Sunday Jul 20 |
 | Note | |
| |
| Vacation over... All of us hiked / portaged out to the river today, since the wind was blowing pretty hard on the lake.
 |
Saturday Jul 19 |
| Paddling (Kayak) 43:00 [3] | |
| |
| Paddled north from the cottage along the shore of The Pinery Park on a beautiful day. The beach was busy! I used a sit-upon kayak that was designed to turn very easily, which made this a better workout than I'd anticipated.
But mostly, it was a day for hard core cottaging...
 |
Friday Jul 18 |
| Paddling (Canoe) 20:00 [2] | |
| |
| 'Bent, ThunderDog, BulletDog and I paddled out from the Ausable River and along the shore of Lake Huron to reach Goose and Coach LD's cottage. The dogs were as helpful on the water as they usually are. |
| Trekking (Bushwhacking & Trail) 1:00:00 [1] | |
| |
| (Elapsed time > 2 hrs) Led competently by two intrepid pre-teen girls with compasses and map, Goose, 'Bent, BulletDog and I ventured into The Pinery park. Beautiful Carolinian forest, huge sand dunes and some tough scrambling through blowdown areas. (I shouldn't have worn shorts - ouch!) Totally different from our forest around here, and it's a great workout to climb up steep hills made of sand!
 |
| Note | |
| |
| Sunset over Lake Huron.
 |
Thursday Jul 17 |
| Cycling (Trail) 45:00 [2] 10.2 km (4:25 / km) | |
| |
| Still hot, but Rocky and I talked yesterday about athletes who inspire us by carrying on in spite of disabilities - paraplegic skiers, blind runners and even a paddler with one arm. After that, it seemed ridiculously wimpy to avoid training because of the humidity.
I rode around Palgrave East and West to survey the carnage, i.e. the many trail closures over the past 10 days. Arggghh. |
Wednesday Jul 16 |
| Note | |
| |
| Slowrunner and Rocky had shared their training plan for the week, and we were invited to join them for any of it. My motivation is so pathetic in the hot weather that the only day I chose was the one where the planned activity was "shop at MEC". The long drive to and from Toronto went by quickly with Rocky's excellent company, and we were both able to cross some important items off our list as we prepare for upcoming races.
The Coast Raid requires "drysuit or wetsuit with dry top" due to the 4C ocean around Labrador, which apparently has the highest whale population in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Maybe the whales will be curious about why we're using (sigh) inflatable kayaks. 'Bent and I had a whale pass right under our double kayak once, and he touched it with his paddle - boy, does *that* wake you up!!
So, out of curiosity, I spent 40 minutes trying on different types of clothing from the watersports department. If you buy a drysuit, you can cut down the latex neck gasket to make it wider, but you can't do that when you're trying one on. At one point, I nearly blacked out from the neck squeeze, and when it was tough to get the suit off, I imagined myself running out of the changeroom into MEC looking for Rocky in a panic - help, get me out of this thing!!!! Not sure that could work for me on Day 3 of a long race. It was several hours before I felt totally normal again. |
| |
| C • if it's any consolation.... 15 |
Tuesday Jul 15 |
| Note | |
| |
| Watch out for caterpillars. Who knew??
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM... |
| |
| C • And how about this story- not scary but worth mention 1 |
| Note | |
| |
| And further scary news... climate change can hit you down THERE.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM... |