Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: 2013 Salomon Snowshoe Raid
 

Another awesome Salomon Snowshoe Raid! For the second year, we were at Blue Mountain, and Getawaystix designed a race course with very different challenges from last year even though it looked similar at first glance. For teams who couldn't clear the course in 3 hours (which turned out to be everyone - but just barely), there were some very interesting alternative strategies to think through. Kudos to Getawaystix for keeping things unpredictable!

Dee and I were racing together again, trying for a three-peat in the Female category but knowing that the Salomon Bobkittens (Leanimal and Mrs. Gally) would be tough to beat on a course that favours stronger runners.



There was enough snow to make it feel wintry but not enough for snowshoes. The trails had turned icy earlier in the week, then they had received a layer of fresh snow on top of the ice - yikes. It was a great day for racers to test various traction systems. Yaktrax were a popular choice but Dee's broke, and she wasn't the only one. I've had the same thing happen so now I wear metal-spiked shoes in these conditions. This was my longest run yet in my Salomon SnowCross shoes (metal spikes and zip-up gaiters). They were awesome, and Phatty will be pleased to hear that both members of the winning team wore SnowCross too!

For people not interested in details of the race course, you may want to skip to the end... Dee and I had planned to do most of the controls in Loree Forest, dropping the two 10-pointers and three controls on the hilly east side, then south to 110 and 104, then along the plateau toward the Matrix, picking up all the controls on the way except #160, the 120-pointer that required teams to drop to the bottom of the escarpment.

Things went pretty much perfectly in Loree Forest; there were even a couple of times when we helped Wilsmith find a control - an opportunity unlikely ever to arise again! Btw if Bender is out there, I just have to say... WOW! I love your awesome new map.

Several good teams told us they didn't find #149, which surprised me until someone mentioned in their AP log that they couldn't see the nearby trail. Then I remembered that I hadn't seen the trail either (snow-covered) but we were navigating with contours at that point so it hadn't been an issue. After that control, we skipped #150 (10 pts) and climbed to the main trail where I hooked onto Dee's tow rope for the first of many rides; she is a powerhouse! We came out of Loree Forest after almost 90 minutes - a little later than we had hoped.

Although we didn't know it yet, we had messed up strategically when we scratched #155 (40 pts) in the final version of our plan, and we also should have picked up #150 (10 pts) since the trail south of 149 wasn't visible in the snow so we had to bushwhack anyway. We'd been cautious to limit our time in Loree since we wanted time to do a long stretch of running at the end, including 201/208 and as much of the Matrix as we had time for.

We headed south of the road and found Mike Van Den Bosch hiding in the trees near #110. He got a fun action photo of us which I'll buy and post later.

We arrived at #102 with 'Bent and Hammer. I'd figured that we should have an hour left by the time we hit #178 if we wanted to get 201/208 and dip into the Matrix at all. But we only had an hour left when we were above #160 (almost a km earlier) so we dropped down the escarpment for that 120 pts and ran around to the finish. Dee suggested that we do an out-and-back to #178 (30 pts) before descending but at that point, I still foolishly thought that we had a chance to climb up from the finish line to get 60+ points in the Matrix. Alas, Dee was right and I should have taken a moment to re-measure the alternatives.

So we slipped and slid down the precarious trail to #160, then Dee towed like a diesel engine to the finish line, where we arrived at the 2.5 hour mark. We started up the hill planning to get E and C, then check in and dash back down. The map in that area makes it hard to navigate with precision, plus it's a stupid big hill. We soon realized we were off-track and it was hopeless so we turned back, finishing with no points earned in the final 50 minutes of a 3-hour event. Oops.

It was great racing with Dee again. As her navigation has become stronger over the past couple of years, she has become very helpful in asking questions and suggesting ideas that make me better as our primary navigator. And of course, she continues to be our primary runner, towing my slow legs along trails and roads.

Today, however, belonged to the Salomon Bobkittens, who took the Female win with 560 points to our 550. Congrats, ladies! (Leanimal was using my compass and Yaktrax so I'm taking full credit for their success - ha!)



Our teams were 8th and 9th overall out of 100+ teams, which cheered me up when I was feeling mopey about blowing the strategy. In talking with other teams, including most of the teams ahead of us, everyone had a few things go wrong today. We just edged out BugsinTeeth with the same points total but a faster time. They're becoming pretty annoying to race against now that they're getting so good. ;) Right behind us in the Female category were the Milton Basement Racers, M&M and Red - great job.

[Edit: Results were updated 4 days after the race and we fell back to 11th while the Bobkittens went to 9th, and BugsinTeeth shot up to 7th!]



Team Batkins won overall with coed Foreigners (Nick and Ursula) in 2nd. Harps and Logie rounded out the overall podium in 3rd, followed by Pat-hectic and KatieMac in 4th. Amazingly, 'Bent and Hammer arrived 13 minutes late after several misadventures and still managed to hang on to 5th overall and 1st Masters!



It was a super fun day and an intense workout. Thanks to all the volunteers including FunRun, Mr. Reeder, the Yip family and others. Good event as always, GetawayStix and Dontgetlost!

Congrats to all 5 of our CCC applicants! Tiny, Carbon, 'Bent, Mrs. Gally and WandAR all have the chance to race in France!

And STORM was accepted into UTMB, Carbon's Offset will have to make do with Western States, and I will need to get creative. :(

While listening to STORM's interview on Adventure Race Radio. He's normally such a quiet guy that it was a real treat to have an extended half-hour "conversation" with him!

BazingaDog and I were heading out the door for a run when - gasp! - our contractor showed up just 27 hours late. We had a "frank and productive" discussion, then BazingaDog took the edge off things by licking him on the cheek. We had a good run around Palgrave West with the usual functional strength add-ons courtesy of the pooch. My cold is *still* not gone after two weeks but this feels like its final hurrah.

It is snowing lightly! :)

Only 12 hours until the UTMB announcement!

I'm guessing that 'Bent (and Mrs. Gally, who is linked to him) will get in, and I won't be selected this year. That would mean two trips to France, which isn't the worst thing that could happen. It would be helpful to become familiar with the race and all the hype surrounding it, without actually being in the race. But if I get in on my first try, I'll take it! :)

Andy Hourahine of The Active City made this great 4-minute video featuring Ilona Dobos - "Ageless Sport - Orienteering".

To borrow a Traveloney workout name, tonight was Wednesday Night Lights - a night ride on the frozen, bare single track of Palgrave East.

That wasn't the plan. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and I looked forward to sneaking out for an hour on the trails. But alas, I had a contractor to meet at 10:30 a.m. - and you can already guess how *that* went. Long story short... no contractor today in spite of rescheduling to 1 p.m. after I phoned to say, "WTF?" And still no word by 8 p.m. If a reliable, high quality contractor were to materialize in our neighbourhood, I could keep him/her working for weeks in our 40+ year old house. But the only one I know is Mike Van Den Bosch, and he won't do jobs this far from home.

Oh, and the bike ride was fun, if a little spooky. It was the first time I'd used my BashBlaster light for biking, and it took some fiddling to get the battery attached to my helmet. Once I did, it worked perfectly. By the end, I couldn't turn it up brighter than level 3 of 5, but I haven't charged it since November, so I can't really complain.

(Used bike computer distance.)

Thanks to my lingering cold, the progress on my New Year's training goals is behind schedule but I've made *huge* progress on decluttering our attic storage area. Today I took a van full of recycling to the Re-use Centre, and it was the most amazing feeling of freedom. I'm not done yet but I rewarded myself with a colourful new yoga mat on the way home.

While listening to Mark Arnold interview his wife Heather Korol on the Adventure Race Radio podcast. Lots of smiles as I listened since I know them both well. If you're not familiar with this podcast, over the past few years, Mark has interviewed a number of people involved in the sport including Attackpointers like STORM (3 days ago), LegendaryRandy, LosDobos, Phatty, Gally, Getawaystix, Zoolander and even Bash.

A little strength to go with the paddling. My "warm-up" was two minutes of Level 5 tug-of-war with a BazingaDog gone mad. He sometimes gets frustrated that he has to stay on a leash, so he grabs it in his mouth. 'Bent has bought kevlar rope so he can't chew through it but the rope loop handle isn't the easiest thing to hang onto when an 87-lb dog is pulling as hard as he can. He also kept leaping and grabbing the leash closer and closer to my hand so there was about 18" of kevlar rope between me and his massively strong jaws. He would never hurt me but he *would* yank the leash from my hands if he could, then he'd take off into the countryside to chase deer, school buses, etc. I thought I was going to lose him since I wasn't going to be able to hang on much longer, but I started yammering about dog treats and gradually edged him over to the door. As soon as he came in, he became a gentle puppy again and fell asleep with his head in my lap. Sigh, crazy little guy...

A fun idea for Thursday. (I'll eat a square of chocolate each time.)

Lunchtime run around Palgrave East on bare, frozen trails, about half-and-half single and double track. I'd much rather be skiing but it felt great to run. I've given my body a break by doing less running over the past three months since the Oil Creek 100K. Today felt like Day 1 of my 2013 100-miler training program! It would also have been a perfect day for mountain biking. Unfortunately, some impatient bikers rode on the weekend, and now there are frozen ruts. Some light snowflakes were swirling down so with any luck, those ruts will be buried under the white stuff soon. :)

Inspired by the Carbons and their running-specific strength training, I spoke with the C3 triathlete who is best known for his attention to efficiency and proper technique. (Ang, it will not surprise you to know he is German! :) ) He recommended that we talk to Sheldon Persad, co-owner of Personal Best with Barrie and Caron Shepley. I googled and found that each month he offers a couple of 90-minute strength sessions in Markham for endurance athletes, including running skills and form drills. It seemed like a good way to become familiar with him so 'Bent and I are doing the session on Feb. 9. We'll ask him about the running analysis he does. If anyone else is interested, see Mini Days near the bottom of the page.

It was Bounding Babes night, and we usually do a lot of functional strength and agility with a little running in between. That's why I went for a trail run at lunch - to get in more running today. Well, I certainly succeeded! Crash declared that her current work day as a cheese maker consists entirely of strength training, and she wanted to go for a run. Coach LD agreed so we headed up (and down and up and down) the Humber Trail in the dark. My cold isn't quite gone and it gets worse as the day goes on, so this run didn't feel as good as this afternoon's outing. But it was still great to get out!

Post-run cooldown and stretch