Training Archive: BashIn the 31 days ending 2007-01-31:
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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 Jan 31 | ||
| Note | |
| Argghh, too much to do this week!
I confirmed something that we've been suspecting for awhile. ARC is not going to hold their winter adventure race this year. They didn't market it at all last year, and now they're saying that they lost money on it. Duh. On the bright side, BobTheNavigator has some cool, original ideas for future adventure sport events. The first new event is the Horseshoe Resort Snowshoe Raid on Feb. 24, partnering with GHO. (Website host is currently undergoing problems as I write this, but it'll be back.) I'm testing the course next weekend. As urthbuoy would say, booya! Another cool new event this year is the Dirty Girls Trail Race in Glen Haffy. Check it out! I'm betting it will sell out. | ||
Tuesday Jan 30 | ||
| Snowshoeing 1:28:00 [1] | |
| A nice midweek treat! Following a business meeting in Bolton, Sherpa and the fur girls came to Palgrave for some snowshoeing with ThunderDog, BulletDog and me. There is nothing quite like four energetic Labs zooming around and rolling in the snow.
I pulled a fast one on Sherpa, handing her the Tree Hugger race map and a compass, and advising her that her mission (which she gamely chose to accept) was to locate flags and help me take them down. This led us on a lovely cross-country trek through the snowy woods - on trails, over hills and into valleys. A couple of flags had disappeared since Tiny and Pixie went out. We had to turn back at dusk, and soon afterward, we heard 'Bent's skis approaching on his commute home from work. The dogs were thrilled, zipping back and forth between all the humans as we made our way home. Nice dinner cooked by 'Bent, and great to catch up with Sherpa. | ||
Monday Jan 29 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| I thought I'd at least get around to doing some yoga for my tired legs today, but it was just too busy.
Our team is celebrating after the weekend! Three-time Tree Hugger Brittany Webster competed at the Haywood Noram Canada Cup World XC Ski Championship Trials in Canmore, and won both her races (10 km and 15 km)! She wasn't even supposed to be at the World Champs Trials, but the World Junior Champs in Italy were postponed due to lack of snow, so the junior team came to Canmore for the practice. Chandra Crawford came 10th in one of the races, so Brittany beat an Olympic gold medalist, which is easily the best Tree Hugger race result to date. :-) Five-time Tree Hugger Pate Neumann also had a highly successful competition, finishing as the top Junior in the 30 km race, and 8th overall. He was 2nd Junior in his 15 km race. All I can say about these super-nice, hard-working and spectacularly talented 19-year-olds is WOW!!! | ||
| C • that's pretty sweet. 1x Zoolan... 1 | ||
Sunday Jan 28 | ||
| Note | |
| THOMASS Scanlon Creek | ||
| Orienteering race 56:00 [4] *** | |
| We started the morning with a surprise Skype conversation with Gazelle and Gazette in Tajikistan - awesome! Thus we arrived at the event with just enough time to get our shoes on and gear together, but not enough time to warm up. I noticed less than a minute before starting that I had accidentally grabbed my crappy old adventure racing compass that takes a couple of seconds to settle. Oh well. Most of us started the race with painfully cold fingertips, which were pretty distracting for the first 15 minutes or so. ("Is that the trail junction? Do you suppose that a person could lose all their fingertips permanently from doing a Thomass race?")
I felt like every fibre in my body was slow-twitch today, including brain neurons, although my legs got faster toward the end. It's crazy how long it takes me to warm up! Luckily, the nav wasn't difficult today, although I still managed to make a careless error at a trail junction, which forced me to change my plan for the Thomass Box. I've been lucky that a couple of Thomass courses this year have favoured racers with higher handicaps and lower trail running speed. This race was not one of those! We ran around the area twice. The first map was the Thomass Box, and the second map was a course with 5 additional controls spread around the area that we all had to visit, plus the finish. I arrived at the 3rd last control with Slice and Leanimal. The next control was on the far side of a lake, and I decided to take the less likely direction around, since I knew that my only hope of squeaking ahead of those speedy women was to choose a different route and keep my fingers crossed. Well, my sneaky scheme didn't work, and my esteemed competitors tied for 6th overall - congrats! I came in at 16th overall, 5th woman. Fun event with lots of friends there. | ||
| XC Skiing (Skate) 1:15:00 [5] 11.5 km (6:31 / km) | |
| Skate skiing at Hardwood Hills with BillyWells, Bender, BobTheNavigator, Leanimal, Phatty and 'Bent. Coach Billy shared a few pointers, and it was useful to just watch his graceful technique for gliding up hills. We went around the Pine Loop and all of its side loops. Lots of hill climbs, and much of the time, it was quite a push to keep up with such a fast crew. I can't remember the last time I went skiing in a group of 7 friends, and it was a gorgeous winter day too - so I'll rank this "A" for Awesome. | ||
| XC Skiing (Skate) 45:00 [4] 7.5 km (6:00 / km) | |
| Normally, I would have called it a day after spending 75 minutes doing my first real skate-ski of the season, but I didn't want to be a total wimp - only a partial one. So I opted out of moving on to the more difficult Olympic Loop, and all of us except for Billy and Bobby took a drink break in the chalet. Then we headed out to the Meadowlands Trail, where the hills are gentler, and we had the luxury of working on our technique. At least that was the idea, but I was fatigued enough to have trouble staying consistent. 'Bent still seemed full of energy at the end, although he did have a spectacular crash on his final approach to the chalet, so perhaps even he was starting to feel it! Fun afternoon. | ||
Saturday Jan 27 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Planned rest day. 'Bent and I hosted a public tour of our solar power grid-tie system, and folks hung out for a couple of hours munching on cookies and chatting with like-minded people. | ||
Friday Jan 26 | ||
| XC Skiing (Classic) 1:36:00 [3] | |
| Nice ski around Palgrave East and West with 'Bent and Leanimal. BulletDog needs to be cured of her over-enthusiastic habit of leaping at me while I'm skiing down hills - and she did the same thing to Leanimal. 'Bent is immune for some reason. Conditions are very good right now, but they'll be even better tomorrow after the predicted 5 cm of snow, which is already falling. :-)
I felt good except for sore calves from yesterday's leg strength exercises. I went a bit overboard with calf lifts, since I can feel that I've lost some strength there, and now I'm paying the price - ouch. | ||
| Note | |
| I was able to get tickets to Calgary on Aeroplan points, so we're going to stay with our friends, Walker and Cathy, at their vacation rental property in Canmore for a week - woo hoo! They are Canadians who live in Japan, and we've only seen them once since Walker was in our wedding party more than 10 years ago. Looking forward to trying out the Nordic Centre at last! | ||
| C • Alberta Bound 9 | ||
Thursday Jan 25 | ||
| XC Skiing (Classic) 35:00 [3] | |
| weight:1.6kg | ||
| BulletDog and I did a quick ski of the Charlevoix Loop - not because I needed the training before tonight's C3 workout, but because it's such a treat to be able to ski at last! It was -15C, and I didn't wear warm enough gloves, but everything else felt fine. I've been cheating by using waxless classics on my last couple of skis, but I went back to using real gear today, and it was great to have glide again! | ||
| Strength (Legs) 18:00 [1] | |
| While watching the Daily Show, recorded last week. A fair bit of discussion on Fidel Castro's new artificial anus. I feel sorry for Adidas, since their logo was predominantly displayed on Castro's jacket in the video clip. | ||
| C • interesting prosthesis 2 | ||
| Running 55:00 [3] | |
| Ran in Caledon East with a small group of C3 diehards on a frigid night with light snow falling. My eyelashes got crunchy-frozen early on, and there were other small patches of ice on my face that I didn't notice until I got back - yikes. We only did 4 hill intervals this time, plus some loops of the big block. 'Bent was looking speedy in his cool new Salomon jacket from Phatty. | ||
| Strength 25:00 [2] | |
| I need to think of a different way to describe tonight's session with Caron Shepley, because "Hard Core" doesn't seem sufficient to do it justice. Perhaps "Evil Core" or "Nasty, Difficult Core" or "Just Hold That Position for Another Count of 8." Ouch. No question, she was enjoying our pain. She's doing it all with us, so she's not purely a sadist. She's a masochist too. | ||
| Yoga 50:00 [1] | |
| Power Yoga to finish off the evening. There were a couple of things that I totally could not do, both of which involved holding my entire body up with my arms. (Or not.) Otherwise, it went well and felt great. My balance is improving slowly. | ||
| C • power 7 | ||
Wednesday Jan 24 | ||
| Note | |
| weight:1.6kg (rest day) | ||
| Unplanned rest day. My weight seems to have stabilized - unfortunately - after losing half of the poundage that I'd hoped to shed after Christmas.
Great news! Crash has volunteered her back yard bonfire as the race HQ for Thomass Caledon on Feb. 18. She's even hinted at a few yummy treats that might be offered to orienteers who make it out of Palgrave West alive. Thank you, Crash!! | ||
Tuesday Jan 23 | ||
| Running 10:00 [1] | |
| Met Luscious and K/O on the Humber Valley Trail to do a photo shoot for my upcoming magazine article on trail running. Poor Luscious was forced to do a lot of hill intervals for the sake of art, but they both kept smiling. I could have stayed for the rest of the run, but wanted to go into town for some quick grocery shopping, then go skiing. | ||
| Note | |
| Unfortunately, it turned out that 'Bent had put his heart and soul into producing this particular grocery list, which I'd agreed to shop for. It was one of his most impressive ever collections of eclectic items that cost a lot and take forever to find in the store, yet leave me feeling like there is nothing to eat in the house. E.g.:
- Organic Tamari Almonds - Indian Mango Pickles - Gluten Flour - Frozen Chopped Spinach - Canned Organic White Beans - Anchovies - Mini Ritz Cracker cheese sandwiches (for adventure racing only) Under the circumstances, I felt that I'd better get creative and toss in a few items of my own, like bread, juice, milk and fruit - just in case I ever get hungry and don't crave an Indian Mango Pickle. It's a good thing 'Bent is such a talented cook (not to mention the *only* cook in this house!), so I'm willing to spend time searching for his organic tamari almonds. | ||
| C • Shopping. 8 | ||
| XC Skiing 1:15:00 [3] | |
| Thanks to my shopping escapades, it was late in the afternoon before I could get out skiing, so I packed a headlamp. My first stop was Crash's house, where I delivered her prizes from Saturday's race and hung her medal around her neck. It is so cool to be able to ski to a friend's house! Then I continued around Palgrave East and West. Conditions are amazing, considering that it was green grass just 9 days ago. Unfortunately, Palgrave East had been well-toured by horses, who churned up the snow and left patches of brown klister on the trail in inconvenient places. Regardless, it was a beautiful evening, and I headed back when the light faded. Less than a kilometer from home, a 30 kg dog with a flashing red LED collar leapt at me. It turned out to be my own BulletDog, apparently unaccompanied in the dark. A minute later, 'Bent skied around the corner. She'd caught a whiff of me and had taken off down the trail. It was a nice ski home together with most of our little family. | ||
| XC Skiing 18:00 [2] | |
| Crash had mentioned that she was holding a bonfire tonight, complete with hot mulled wine, espresso and other treats. An offer that good was too tough to resist, so 'Bent and I put on headlamps and skied over to join the party. Thank you, Crash! Mmm... I'll bet if I'd put hot mulled wine into my Camelbak in Saturday's race, it wouldn't have frozen. Sure, I might have made the odd navigation error, but on the bright side, I wouldn't have cared, really. | ||
Monday Jan 22 | ||
| XC Skiing (Classic) 45:00 [2] | |
| When I came downstairs this morning, ThunderDog was sitting up with her back to me, staring out the picture window, framed by the view of snowy hills and trees - looking just like a Norman Rockwell painting. She was so absorbed that she didn't even hear me come up behind her. So I knew that I couldn't ski without her today!
It was one of those perfect days with fluffy, untracked snow and a sun-dappled forest, and I wished that I had lunch in my pack and a 40 km ski to a back-country hut ahead of me. But no, I needed to come back and read about water vapour feedback in climate models, thanks to Doc Hammer - although I confess that I skied too long to finish all the reading that I should have done for tonight's lecture. ThunderDog continued to act half her age, as she has been doing on these snowy days. At one point, she took off into thick bush, and finally I went after her, wearing my nice new Salomon jacket from Phatty that I'd promised myself never to bushwhack in. Lucky for both of us, she popped out of the woods before I did any damage. Bring on more winter!! :-) | ||
| C • In the minority... 3 | ||
Sunday Jan 21 | ||
| Yoga 40:00 [1] | |
| 'Bent actually went skiing today! In spite of the nice snow conditions, I was not tempted in the slightest. Yoga felt good though - lots of stretching of tired muscles - mmm.... | ||
Saturday Jan 20 | ||
| Event: Salomon Adventure Challenge - Mansfield | ||
| Adventure Racing race (Winter) 5:08:00 [4] ** | |
| After a miserable, springlike winter, the snow began to fall five days ago, and we were treated to perfect conditions for this race - lots of powdery snow and a chilly -10C plus windchill. The Padre had mentioned that he was trying to make this year's course design more creative and strategic. He wanted to reduce the opportunity for people to just follow the leader's footprints in the snow to the CP. He also saw that skate skiing teams had a huge advantage in last year's race, and he wanted to give classic skiing teams a chance this year. I think he succeeded.
The first half of the course was a Bike/Trek section. After a crowded, jostling bike race start on a narrow, snowy road, we all rode a few kilometers toward a large, irregular, hilly block of land, then split up a bit as teams used different strategies to get 6 CPs. Three CPs were along roads, and three CPs were inland. You could drop your bike at any CP and do the rest on foot, or you could ride around to different access points and go inland to get one or two CPs from each point. At the end of it all, there was a CP at the top of a large ski hill, so there was no way to avoid riding up a long, steep hill eventually. Road biking in the snow is not my forte, but there were other aspects of the race course that I knew would work better for me. So I was mentally prepared to watch teams go by on the road and not let it bother me too much - especially because some inexperienced racers tend to overdo it at the start of the race, and they can't keep up that pace. We didn't do too badly, mostly because 'Bent and 3PinJim were full of energy - towing me in a few places on foot and bike. I got swept up in a crowd enroute to the first off-trail CP, and we ended up descending from one steep, snowy hilltop and running up the adjacent one, but otherwise the nav went smoothly today. During the entire Bike/Trek section, we saw a lot of other teams, and had the perception of doing OK, but not particularly well. I felt slow, and couldn't breathe through my nose, thanks to my cold. My water froze early on (which it has never done), so I carried 4.4 lb of unnecessary (but oh, so necessary!) weight for the entire race. We had to walk our bikes on Airport Rd. on our way back to Mansfield to start the ski section of the race. I was running slowly while 3PinJim took my bike. My first clue that we weren't doing so badly in the race was when Team LSN jogged past us. That inspired me to speed up, and when we hopped on our bikes for the final ride up the Mansfield driveway, we passed LSN to beat them to the transition area. I was really surprised to see how few bikes were there. Since people used different strategies in the Bike/Trek section, it was impossible to know how we were doing. We had made a last-minute decision to switch to classic skis after seeing the race course design, which took us into ungroomed areas of Dufferin Forest. It was the most adventurous and exploratory skiing of any adventure race we've ever done. It was helpful that I'd orienteered in the area over the past year, although the orienteering map was displayed onscreen for everyone to make notes from, so it didn't give us a huge advantage. I guess the main advantage was that our experience in the area made us respect the importance of looking carefully at the O map, since it is very easy to get lost in the massive trail network. We did the entire regular ski section with LSN, with 'Bent breaking trail most of the time. Mansfield Ski Area had opted not to groom the skate trail today, and we had 20 cm of fluffy white stuff on the trail, which made it a challenge on any kind of ski - but I'm glad we were on classics. At the end of the regular ski section (two widely-spaced CPs), teams had the option of continuing to the advanced section, which consisted of two CPs that took us further afield in two different directions. We turned left to go to the farthest one from the lodge first, while LSN turned right to go to the closer one. Since we'd been skiing around the same speed, that meant it would probably come down to route choice. We headed to the northwest corner of Dufferin Forest, breaking trail through deep snow for much of the way, including up and down one significant hill. Then we took off our skis and carried them (mandatory gear) up a steep slope to the advanced CP. We had made it there first, but we saw Team Supplierpipeline arrive while we were there. Then we dashed back down (being careful to stay in the same footprints so we didn't make too many paths to the CP), and retraced our steps to the spot where we had left LSN. Then we went to the other advanced CP, which involved a few kilometers on a snowmobile trail, so no trail breaking, but a few good hills. 'Bent towed me up a couple of hills on skis (which worked better than I expected, except that the tow rope was too short), but 3PinJim suggested that he stop doing so, because 3PinJim was, in his words, "done". He and I had both been sharing 'Bent's limited water because our water systems had frozen. He had also worked very hard in the early stages of the race, and might not have kept up with his nutrition. So 'Bent helped him to the finish. We skied to the edge of the escarpment and plunged down a steep gully to meet a flat 2 km trail to the finish line. 'Bent put 3PinJim on tow, and we crossed the finish line while Supplierpipeline was still standing there drinking their victory champagne. To our surprise, the Tree Huggers were in 2nd place overall of 30+ teams, coming in 5 minutes behind the team we'd predicted to win. Woo hoo!! LSN arrived in 3rd place 37 minutes later, then Milton Basement Racers (Tiny, Crash, Nosnhoj) and Salomon/Suunto (Leanimal, Phatty, STORM) crossed the finish line within a couple of minutes after them. Kudos to our friends on all three of those teams for overcoming various forms of adversity in this race and still making it to the 5-team podium. It turns out that three of the top five teams used skate skis, including 2 members of the winning team, although Salomon/Suunto mostly carried them and ran! Fun race on a sunny, snowy day. We enjoyed the innovative course design and loved the large amount of skiing, which has played a minor role in some past winter races. It was a great group of people, and it was nice to see so many friends on the podium. It was the best-ever Tree Hugger team finish in a FAR race. :-) | ||
| C • Congrats! 11 | ||
Thursday Jan 18 | ||
| XC Skiing (Skate) 25:00 [3] | |
| slept:5.0 weight:1.1kg | ||
| Well, it seems that wading waist-deep in ice-encrusted creeks isn't the best way to shake a cold. I've regressed a bit today, and I'm tired from a short night of sleep. So... I decided to skip C3 training tonight. It was a question mark anyway, since it's so close to a race. I did this short ski instead, not so much for the training value, but to remind myself about everything to do with skate-skiing, since it still doesn't come naturally, and it needs to feel more natural in Saturday's race. So I put on and took off the equipment, climbed and descended a few hills, and generally reminded myself of what it should all feel like. For some reason, BulletDog was in a wacky, energetic mood. She ran the first 500 m with a huge fireplace log in her mouth, carrying it like it was a little stick. Then whenever I was skiing downhill, she would leap at me like the bunny in The Holy Grail. Full body contact skate skiing - the race has gotta be easier than this! | ||
Wednesday Jan 17 | ||
| Running 20:00 [3] | |
| weight:1.6kg | ||
| Running with Slice to Ancaster Creek for our wintry afternoon of orienteering training. | ||
| Orienteering 2:00:00 [3] *** | |
| See Slice's log for an excellent report on our outing. It was interesting for me to see how much ice Hamilton got in Monday's storm. Palgrave's version of the storm had more snow. We ran through areas where weeds and shrubs were encased in "glass" - very pretty on a sunny day. The steep slopes around Ancaster Creek were more slippery than usual, making for a tough workout at times. I started out slowly, worried about aggravating my cold, which has taken a sudden - and welcome - turn for the better. Could it be the 1500 mg of Vitamin C I took yesterday?
Before we headed out on our respective courses, we admired Slice's fancy, expensive, windproof winter tights. Just as well that we did, since they didn't make it out alive. :-( Hopefully, some creative tailor can find a way to repair the damage from thorny bushes and barbed wire. On the first course I did, I only got to 4 controls before it was time to get back to meet Slice. I wasn't really into the map, and I spent far too much time looking around for flags that were missing. In one case, I finally found the flag on an ice-encased branch lying in the snow. As I came back toward our meeting point, I crossed Ancaster Creek in a bad place. On the way across, I'd got wet up to my ankles. This time, I stepped almost waist-deep into icy water, then crossed slowly, maneuvering across using two small, somewhat stable logs. That was one of the times when I was glad to know that someone else was in the woods who knew exactly where I'd gone! Slice and I met and decided to switch courses, and each of us found our second course went more smoothly. I did the course in reverse, visitng all controls. I'm not sure what it is about frozen feet that helped my concentration, but something definitely worked better. Unfortunately, my feet didn't thaw until after Hammer's lecture a couple of hours later - brrrrrr! Fun afternoon of training! | ||
| C • The pants 6 | ||
| Running 47:00 [2] | |
| Nice evening run with Etoile along the Bayfront Trail. We did the York St. stairs, then paused to read the plaque about Burlington Heights before jogging back down. The city lights and the night sky were beautiful, and the company was excellent. We had a surprise when a car came around the corner on our pedestrian/bike trail. They were driving slowly, so I don't think they were intentionally taking a joy ride - but disconcerting, nonetheless. | ||
| Note | |
| Step aside, Zoolander! The local paper called this morning, looking for some XC ski photos right away, so 'Bent and I did a photo shoot on the lawn before he skied to his office. "Come on, baby - work it, work it, work it!" When I mentioned to the editor that 'Bent had slept out in the back yard last night, they requested a 300-word story on the Canadian Ski Marathon to go with the photo. Now everyone in Caledon will know that my husband is crazy! (But at least I'll be getting paid for it.) | ||
| C • nice job 1 | ||
Tuesday Jan 16 | ||
| XC Skiing (Classic) 40:00 [2] | |
| I'd planned to take ThunderDog out for a short lap before doing my "real" ski, but she was in a happy, frisky mood and absolutely refused to turn back toward home at the end of Short Bruce Loop. As a 10-year-old survivor of spinal surgery, she deserves to enjoy the days when she's feeling fit, so we skied around Palgrave West together, stopping a few times so that she could make dog angels. We visited the slightly controversial control C from the Tree Hugger race, and ruled in favour of Leanimal, Hansel et al. Beautiful, sunny day with some new snow. I love winter!! :-)) | ||
| XC Skiing (Skate) 40:00 [4] | |
| My winter AR teammates, ThreePinJim and 'Bent, are keen on skate-skiing in this weekend's race. I've been less keen because I've got many more years of classic skiing under my belt, and I haven't been able to ski at all this winter until yesterday. I thought I'd better rectify the situation, because I think I'm gonna lose this battle. After all, we're going to need some kind of secret weapon (other than ThreePinJim, of course) to challenge Team Salomon/Suunto and the Milton Basement Racers, both of whom clobbered us last year.
So I headed into the woods on my skate skis. It went reasonably well, except where it was flat or uphill or downhill. No, just kidding - the downhill parts were fine. Man, compared to now, I must have been in such good shape last Feb/March when we were doing so much skate skiing! There are muscles I'd totally forgotten about, like the ones on the front of my shin. This workout could have been level 5 intensity, but I ruined it by stopping and panting halfway up a few hills. One thing I learned is that it can be dangerous to skate ski on ungroomed trails. Twice I caught a ski in some debris and got flung onto my face, trying hard to land in a way that didn't twist my knee. The good news is that some of my technique is still there, although I sure could use another session with Coach Barbie! | ||
| C • Three Pin? 3 | ||
| Strength (Legs) 19:00 [1] | |
| JTor was right - I've been taking my healthy knee for granted and ignoring the leg strength routine that helped to make it healthy. So I watched part of the Daily Show, where Jon Stewart demonstrated how he planned to come on to Condoleezza Rice, the thought being that someone with a child would be less likely to favour sending 20,000+ new troops to Iraq. | ||
| C • Lazy writers 4 | ||
| Note | |
| The bad news is, I'm coming down with a sore throat and cold. We'll have to see if extra vitamin C can do the trick. Otherwise, it'll be a tough race on Saturday. | ||
Monday Jan 15 | ||
| XC Skiing (WOO HOO!!) 1:18:00 [3] | |
| Winter is here, and let's hope it stays awhile this time! Today's storm mixed snow with ice pellets and was severe enough to close McMaster, which meant that my O training session with Slice was postponed yet again. However... it was an awesome winter wonderland in the forest around here. :-)) I used my rock classic skis, but there was enough base in most places that good skis would probably have been fine. I skied all around the THI race course and beyond, into Koturbash Woods. Here and there, I came across Crash's ski tracks. That girl is practising her skate skiing before this weekend's race! Hmmm, it's always interesting to check out the competition. The Milton Basement Racers beat us last year, so we're looking for hints on their game plan. ;-)
I've been thinking that we should stick with classic for this race, since we're relatively new to skate skiing, and it's been 10 months since we've tried it. But today, I found myself spontaneously skate skiing whenever I could, even in my crappy old skis. Those muscles are definitely not in shape, and it really took the heart rate up, but I was able to do it. So I guess we'll take both kinds of skis and make our final decision after the race course has been unveiled. | ||
| Note | |
| You'd think that after 10.5 years, we would know all ThunderDog's tricks, but she manages to outsmart us on a regular basis. I'd done all the usual stuff to prepare to leave her alone in the house for an hour while I skied - cleared all food away from counters and tables, closed the kitchen garbage can with velcro and turned it toward the wall, etc. But silly me, I'd forgotten the big garbage bag under the kitchen table full of party trash. Well, unfortunately she hadn't forgotten... | ||
| Strength (Core) 40:00 [2] | |
| I'm not supposed to be home on Monday nights this semester, but today's snowstorm provided a chance to do Hard Core Monday. 'Bent was not amused, as he was planning to skip it after doing Half-Hard Core Thursday (only 20-odd minutes long) last week. I successfully embarrassed him into joining me. | ||
| C • Climate interest or hard core disinterest? 2 | ||
Sunday Jan 14 | ||
| Yoga 35:00 [1] | |
| I did part of Rodney Yee's "Slow Burn" yoga DVD, which I'd borrowed from a friend. It was quite relaxing, but not compatible with my desire to be a slug today, so I stopped partway through. I'd like to try Leanimal's "Rodney Yee Power Yoga", since he has good form, and the DVD is well-produced. However, the "Slow Burn" routine was so easy and slow-moving that it didn't hold my attention well. | ||
| Note | |
| This wouldn't be news in most households, but 'Bent and I looked at a video on YouTube today, right in the comfort of our own living room!!! Yes, we now have rural "sort of high-speed" Internet here, and it's like coming out of the dark ages for me. At last I can follow Spike's blog, look at the Primal Quest videos and see what Route Gadget is all about - not to mention downloading some tunes for my cute new iPod Shuffle. Woo hoooooo!!!!! :-) | ||
| C • welcome 3 | ||
| Note | |
| Yay, my iPod is working now, and I've bought my first 5 songs. :-) | ||
| C • Psssst...Torrents... 3 | ||
Saturday Jan 13 | ||
| Running (Woods) 55:00 [2] *** | |
| slept:6.0 weight:1.8kg | ||
| Final vetting of the Tree Hugger Invitational race course. Much relief to discover that all 26 flags were still there after yesterday's course test. Temperature dropped below freezing, so the goopy mud was mostly gone. On the flip side, my feet got icy cold in the wet areas! | ||
| Note | |
| 3rd Tree Hugger Invitational Race and Party.
'Bent and I are truly fortunate to know so many fun, interesting, talented and generous people. Everyone contributed to the event in some way, whether by donating prizes, making an appetizer, presenting a slide show, compiling race results, holding a baby, moving furniture, taking photos... the list goes on and on. We had an amazing list of 11 event sponsors, and almost all of them approached me without my asking. We even had an inflatable finish line brought by the ECCO-ESAR folks! There were 46 race participants this year, up from 36 last year. Overall winner was Eugene, with Leanimal, Hansel and Zoolander finishing close together in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place respectively. I am SO proud of Leanimal for coming so close to winning the whole event overall in a field that included some top adventure athletes, male and female. Everyone did well though. Most of the orienteering was of moderate difficulty, and it definitely took a lot of skill and fitness to complete the entire course in 90 minutes. Racers had to answer a question at each control, and these questions covered a wide range of topics. The question that most people got wrong concerned the order of the planets from the sun - and I even agreed to accept two different planet names because the wording of the question was ambiguous. It was interesting that a number of native Canadians had never noticed the word "érable" on their maple syrup bottles. The most fun answer to read was the one where people had to write a sentence using "PINES" as a verb. 'Bent and I had a great time today, although we were mostly too busy to chat for long with anyone until the end of the night, when just a few folks were left. We had a total of 60 adults and 17 kids, most of whom stayed for dinner and the slide show, so it was cozy in our living room! Great presentations by Hammer, Slice, BobTheNavigator and some non-APers, including a wonderful little girl who presented a Powerpoint on her first adventure race last spring at age 9. Teamed with her Dad, she finished 7th of 32 Coed teams in Storm The Trent, and she's eager to race again this year. We raised over $850 for our two charitable causes, both of which mean a lot to us personally because they involve good friends from the AR community: - AndyCam is cycling across Africa in the Tour d'Afrique and raising money to buy bikes for native healthcare professionals. - Tree Huggers Gazelle and Gazette have moved to Tajikistan (boo hoo!) where they are working through a charity to run an adventure travel company and bring money into the very poor local economy. Great to have so many people here, and fun to hear their stories from the 2006 AR season. Now the countdown begins... The 2007 AR season starts in less than 5 days. | ||
| C • Thanks 5 | ||
Friday Jan 12 | ||
| Running (Woods, 2 hrs 30 min) 1:15:00 [2] *** | |
| 'Bent and I went out to vet the Tree Hugger race course. We divided the controls between us and carried 2-way radios so that 'Bent could alert me if I needed to re-hang any controls. As it turns out, 5 flags were missing today - arggghhh! This is really strange - I wonder if I ended up with defective flagging tape. There was no overlap between these 5 flags and the 4 flags that were missing 18 hours after I first hung them, and you'd kind of expect that if a human was doing it. Also, we still had 3 of the 4 flags that are visible from the road, and you'd expect someone to rip those down if they were so inclined. We had some wind damage to our garden shed yesterday, so maybe it was enough to tear down all that flagging tape. Weird that I haven't found little pieces of shredded pink stuff anywhere in the woods though. Looks like we'll have to vet the course for a 3rd time tomorrow morning, shortly before the racers arrive. In past years, I've never lost a single flag. Strange... | ||
| C • Hooves? 3 | ||
Thursday Jan 11 | ||
| Running 1:00:00 [3] | |
| slept:5.0 weight:2kg | ||
| Thursday training with the C3 gang started with an hour of coached running, where I got to test my brand new road running shoes. These were the ones that a talented fellow sold to me by saying, "I hesitate to ask you to try these on, because this is more shoe than you need when you do so little road running. The price point is a bit higher because of the extra technology." Technology!! He thinks I don't want Technology?!? Phatty, Leanimal and I all agreed that it was an awesome sales pitch, and sure enough, after testing all the shoes, I bought the Pricier Shoes With Technology. Also, they were the only ones that came in blue. :-)
There was a good turnout of Tree Huggers. As expected, 'Bent and Luscious came to their first session, and there was a surprise appearance by Hingo, who was celebrating his, um, 29th birthday today. We did hill intervals at 75% effort for half an hour. 'Bent was looking speedy out there, and thus attracted some "running style" critique from Barrie Shepley, who has coached at the Olympics. Useful stuff. Tonight we were all supposed to exaggerate our arms, since most runners don't use them enough. | ||
| C • C3? 10 | ||
| Strength 25:00 [2] | |
| Caron Shepley's Hard Core Conditioning class - mercifully shorter than the DVD. | ||
| C • DVD 13 | ||
| Yoga 55:00 [1] | |
| Power Yoga class. I think different body parts will be fatigued this week. We decided to sign up for 4 months of Thursday Night Training, plus we bought 15-month C3 memberships as well. | ||
| C • Something missing? 2 | ||
Wednesday Jan 10 | ||
| Running 45:00 [2] *** | |
| weight:1.8kg | ||
| After 'Bent vetted the Tree Hugger race course and failed to find 4 flags, I went out for an unplanned run to see if he had been in all the right places. We have 6 cm of snow, so I could see his frustrated footprints circling the area around every missing control location, and I also recognized the branches where I'd tied the flagging tape.
Very strange to lose so many flags just a few hours after putting up the course. I don't think I've lost any around here before, and I've often left the course up for a month or more. Three of the locations were places where I doubt anyone would have gone except for 'Bent and me, so unless someone was following my footprints in the snow (creepy!), I'm hoping that yesterday's wind ripped them away. All the same, we're going to need to vet the course once or twice more before Saturday afternoon, just because this is so weird. | ||
| Running (Road) 45:00 [1] | |
| Etoile, AdventureGirl! and I had a nice evening run down to the Bayfront Trail, with some interesting diversions like running form exercises, random speed and hill intervals, running with AG! riding me piggyback, and a mini-Pyramid of P&P on the York St. (?) stairs. We decided to avoid injury by going all the way up once and all the way down once, then we called it a day. | ||
Tuesday Jan 9 | ||
| Orienteering (3.5 hrs) 2:30:00 [1] *** | |
| weight:1.8kg | ||
| I put out all the flags in Palgrave West for the Tree Hugger party race. In a rare moment of mercy, I changed the course to avoid a large sector with heavy burrs. There are 2 controls where it's impossible to avoid getting ice water up to your ankles, so I will mention that in the instructions, and the people who want dry feet can skip them. (It's a Score-O, sort of.)
This year's race includes more skill testing questions than the races in past years, although we are using two nice new orienteering maps, so good navigation will be important as well. I know some racers will be reading this for clues, so be sure to brush up on your arithmetic, French, literature, astronomy, geology, biology and geography, just to name a few. Oh, and there are lots and lots of controls, heh heh. This sure was a nice way to spend a snowy afternoon... | ||
| C • Arithmetiks 15 | ||
| Orienteering 10:00 [1] *** | |
| Went out into the cold, dark night (are the violins playing yet?) to put up 3 more controls, including one with an Anatomy question to make Leanimal happy. | ||
Monday Jan 8 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Today's plan was to hang all the flags for the Tree Hugger race, but with 60 kph wind gusts ripping the screen door out of my hands, there was no way I was going out into the woods. We always see trees and branches down after weather like this, and sometimes big hunks of wood crash down much too close for comfort, even on moderately windy days. Setting the Tree Hugger race course is going to take me into some very quiet corners of Palgrave West, and it might take awhile for even 'Bent and Crash to find me lying somewhere with a concussion. | ||
| C • flags 6 | ||
Sunday Jan 7 | ||
| Running warm up/down 10:00 [1] | |
| Orienteering race 50:59 [4] *** | |
| THOMASS orienteering series - Walker Woods - a fun race course by Bob Miller, and a better-than-usual turnout from the adventure racing community. The woods were mostly open and fast, with a few areas where logging debris made the footing treacherous.
It turns out that yesterday's 24 km fast trek on the heels of Thursday night's tough workout was a bit more of a warm-up than I needed. My muscles felt fatigued throughout. I pushed as hard as I could, but I can only call it Level 4 intensity because I couldn't go fast enough to raise my heart rate to its highest intensity range. In spite of that, I was in or near the lead approaching the end of the 2nd Thomass Box, thanks to my generous age/gender handicap. But then - sigh - I made a 4-5 minute parallel error when I entered an open area and left it by the wrong trail. Looking back, I don't know what I was thinking, and that's because I wasn't thinking a darned thing. It seemed easy, so I didn't bother looking too hard at the map. And then for some reason, I got it into my head that when I emerged onto the final stretch of trail, it would be one long descent to the finish control, so it was a kick in the stomach to see a steady final ascent before the downhill section. I guess you could say I ran up that last hill, but it sure felt like slow-mo. Top woman today and 8th overall. 'Bent finished just ahead in 7th place, but he'd visited one more control than he needed to, so he could have done even better. He denies it, but he's becoming much stronger at orienteering. Great job by Leanimal in her 1st Thomass race, placing 4th overall - and she could have won it if we'd known that she could have taken an extra handicap point because it's her 1st season! | ||
| Note | |
| Phatty, Leanimal and 'Bent waited patiently as I completed some retail therapy at Running Free. In keeping with my goal of running some road races, I'd decided to buy road running shoes. This meant that my feet and running style needed to be analyzed with and without shoes. I'd never had that done before, so it was interesting to learn that I have a neutral running form, which is apparently a good thing. So now I just have to figure out how to make it a faster neutral running form!
| ||
| C • Luck 2 | ||
| Orienteering (1 hr 42 min) 1:10:00 [1] *** | |
| Checking control locations for the Tree Hugger race. At dusk, I was horrified to discover a huge amount of garbage dumped in thick forest in Palgrave West, not far from Crash's place. There was also a jacket lying there beside some plastic beer glasses. At first, it looked like a person was sleeping there, and I wondered if I'd stumbled onto a homeless person's campsite. On second glance, it looked like a body was wrapped in dark plastic, then I realized that it was just an oversized garbage bag with an unfortunate shape. Throughout all of this, I was mentally calculating the fastest route to Crash's house - eek. | ||
| C • garbage 2 | ||
Saturday Jan 6 | ||
| Trekking long 4:00:00 [2] 24 km (10:00 / km) | |
| Leanimal, Phatty and STORM of Team Salomon/Suunto invited us to join them for a long training trek this afternoon, so 'Bent, BulletDog and I got some great exercise today. These top adventure racers are all young, fit and long-legged, so I found myself breaking into a light jog from time to time to keep up, and breathing hard on some of the hills. 'Bent had no trouble, and BulletDog ran big circles around us all. (It's her 4th birthday tomorrow, so this hike was part of her celebration.)
We walked from our place to the north end of Glen Haffy Conservation Area, stopping just before Hwy 9, then doing a figure 8 loop within Glen Haffy before returning home on the Bruce Trail Side Trail. This was half the length of last weekend's trek, but I think it probably produced more training benefit, since it didn't push my body so close to the limit. I worked hard, but I'm planning to run an orienteering race tomorrow morning, which I couldn't have done after our 50 km trek. We've got another couple of loops picked out for the future. Hockley Valley will be great when we're ready to push hard on big hills. We were happy to learn today that Storm The Trent is happening this year, since we hadn't seen anything on the web site. Unfortunately, the FAR spring Adventure Challenge has been scheduled for the weekend before Storm's traditional weekend, then ESAR is two weeks later. So once again, we'll have a feast of AR in May, followed by a long famine. | ||
Friday Jan 5 | ||
| Orienteering 1:00:00 [1] *** | |
| weight:2.7kg | ||
| BulletDog and I checked a few control locations for next weekend's Tree Hugger party race. The winner is going to have very wet feet and a lot of burrs to remove. I'm not sure I can be as mean as that, so I may change the design to avoid the area with the nastiest vegetation. Avoiding wet feet will be impossible, unfortunately - at least for the more competitive racers.
We started too late and ended up returning home in the dark. Wisely, I'd taken a headlamp. Foolishly, I'd taken a dark brown dog. But we both made it back somehow, and it only took an hour in front of the TV to remove the burrs from everything I was wearing. | ||
| Note | |
| After last night's C3 workout, I had a pleasantly fatigued feeling in my muscles today, especially around my hips where we did major stretching in the yoga class. There wasn't any feeling of sore muscles at all. Interesting that I haven't felt like this very often. Usually if I feel anything the day after tough exercise, it's pain! I guess everything was well controlled, and we stretched out our muscles as we went along to avoid the damage that causes soreness. It wouldn't have been a good day for running though - I'll have to remember that when I'm preparing for races.
| ||
| Note | |
| Speaking of races, we're only five days into 2007, and already my racing goals need to be re-evaluated. The draft FAR schedule came out today, and the only Raid The North 36-hr adventure race in central Canada conflicts with the Canadian Orienteering Champs. Assuming that we can pull together a team, we'd choose RTN, but I'll be disappointed to miss the COCs, especially the cool Night-O race (not part of the Champs). Maybe 'Bent and I can go to Barebones instead. Lots of fun last year, and it's being held in scenic Canmore this year! | ||
| C • FAR 7 | ||
Thursday Jan 4 | ||
| Running (Road) 54:00 [4] | |
| weight:2.7kg | ||
| C3 training night coached by Barrie Shepley. Road running with moderate hill intervals for about half the time we were out. I set my new $3.50 MEC Turtle LED to "flash" and looped it onto my jacket zipper. It was interesting to watch cars steer WAY clear of me. I really should have got the red Turtle LED to warn cars coming from behind, although I'm not sure what I could attach it to. | ||
| Strength 26:00 [2] | |
| Hard Core Conditioning - a live class with the actual Caron Shepley, instead of the usual DVD. When I mentioned this to an Ironman/adventure racer friend today, he wrote back: "Caron is a whole lot of mean wrapped up in a nice, smiley little package!" I think Caron would appreciate that - I must tell her. :-) She played that evil trick again where we got to the last set, then just as we were about to collapse to the floor, she made us hold whatever uncomfortable position we were in while she started counting down again from some ridiculously high number. Very cruel, but it feels SO virtuous once the class is over. | ||
| Yoga (not counting relaxation p) 57:00 [1] | |
| Power Yoga class with Caron. Not as evil as the core class, but there were a few tough moments. When we were doing a balance pose (for a horribly long time), she mentioned that these poses improve foot strength and prevent injuries that may affect various joints in your leg. I'd never thought of yoga balance exercises as being about anything but balance, but now I'm a lot keener on them because they can be part of the solution for fixing my gimpy ankle. | ||
Wednesday Jan 3 | ||
| Running (Treadmill) 15:00 [3] | |
| weight:2.7kg | ||
| While watching the Colbert Report. Guest was Deepak Chopra, promoting his book "Life After Death". He says that anyone who is going to die should buy it. This was just supposed to be a warm-up for the trainer, but I was really in the mood to run. Too bad I got back from downtown Toronto so late in the day. A trail run would have been nice.
| ||
| C • Monday 2 | ||
| Cycling (Trainer) 28:00 [4] | |
| I tried one of 'Bent's Christmas presents - a Spinervals DVD. I liked it but found it really hard, so I only made it about 2/3 of the way through - and I was sweating buckets. 'Bent tells me that our trainer increases the resistance as you go harder, so I shouldn't have used the gear ratios suggested in the DVD because they would be too hard on our trainer. Boy, was I glad to hear THAT! I think the Spinervals workout will work well eventually - like the Hard Core Conditioning DVD, which I only finished on my 3rd try. I really feel an improvement in core strength after a year of the HC workout. I've never worked very hard to speed up my cycling, so there's nowhere to go but up!
| ||
| Note | |
| Whenever our adventure racing team, the Tree Huggers, evaluated our strengths and weaknesses, one of our top strengths was our pure joy in shopping for AR gear. (No, our athletic ability didn't make the list.) Thanks to the bad influence of some recent Attackpoint discussions (I won't name names, but YOU know who you are), today was one of those days. I bought some new running shirts that are unlike my existing shirts, in that they don't have any holes or catches or mud stains. Maybe I'll put a couple aside for non-bushwhacking purposes, so I don't look like a homeless person whenever I go out with regular runners.
My big impulse purchase was an iPod Shuffle, and I totally blame Attackpoint!! I've never run with a Walkman or any sort of music, and we've got dial-up Internet that doesn't lend itself to MP3s. But... it was just so CUTE. Other than our puppies, it may be the cutest thing I've ever bought. (Not that the puppies are "things", but they sure are cute.) I figure that an iPod will help with my 2007 goal to do more running races, although that is really just a feeble rationalization. My highest heart rate of the day occurred in the food court of the Eaton Centre when I realized that I'd dropped my wallet while taking my lunch tray to the trash bin. I probably dallied 90 seconds, sorting the garbage into appropriate recycling containers, before I realized that my wallet was gone. Instant max heart rate as I raced back and - miraculously - found it lying there untouched, surrounded by the Boxing Week crowd. Phew, my heart rate went up again now just thinking about it. I guess I could have sold the iPod to someone at a discount to pay for a cab back to Palgrave (but only barely). | ||
| Note | |
| And today it's time to set some 2007 Racing Goals...
In 2006, I started a transition away from adventure racing as my main sport. I still love AR, but there aren't as many races around here as there used to be, and most of our teammates have moved on in their busy lives. I still haven't figured out what I'm transitioning to, so it's tough to set meaningful goals. I just looked at the racing goals I set for 2006, and actually, they didn't go too badly. I wish my New Year's training resolutions had gone as well as that, but unfortunately my record was only 50/50 on them. I'll have to work harder this year! For the record, here were my 2006 racing goals: 1) Top 3 in women's category of Thomass winter orienteering series (finished 2nd) 2) Medal in Canadian Orienteering Champs (gold, silver & bronze, plus a surprise silver & bronze at the North Am Champs, with much thanks to Coach Hammer) 3) Win female division of North Am Rogaining Champs (Yup - thanks to my ringer partner, Backwoods Wallace) 4) Top 3 in age group in a 25+ km trail race (Nope, not even close!!) I hadn't set it as a goal, but I had a great time at the Hudson Highlander 25 km orienteering race near New York City, and it felt like an accomplishment just to be there on the same race course with so many well-known, extremely competent orienteers - most of whom finished a LONG time before I did! Sport Goals for 2007 (not much different from 2006, but I'm not calling them "racing goals" this time) 1) Adventure Racing - Complete at least one long multi-sport adventure race (24+ hrs) and several shorter ones. No podium goals, but it would be nice to win the female solo category in something. The most important thing in AR at this point is to have FUN, which means that 'Bent and I will probably try a variety of different events. 2) Orienteering - Medal in an event at COCs. Race F-Elite in a few A meets. Learn more about mapping. Play more Catching Features. 3) Running - Top 3 in age group in a 25+ km trail race (where there are more than 3 entrants in my category!) Do more running races - mostly on trail, but possibly a road race or two, just because they are easier to find. 4) Rogaining - Top 3 in category in two 24-hr rogaines. Continue growing the "GHO Long" Rogaining programme. 5) Do more outdoor adventures that aren't races, e.g. backpacking, canoe trips, fun training sessions. 'Bent and I used to do lots of this stuff, and we don't want to lose touch with it. | ||
| C • iPod 17 | ||
Tuesday Jan 2 | ||
| Note | |
| weight:2.7kg (rest day) | ||
| Some New Year's training resolutions:
1) Strength training - min. 1 hr/week. Continue emphasis on leg and core strength, but add back some upper body work. 2) Improve training quality. I'm not sure of all that will be involved, but I'm reading about periodization again, and I know that I will need to get serious about intervals. The main problem with planning a training program is that the local AR companies won't give us any hints as to when their events will be, so I don't have any idea when I should aim to peak. Grrrr. 3) Continue to work on technical orienteering skills. 4) 500 hrs total training in 2007 5) Improve ankle proprioception so I can stop wearing the brace. 6) Get weight down to target - and stay there! | ||
Monday Jan 1 | ||
| Trekking (80 minutes) 30:00 [1] | |
| weight:3.2kg | ||
| 'Bent and I hiked around Palgrave East and West to give ThunderDog and BulletDog a well-deserved New Year's treat. They've been very patient with us over the past few busy days. | ||
| Yoga 32:00 [1] | |
| Did most of the Power Yoga DVD, but skipped the core exercises in anticipation of our dedicated core strength session. Felt great to stretch muscles that are still a bit tight from our 50 km trek Friday night. | ||
| Strength 40:00 [2] | |
| Inspired by Valerie Meyer doing Boot Camp at 8 a.m. on New Year's Day - and ashamed that we slept in for today's 10 a.m. C3 run, 'Bent and I felt that we had to do our first Hard Core Monday of the year. Phew - it's gotten easier, but it never gets easy!
| ||
| Note | |
| I started on AP in March 2005, so I can't compare 2005 vs. 2006. Instead, I compared my first 12 months on AP (3/05 to 3/06) with the 2006 calendar year. Although there's a bit of overlap, some trends showed up in the most recent 12 months:
- Almost 50% less time spent adventure racing. This wasn't a conscious choice - it happened because fewer long races were available. Last year, the main sport I trained for was overnight and multi-day AR. Now I'm not sure *what* my main sport is supposed to be. I'd love to focus on long races, but does it make sense to train for a sport that barely exists in central Canada anymore? Sigh... - The decrease in AR time meant a decrease in overall training hours, but I still hit my goal of 500+ hrs. - Although I increased my strength training, I didn't hit my goal of 52 hrs, which was disappointing. On the bright side, 'Bent and I both feel a big improvement in core strength after doing the Hard Core Conditioning DVD most weeks. I really needed help in that department. - Lack of snow meant much less skiing and snowshoeing. Boo, hiss. - Paddling training decreased because Bill Trayling's pool paddling classes are no longer offered. Another boo, hiss! - Trekking time is unusually high because of our New Zealand trip. 2006 TRAINING (compared with 1st year on AP) Orienteering - 146.5 hrs (+13%) Adventure Racing - 93 hrs (-49%) Running - 72.5 hrs (-6%) Cycling - 54.5 hrs (+3%) Trekking - 50 hrs (+194%) Strength - 44 hrs (+38%) XC Skiing - 42 hrs (-32%) Paddling - 16 hrs (-45%) Snowshoeing - 8 hrs (-50%) Yoga - 6.5 hrs (+225%) Other - 3 hrs TOTAL - 536 hrs (-10.5%) | ||