Training Log Archive: Bash

Includes a few stops

The third annual Bolton Fall 50 originated as a birthday celebration for Coach LD. It's a multi-sport event - paddle/bike/run - that travels 50+ km through Caledon and finishes at Goose and Coach LD's place for dinner. It is a tour, not a race. If there are injuries or if people want to divide themselves into "single track/double track" or "walk/run" groups, we sometimes split up - but only temporarily.

Coach LD and Goose hosted such a terrific surprise birthday party for me in August that a mere thank you note would not suffice, so I offered to organize this year's Fall 50. We started on foot at the Innis Lake Rd. entrance to Glen Haffy Conservation Area. Coach Huet sprained her ankle last weekend so she and Mike skipped this run and joined us later at the trek/bike TA.



When we reach a particularly beautiful place in our outdoor explorations, Coach LD sometimes likes to sing "Oh Canada". And there was a gorgeous hillside in Glen Haffy that deserved it.



The hikers who arrived a minute later (who were among the very few people we saw all day) asked whether someone was about to drop a puck. We ran close to 10K along the Bruce Trail Side trail to our place, which was TA1.





Coach Huet dropped off Mike at TA1 and drove Tammy down to Bolton where the two of them would start biking north to meet us. The first half of our bike route was going to be Palgrave and Albion single track, which was too risky for Coach Huet's injury, but the second half was advertised (by me) as travelling on leaf blown double track and quiet roads. About 30K in total.



Between my ankle injury and my focus on running, it's been over a month since I rode a bike. Remind me never to do *that* again. Not only did I have to be cautious with clipping and unclipping my injured foot from the pedal (with one excruciating miscalculation), but my biking fitness and technical skills felt rusty already. Still, we couldn't have asked for a more spectacular November day to be in the woods.





They were setting up a cyclocross course at Albion Hills! Maybe next year.



We locked up our bikes at Goose and Coach LD's place, then headed up the hilly Humber Valley Trail on foot. In the excitement of managing things at the TA at our house, I'd neglected to toss my running shoes into my pack when we started biking. So on this trek, I was wearing a pair of borrowed shoes one size too small with my ankle brace wedged inside. Definitely better than 5K in bike shoes on a gimpy ankle!





It was around this point that it occurred to me that the 5:50 sunset time I'd culled from some website could not possibly have taken the clock change into account. We were supposed to have 3 hours of light left but we only had 2 hours. It was going to be tight!

When we got to the trek/paddle TA, Crash (who had just joined us for the run due to a shoulder injury) surprised us with a birthday party complete with champagne, personalized chocolate cupcakes, balloons and a linen tablecloth. It turns out that we had four November birthdays in our group - Coach LD, 'Bent, Rocky and Coach Huet - so we raised a toast to them all. Crash is a professional chef and sommelier so she does this sort of thing *really* well.



If 'Bent's smile looks a little forced, it's because we called him over to be in the photo as soon as the sparklers were lit. Unfortunately, he had just collapsed to the ground in agony with a severe leg cramp. But sparklers don't wait for anyone so he had to suck it up and get in the picture. Naturally, you can't even *see* the sparklers in the photo.





We slipped into the river for the final paddle down the Humber River to Coach LD & Goose's place. The light was already getting dim in the valley and we had about 90 minutes of paddling in a twisty, shallow river with good current and lots of obstacles to steer around and duck under.

Rob and I teamed up, as we did in the Wild Boar earlier this year. I managed to turn my feet into popsicles by getting out a few times to push us off something, but otherwise things went well. We got off the water after sunset but before dark, and everyone was still smiling. Total distance was 53.5 km so luckily, we didn't have to do anything else to achieve the required 50K.



We had hot showers and a yummy potluck dinner followed by beautiful birthday cakes, also baked by Crash.





Happy Birthday to all the November people out there! :)

Total time: 5:49
Total distance: 53.5 km
Climb: 498 m

Why don't I train in the morning more often? It's such an awesome time of day and it feels great to be home by lunchtime with a long training session completed and the rest of the day free to do other things.

Alas, I have a problem with alarm clocks unless I'm meeting someone - and luckily today I was meeting Mrs. Gally and SistaP around Silvercreek and Terra Cotta Conservation Areas. We had a great trail run - easy pace, good hills, some very technical terrain, excellent conversation, lots of laughs. Time flew by.



I won't be sure where I was until I see the GPS track. As frightening as this will sound to those who know her, Mrs. Gally was the primary navigator today.

As we reached the bottom of the escarpment for the last time and saw our cars a few meters ahead, I looked at my Forerunner which said 2 hrs 54 min and felt a great sense of accomplishment - until Mrs. Gally said, "Sorry ladies, that's not 3 hours yet. Turn around and run back up that hill!" &*$%!! And so we did, of course. When we got to the top, I made sure we ran far enough past the summit that we'd be over 3 hours by the time we came back down. Phew! This is why you don't want to run with a professional personal trainer. ;)

My ankle hurt but I didn't do any new damage. Other than RTH, I don't expect to run on super-technical terrain again until after the 50-miler. Just as well!

Not sure if it made any difference but I thought I'd give my ankle two days off in a row from running to see if it would use the time to heal a little. I know part of my current pain is bruising from the ankle brace. Long run with Mrs. Gally and SistaP (my ESAR team) tomorrow morning.

I've always wanted to to go Churchill, Manitoba at this time of year to see the polar bear migration. Now, thanks to two HD webcams operating for the next month or so, we can watch for polar bears during daylight hours even if we can't get to Churchill. As with any wildlife watching, you may not see anything - but I did just see a polar bear walk by on the tundra buggy-cam. Cool!

Hard Core Live with Caron. A little hard to concentrate with 'Bent begging her for mercy.

C3 Yoga class. Ankle still hurt this week but I was better at holding balance poses on my left foot, and at no time did I have to suppress a scream. Major progress from last week's class!

Late afternoon trail run, measuring more of the Bolton Fall 50 route with BazingaDog. The poor little guy started limping the day after our 10K run last week. It looked like a sore paw and we had roofing contractors dropping a few nails around here, so we aren't 100% sure it was caused by the running. Just in case, I let him set the pace today and take walking breaks and sniffing breaks whenever he wanted. When we hit 7.0 km on the Garmin, I switched to walking for the final 2 km. He's been fine after a number of 5 km runs so we'll increase his distance more gradually.

I didn't have my camera but a 6-year-old friend captured a nice picture of the two of us running today. Those of you who know us will see that this is a really good likeness.

More from NevMonster's Raid The Hammer teammate:
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/fitness...>

As people (and mice) get older, there is a gradual decline in "intrinsic drive" to exercise that precedes any change in physical capacity. A new study shows that aerobic exercise stimulates the growth of new mitochondria in the brain as well as in the muscles. The implication is that there may be a physiological basis underlying the desire to exercise or the lack thereof. That is, the more you exercise, the more you will want to exercise.

Ran over to Palgrave East for a tour of twisty, rolling single track. As RD of this Sunday's Bolton Fall 50, I need to measure a few distances this week, as they're a tough crowd. ;)

Thumbs-of-Death had inflicted his weekly torture on my ankle earlier in the day and it felt pretty good in the brace with the SpikeCross shoes. Kinda stiff tonight but let's face it, I deserve that.

If this works, it will be the first Garmin track posted through my MacBook.

A recent study shows yet another reason to exercise in the morning (which I'm very bad at):

"UV exposure in the morning is much less damaging than an identical dose of UV exposure later in the afternoon. This has nothing to do with cloud cover or sunlight intensity – it’s all about the body’s circadian rhythms.

The problem with UV light is that it damages your DNA; your body fights this ongoing damage by trying to repair the DNA. The levels of a key protein responsible for this repair process fluctuate during the day, with a maximum early in the morning and a minimum late in the afternoon. In contrast, the process of DNA replication, which can cause the errors in damaged DNA to spread, is slowest in the morning and fastest in the afternoon. So UV damage in the morning should be less likely to spread and more quickly repaired; in the afternoon, it’s the opposite."

http://runningmagazine.ca/2011/10/sections/trainin...

While watching The Daily Show.

As always, I bought 100+ mini chocolate bars for Hallowe'en. Not a single kid has come to our door in a decade. Looking forward to the leftovers. :)