trails in a pack of riders. I knew this wouldn't be a strong section for us, so I'd started halfway back in the pack and warned my teammates to expect to be passed and not to get discouraged by it. We were pinning our hopes on the two trekking sections. We rode up to Palgrave, where we did a 4-control orienteering course several kilometers long. As expected, there was some advantage in having O skills - and in living practically next door! When we started, we were told we were in the middle of the pack, and when we finished, we were in the top 10 of 74 teams! We biked to Glen Haffy, then rode 3 km through the conservation area on rocky, muddy trails. Another short distance on a park road brought us to our first "special task". We were sent down to the stocked trout ponds, where we were given 15 minutes to catch a fish! If we caught one earlier, we could leave earlier. Members of a local fishing club assisted with bait, instruction and removing fish from hooks, then they cleaned the fish and put them in a cooler with our team number so we could take them home after the race. Gorgeous works for an animal welfare organization, so she took a break. I'm a complete novice, and I started off on my own and had no success for 5 minutes. Then I convinced Luscious to pick up a rod as well, and she caught an 11" fish within a minute, and we were out of there! We had more riding then, including a rather kamikaze crossing of Hwy 9, followed by lots of hilly terrain. There was another special task where there were 54 flags of different colours stuck in a random arrangement in a small area of grass, and we had to count them from a distance. We got a penalty in minutes equal to the number by which we were above or below the correct number. We did a quick, but reasonable job, and got a 1 minute penalty, which was handy for having a snack. The team of police officers who arrived ahead of us were being so careful to count accurately that they were still there when we left - better to take a small penalty! We rode to Island Lake Conservation Area, where we paddled to 3 checkpoints around the lake, then headed to Goodyear Scout Camp to drop our bikes for the final trek. We had a big climb, then stayed high and discovered a dirt lane that led all the way to the road we'd expected to bushwhack to. It was a steep run downhill to the Bruce Trail, then we had 2 km of hilly terrain, passing by the top of the ski lifts at Hockley Valley. There were two special tasks at the finish line - a cimbing wall and a stretcher carry, then we were done - phew! A much more physical race than last year's ESAR - and hot weather too. 'Bent greeted us with the best-tasting ice cold beer I've ever had. We were 1st female team of 12 teams, and 9th overall of 74 teams. Woo hoo! I'm so proud of my teammates. More details in 'Bent's log soon, but we'd been hearing updates throughout the race about his team, Tree Huggers Generations. He raced with two teenagers - VO2 Max and Brittany Webster (no cool AP nickname yet). It was their first adventure race, but they are both on the national cross-country ski team development squad. They led for most of the race, and finished in 1st place overall!! This is 'Bent's 2nd consecutive ESAR win - yahoo! The top male team included Gazelle and The Padre, so Tree Huggers were on the top male, female and coed teams overall. Great day, but I am exhausted, and I'm running F-Elite in the Gator Cup tomorrow morning. Yikes. | ||
| C • Wow 1 | ||
Friday May 26 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Rest day before ESAR tomorrow. Nasty weather today anyway, and it looks like tomorrow will be excellent - if a bit warm. | ||
| Note | |
| Last night was the first GHO Rogaining Workshop, in preparation for the North American Rogaining Champs in Allegany State Park in two weeks. HammerDad and I were the presenters, and there were 21 workshop attendees - twice as many as I'd originally estimated. After our presentations and discussion, HammerDad gave us a great exercise to optimize our points per kilometer for a 22 km distance - and the competition between teams got quite intense. Lots of fun, and I think there may have been a few new rogaine addicts in the crowd!
There will be 30+ people at the Champs from the GHO rogaining e-mail list, including adventure racers, a Mom and her daughters, trail runners, and two senior orienteers doing their first rogaine. Should be an awesome time, and we'll do plenty of cheering for other members of the Ontario contingent. | ||
| C • Thanks! 9 | ||
Thursday May 25 | ||
| Running 1:20:00 [3] 12.3 km (6:30 / km) | |
| Trail run around the Palgrave red trail and home again. Legs felt great and pace was good, but I had to take off my magic Active Ankle after 45 minutes because it gave me a blister - actually 4 blisters. It's surprising it took this long to happen, but now I know where to tape up when I wear it. I would still prefer to have it on - the ankle isn't healed yet, and it will take awhile to get back to full strength. Beowulf says it will take several months of balance exercises to regain my proprioception.
BulletDog was a great running partner and is now snoring on the couch. ThunderDog was annoyed to be left behind, so she emptied the kitchen garbage pail and ate a few inedibles. | ||
| Strength (Legs) 20:00 [1] | |
| With my recent ankle sprains, I haven't been able to keep up with my leg strength routine, and I've missed doing it. Not only that, I was falling behind on my knowledge of American politics, but watching the Daily Show has brought me back up to date. | ||
Wednesday May 24 | ||
| Running 26:00 [5] | |
| There really wasn't time to run before tonight's meeting, so I did a quick loop in Palgrave West at sprint pace. I took Poison Ivy Trail near the start and discovered that a healthy crop of its namesake plant had sprouted in the recent rain, so I'll need to divert to other trails for the next few months. Too bad I wore shorts today... | ||
Tuesday May 23 | ||
| Running 35:00 [2] | |
| Trail run in Palgrave West with ThunderDog. It was so cool out that I could have run for hours - but I had an O club meeting to attend, so this one had to be short. | ||
Monday May 22 | ||
| Strength 40:00 [2] | |
| I tried to promote the idea that holiday Mondays were exempt from our Hard Core Monday routine, but 'Bent (who has skipped a couple of Mondays recently) talked me into it. It actually felt good after 7.5 hours in the car. | ||
Sunday May 21 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:59:19 [4] *** 7.62 km (15:40 / km) | |
| ECOC Long - beautiful terrain in the Gatineau Hills. It seems like I'm trying out new gear in every event lately, and today it was my new Atakpants - Canadian-made orienteering pants. Regular AP readers have heard all about them - and yes, I liked them. 'Nuff said.
I don't think my ankle sprain played a big role in today's race, so I've removed myself from the "injured" list (even though my foot is still purple). The major distraction today was blisters from my new O shoes after the first hour - not a big surprise, I guess. The first hour of the race went well (other than a bobble where I chose the wrong trail from the start triangle), then I had 3 bad controls near the end. In analyzing what went wrong, I see that I should have stopped and looked harder at the map when I had a sense that something was wrong, because I could have fixed two of my errors sooner if I'd followed up on my gut feelings. My 3rd error happened in a complicated trail network where there seemed to be extra trails, and it took me awhile to process the fact that I could get where I wanted to go without using trails, so I might as well ignore them if they weren't helping matters. I lost almost 20 minutes on those 3 controls, but the rest of the race went well, and even though it seemed that I was out there forever, I finished 3rd of 7 runners, behind two orienteers I respect a lot - The Amazing Kempster and Cherie M. It was a great A Meet debut by 'Bent! In both of his events, he was in the closely-spaced midpack in his age group. In today's race, he finished 7th, but won 5 of 13 splits, which shows that he has tremendous potential if he can find more time to practise his navigation. | ||
| Running warm up/down 10:00 [1] | |
Saturday May 20 | ||
| Event: Eastern Canadian Championships | ||
| Orienteering race 58:05 [3] *** 3.5 km (16:36 / km) | |
| (injured) | ||
| ECOC Short Distance. There isn't much that went right for the first 8 controls (out of 13). It was my first real race since spraining my ankle six days ago, and I was very cautious. The Active Ankle worked well, but the terrain was rocky, and I took my time picking my way through the forest. I'd decided not to wear my aging Ice Bugs, since I'd been wearing them both times when I turned my ankle. This turned out to be a dumb move. I went out in my favourite adventure racing shoes, but I don't do a lot of running on slippery rocks in adventure races, so I didn't realize how out-of-control I would feel in them - like tap dancing on an ice rink. As if that wasn't enough, it rained so hard that I could barely see through the clear glasses I wear for eye protection, so I had trouble seeing places with good footing and reading the map.
Oh yes, the map. I heard several more experienced out-of-town orienteers say the same thing - it took a few controls to get the feel of this map. Nothing wrong with it (that I noticed), but it took awhile to expect orange areas to be big expanses of flat rock rather than fields, even though NevMonster had warned me about it. And at junctions, trails sometimes disappeared into the rock for a distance, then you had to find them again. None of this would have mattered if I had been sharper, but I just wasn't on my game. It was pretty much a disaster for the first 3/4 of the race, then the last 5 controls went fine - my time was 13:30 compared to 11:00 for the winner. When I realized how cautious I was being in the woods, I started choosing longer trail routes where I wouldn't worry about my ankle, and that helped a lot. Although things went badly, I stayed calm. I guess I wasn't expecting much because of my injury - and also because I had entered F-Elite to get a longer race course, so I definitely wasn't racing to win. As it turned out, I came 2nd of the 5 racers who finished, but a long way behind the winner (Cherie). | ||
| Orienteering race 23:45 [4] *** | |
| ECOC Sprint. After skidding around so much in my first race, I bought real orienteering shoes at last - Jalus Olways. Probably 1/2 size too big, but there wasn't much selection, and I was desperate. I ran about 100 meters of warm-up in them, then did this sprint race as a test run. They rock!! I had much more confidence in my footing in this race, and thus was somewhat less cautious with my ankle. My nav was good, with one bad route choice that took an extra minute, and one misread control description that sent me to a hilltop instead of the base of the cliff below the hill. Not perfect, but much better than this morning - about 5:30 behind the winner. | ||
| C • New shoes 4 | ||
| Running warm up/down 15:00 [1] | |
Friday May 19 | ||
| Paddling 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Canoe paddle around the entire shore of Lac Gauvreau with 'Bent, ThunderDog and BulletDog. The cottagers hadn't arrived for the weekend yet, so it was nice and quiet. The sky was steel grey, but the rain held off for us. | ||
| Cycling 1:30:00 [3] * 22.5 km (4:00 / km) | |
| 'Bent and I rode in Gatineau Park, mostly on muddy double track trails with a bit of road. We started at the Wakefield parking lot, rode west cross-country to Lac Philippe, went south along its shore, then made our way cross-country back to Wakefield on different trails. The forest was beautiful, and there were a few good hills to ride. We did a double take at the Lac Philippe entrance gate when we saw Ian Sidders walking up. He's here for the O meet - I guess it shouldn't have been surprising to see someone we know.
The campground weather forecast said there is a 90% chance of rain with possible thunderstorms. Oh goodie. | ||
Thursday May 18 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Last minute packing for our multi-sport weekend in Gatineau. Lots of ankle icing today! | ||
Wednesday May 17 | ||
| Note | |
| GHO Adventure Nite | ||
| Orienteering race 22:00 [3] *** 2.2 km (10:00 / km) | |
| (injured) | ||
| Sprint Race - first run in my new Active Ankle brace. I know we're not supposed to advertise products on Attackpoint, but I have to say that this little device really works like it's supposed to. I bought it with a sense of defeat and disappointment at the fragility of my joints, but it allowed me to orienteer on the side of a rocky escarpment just 3 days after my injury. I was cautious and didn't go at full speed, but it was pretty good, considering that I still have some pain walking around the house. After the race, Marianna - a younger and more talented orienteer than I am - showed me that she was wearing two Active Ankles!
I wouldn't have gone out in the woods so soon if it weren't for the ECOCs this weekend, but I needed to know if I would be able to compete. Fortunately, the first day has the shorter events and less rocky terrain, so I can do that, then decide whether I'm up to doing the Long on Sunday. Anyway, this was a fun, fast sprint course. | ||
| C • Active Ankle 1 | ||
| Orienteering 22:00 [2] *** 1.84 km (11:57 / km) | |
| Picking up flags on the training course. I took it a lot slower since it wasn't a race, and the terrain was more difficult for my ankle. At the farthest point, the thunder began, and about halfway back there was lightning too. Yikes! Sudden was just preparing to come out to retrieve my electrocuted remains when I finally arrived at the parking lot. | ||
Tuesday May 16 | ||
| Note | |
| (injured) (rest day) | ||
| Results were posted from Storm The Trent, and I'm really happy! I finished 1st female solo, 7th/24 solo racers (mostly guys), and 11th/81 teams overall. ('Bent was just ahead in 10th.) One coed pair was faster, so I was the 2nd woman to cross the finish line in a race with 180 people. I'm proudest of being 2nd solo in the advanced bike nav section, which took 1 hr 42 minutes, including over an hour in a trail network in the Ganaraska Forest. Yahooo!!!
It's nice to have a reason to be happy while my ankle remains swollen and stiff. It is mending though. I was fitted with an Active Ankle brace today, and I'm going to try to do tomorrow's orienteering Adventure Nite - probably at a very relaxed pace. | ||
| C • Congrats 1 | ||
Monday May 15 | ||
| Strength (Core) 40:00 [2] | |
| (injured) | ||
| Hard Core Monday - had to adapt a couple of the exercises to avoid stressing my sore ankle. | ||
| Note | |
| I had really been looking forward to focusing on my running over the next month, since I don't have a major multi-sport race until June 17. Lousy timing with the ankle... I visited ThumbsOfDeath for various treatments today, and it looks like I'll get outfitted with an ankle brace this week as well. My fingers are crossed that I'll still be able to do the ECOCs this weekend. | ||
Sunday May 14 | ||
| Orienteering race 15:00 [3] *** | |
| No, it wasn't a sprint! After yesterday's race, I didn't expect to run hard in today's Halton Hardrock 10K adventure run, but I needed some O practice, and I did expect to do the entire distance, albeit at a moderate pace. Well... I raced to exactly 2 controls and only spiked one of them. :-( Between #2 and #3, while running on flat ground covered with pine needles, I did exactly what I'd warned 'Bent not to do at Hilton Falls - sprained my ankle. It was the same ankle I turned at the Mob Match three weeks ago, and I knew it wasn't 100% healed, but I've done two 6-hour adventure races since then, so the ankle wasn't that fragile. I'm wondering if my worn-out Ice Bugs are providing less support than they used to. I haven't worn them since the Mob Match - but that's a bit of a long shot to blame them. All the same, I don't think I'll wear them in this weekend's Eastern Canadian O Champs - if I'm able to race, that is.
Quite a crash from my high of yesterday to my low today... | ||
| Orienteering 30:00 [1] *** | |
| The ankle sprain knocked me to the ground, and it only took 3 hobbling steps to realize that my run was over. I still harboured the delusion that I could get some training in by walking around with my map. I got to #6 (of 23 controls) and realized that I was being an idiot. Hilton Falls is one of the worst places on earth to walk off-trail with a sprained ankle. So I headed for the nearest trail and walked back (not logged, but it seemed to take forever). Much thanks to several orienteers who stopped running to see if I needed help.
Serious RICE and Vitamin I this afternoon and tonight, and I'll try MPIBs tomorrow (MrPither Ice Baths). I've got my fingers tightly crossed as I wait to see how the next 36 hours will go. This injury felt worse in the field than the one I had three weeks ago, but tonight it feels like I'm able to do more than I could on the evening after my last injury. For sure, I'm calling ThumbsOfDeath in the morning to order an ankle support. | ||
| C • ah! 4 | ||
Saturday May 13 | ||
| Event: STORM the Trent | ||
| Adventure Racing race 5:24:36 [4] ** | |
| Raced solo in Storm The Trent - a multi-sport adventure race involving paddling, mountain biking and trekking/running. STT has a reputation as a fast race because most of the course is marked, the other navigation is relatively easy, and you don't spend much time off-trail. However, the nav was more of a factor than I'd expected. Most, if not all, of the top racers were experienced navigators. Those of us with bike nav experience had an advantage in the unmarked advanced section, where we rode through a complex trail network in the Ganaraska Forest. Also, it was not a requirement to stay on the marked trail route in the "trail running" section. We just needed to reach two checkpoints in the woods and get back to the transition area. This allowed us to choose much faster routes than the teams who felt less confident about heading cross-country on a compass bearing. So, although I've heard people say that STT isn't a nav race, I would argue that it's darned hard to win if you aren't a navigator - at least on this year's race course. That increased the fun for me, since it gave me a fighting chance!
We knew we were getting bussed to our boats, and CP1A and CP1B were on the Otonabee River. The start procedure would be explained at the start line. So, being the tricky adventure racer that I am, I put on my PFD (with a litre of water in it) and my backpack over top (with 2 litres of eLoad). I changed into my cycling shoes, since I might as well paddle in them and not have to change before biking. I wasn't the only one with this brilliant idea. Some people even carried kayak paddles at the start line. So... it's pretty obvious that we hadn't considered the possibility of a half-hour orienteering run as our first activity before paddling. We only learned this at the GO , so off I ran, sweating in my PFD, carrying 3 litres of fluid and wearing my cycling shoes. Yikes! It wasnt the fastest run Ive ever done, but considering my apparel and the crowds, it went fine. Then I lugged my kayak to the river for a 10 km paddle. My goal today was to race the whole race with a sense of urgency, and I think I succeeded as well as I am able, not being a real speed demon. I paddled hard with a good heart rate for over an hour, incorporating intervals at higher effort ("Gazette intervals" - named after my teammate from last weekend, who insists on doing them). Nobody passed me, and I reeled in a number of teams, including guys who asked if I would tow them! Coach Bill Traylings paddling classes have really helped me to paddle efficiently without getting too tired. (It also doesn't hurt that my Kevlar sea kayak is pretty quick.) Next was a bike ride maybe 20-25 km on roads, then another 10 km on trails in the Ganaraska Forest. Once again, I worked hard to reel in a few teams, especially on the uphills when their defences were down, heh heh. A couple of teams passed me solo males, I think but mostly, I was doing the passing. Nobody was more surprised by all this passing today than I was. A couple of thoughts: (1) Maybe I did a lot worse than I thought on the initial run in my PFD and cycling shoes. (2) Perhaps some teams started out racing at an effort level they couldnt maintain. I was disappointed to meet Bent near one of the advanced bike CPs. He was having a great race until then, but had some nav issues. We leapfrogged several times in the advanced section, and transitioned to the trek/run around the same time. We both used our orienteering skills to shorten the trail running section considerably (although not in the same way), and arrived at the TA around the same time. Next we biked to an area where there was a very clever mystery task . There was a huge pile of mulch, and a representative of a local trail group handed us each a grocery bag to fill with mulch and carry about 800 m down a trail, where we dumped it as directed by a trail worker. Then we had a 5 km muddy trail run through the forest to the finish line. I passed a male team in the last kilometer, which almost never happens yahoo. The finish line atmosphere was awesome, with a staff member calling in your team number by radio ahead of time, so the announcer had your name, category and (sometimes) rank as you crossed the line. It was a super-organized, fun day my compliments to Sean Roper, the race director. Overall solo winner was AdidasPete at 4:45, Rob Millar in 2nd around 4:50-ish, and Gazelle was 4th with 5:04. Bent was the 2nd Solo Masters Male by 54 seconds (!), finishing in 5:14, and I was 5:24. That made me the top woman in any of the female team categories, and put me close enough to the fastest overall race time that I really couldnt be happier. I dont see myself doing a lot of sprint races at such a fast pace or at least, not for much longer. But it was fun to push hard once and see what I could do if I really tried. | ||
| C • STT 1 | ||
Thursday May 11 | ||
| Cycling 35:00 [2] 10 km (3:30 / km) | |
| Nasty weather today! But there was no choice about going out. :-( 'Bent had put semi-slick tires on my bike, so I needed to make sure everything was fine before Storm The Trent. Also wanted to check my gears and brakes, which were working less optimally after the 2nd truck transfer in Saturday's race. So I did a bit of everything - trails, roads, bouncing over logs, steep climbing, etc. The tires are awesomely fast, but the gears aren't at their best. I hate to mess with anything this close to a race though, so I'll just let it go.
Meanwhile, I came home to find 'Bent with his recumbent bike in a vice, hauling on a rake handle pushed through the frame, trying to 'bend it into some new, improved shape. And here I was, worried about adjusting my gear cable another quarter turn!! | ||
| C • It's called cold-setting 1 | ||
Wednesday May 10 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Unplanned rest day. Beautiful weather, but I was working to a deadline today, and I managed to use every single minute. | ||
Tuesday May 9 | ||
| Running 52:00 [3] | |
| Ran part of the hilly Humber Valley Heritage Trail with K/O. The abrasions from last week's trail running swan dive are still painful and highly unattractive, so I approached today's outing with some trepidation. Luckily for me, K/O had run 7 hours on Saturday, so today she chose a speed that was in my ballpark - except uphill, that is. No matter how steep or high the hill may be, her pace remains constant. The same is NOT true of me, but I did manage some semblance of running up all the hills, and ran over the top and kept going, like I'm supposed to. Great day to be out, and it was made even better by the complete absence of face plants on my part. | ||
Monday May 8 | ||
| Cycling 38:00 [3] | |
| Bike to Palgrave post office and back, travelling on forest trails, country road and rail trail. Another perfect spring day. We're now in that time of year when there is so much racing that it can be hard to figure out how to blend the training, tapering and recovery. Our next adventure race is this Saturday - and we have a 10K orienteering race on Sunday, so it's not as if I want to ramp up very much! | ||
| Strength (Legs) 22:00 [1] | |
| While watching the Daily Show. | ||
| Strength (Core) 40:00 [2] | |
| Hard Core Monday. K/O had borrowed the DVD, but unfortunately she brought it back today... | ||
Sunday May 7 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Not even remotely inspired to do anything active today! Salomon AC results were published. Only 25 of 45 teams finished the race within the 8-hour time limit, so this was a tough race by SAC standards. Our team was tied for 12th overall, and was the 2nd female team. Our paddling needs practice, and we had a few moments of confusion when we got separated while biking, but otherwise we had a consistent, clean race. Great start to the season! | ||
Saturday May 6 | ||
| Event: FAR SAC Adventure Race (8hrs) | ||
| Adventure Racing (Salomon AC) 6:35:00 [4] ** | |
| Bob Miller set a long and interesting course for the first Salomon Adventure Challenge of the year, based at Fenelon Falls. Crash, Gazette and I raced as the Tree Huggers in the all female category, where the competition was really for 2nd place, due to the presence of the mighty Adidas Divas. 'Bent, Gazelle and The Padre raced all-male as Team Hunger.
The race began with 25 km of mountain biking, much of it on ATV trails meandering around a powerline - lots of hills, rocks, mud and some stretches of knee-deep water. We deliberately held back at the start to avoid getting caught in the crush of people biking too fast. We could catch them later when they slowed down. Things started out reasonably well. Actually, the race was going much better than we knew, since most of the top teams had taken a wrong turn away from the power lines onto a private road, and many of them went quite a way before realizing their mistake. Going the correct direction at the fork in the road took us directly into a hike-a-bike section through knee-deep water, so I guess it didn't look like a trail to everyone. But then we messed up with a rookie error. I'd been saying from the start that our biggest risk with a mass bike start was getting separated on technical trails - and that's exactly what happened. Most of the time we rode with our teammates in sight, but with a twisting, technical, rocky trail, you had to watch where you were going, and teammates were bound to spread out a bit if one of them rode a hill while another walked, for example. It was easy for a teammate to get out of sight for a minute. At one point, I came down a tough hill and mentioned to Crash that we should wait for Gazette, but she thought Gazette was ahead. Since we didn't know which direction to go, we stationed ourselves so we could see up and down the trail, and waited while teams streamed by - including some top teams like the Adidas Divas, who had retraced their steps after their wrong turn. Argghh! Then we saw people who knew Gazette, who said she was going backwards about 400 m back. Just as we were getting set to go back to find her, she realized that she must be behind, so turned around and found us. Apparently she had been ahead, but pulled over to the side to wait. Somehow we didn't see her as we rode past, nor did she see us. It felt like it took forever to reunite our team, but it was probably only 8 minutes or so. Rats. After that, our day went very smoothly. We got to the first bike CP and learned that we were ahead of 'Bent and the boys. We had a good ride through a beautiful forest on rocky, muddy snowmobile trails, then had a fast road ride to the TA. The trek was in an area where the map was almost devoid of features, so it was a matter of holding a compass bearing and tracking time/distance travelled. At the time, I was thinking it was going to be tough mentally for some teams, because the bush was often thick and the ground was swampy in places, and it took confidence to believe that you were going to find what you were aiming for. As it turned out, there were teams that spent a long time in there, some of whom never found the first trekking CP. We found it, and managed to get quite wet in the process. I'd aimed off to be sure of which direction to turn when we hit the creek, and that meant some scrambling through beaver territory, where we ended up wading through waist-deep water at one point. There was more bushwhacking toward the Ganaraska Trail, and just before we left the bush, we ran into Team Hunger. We stayed close behind them for a road/trail run of 4-5 km, with Crash towing me to keep the speed up. Then we had a beautiful paddle down the Burnt River with 3 portages around rapids. We'd missed the cut-off for the advanced section, but only 6 of 48 teams made it, so that was OK. Most of the final bike ride was on rail trail - almost an hour. Crash towed Gazette, and I led the way, watching for traffic at the intersections. We finished in 6:35 on the Regular course, not far behind 'Bent and the boys at 6:07. That got us 2nd in the female category - yahoo! Team Hunger was 3rd in the all-male category, which was a great recovery after a couple of early nav errors. The major news of the day was Tiny's team, The Pink Guard of Nero, who finished 2nd overall and 1st coed - just 20 minutes behind Team Simon River Sports, and ahead of Team LSN, who were leading until a surprising rail trail nav error near the end. Congrats, Tiny!! A preliminary check of results showed 19 teams out of 48 who didn't complete the course within the 8-hour limit, so this was a tough race. I enjoyed competing with a strong female team. Next weekend, it's a solo race with virtually no nav, so it will be completely different - I'll need to push harder. Should be fun too. | ||
Friday May 5 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| OUCH - I awoke with such a toothache that 'Bent immediately gave me one of those big dental needles. That and some Vitamin I got me through the final stages of race packing, then we met 'Bent's assistant at the office on her day off for a complicated, 2 1/4 hr emergency root canal. Definitely not the best pre-race preparation you could ask for, but 'Bent did a great job, and hopefully I should be able to focus on the race tomorrow, which would have been impossible otherwise. | ||
Thursday May 4 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Tapering for the Salomon Adventure Challenge on Saturday. I might have gone for a short run, but my tooth, which is scheduled for a root canal on Tuesday, went crazy-painful today, so I didn't feel like doing much of anything. Looks like I'll need some emergency pre-race dentistry tomorrow - sigh... Exactly the timing I was hoping to avoid. | ||
Wednesday May 3 | ||
| Note | |
| GHO Adventure Nite - event organizer | ||
| C • National Ski Team 6 | ||
| Orienteering 1:25:00 [1] *** | |
| Checked flags for tonight's training event, taking the controls out of sequence so it wouldn't seem too familiar. ThunderDog expressed a marked preference for Trail-O, making some less direct route choices and insisting that I follow. At least she always ran along trails heading approximately in the right direction, so her map skills must be improving. It was very warm, so we also had to make detours to visit all the ponds and creeks on the map so she could go swimming. All ribbons were present and accounted for, and I took down a couple of controls that I'd elected not to use.
The race went reasonably well - tight competition at the top with just 80 seconds separating Sudden (1), Griz (2) and MrPither (3), and the next competitor 14 minutes back. Unfortunately, more than half the racers did not see my ribbon in a small Flying Pig-style dry ditch, so I've learned a lesson about control visibility. Really nice night to be outside! Although the black flies have been swarming lately, they gave us a reprieve. | ||
Tuesday May 2 | ||
| Running hills 1:03:00 [4] | |
| Humber Trail near Bolton with K/O, whose e-mail ID is "Slowrunner", but I have officially raised the bar in that department - or lowered the bar, as the case may be. Actually, it was great to have someone set a pace a bit faster than I would choose for myself, but not totally out of reach. I could almost keep up most of the time. K/O will laugh to see that it was a level 4 for me, but it really was! It was no surprise that she is awesomely strong, given that she has completed the mountainous 125 km Canadian Death Race and is preparing for a 50-mile trail race in a few weeks, amongst other accomplishments. Lots of fun today, and a good workout.
Beautiful day, marred only by some early inattentiveness when I was staying close behind K/O for conversational purposes, and thus couldn't see the upcoming trail surface. My left foot caught a small root, and I did a heavy swan dive and slide on a concrete-hard, gritty trail. I landed on both forearms and my right kneecap (the bad one). I stopped sliding just before a wooden trail bridge, which would have knocked my head hard, so there is a silver lining. I've got some big, nasty, painful scrapes, but at least it's all on the surface. I'm icing my knee now, since it is swelling a bit after landing so hard on it. I rewarded myself with a DQ hot fudge shake on the way home. After all, I'm carb-loading for the weekend, right? | ||
| C • Healed? 5 | ||
Monday May 1 | ||
| Running 37:00 [2] | |
| Short Bruce Loop with ThunderDog as a warm-up, then some cooldown after the hill workout. | ||
| Running hills 25:00 [5] | |
| Repeated hill climbs and descents - visited four nearby hills of different height and steepness, some running on trails and some off-trail.
Another beautiful spring day, although it will take awhile to get used to the heat. Our first trilliums are blooming, which is always a highlight. I also saw lots of trout lilies, spring beauties, bloodroot, downy yellow violets and Dutchman's breeches. | ||
| C • Heat? 2 | ||
| Strength (Legs) 22:00 [1] | |
| Strength (Core) 40:00 [2] | |
| Hard Core Monday. 'Bent tried to postpone, but I'm lending the DVD to K/O tomorrow, so he had no choice! | ||