Sunday Feb 10 |
 | Snowshoeing 30:00 [1] | |
| slept:2.5 |
| Thomass Glen Haffy - a fun, scenic and interesting course designed by Leanimal. It became more challenging than expected at the last minute after a huge dump of snow on Wednesday night followed by more snow on Saturday. It was a long, strenuous race, but most people came out smiling because mucking around in deep snow brings out the child in all of us.
Some racers used snowshoes, and it seemed like most people I talked with were happy with their decision to either use them or not use them. When I hung the flags on Friday, I used snowshoes, and I wouldn't have done it any other way. But I was breaking trail 100% of the time, which wasn't true for all the racers. As it turned out, half of the top six finishers wore snowshoes and the other half didn't.
Absolutely fantastic post-race buffet put on by Rocky, Scooby, Mrs. Scooby and Crash. Yummy chili, hot chocolate and brownies warmed everyone up - and they were hungry after such a long race! We normally get bottled water and bagged cookies after an orienteering race, so this was amazing. Thanks also to Phatty for the awesome prizes from Salomon. I got a jar of jam for winning the Canadian Orienteering Championship a couple of years ago, but yesterday's Thomass podium winners got a fleece jacket or hydration backpack. We're lucky to have some great members in this new club!
Because of system and OOA-related issues, the Race Director was unable to get a planned e-mail out to participants letting them know about the snow depth, including a suggestion that they consider using snowshoes, and also telling them about the extended race time, which would have enabled them to plan food, drink and clothing better. Thanks to everyone for being good sports about it and giving your best effort on a textbook Canadian winter day! |
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| Sid was an honorary Caledon Navigator for the day, helping us with SI and picking up controls.
We also ran into Slowrunner and her friends heading out for a snowshoe.
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Saturday Feb 9 |
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| Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure sounds really cool this year! Well, except for the stupid inline skating. |
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| C • Wow that does sound awesome. 20 |
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| Attended Aaron Hoag & Kelly Cadeau's winter wedding today. Outdoor skating party in gently falling snow, then a very nice ceremony and reception at a lovely inn afterward. Congrats! |
Friday Feb 8 |
| Snowshoe Orienteering 5:28:00 [2] *** | |
| weight:2kg |
| Back to Glen Haffy on snowshoes to hang flags and SI units for the Thomass race. There were a couple of controls that we hadn't flagged yet, so this involved a little more thinking than expected, but I'll still call it snowshoeing instead of orienteering just to even things out for the week.
WOW, we have a LOT of snow! We will be sending out an e-mail recommending the use of snowshoes for those who have them. It's going to be a very physical race, but Leanimal has definitely designed a fun and scenic course.
After doing long winter orienteering outings on 4 of the past 6 days, I've noticed a couple of things:
1) I hate to say it, but you get immune to the endorphins after awhile. I was euphoric testing the Snowshoe Raid course on Sunday. By today, faced with the task of flagging more than 20 controls, I just felt tired. It was still fun, but it was also work. I was sick for much of January, so I need to build up my endurance again. Also, my mind was dwelling on the unpaid bills, the wedding gift that needs to be wrapped, the house cleaning for the weekend guest, etc. I'm ready for a rest!
2) On the other hand, snowshoeing is awesome long, slow distance training. When I weighed myself this morning, it was the lowest number I'd seen in over 4 months. Yessss!!!
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Thursday Feb 7 |
| Snowshoe Orienteering 1:30:00 [2] *** | |
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| Back to Glen Haffy with Leanimal to visit the Thomass control locations that we missed yesterday. Everything takes soooo much longer in this deep snow. We used snowshoes today, and I think we'll recommend that Thomass racers might want to do the same. It was *fantastic* to be out in the woods today. I spent half an hour taking snow 'n' sunshine photos with my polarizing filter this morning - nice! |
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| Strength (Core) 17:00 [2] | |
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| Hard Core Live with Caron. A little less time logged tonight because we did one exercise with a partner where we took turns undergoing the torture. |
| Yoga 47:00 [1] | |
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| Power Yoga class - a few tough poses tonight involving staying on our toes for a long time or holding the plank position and its variations. |
Wednesday Feb 6 |
| Orienteering 3:13:00 [2] *** | |
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| Leanimal and I went out to hang ribbons for Thomass, and the snow was a *lot* deeper than we expected. Snowshoes would have helped, I think, since we didn't spend much time on trails and we plunged into the crusty snow above our knees a bunch of times. It was fun finding the control locations and laughing (bwaaahahahaha!!) at how hard she and Slice are making the M-Elite racers work this time. We didn't get it quite finished, so we'll need to play in the snow some more this week. |
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| C • More Snow by Sunday!! 3 |
Tuesday Feb 5 |
| Running hills (Road) 22:00 [4] | |
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| With the trails too slushy to make anything much fun out there, Leanimal and I decided to have a TLT hill interval workout in Bolton. We followed a similar format to the C3 running workouts, including a couple of minutes of geeky-looking running drills at the base of the hill after our warm-up run. (Luckily no one drove by.) We did 6 runs up and down between the stop signs on the Deer Valley hill with about 25-30 seconds walking in between. Although I got tired as we went on, it felt strangely like the 5th and 6th intervals were the easiest in a mechanical sense. Hmmm... apparently if your body knows what it feels like to run up a hill, it starts to get better at it. Who knew?
I liked the fact that Leanimal could work out at the same intensity as me without my slower pace holding her back. This was probably intensity level 4.5 for me, but I guess I'll keep it at 4, since that's what I was aiming for. It wasn't fun in the way that running through the Humber Valley scenery is, but we were glad to be doing something that we need to do! |
| Running (Road) 38:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up and cooldown around the roads of B-Town. |
Monday Feb 4 |
| Strength (Core) 40:00 [2] | |
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| Hard Core Monday with 'Bent - or as Valerie would say... THE DVD. |
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| 4-week post-surgical check-up for BulletDog, and the doc thinks she is looking good. Still no running or jumping allowed (in theory), but she has been promoted to climbing stairs on leash. This is a BIG deal because it means we can move back upstairs to sleep in our bedroom. (She would have barked and cried piteously if we'd caged her downstairs while we went upstairs, so we've been sleeping in the main floor guest room where she can keep an eye on us.) Yahoo, one more step toward normality. |