Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent and I went to Caron's annual Christmas yoga class with live music by professional musician Patrick Dilkie, whose Dad, Trent Dilkie, is in our class.



It's a pay-what-you-want fundraiser, this year supporting our local hospital in memory of Paula Coats, wife of Don Coats who owns Caledon Hills Cycling. She passed away suddenly in the spring. Paula and Don were both in our yoga class.

This is our most calming holiday event every year and usually the last one before we move into family gatherings so the timing is good.

This has felt like a "cautious" holiday season, if that's the right word. A year ago, the beautiful music in this class made me weep. I knew Dad was slipping away and the holidays were going to be heartbreaking. He passed away a few minutes after Christmas ended.

The old holiday feeling will come back one day but I'm not there yet. Dad loved Christmas and I know he would want us to carry on the traditions and celebrations - to toast him with a glass of egg nog, put on a silly Santa hat and sing carols with gusto. I'll try, Dad. I'll try.

Interesting concept...

Implementation Intention: an improved strategy for obtaining goals by specifying the when, where and how portions of goal-directed behaviour.

An exercise-related example in a 2002 study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology:

- The control group was asked to exercise once in the next week. 29% of them exercised.

- Experiment group 1 was given the same task, along with detailed information about why exercise is important to health (i.e., "You’ll die if you don’t".) 39% of them exercised.

- Experiment group 2 was asked to commit to exercising at a specific place, on a specific day at a specific time of their choosing. 91% of them exercised.

The Trail Runners Toronto group took a road trip to Palgrave Forest this morning so 'Bent and I went to welcome them and go for a run. Nice people and great to see some familiar faces. As suspected, they're pretty quick so I dropped back to keep track of stragglers since it's easy to get lost in there. One of them was feeling rough so I went to head off the faster runners so we could pick up a van key from one of them, then I escorted the sick runner back to the parking lot before rejoining the group at a later point.

My knee has been a little stiff since I smashed it on a rock two weeks ago, and it has felt funnier since Thursday night's yoga class so I must have tweaked it. Today it felt like meniscus pain so when we reached a meeting point where some of the group wanted to go back to the cars, I offered to lead them back to the main trail, then I headed for home. Fingers are tightly crossed but I'm icing my knee and it is really sore now. Sigh.

Ambit start/stop button wasn't working consistently again so I guess I'll switch to my other watch. Today's distance was probably 10% farther since twisty single track is always under-measured.

At the Banff Mountain Film Festival a few years ago, some of us saw Ueli Steck set a record for free climbing the North Face of the Eiger. That time, in 2008, he successfully beat his own record from the year before. His record was beaten in 2011 by Dani Arnold, who used fixed ropes for part of the climb. Last month Ueli Steck went out and set a new record: 2 hrs 22 mins 50 secs. Wow.
http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/ueli-steck-re...

This year he also set a new team speed record on the Eiger North Face with trail running superstar Kilian Jornet and Nicolas Hojac: 3 hrs 46 mins. Not many people can say that Kilian slows them down.

Hard Core Live with Caron

Power Yoga class - lots of twisty back and shoulder stuff tonight. My right knee is still messed up from falling on rocks in Arizona. It feels OK most of the time but I can't bend it all the way, e.g. for a proper standing quad stretch. Pigeon pose was the only move I had to bail on completely on the right side. I substituted "Dead Pigeon" pose, which seems appropriate!

Pit bull didn't sleep well. We didn't sleep well. But the good news is that her rabies tag number linked us to her owner this morning and she is now safe at home. Her frantic owner was up all night looking for her but not near our place. He hadn't imagined she would come this far from home (about 1 km).

Couldn't fall asleep last night - weird. Maybe I can't handle two quality workouts in the same day? I wasn't up for the run I'd planned today so I settled for a trek with AdventureDog. We climbed a bunch of small hills at a brisk pace.

I'd planned to get Princess (my road bike) set up on the trainer for later but as I was picking up our mail this evening on a pitch black country road, a pit bull jumped up with paws on my waist, panting madly. After an initial shock, I realized she was on her own on a country road on a cold, wet night. She went over to my car so I let her in and took her up to our fenced yard. She wasn't happy outside so I spirited her into our dog crate and now it's going to be a long, noisy night. AdventureDog isn't happy to have her around and when BazingaDog gets home, it's going to be worse. Fortunately, I have a rabies tag number so I should be able to find her owner. Unfortunately, she seems inclined to bite.

Listened to the first part of the TA1 podcast with Chris Forne, Seagate's navigator. I like the way he thinks.

Tough pre-Christmas boot camp - especially the burpees. Caron was trying to kill me tonight!

ANNOUNCEMENT AT LAST!
Wilderness Traverse - Sept. 23-25, 2016
http://ar.attackpoint.org/eventdetail.jsp/event_30...

I'd planned some Bash & Crash 500 intervals on the Oak Ridges Trail behind our place but I heard the whine of chainsaws as I approached, then a huge tree crashed down at what would have been my starting point. Yikes!

I ran to the closed-for-the-winter portion of Duffy's Lane and chose a section that ended up being about 415 m. The flat part of the road wasn't as long as I'd remembered so each interval started with a 5 m climb followed by a longer downhill before the flat part. There were also some obstacles to add interest - dozens of potholes filled with water and a fallen tree across the road.

It's been awhile since I've used my HRM and it seems like my "happy zone" for running is my MAF HR, which is interesting. It is really hard to raise my HR by running on flats because I'm such a slow runner these days but hills are quite effective.

I did 5 repeats X 415 m at 5K race pace - 2:03, 2:08, 2:05, 2:04, 2:02.
(Not that I've ever done a 5K race!)

Then two short, hard climbs of Noxon Hill before heading home.