Training Log Archive: Bash

Snowshoe-O training in the sunshine with the Caledon Navigators. Lots of enthusiasm from the newbies, who were picking up the basic skills nicely. CN is turning into an interesting club. I don't think any member would say that orienteering is their primary sport, but they all love the outdoors and have a great sense of adventure. Our next activity is a 2.5 hr night snowshoe trek to a pub! :-)

This would have been longer if a certain spouse had brought all three pieces of required ski gear to Mono Nordic. If he had left his *poles* behind, he could have done some valuable "no poles" drills. But unfortunately, there's no value in doing "no boots" drills. So he went to Harmony Foods to stock up on organic food while I went for a quick ski.

At different places along the trails, two families stopped and pointed me out to their kids, "See how easily she goes up the hill, Johnny?" I actually *don't* find hills easy when I'm skate skiing - but filled with an unaccustomed sense of responsibility as an adult role model, I felt obligated to keep up my pace and avoid huffing, puffing, scowling or swearing. I even managed a little "Woo hoo!" for the kids' benefit when I got to the top.

On the paddle trainer watching a snippet of Woody Allen's "Radio Days".

Tiny, 'Bent and I went for a long ski through the Palgrave area. Conditions were fantastic, weather ranged from sunshine to light snow, and we had most of the trails to ourselves.





Here's 'Bent shredding the pow on a typical Ontario hill.



And here's Tiny swimming through neck-deep powder after executing an awesome triple back flip. ("I meant to do that.")



We went through Palgrave West and East, skirted the Reddington subdivision, then followed the rail trail to Albion Hills. We had a brief lunch break at the Chalet at their "Vegetarians Not Welcome" Cafe, then finished the Red Trail before heading home. We figured that we could have added another hour of different trails easily to make it a 5-hr ski. Not bad for a day when we didn't go anywhere! :-)

I went for a twilight snowshoe, bushwhacking through knee-deep powder up and down the big hills around our place, F&M's and the farm. The Atlas Race snowshoes aren't as good at this as my MSR Denalis, which is to be expected. I wanted to get a good feel for how they work in these conditions, since I'll be using them to run past Team Death Squid in the Snowshoe Raid. Poles would have made a huge difference, but I tried it without them this time. It's hard to use map and compass on snowshoes with poles - and I'm going to need to stay uber-focused on the map in the Raid to ensure that Hammer doesn't get lost. I'm not quite recovered enough to do any intensity yet, but I think I'm ready for strength and endurance-type workouts.

Woo hoo! For the past 2 hours, our house has been heated with geothermal energy.

Also, we're probably getting a little heat from FB, the latest adventure racer to visit our paddle trainer!

Hard Core with Caron. I think everything we did tonight was something that she'd never done with us before. It was tough in places!

Yoga tonight was a Yang session. We were almost constantly moving, alternating slowly between two different poses for 10 reps, then going on to a different pair of poses. My knee is bugging me more again. Luckily, I have an appointment with Leanimal tomorrow.

Around Palgrave West in a lovely snowstorm. My lungs are still congested, but speed would have been impossible anyway. Even on minor downhills, my legs were buried in a drift of knee-deep powder by the bottom - and that was on trail! (As an aside, Kamloops is looking at +6C this weekend, not that I'd mention any names of people who have insulted Ontario's skiing.)

I tried my new ski goggles, aka "Gallygoogles", and they worked pretty well. Corneas felt great. ;-) Didn't fog up, and the tint helps to show detail in the snow. On the down side, the tip of my nose felt chilly (I think Slice had this problem too), and it's a bit weird to see a frame around all sides of my vision - but I got used to it.

A little *too* much excitement today when an excavator arrived at the height of the snowstorm to re-excavate a crucial part of our geothermal system where pipes had accidentally been connected in reverse. If he'd hit anything while digging, it could have been a bad scene, but we were lucky. The guys shovelled the rest out by hand and switched the pipes around. If all goes well, we'll be enjoying geothermal heat by tomorrow - woo hoo! Now it's time to muddle through the paperwork for four different grants totalling $15K! :-)

Still sick, but I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel. ThunderDog and I went for a snowshoe hike. She didn't mind that I wasn't feeling well. At 12, she doesn't often get the thrill of being the lead dog anymore, but today I was happy to follow.



It was an incredible day, and we have lots of snow with 15 cm more to come. Sure glad I don't live out west!





Our solar panels generated over 7 kilowatt-hrs of electricity today - not bad for a winter day. We just passed the 6 megawatt-hr milestone this week, cumulative since we installed our first panels 3.5 years ago. That's approximately the amount of electricity we use in a year (before the geothermal system gets going, that is).

Felt rotten all day, but had lots to get done and contractors in the house for the 8th straight weekday. A major error was made, so the project will take at least two days longer. Blah.