Training Log Archive: Bash

About 10 cm of new powder on the polished ice of Palgrave Glacier made it tempting to try skiing but the hills looked scary. The fluffy snow didn't stick to the ice so it was another slow crampon running day. It must have been awesome up in ski country.

My legs felt better today than they felt before yesterday's long run; there are some mysteries of exercise physiology that I will never understand! My brain, on the other hand, is fried after a few weeks of busy schedule and inadequate sleep. Looking forward to sleeping well on vacation.

About 38 hours later, my e-mail is back up and messages are trickling in. I'm thinking of switching to GMail. Anyone think that's a bad idea?

Congrats, VO2Max! 2nd in the 20K skate at the Haywood Noram XC Ski event at Mont Orford, behind Kevin Sandau and ahead of Brent McMurtry (national team members). Two medals in two weekends! :)

Richard and Elina Ussher were the top man and woman in yesterday's Speight's Coast to Coast World Multisport Championship in New Zealand - the first husband and wife to win the 1-day solo event in the same year. Richard's winning time was an hour slower than last year thanks to strong headwinds and low water levels on the Waimakariri River. Reading this story brought back some great memories of our time in NZ with Frankenjack and Mr. & Mrs. Hodgepodge.

I haven't picked a training plan for the Death Race yet but am reading up on it. I'm beginning to think there are as many different ultrarunning training plans as there are ultrarunners! Maybe that's not so bad since everyone's body responds differently to training and to endurance events.

The only thing all the plans agree on is a weekly long run or back-to-back long-ish runs. If we could ski locally, I'd do a long ski but it's looking like we may not do any more skiing in Palgrave this winter. :(

After several weeks of floundering on trails with glare ice, I planned a loop of mostly hilly, snowy country roads with 7 km of icy trail to keep me honest. I invited 'Bent to join me since bad road conditions had prevented him from doing the SMT long run in Hamilton.



This meant he was stuck with my pace, and he's not someone who can run comfortably at a slower pace. On the other hand, he was also stuck with my distance, which was one of the longest runs he's done since knee surgery 16 months ago. So it probably balanced out.

As we were getting ready, we discussed what we were going to wear, given the cold temperature and wind chill. I listed off a bunch of planned clothing items including wind briefs. That was not one of the items he decided to wear, and he regretted it early on. I believe his extra toque came in handy. ("Is that a toque in your tights or are you happy to see me? Hmm... at -20C with wind chill, it's gotta be a toque.")

There wasn't much flat road and we were usually running on the uneven, snowy shoulder since there were lots of blind corners and hills. It felt a lot like a trail run through pretty country scenery on a sunny day. I felt great and had energy left at the end. Good thing since the Death Race will be more than 4 times as long and a lot steeper!



Unfortunately, my Garmin battery failed at 21K so here's the full route from 'Bent's Garmin. Lap 1 is where my Garmin died.

My e-mail has been down for 12 hours with no estimate of when it will be repaired. If I seem to be ignoring your message, I'm not! Facebook messages, AP comments and GMail are all still working.

Another easy spin around the Palgrave Glacier on Kahtoola flexible crampons. The glacier is starting to recede but there is enough smooth, polished ice to keep things nice and treacherous. My legs told me this should have been a rest day but I'm not ready to bail on the 29 Leagues of February Challenge yet, so I had no choice about going for a run.

'Bent is away on a course for the day so I took both BazingaPuppy and BulletDog - an energetic 71-lb leashed puppy and a mature unleashed dog who knows exactly how to flaunt her freedom and tease her little brother until he works himself into a frenzy. Verrrry relaxing. I think Mommy will drive to the leash-free park tomorrow so she can run by herself later in the day without guilt.

For those who haven't seen them, the Thomass Caledon results were posted on the Thomass website yesterday. Sorry for the delay - we had major hardware and software issues that required hours of blood, sweat and tears to sort out. Zoom in on the PDF to see it properly.

Even without finish times for most racers due to the failure of the SI finish unit, it is interesting to watch the race unfold. If not for a major error by several top juniors late in the race, Hammer could have ended up in a sprint to the finish against his daughter AdventureGirl!

Quick ski in slick conditions before volunteering at Goose's high school ski meet at Highlands Nordic. Where possible, I avoided the race course since kids were warming up. There wasn't much of a classic track anywhere; it was easier to ski on trails that hadn't been touched since last night's light dusting of snow. In places, I ended up skate skiing on my waxless classics again. I've got a 42K classic ski marathon in two weeks and I am not prepared.

The ski meet attracted about 500 kids and everyone appeared to have a great time on a sunny day. I'll bet some of these kids have done very little skiing this season. It's great to be surrounded by their enthusiasm.

I was at the finish line, collecting and organizing the race bibs. It's a fun place to be, since we get to hear little snippets about their races, "I totally lost it on the last corner", "Look at all the burrs on my bib!", "I went out sooo fast", etc.

After racing about 1.5 km, one novice collapsed onto the snow at the finish line and lay there for a full minute, putting on a show as if he were an Olympic medal winner in the 50K. :) Another lost control at the finish line and I dove out of his way. I was doing things non-stop as fast as I could for over 3 hours, so fortunately there were several of us. It was physical enough that it feels like it ought to be loggable but I guess not!

Hard Core live with Caron (and 'Bent too!)

C3 yoga class. Not many rests between poses tonight. I'll see tomorrow how my shoulder liked it...

Abbreviated session since it was 9 p.m. and I still hadn't had dinner. Busy...

My rotator cuff injury went from a 9/10 on the pain scale to a 1 over a 24-hour period on the weekend. I'm not sure which had the most impact - active release therapy, icing, arnica gel or just the passage of time. On Friday night I was afraid that I'd never again be able to wash my own hair, and on Sunday morning, I was double poling on icy ski trails. I wish my other painful injuries would fade that quickly.

The original niggle - the tightness in my shoulder that probably started with breaking my collar bone as a kid - is still there though, and it was disconcerting how swiftly it blew up from a minor annoyance to serious pain. So I went today for another excruciating treatment from Thumbs of Death and brought home his office pamphlet which has dozens of pics of Leanimal doing shoulder exercises. This time I will follow through.

The corollary to the good news about my shoulder is that I'm back in the rotation for taking BazingaPuppy out for his leashed runs. I wore my flexible crampons on the icy trails for today's sunset run, and they worked well.

If you read 'Bent's log, you've seen his great collection of Palgrave Glacier pics. It is crazy to run around here right now but thanks to the February 29 Leagues Challenge, I have no choice!

Since the Palgrave West trail network has been transformed into a glacier, I wore the lightweight crampons I bought last year for APEX but ended up not needing. They aren't the most nimble things for running but they were 100% non-slip, even on the steepest "skating rink" hill. The only down side was what happened a few times when I failed to lift my feet high enough, and the crampon teeth caught in the ice. I got to practise my yoga balance poses without any prior warning!

BulletDog enjoyed herself but had a few wipeouts since she merely has claws instead of crampons or spiked shoes. Interesting experiment and now it's time for another snow dance!

On the trainer with Coach Troy and Spinervals 1.0 No Slackers Allowed. The first time I did this, it was on a mountain bike and I couldn't relate to it at all. Now that I can use the same gears that he suggests and monitor my cadence, it was a more interesting workout. Intervals, superspins, race simulation, standing, sitting and a lot of sweat. I need to get on the trainer more!

158 W ave, 281 W max
82 ave cadence, 150 max
24.8 kph ave

So it turns out that the rider I was cheering for, Andy Schleck, actually *did* win the 2010 Tour de France, now that Alberto Contador has been found guilty of doping. Such a shame Andy was robbed of the chance to stand on the podium on the Champs Elysees. It's like Beckie Scott's much-delayed Olympic gold in nordic skiing after the two competitors "ahead" of her were disqualified for doping.

BulletDog (who was in a more exploratory mood than usual) and I went for a sunny Monday morning run in Palgrave West. Although it is great to have spiked shoes that make it *possible* to run on glare ice, the novelty wears off after a couple of weeks. Although I'd really like 30 cm of snow to ski on, at this point I'd take anything other than ice on the trails - mud, slush, frozen earth... anything! In spite of that, it was a beautiful morning to be in the woods.

Today was Day 6 of Ken Niemimaa's (Sulphur Springs 100-mile winner) "29 Leagues in February" challenge where participants agree to run (or in my case, ski or run) at least 5K a day. So far, no one has dropped out - or if they have, they're not admitting it in public.

While watching old Daily Shows. I've added bigger weights to my calf lifts, lunges and one-legged squats - just in case I eat too much chocolate before my next mountain race.