Training Log Archive: Bash

Introducing Logan! (Attackpoint name TBD and apologies to Revy for confusing matters by choosing the same dog name.)

Logan has just arrived from northern Quebec where a kind family nursed him back to health after they found him starving and walking around on his own. The temperature there hit -52C recently so he was very, *very* lucky. The vet estimates that he is 1-2 years old. BazingaDog is excited to have a new little brother, and 'Bent and I are very happy to have a 2-dog family once again.

Coach LD invited 'Bent and me to join her for a ski on the Humber River. There are only certain times in the winter when ski conditions are good there, and today was definitely one of them! Much of the time, we were skiing on snow over ice but occasionally we were skiing on a skating rink. Our poles were only minimally helpful. Sometimes we skirted moving water with care and other times we crawled on our hands and knees under fallen trees.

We skied up to Duffy's Lane and saw the huge new Bolton bypass bridge that hasn't opened yet. Along the way, we made tracks, pruned fallen trees and stopped for photos. On the way back, we skied almost as fast as my crappy waxless touring skis could go since Coach LD had to get home for her child care. What a fantastic wilderness adventure in the middle of town! :)









We found these mystery tracks in several places along the river. They include some regular deer tracks.



Time deducted for photography and pruning.

Slowrunner workout #7 plus some faves from #6 and a little foothab.

P.S. This included a 2:10 straight-arm plank. It didn't seem easier or harder than forearms.

Old family photos, recreated - a particularly good example of this popular genre. http://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/655/Three-Brothers-R...

It was such a gorgeous night with 8 cm of fresh snow on the ground and more coming down... I confess that 'Bent and I played hooky from our yoga/core class and headed into the forest. We scrambled up and down hills, through raspberry bushes and over fallen logs as snowflakes twinkled all around us in the light from our headlamps. It is so easy to get disoriented off-trail in the dark. A few times we came out at a trail and I was totally surprised at where we'd ended up. 'Bent is much better at that than I am - although the opposite is true when we are equipped with maps and compasses.

After 25 years together, 'Bent and I are going speed dating on Friday.

We're going to meet a van load of dogs that the International Fund for Animal Welfare has rescued from a native reservation in northern Ontario. If we find love, we can bring home a foster dog to see if he/she is the new canine soulmate that our family has been looking for. Excited!

P.S. If anyone else has been thinking about rescuing a dog, our friend Jan manages the Northern Dogs Project and I could put you in touch. There will be 10 to 14 dogs coming. Dogs from this region run around town with children and other dogs so they are usually friendly mixed breeds.

Sunset run around Palgrave West. It's definitely not as icy as the famed Palgrave Glacier of a few years ago but the trails are like polished marble with patches of glare ice so I was very glad to have spikes.

@OutdoorsMama: I went down to check out the cattle that surprised me at the edge of the woods last week. I could see three sides of a fenced pasture so there is probably a 4th side out of sight beyond the hill. Some of the fencing looks new so maybe this is a recent plan to rent out the land. There is a shipping container sitting in the place where I saw a big truck wallowing around at twilight recently. It's inside with the cattle so maybe it's a portable barn? There were only a few cattle in sight - maybe 4-6.

This was my first attempt at the planking competition that has sprung up on a few AP logs lately. I've done lots of planks in the past but usually as part of something else - yoga, mountain climbers, plank rowing, etc. This was my first time trying to just hold a plank for as long as I could. I have a long way to go to catch up with Hermes!

Weights session with Slowrunner. Needed to work off some major stress.

If you'll be around the GTA on Sunday, 'Bent and I are doing the Personal Best Snowshoe Race at Albion Hills. There are snowshoe-run and snowshoe-only events. Snowshoe-run can be done as a relay with a teammate. (I would have done snowshoe-only but that option was just added this week due to popular request so I'm doing 8K snowshoe / 4K run.)

It's just going to be a fun, low key race that includes lunch. Entry fee $20 or $25, depending on the event. Come up to Caledon and see us! http://www.personalbest.ca/component/content/artic...

'Bent and I ran to the Hwy 50 parking lot of Palgrave Forest to join the C3 snowshoe workout.

Five of us headed out for a snowshoe adventure on and off trail in Palgrave Forest. I acted as the guide until we reached the north end of the park, then suggested that other people lead the group for awhile. I figured (hoped!) I would be able to keep track of where we were so we could get back. I hadn't been sure how much the others enjoyed the bushwhacking but that is almost entirely what we did after they took over! Two people said they needed to head back to their cars, and we were only 50 m from Duffy's Lane at that point so it was easy to return to the main trails.

Just past Huge Bridge, I saw a woman approaching us on the trail doing lunges. It was, of course, Slowrunner. It's nice to see a personal trainer who walks the walk, runs the walk and even lunges the walk!

We did some running so I'll log that separately since I'm tracking my running. This was mostly about exploring the woods and climbing a few hills. Fun! And chilly.

After going back to the Hwy 50 parking lot with Susan and James, I ran home. I met 'Bent and BazingaDog heading out for a supplementary run.

Mrs. BGY texted to invite me for lunch with 'Bent and Mr. BGY after their morning run. I almost said no because I'd planned to go running too, then realized that I could run to their place mostly by Bruce Side Trail. Perfect! Yummy lunch - great company. The trail was "Spikes Mandatory" with lots of frozen footprints to test balance and ankle strength.

Running-specific with weights

'Bent and I went up to Highlands Nordic for the first time this winter. So far it's been a very expensive season's pass! Conditions were pretty good. The snow and tracks were old and worn but at least the ground wasn't as hard as a rock, like it was at Hardwood Hills. Most of the trails would have been perfect for skating. The outer red trail and Woolner Loop had a lot of drifting from the gusty wind, and there were large snowy areas on the Woolner Loop where I had to imagine where the trail probably went across the field. It felt like I was on an expedition across Ellesmere Island! So there were fast and slow sections but it was all fun - so nice to be back there.

I put on my trusty Snowcross and bravely took BazingaDog on a snow and ice trail run. For once, he didn't try very hard to kill me but he stopped and rolled in a big pile of deer poop, which he *never* does. Ugh - that meant it would have to be bath time as soon as we got home. Right after that, my eyes widened when I saw a large golden brown animal through the trees in the fading light. Not a deer... not a cougar... A cow! And she had a few friends! So we turned around and went the other way. Never a dull moment around here.

Slowrunner Workout #6. 'Bent watched some of it and was super impressed. OK, I'm just making that part up.

Hard Core Live with Caron. Progressive core - this was a tough one.

Progressive yoga class, in keeping with the evening's theme.

Knobless and I went to Hardwood Hills on our way to Orillia for chiropractic appointments. It was scary-icy in a few places and I was glad to only fall once on the hard ground - on my way uphill, of course, when I jabbed my pole into my ski instead of the snow. Even with waxless skis, I didn't have much grip. It was lots of fun but they could really use some new snow. Time deducted for chatting with Coach Trayling.

Back to see Dr. Bell and the kinesiologists. Knobless came along on my recommendation and saw Leanimal's friend Dr. Brown. He liked their approach and will be going back. If you're reading this, Leanimal, (i.e. if you're not in labour yet), Courtney says hi.

Session #6 with Slowrunner

In Brantford, helping Mom with a big thank you note project.

I was asked to be a guest coach for a Personal Best snowshoe instruction day. About 60 people came out. I was to start them off with a 20 minute lesson, then they would spin off to try different things with their snowshoes.

I'd been worried about filling 20 minutes since snowshoeing is fairly intuitive. But with some googling and a little creativity, I came up with a lesson plan that included segments on "what I'm wearing from head to toe" and "what's in my pack". Then we all practised how to use cleats properly going up and down hills and while running vs. walking. There wasn't much snow but Google said I should also explain how to get up when you fall, so I did a demo.

Then different groups did a couple of trails, some of us went up the Green Monster hill a few times, we tried more running and I led some bushwhacking. Many people seemed surprised and happy to discover how easy it was to learn and what a great workout it could be. I guess I take snowshoeing for granted and can't imagine that an athletic person wouldn't have tried it before or might worry that they don't know how. (There were lots of Ironmen in the crowd.) So it was cool to see all the enthusiasm.

Lots of fun and so nice to see people planning to get outside more in winter. Caledon Hills Cycling brought a bunch of demo snowshoes, which was great.

This was the running and hill interval portion of the morning.

Short on time before going to visit Mom so just a quick circuit. Yesterday's hills were strength training too!

Event: Snowshoe Raid Adventure Run
 

DontGetLost Snowshoe Raid - Pretty River Valley Provincial Park

Always a fun event! This year it was exciting to explore a new area. I'd done some UTMB training at Pretty River because its trails have significant elevation gain by southern Ontario standards, so today we got a tough workout for that reason and also because there was deep, unconsolidated powder snow. Beautiful!

Dee, who has 10-week-old twins, kindly agreed to race above her age level on a Female Masters team once again. Although she had warned me to lower my expectations, she was still stronger than me, as expected. She is a great strategist and motivator!

Who knows if we made the ideal plan for our team but we organized our route around several "priority" groups of controls and set some time deadlines along the way that would tell us whether we needed to drop controls to move forward toward the next priority area.

The one priority group that worried me was 63-64, two moderately valuable controls half a kilometer apart. There wasn't an obvious time to visit them along our route, and because of the climb involved and the uncertainty surrounding some earlier controls, I was afraid we'd drop them if we left them for the final hour of the race. So I proposed a circuitous route where we collected them before the big climb up to 48, which was both the highest point on the Bruce Trail *and* the highest point value on the course. I'd predicted that Bob would put a control there for aesthetic reasons but he took it one step further. :)

Our route: Big climb on snowmobile trail, then 44, 45, 46. Then down to 43 to get us over toward 64-63. Whether or not this route was a good idea, it was definitely original so we got to bushwhack and break trail through 600 m of deep powder between 46 and 43. Oops. Then it was a fast Bruce Trail run and we followed tracks to 64-63.

We'd hoped to get 47 on the way up the escarpment but our plan was to hit 48 close to the 1:30 mark so we skipped it. On this long, steep climb, we were treated to the sight of Nick and Mick running past us up the hill wearing only 3 snowshoes for two guys. That's all very well on the Bruce Trail but it can't have been much fun elsewhere on the course! Of course they beat us. :)

Our next target was 1:50 for control 52 in the northwest corner of the map. We went to 50 since it was on the way but skipped 51 to get there (almost) on time. Our next target was 2:30 at the aid station so we skipped 53 to have time for our next priority group of controls - 55, 58, 57, 56, 54, which ended up being worth over a quarter of our final score.

Dee was right to be skeptical about going to 58 in the Matrix. I'd hoped that someone might have broken trail from 58 to 57 since they were both close to the same elevation but no such luck, so we climbed back up on the snowmobile trail to get to a faster packed trail. The cost of doing this was that we skipped 42 near the finish, which had the same point value for less work. It was a risk with a chance of reward if we'd had time for both 58 and 42 but in the end, it just gave us some extra distance and climb.

It was nice to see 'Bent managing the aid station at 54 but we arrived a few minutes behind schedule so we had to boogie down the road. Dee helpfully pushed my back and after a long run, we went for the higher value 41 and skipped 42. We finished with over 3 minutes to spare; it might have been possible to get 42 but that would have made the finish sprint super stressful, possibly with a penalty.

I don't think our 520 point total was much below the maximum possible points our team could have achieved with a perfect route on this course in our current condition, so I'm happy. The winning score was 610 with lots of good teams penalized for coming in overtime. Thank you for a fun weekend, Dee!

P.S. AdventureGirl! and KatieMac won the Female category and made us proud by placing 4th overall of 110+ teams! We were 13th and top Female Masters.

Snowshoe run around Palgrave West, this time without BazingaDog, who went to work today. My pace was exactly the same without him but the adrenaline level was much lower. Packed trails, powder snow trails and bushwhacking over fallen logs - the usual mix.

Slowrunner's Workout #5, which includes more plyo and off-to-one-side weights than the previous ones.

Caron was wearing orange tonight - with long sleeves - which let us all know we could expect a tough evening. Core was shorter than usual but more relentless. Instead of a brief rest between sets of exercises, we did different variations on plank.

The theme continued into our yoga class. Tougher than usual with a focus on core strength.

'Bent is sick so both boys in our house are missing their usual exercise. Against my better judgement, I took 'Bent's advice to try snowshoe running with BazingaDog on the skijoring harness attached to me by an elasticized cable and a waist belt.



"It will be great," he said. "BazingaDog doesn't pull hard like he used to," he said. "You won't be slammed onto your face, dragged through the forest and hideously maimed," he said.

Well, some of that was true. The first kilometer was terrifying as BazingaDog seemed to smell a deer every 100 meters and would take off like a horse in a Roman chariot race while I grabbed the elastic cable, leaned back like a waterskier and yelled, which for some reason failed to calm him down. It was great practice for being towed by Dee at the Snowshoe Raid, haha.

I just about pulled the plug after 5 minutes but it was already sunset and I wanted to get in a snowshoe run with some bushwhacking. BazingaDog got tired and started making excuses to sniff a bunch of trees along the way. In between, he ran at a more reasonable pace, sometimes pulling a little and sometimes leaving some slack. By the end, we liked each other again. Around the house tonight, he was clearly favouring me over 'Bent so I felt very honoured.

I'm not sure what 2015 holds but family commitments may dictate that training needs to take a back seat again. So here are my goals for the year - with an asterisk.

Year End Review, Part 3 - 2015 Training Goals

1) Races
- Finish Birkebeiner (54K classic ski), Eiger Ultra Trail (101K mountain run) and my first 100+ mile trail run, as yet undecided.

2) Health
- Average 7 hrs sleep daily.
- More protein in diet. Nothing crazy but I need to work harder to get the recommended intake, given that my chef 'Bent doesn't eat meat.

3) Targets
- 220 hrs of running (not including orienteering, which is usually running too)
- 80 hrs of strength training, physio exercises and yoga
- 550 hrs of total training (about 1.5 hrs/week more than 2014, which was my lowest training volume in 5 years, partly because there were no multi-day AR events to boost the total)

4) Strategies
- Multi-sport endurance training, racing and random adventures with friends
- Running-specific strength training including weights & body weight exercises, plyometrics, yoga, physio

5) Fergawd's sake, write the UTMB and World Rogaining Champs Race Reports already!

Session #5 with Slowrunner after a month off.

A surprise visit from Knobless made me change my afternoon plans to take him on a chatty ski tour of Palgrave West, which was in great shape after a few more cms of snow. We did some bushwhacking and met a fit older gentleman, Ernie - Jeff's Dad and owner of a property on Humber Station Road backing onto the former Russells' place, now owned by the Metcalfes. (I'm writing this down in case we meet again.) We ran into him again while we were ski-bushwhacking and he wanted to be sure we knew how to get back to civilization. Given what he was doing today, I'm amazed that I haven't run into him before. I've almost never met anyone off-trail in Palgrave West. (Time deducted for neighbourly conversations.)

Monday night ski training with Coach LD. Our original plan for these sessions had been to use some of her techniques for ski training without snow - but fortunately, we don't have that problem anymore. We did a different tour of Palgrave West with some slow, challenging bushwhacking in the dark - but I knew Coach LD could handle it. After exploring the woods for awhile, we came out to the trails and appreciated them very much.

We went down to the Wheelwright hockey pond where Coach LD got me doing some good legs-only drills, then I was allowed to add poles without over-using them. We had a fun ski in fluffy snow on a very dark evening with a few face plants due to skis getting caught under logs or branches in the darkness. We also did some steep hill climbs for extra workout points. In between the bushwhacks, face plants and steep hills, we kept up a good pace so I am tired now!

'Bent, BazingaDog and I bushwhacked on snowshoes through private property near our place. There isn't a ton of snow but there was enough, and it was wonderful to be out. (GPS track included in the snowshoe running track.)

After BazingaDog and 'Bent (sick with a cold) turned back, I continued around Palgrave West, mostly running although I did some slower bushwhacking. I guess this is most of my training for the DontGetLost Snowshoe Raid. Sorry, Dee.

Slowrunner's workout #4 plus some extras.

Ski around Palgrave West in a snow squall - slow in the fresh snow but beautiful.

Quick version of Slowrunner's Workout #4.

Year End Review Part 2 - Report Card on 2014 Goals

1) Finish UTMB. - NOPE. Heck, I haven't even finished my UTMB race report.

2) Be Healthy.
- Resolve foot injury - YUP
- Lose 8.5 lb between Jan. 1 and March 31. - YUP
- Average 7 hrs sleep daily but aim for 7.5+ hours. - NOPE (6.5 - but I tried, which is pathetic)
- Be mindful of diet and hydration - MEH, sort of, sometimes.

3) Targets
- 200 hrs of running - build up gradually post-injury, do warm-ups, drills, intervals, hills, etc. - YUP
- 90 hrs of strength training, physio (logged @50%) and yoga - NOPE but this was a very ambitious target, and I devoted much more time to this than in previous years (66 hrs).
- 500 hrs of total training - NOPE, I was 30 hrs short but with Dad's and Mocha's illnesses, there were more important things to do.

I guess I'd have to call that a failed report card with a few bright spots, especially the improvement in my foot due to physio, treatments and time. Mostly though, 2014 was a year when I had to keep reminding myself that life is awesome - because it *is* awesome but it didn't always feel that way.

Another chilly ski around Palgrave West. I skied on ungroomed trails and did some bushwhacking on a thin layer of snow over hard crust, moving a little faster today with waxable touring rock skis. Double poling was still a lot of work though. Maybe I should wait for real tracks and racing skis and just use our weight machine for double poling practice in the meantime. There was no sign of the cougar two people reported in Palgrave during Christmas week. I was not terribly disappointed about that.

This would have been Mocha's (BulletDog's) 12th birthday. So sorry we didn't get to celebrate it together. In recent years, the three of us (two dogs and I) would have steak on her birthday but that will have to wait until BazingaDog's big day in March.

To celebrate, I submitted an application to adopt from Lab Rescue - not for a specific dog, just getting us into the system. We were approved for the next stage, a 20-minute phone interview tomorrow. I used our friend Jan as a reference since she works in dog rescue for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. It turns out she is expecting some stray Labs from a northern Ontario reservation soon, and she is keen to find us a new family member too. BazingaDog has been lonely; we're looking forward to filling the sad vacancy in our two-dog family.

Not the *worst* thing one's spouse could say on his way out the door but it's right up there:
"Oh, by the way... I may have let a vole into the house this morning. See you tonight!"

Easy ski around Palgrave West. Hunting season ended on New Year's Eve so we no longer need bright colours for K-Bash Forest or Wheelie Woods. The snow was sufficient to ski but not enough to feel comfortable on steep downhills - about 5 cm of powder over a hard, crusty base.

I did some legs-only then was surprised when my waxless touring rock skis refused to move when I tried to double pole on the flats. I know they're slow but apparently their glide is non-existent. At -17C + wind chill, I shouldn't have grabbed waxless skis anyway so it served me right. So nice to be out in the woods. Time includes branch snapping and log wrestling to clear the trails.

Based on Slowrunner's Workout #3. I'm working my way back up before starting sessions with her next week again. I added a bunch of Russian Twists in honour of Willderness and DD11.

Year End Review, Part 1:
2014 Training Hours by Activity

Top activities (with 2013, 2012, 2011 totals in brackets):

1) Running + Snowshoe Running - 204.5 hrs (153, 190, 138.5)
2) Strength + Yoga - 65.5 hrs (52, 36, 30)
3) Orienteering + Snowshoe Orienteering - 57.5 hrs (55, 66.5, 73.5)
4) XC Skiing (Classic, Skate, Roller) - 38 hrs (45.5, 55, 28)
4) Trekking - 38 hrs
6) Mountain Biking + Road Biking - 34.5 hrs (60, 77.5, 89)

Total Annual Training Hours = 470 hrs (557, 505, 612)

2014 involved more running and strength training and less of everything else. As the year began, I was recovering from injury so I had to build up my running from scratch, which meant less time for things like paddling and biking.

My only adventure race was in the winter but I still think of myself as an adventure racer who dabbles in other sports. However, I need to get back to doing actual adventure racing!

In the past couple of months, I was focused on family issues so training took a back seat, as it should. 2014 was not a great year for training - nor for much of anything, really.

Truncated run with poles on uneven, frozen-hard snow.

Then I got a text from Crash and diverted to her place just 2 minutes away. She had some wonderful surprises for me so we enjoyed a nice hike 'n' chat as we brought them to our house with SkyeRocket proudly leading the way. It was *cold* but tomorrow will be colder.

My husband is famous now.
http://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_921/per...

Came home to Palgrave this afternoon. Brain and heart are fried. Did Slowrunner's workout #2 with higher weights plus some extra exercises. I need to get moving again to de-stress.

Subdivision and school yard run with BazingaDog, who was not on his best behaviour, and 'Bent. Short and slushy.

Our family made it through a very tough day. All went as well as it could have, except for the hairy driving weather for out-of-towners. So glad I spoke.

We had an unexpected and wonderful experience tonight when we googled "homeless shelter Brantford" then drove there with leftover sandwiches, veggies and cheese from the reception. They took us on a tour that gave us ideas for other types of help they could use. Dad would have been pleased.

So touched that AP friends came to Brantford today. Thank you.

6th Annual Waterfalls of Hamilton Run in the Dundas Valley followed by yummy lunch and awesome company at Trav and Baloney's place. No snow or ice on the trails this year - kinda strange for January but great for running. I was with Charlotte V, Chris and one of their friends whose name has unfortunately exited my brain. Char wanted to learn how to navigate so we did a little work on that.

Baloney blew my mind when she told me that she is also a sod grower's daughter. Our fathers probably knew each other - and definitely knew *of* each other. Very cool that I could know someone for 12 years and just find this out now. I need to talk more to my friends.