Training Log Archive: Bash

This was the perfect day for a light bike ride because I haven't ridden since Endurance Aventure, and I did a lot of orienteering last week. However, BulletDog gave me such a loyal-loving-lonely look that I had to make it a run in the woods instead!

I forgot to mention my wildlife sighting earlier in the week - a baby porcupine about 30 meters from our front door. Hope the dogs steer clear.

We're off to Arowhon Pines lodge in Algonquin Park for a few days of carb-loading interspersed with socializing and some outdoor fun. 'Bent and I were married ten years ago (as of next Thursday) at a backcountry canoe campsite 2 km from the lodge. Everyone sat on their PFDs while we said our vows (yes, we had mandatory gear), and there was a string quartet and portable organ in the woods. Then dozens of canoes joined us for the long procession back to the lodge for the reception. We're looking forward to going back up there with our families this weekend! :-)

Getting back into the routine. Need to do lots of work on this over the fall and winter, since I'm not quite as strong as I was in the spring. Had to watch Jeopardy instead of the Daily Show after the PVR went on the fritz. Both programs are probably equally educational.

Removed Sprint Finals from my calendar, considering the length of the drive, and the fact that no one else from southern Ontario appears to be going. Added CNYO A meet as a maybe, since the drive looks to be a couple of hours shorter, although I'd still be doing it on my own.

Hiking in Palgrave West with ThunderDog (counted at 50%). My 10-year-old puppy was full of energy and mischief in this cool weather, so I ended up jogging and bushwhacking more than anticipated.

With an extra day to search for positives, I realized that I actually *did* do something really well in Saturday's middle distance race, in spite of a couple of things that didn't go so well. One thing I've learned over the past few years is that it's never a good idea to give up - unless you have a first aid situation. If things are going badly for you, it's amazing how often they are going badly for other people too. And even if you're the only one having a bad time, you gain mental toughness by completing an event where your chances of success seem remote. Many times - in AR especially, or on wilderness trips - there is no choice anyway. You absolutely have to get down that river or over that mountain. There may be no way to bail out early, and you need to be mentally prepared to keep going.

So that's something I did right on Saturday. I must confess to some thoughts to the contrary at two points in the race, but I consciously pushed myself to continue. In this case - VERY surprisingly - I ended up with a gold medal by hanging in there on a day when a lot of people had a rough time. I hope this experience will help to make me stronger the next time part of me feels like quitting in a tough situation - racing or non-racing.

Hard Core Monday, after a week off. It feels so good when I stop.

I sure wasn't expecting this, but I learned today that I won yesterday's middle distance Canadian championship for my age group! I didn't have a great race, but I guess everyone else had even more problems than I did.

Yesterday's sprint results aren't available yet, but I know for sure I didn't win that one.

Canadian Orienteering Champs - Long

I felt good about this race, even though I finished behind two of the women I beat yesterday. My race wasn't perfect or super-speedy, but it was controlled and thoughtful. I lost contact for a couple of minutes each enroute to #7 and #11, but stayed calm, relocated from a trail, and got back on track. I had to abandon my fogged-up eye protection glasses after the first few controls, which made me more cautious in the bush than I usually am. And then I got a stick in the eye, and something scratchy stayed in there, which was somewhat distracting. Oh, and then my sunscreen (totally unnecessary on this rainy day) dripped into my eyes so they were stinging and watering. Hmm... why did I like this race so much again? Well, other than the eye problems, it was a lot of fun - varied terrain, interesting controls, and my legs felt decent.

When I finished, I knew that I would be happy with today's race, no matter what the result. Even though this was a bronze medal (45 seconds behind 2nd place) compared to yesterday's gold, today I felt like there is still hope for me to become a decent orienteer!

COCs

COC Middle Distance

Not that I was expecting much, given the short recovery time after the Raid, but this race went WAY worse than I'd hoped. Everyone's start was delayed by 2 hours. We didn't know how long it was going to be, so I warmed up and cooled down 3 times, ate the gel I'd brought for afterward, drank all my water, and lost any focus I might have had. If only I'd known, I would have had a bigger breakfast and brought more food to snack on while waiting. I'd expected to be finished by 10:45 a.m., and instead I started at noon.

I started out uncharacteristically well - I almost always waste time enroute to the first control, but not this time. Things got a bit slower from there as I took time to get accustomed to the map and vegetation. Then I just blew up looking for #7. I knew what to look for, but I just didn't see it there. I ended up backtracking and finding controls on two other courses before I made it back to my #6, took a bearing, and stomped over to #7 with a careful pace count. It took almost 15 minutes to go a few hundred meters - arggh. A bit later, I got a weird heart arrhythmia (which I've had before occasionally) and had to stop for awhile to walk, breathe deeply, and worry about whether I was going to die in some lonely re-entrant. Luckily, it went away within 5 minutes, and I was able to run at a moderate pace after that. Not sure what triggered it.

So... I managed to squeak out a finish - and doubled my time from last year's COC middle distance! Oh well, some other people out there had an even worse time, including 'Bent, so I won't complain too much!

COC Sprint

This race went better, although I'm not a sprinter. Nick Duca put together an excellent course. Unfortunately, the SI units were non-functional at 5 of my 18 controls, which meant time-consuming map punches. A lot of us were commiserating about the difficulty of seeing the trails on the map, especially as the forest got dark later in the day. I wish they had used easy-to-see black dashed lines for trails, instead of going with the sprint standard. (Actually, Sudden felt that these maps weren't sprint standard either.) But putting all that aside, it was a fun run - not a good one for me, but well worth doing.

Man, I need more O practice.

Continued post-Raid grogginess, but my body feels better than it usually does after a major race. I'm definitely not in the zone for the Canadian Orienteering Champs this weekend, but as the defending silver medalist in the middle distance, I'll go out and give it the old college try!

COC Festival Relay with Ian Sidders (Leg 1) and Glenn Birnie (Leg 2). Ian had big trouble with one early CP, but otherwise had a good race, and Glenn did well too. I ran the final leg, and other than losing a minute on #3, things went fine. I am definitely rusty at reading and understanding the map quickly. Although I'm still tired to the point of being sleepy after the Raid, it doesn't feel like my running is a whole lot slower than usual. Maybe I'm 10-15% slower, but mostly I'm just out of practice when it comes to O.

Another so-called "rest day" that was totally exhausting, mostly in a non-physical way.

Most of the race laundry is done, much of the gear is clean and dry, and now there is some time to think.

The only adventure race on my calendar for the rest of 2006 is the Salomon Adventure Challenge Champs in September, plus 'Bent and I are doing a 24-hr rogaine earlier in the month. For several years, I've been saying that 2006 would likely be my last year of training for AR, and now the time is approaching. Eek.

The problem is, I still haven't figured out what comes next. After such a fun weekend in Quebec, part of me is thinking that I want to keep on going. But we don't have a team anymore, so this is a convenient time to bow out. And there must be a limit to how long it makes sense for a relatively non-athletic person to keep competing against younger, fitter people in such a demanding sport. AR - especially the long races - is tough on your body, and so is the training required, so it's not one of those sports that most people plan on pursuing forever.

I'll keep orienteering for sure, but it doesn't satisfy my craving for endurance activities. I'll probably do occasional trail running races, but I'm not that good at them. I'm quite sure that my only MTB after AR is over will be recreational, other than riding on a large team in the occasional 24-hr relay.

Hmmm.... I'm thinking that maybe the answer is to direct my energy back where it used to be for many years - wilderness tripping and other outdoor activities. We've seen some great places through our AR events, but we've reduced our other travelling and exploring. Our AR skills will make it possible to do things we didn't do in the past, which could be fun.

But I don't know - it's not that easy. I've met a lot of great people through AR, and it's tough to just walk away from that scene. And I've rediscovered my competitive nature, years after I stopped the only sports I was ever actually good at. (Believe it or not, those sports were.... curling and golf. Anyone who guessed THAT correctly gets a beer or three.)

So I'll just keep on thinking, I suppose. No rush to figure this out. For now, the priority is to plan our trip to New Zealand, which is only 2 months away.

Before we signed up for the Raid, I'd already paid for the week-long Canadian Orienteering Championships Festival. I've already missed two races, so I thought I'd race today, even though I'm still groggy from the Raid. This was a Thomass format, and it actually went pretty well. I haven't orienteered since early June, and my legs need a rest from the weekend, but my nav was reasonably good, my running was OK, and my bushwhacking through dark green was awesome after spending a weekend in Quebec!

Long, long, long drive from Quebec, arriving home near bedtime. Far too many calories consumed due to post-race piggy appetite.

Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure - Night Race

Several km of trail running with some slippery footing in places. We did a bit of bushwhacking to a CP, but it would have helped our team if the night nav had been more complex. We had brought two 1-man pack rafts to get to a CP on an island in a lake - a great way to get to know your teammates better (although it made me wish that my raft partner hadn't had chili for dinner). Then we had an amazing 14 km downhill bike ride back to camp, where they handed us a cup of hot, homemade chicken soup, our latest e-mail messages, and our maps for the next day. Nice.

Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure - Day 3

Once again, our morning began with a 400 m bike ascent into the mountains with PFDs on our backpacks. This time there were parts that were rideable, and it was never necessary to lift the bike off the ground. 'Bent's recumbent had some chain problems on the way up, but nothing too serious. We got to a beautiful rolling plateau that reminded me of a nice section in the Canadian ski marathon. The ATV trails had lots of big loose rocks, so even though the hills were shorter up there, it was still lots of work to go up and down (I'm a chicken on loose, rocky downhills).

Between the big climb and the fact that I'd had half as much sleep as other team members throughout the race because of the mapwork required between stages, I turned into Jello Girl after a couple of hours. Tiny was amazing - pushing my bike up hills when we were walking, and pushing my back or just staying behind to keep me going as we rode up or down other hills. Fortunately, 'Bent and Gazelle felt good today. I certainly wasn't at my strongest, but the bigger problem was a lack of balance and ability to concentrate. Even when I walked without my bike, I was staggering and stumbling on the rocks. We had some bad luck when trails shown on the map didn't reflect reality, and that used up some extra energy reserves as we had to backtrack after climbing a good distance. Luckily, I woke up during the long technical descent.

The next section was a beautiful uphill trek with a couple of easy CPs, and we ran whenever we were on trails. We looped back to our bikes and noticed a couple of other teams cheating (not the first time we'd noticed it in this race) by not taking all members to the CPs.

We rode another 15 km on roads to the river crossing where the canoe section started. Although my brain was wider awake now, my body was still weak, and Tiny was a big help on some of the hills. It started to rain, eventually getting quite heavy. We were supposed to put 3 people in a canoe for a 10 km whitewater paddle while the 4th team member rode to the next TA with the support crew. I was supposed to paddle, but under the circumstances, we decided to send Tiny instead. Big mistake. The water level was low, and Tiny is more than 40 lb heavier than I am.

The boys struggled down the shallow river, mostly walking beside their overloaded canoe on slippery rocks. The rain pelted down, and it was cold. Finally, Tiny got out of the river and decided to run down the road beside the river to the TA. Meanwhile, I was waiting at the TA, and the race official was telling me that they were probably going to close the next section of the race course - another adventure swim to the finish - because of the potential for hypothermia.

It was a great relief to see the boys paddle up, but I was disturbed to see their big smiles when it was clear that they had lost a team member along the way! They expected Tiny to be there already, but we quickly determined that he was running down a road on the other side of the river without a map, and it would be tough to find this TA hidden behind an island. So the race organizers asked us to run a few km to the finish line while they tracked down Tiny, and there would be no ranking implications. It turns out that he'd met a couple of race officials who thought his idea was pretty smart. When they'd tested the race course a few weeks earlier, the water had been much higher, but at this point, they knew it wouldn't work to have 3 guys in a canoe, and the potential for hypothermia was high, so they just wanted people off the river. So our team reunited 500 meters before the finish line and ran across together. Even in the pouring rain, there was an amazing finish line atmosphere, with the banquet tent right there, and everyone leaving their dinner tables to cheer in each team. The announcer read out each of our names as we approached, then we were handed a bottle of sparkling apple cider and photographed on a podium. The banquet was catered by a fancy restaurant, and all teams who finished the race were brought onstage and given soft shell jackets!

In summary, this is an excellent, classy, safety-focused, creative, fun event held in a beautiful region with a top-notch field of racers, and I highly recommend it to any adventure racer looking to try something different. I don't think it was the toughest outdoor activity I've ever done, but I would say that from a physical standpoint, it was the toughest race I've ever done. The race organization is excellent, and they run a couple of other events that I'd like to learn more about. I really enjoyed racing with 'Bent, Gazelle and Tiny - all of them are strong racers and good teammates (not always the same thing).

For further details on the race, see 'Bent's training log. I'll post a detailed race report with photos to the Tree Huggers web site shortly and will link it to my AP log.

Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure - Day 2

This was our best day in the race! Everyone felt good, and all went reasonably smoothly. We started out on a MTB trail, heading about 400 m up a very steep mountain. It wasn't long before we were in a procession of people carrying their bikes on their shoulders, scrambling through tight spaces between rocks, going steadily uphill all the while. 'Bent had special challenges with his recumbent bike, but kept his pace up nicely. It took us about 2 hours to get up to the first CP, and I believe this was the toughest leg I've ever done in a race.

I was amazed that I was totally dripping with sweat, then I noticed that 'Bent hadn't closed my Camelbak bladder all the way, so I'd lost about a litre of fluid on the way uphill, which explained why I was so wet down the back!

We did some ATV trail and gravel road riding to the start of another hilly trek. We did some steep bushwhacking, then crossed a chest-deep beaver pond (only waist-deep on Gazelle and Tiny) to a CP, then went up to the next TA.

From here, we headed off with four of us in one canoe for a couple of kilometers. Halfway, we stopped so that two members (Gazelle and me) could use a rope assist to climb a 15 m cliff, then jump back into the lake where our team picked us up again. (OK, I confess that I took the option where you could go down 2 m lower before jumping. But it was still a long way down. It was a couple of days before my sinuses and ear passages felt like they were opening up again!) We continued another 1.5 km to the end of the lake, where Gazelle and I got off with our pack rafts, and Tiny and 'Bent headed off on a different canoe/portage section, travelling to several lakes with relatively long, hilly portages. Gazelle and I did a rappel and rope-assisted scramble, then we pack rafted more than 2.5 km back toward the TA. After climbing the steep hill to the TA, we were free to help the other two if we wanted. Team Sole had kindly lent us a set of portage wheels, so Gazelle strapped them on his pack and rode off to the start of the final 2 km portage where he met the boys a short time later. This was perfect, because the guys had been going strong so far, but 'Bent is the more experienced portager, and his bad back was starting to act up.

Once we were reunited, we had a beautiful hilly bike ride and a nice descent to our camp by the river. Not much time to rest tonight, since the next leg was set for midnight, and we needed to drive to the start.

Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure - Day 1

It wasn't easy getting to the starting line of this race, and at last we were here - 'Bent, Tiny, Gazelle and myself, along with our fearless support crew, PD and LD. See my article on Sleepmonsters.

Our support crew helped to stuff us, all our race gear, support crew gear and food into the van, then we drove north for an hour. The first discipline was one of their favourites in this event - an “adventure swim”. The only rules for adventure swimming are: you must wear your PFD, you can’t take your canoe, and you will probably have to carry your swimming aids on a trek before and after the swim. We had brought Sevylor pack rafts and 5-piece SRS paddles, with heavy-duty air mattresses and swimming hand paddles as a 2nd choice if pack rafts seemed like a bad idea for some reason, e.g. a very long trek. As it turned out, our pack rafts rocked!

This Raid is a class act, and it began with a helicopter landing beside us at the starting line as we all clutched our various inflatables in the sudden strong wind. The helicopter got some amazing video of this portion of the race. Our first checkpoint was on a manned boat in the lake, and our only problem was avoiding bashing swimmers in the head with our paddles as our pack rafts flew past them. It was fun to look around the starting line and see the various aids – inflatables of all kinds, swim fins, hand paddles, etc. After the “go”, we all got into the water. Our new pack rafts worked really well compared to all the swimming devices, and we hit CP1 in 3rd place. (As far as the rankings go, this was the pinnacle of our race!)

We carefully collapsed the pack rafts on a beaver lodge (not much choice!), then traipsed up a steep, beautiful mountain. We continued trekking through a gorgeous area of forested mountains, then hit a road where we ran to a lake for a longer pack raft paddle to a CP floating in the water. We left the lake at another point, then ran to the next CP - mostly roads with some bushwhacking, then ran to the TA, where we transitioned to bikes.

Tiny was our bike navigator, and did an awesome job in a section that confused some very good teams. Unfortunately, Gazelle started cramping severely, and this continued on and off for the rest of the day, in spite of consuming as many fluids and electrolytes as he could.

As we headed from the ATV trail network back toward the main road, our trail petered out, and we had a steep, thick, downhill bike-whack, maybe 1 km before we hit another sketchy old trail-like thing, blocked in places by fallen trees. Hard to say how long it was because we were moving so slowly. We tried walking in the rocky creek, then went back up into the bush. Really tough!

Eventually, we were off the ATV trails and back on the main road, heading toward the next TA. We started with a few km of trail running, being careful because it didn't take much to set off Gazelle's cramping. At the base of a beautiful waterfall, Chute Delaney, we had to split into two groups of two. One pair would ascend 150 meters with one jumar, while the other pair would hike up to a lookout above the falls, where everyone would meet. It looked to me like this ascent would require considerable upper body strength, so I opted to tow Gazelle up on the hiking trail instead. 'Bent and Tiny did the waterfall ascent and confirmed that it was extremely physically demanding, so it would have taken our team a lot longer if I had done it, and it would have triggered Gazelle's cramps for sure. The lookout by the yurt above Chute Delaney was the most stunning view we had in the whole race, and that's really saying something - wow!

Unfortunately, Gazelle and Tiny both felt like crap now, so we descended slowly and decided to take a long TA break with some salty veggie broth to restore our teammates' electrolytes. Teams passed us here, but it was time well spent since we had lots of racing ahead of us.

Finally, we had an 18 km class 1 river paddle. It would have been a huge advantage to have arrived here during daylight, as the top ten teams did. It was a truly black night, and it was difficult to see the many rocks, gravel bars, twists in the river, and shallow areas. We ended up walking in the river a number of times. In daytime, we could have made much better time, but c'est la vie. I'm not happy in the stern in moving water, since it can require a lot of upper body strength, which isn't my specialty. In this case, we often saw the obstacles so late that it was more difficult than usual. One thing that was fun about this paddle was passing by several bonfires where people were partying. They would cheer and tell us how much farther we had to go (not always accurately, but it's the thought that counts). We made it to the finish line at midnight, and people were cheering like we were rock stars. We were handed our e-mail messages and our maps for the next day, then headed off for a late dinner and very short sleep.

Check-in and team presentation for Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure. It was held in the local movie theatre and involved considerable fanfare. My money is on Team Sole, who finished 7th in Primal Quest.

We were given maps and instructions for tomorrow only, with no race briefing until tomorrow morning. We went to dinner and did map work at the table afterward, then all teams were required to camp together at a canoe access point along the Bras du Nord River.

We don’t know any of the other racers, but it seems to me that many of the women look frighteningly athletic! Lyne Bessette, a cyclist who competed in the Olympics, is on one of the teams. Yikes.

Final preparations before departing for St. Raymond, about 50 km northwest of Quebec City, with Team Hunger/Tree Huggers ('Bent, Tiny, Gazelle & me) and our support crew. Bikes are on the van roof, the U-Haul is loaded, and we'll be heading out at dinner time.

We'll be doing the Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure event - 250 km, 25-50 hrs with several mandatory rest stops. Racers from seven countries will be in attendance, and the primary language will be French. Disciplines include trekking, mountain biking, whitewater paddling, adventure swimming and ropework, with some cliff jumping and a "mystery event". The course is unmarked, and hopefully it will provide the types of navigational challenges that we enjoy. The area is beautiful, and we're hoping for an amazing wilderness experience.

There is supposed to be live web coverage , and racers will be given messages written to them in the online Forum if the team name (for example, "Team Hunger/Tree Huggers", hint, hint) is in the message title. The race runs from Friday morning to Sunday night.

The preparations have been complex, and once we've found everyone tonight in the various meeting places, I'll breathe a big sigh of relief. And then I'll start reviewing my French grammar book, since initial conversations with hotels have shown that it may be tough to get by in English in the areas we'll be travelling through. That'll be kinda cool though.

The last time I adventure raced in Quebec, a moose hunter came THIS close to shooting me with an industrial strength crossbow, but as far as I know, the hunting seasons for large animals are closed. At worst, I could get snagged by a fly fishing lure.

You can read more about the race and our team's preparation for it at Sleepmonsters.ca .

Oh yes, and happy birthday to me. (To be celebrated next week when we have some time.)

Nasty weather when I'd planned to run, so I ended up on a treadmill watching Kids in the Hall. Good pace, but not very long.

While watching Kids in the Hall.

Hard Core Monday. With the cooler weather, this felt really good today. I sure hope we have to do some sit-ups in our adventure race this weekend, because I am SO ready.

We took the pooches for a hike on the Humber Valley Heritage Trail, which provides ample opportunities for dog paddling in the Humber River. We were out for over an hour - decided to log part of it because the hills are nice and steep.

Standard 30 km loop via rail trail, Centreville Creek and Glen Haffy CA - about 50% trail, 50% country roads. The highlight was HB Hill in the Glen Haffy forest ("Heckuva Big"). It was a refreshingly cool, sunny day, and I came back with more energy than I went out with. That's good, because I want to finish packing for the Raid today. This race has provided us with some hairy logistical challenges just to get to the starting line, but I think all the details are sorted out now, so we just have to hope that all goes according to plan over the next few days. After that, racing should be the easy part!

We've signed up for the Laurentian Rogaine on the weekend of Sept 9-10. Looking forward to another rogaine, but wondering if the Bash Rogaine Partner Curse will kick in and make 'Bent sick.

I had 'Bent drop me at the Hwy 50 gate to Albion Hills on his way into the Big Smoke. I came home by a circuitous trail and country road route through Albion, Palgrave East and Palgrave West. Someone's been riding a motorized dirt bike on the Bruce Trail near Crash's place - not safe for dogs.

Speaking of yahoos, we stopped at the post office enroute. A guy arrived in a big pick-up truck and parked right in front of the "Idle Free Zone - Turn Engine Off" sign, leaving his engine running as he went in. When he returned, I politely pointed out the new sign. He thanked me, then got in the truck and read all his mail with the engine still running. There is a daycare in the post office building and a school on the other side, so it's not a great place to fill the air with extra nasty pollutants (as if there IS a good place). All of us who devote significant time to working on environmental issues have occasional "why do I bother?" moments, and this was one of them. I don't have kids, thus no direct stake in future generations, but this selfish jack-arse probably does. And I'm busting my butt to save the planet for HIS progeny??? Hmmm....

While watching the Daily Show. Jon Stewart says that the logical next step is for the U.S. to impose a regime change in the U.K., since it turns out that the most imminently dangerous terrorists in the world are Brits.

Gazelle and Gazette somehow managed to spirit me out of the house for a 7 a.m. trail run at Albion Hills. 'Bent still isn't sure how they talked me out of postponing my coffee - and frankly, neither am I. As always, when I do an early morning workout, it feels great now that it's over and I have the whole day in front of me. But I'm just not good enough at pretending to be a morning person to make it a habit. Nice run, beautiful morning. It was 9C when we started, and Gazette was wearing a Goretex coat and long tights, while I ran in T-shirt and shorts. (I guess that explains why I'm so useless at 30C!) No wildlife, no bikers, and virtually no signs of life from any of the many campers, even when we finished our run after 8 a.m.

Single track at Albion Hills, trying to work out the bugs in my gears and get in some hill climbing. Great conditions today - perfect hard-packed trails, not too dusty. For a change, it was actually cool in the shade and in the breeze. Mmm... nice.

Wildlife report: 6 wild turkeys on the trail. They are common around here, but they don't tend to hang around on single track, so it was a bit of a shock to come around a bend in the middle of tall weeds and find myself face to face with all of them. Half of them stepped off the trail, and the other half jogged ahead of me to the next junction, while I rode behind them at a respectful pace.

While watching the Daily Show. This was an old recording, from back in the days when people were still excited about Floyd's Tour victory. :-(

Tiny, Gazelle, 'Bent and I went to Island Lake to test various strategies for the discipline of "Adventure Swimming", which we will be doing in next week's Endurance Aventure event. This reminded me of our early days in AR, when everything was new, and we were always experimenting with ideas and having a lot of laughs. Fun morning! Bottom line is that we'll probably use pack rafts, but circumstances (such as an extended trek) might favour swimming, in which case we'll go with heavy-duty air mattresses and swim training hand paddles or webbed gloves.

This was primarily a children's wading beach, and we attracted a lot of attention. One woman saw her young son approaching our pile of pack rafts, inflatable toys, masks, snorkels and fins, and said "Don't touch! Those are BIG boy boats." I had to laugh at the thought that we were acting any more grown-up than this 3-year-old, and I struck up a conversation with his Mom, talking about adventure racing. She asked some friendly questions, then said, "Well, my son has never been allowed to play in mud in his life." I didn't know what to say... what must she think of people who pay thousands of dollars a year for the privilege of playing in mud - and poison ivy and swampwater and thorns? And what's the deal with little kids not getting to play in mud anymore? Isn't it good for their immune systems or something?

We followed up with some paddling practice on Island Lake. There was a stiff breeze, so the sternsmen had an extra tough workout. 'Bent and I are slower than Gazelle & Tiny, which is to be expected, but luckily it wasn't a huge difference. It sounds like I'll need to stern for one of the other guys if we get into whitewater. Should be OK, but it's too bad I've neglected to do any upper body strength exercises since Lance finished his final Tour de France!

'Bent wanted to drop his van off at the office so he could run to work tomorrow. So we both went to Palgrave, then took a circuitous route home through the conservation area. Tonight's forecast low is 11C, and there was a delicious coolness in the breeze that we could just start to feel around 6 p.m. The hills didn't feel as high today. A very pleasant high 23C predicted for tomorrow - yahoo!!!

Hard Core Monday, moved up to Sunday because it was ThunderDog's 10th birthday, and we wanted to keep her company today. We went hiking by the Humber River, and the pooches swam until they were worn out.

While watching the Daily Show. Today's main targets: Mel Gibson and Fidel Castro.

Someone, puh-LEEZE give me a hard time if I'm not doing these leg exercises every 2-3 days. My knee is regressing a bit.

'Bent and I rode the Elora-Cataract trail from Forks of the Credit Park to Elora, then had a wonderful vegetarian lunch on the patio of the Desert Rose Cafe. (Yum, portobello-brie lasagne!) We had to get to the local bike shop before it closed, so it was a quick turn-around to head home. I haven't used my HR monitor in awhile, but I wanted to keep in the aerobic zone as much as possible today (about 70-80% of HRmax). It must have helped, since we took half an hour less than when we did the same trip last year. (Average HR took a hit because of all the road crossings, some of them very busy.)

Most of this ride is on rail trail, but we took trails across Forks of the Credit Park at the start and end of the ride. It worked out that at Km 103 for the day, we had to ride up the escarpment on a steep trail covered with loose rocks. We were a bit astonished when we rode to the top, since we'd both expected to have to get off partway up. Glad we didn't have to do it twice, because I think I only had one of those in me.

Around Palgrave East and West with 'Bent in cooler (22C), less humid conditions than we've had lately. It was nice to have company while training. I'm pretty sure my recent lack of motivation is mostly a result of the hot weather, and it would probably be good to plan more training with other people.

I usually round my intensity level down, so I'll give today a level 4 to reflect the harder work, even though part of it was only level 3.

Oh yes, I mustn't forget the wildlife report. We saw a log lined with turtles in the evening sun. All but one valiant little guy (or gal) dove into the pond as we arrived. During my cooldown, as I went out to our rural mailbox, I saw a fawn ducking into the forest.

BulletDog and I ran around Palgrave East and West, trying not to step in the lush patches of poison ivy, and making strategic stops at doggie swimming holes. The raspberries, Scotch thistles and other scratchy weeds are all overhanging the trail so much now that it's best to wear tights even on hot days. Fortunately, today is only high 26C - a brief respite before it warms up on the weekend.

Someone, presumably Mr. Wheelie, has done a lot of work to remove a bunch of huge fallen trees from the trails in Palgrave West and the Hardwood Forest. We should be able to remove the remaining debris before ski season using handsaws and pruners. The Roller Coaster Trail in Palgrave East is still a mess though.

Rest day after seeing the amazing live theatre production of "Lord of the Rings" last night.

I took my long-injured ankle in to see Dr. Leanimal. She says that I need to do some of my training without the Active Ankle brace, and save the brace for running or trekking in the woods. Otherwise my proprioception will not come back. This training needs to be in a safe environment, e.g. running on the rail trail or on roads. Makes sense, although I'm not fond of safe environments, especially in the hot Ontario summer. I can also use the balance board more while watching TV.

Hard to believe I'm running indoors in mid-summer, but today's ridiculously high temperature scared me into the basement. Toronto missed its temperature record by 0.1 degree, hitting 36.6C today. Apparently the real problem is that our nights aren't cool these days, i.e. the temperature only went down to 27C overnight.

Seems like an appropriate time for the Tories to quietly shut down the federal government's climate change information web site.

Hard Core Monday, postponed to Tuesday due to our canoe trip.

Raid The North Extreme and Beast of the East were both cancelled this week. Is there any hope for the future of long distance adventure racing?