Training Log Archive: Bash

I still haven't set all my goals for 2017 but as of this morning, Plan B is finally coming together! My application was accepted for the Ultra Tour Monte Rosa, a run around the 2nd highest Alp. (UTMB goes around the highest Alp, Mont Blanc.)

The RD is Lizzy Hawker, who won UTMB five times, and this is the route she used to train for that. It's a relatively new event and this is the first year she has offered the full 170 km loop route, which has 1800 meters more climb than UTMB.

Because of my sleep deprivation problems at UTMB, I've decided to tackle it as a 4-stage race instead of running straight through and fighting cut-offs. (The 58-hr cut-off is much more generous than UTMB so it was tempting.) We'll run about 40K each day with about 3,000 m climb. It will be interesting to plan a different type of training for this. I love running at night and will miss that aspect but it will be fun to see all the mountain scenery in daylight. They will put the runners in shared hotel rooms each night and feed us dinner and breakfast.

The participant feedback talks about the small, intimate feel of the event compared to some of the big mountain races. I'm sure that will change over time. In the past two years, there have been very few Canadian runners. If anyone else is interested, send me an email! There is also a 116 km distance that can be run as a single race or in 3 stages, stopping in the same villages as the longer course. They will even arrange hotel rooms for non-running friends although they have to find their own transportation between villages.

An awkward slog around Palgrave West. The Oak Ridges Trail was rock-hard and sometimes icy. K-Bash and Wheelie Woods trails were covered with ankle-deep snow coated with a strong layer of ice like a sheet of glass. Breaking through the crust left sharp edges and it took work to extract my feet; I thought I might tear the upper on my shoes. Poor AdventureDog slid around in the icy sections and found it hard work to run through the crusty snow. I think he was wondering what happened to his world!

Hard Core Live with Caron. She was happy to hear Cristina's comment on the yoga video.

C3 class

It's 2.5 weeks till the Transgrancanaria 82K and I definitely haven't done enough specific hill training. I'm sure one or two short sessions will be enough. ;(

I started by running up K2 - something I've rarely managed to do without stopping - on a mix of hard snow crust and ice. When I reached the old stile, I headed north on the Bruce Trail to Coolihan's Sideroad where I ran down the big hill, followed by two up/down hill repeats. It was icy and I was glad that only one car went by the whole time. My spikes were just barely enough to handle all the surfaces I ran on today. I don't think I would run Coolihan's again in winter for safety reasons but on the bright side, I felt great. Must have been the Stoked Oats I had for breakfast! ;)

Injury Prevention Circuit Class - shorter one tonight.

Foothab exercises from Dr. Bell

Tomorrow's weather forecast is nasty so I made a quick trip to Hockleycrest before the freezing rain arrives. It's supposed to be followed by high winds, regular rain and maybe another power failure. Blah. The snow was thin in a few places and drifted in others but the skiing was lovely.

I tried one of Caron's new "20 Minutes 2 Strong" videos, filmed in front of a graffiti wall in Rio. This one was all glutes. She also has some older "10 Minutes 2 Zen" videos that you can put together for a customized yoga workout. All free.
<http://personalbest.ca/videos>

Event: Stars W.A.R. (Winter Adventure Race)
 

Stars W.A.R. (Winter Adventure Race)
Mansfield Outdoor Centre

Beautiful winter conditions, an interesting race course and great to see so many friends!

This year Stars W.A.R. was a 2.5 hour rogaine on snowshoes, which was fun although I hope the Stars will return to a ski/snowshoe format since that was (I think) unique in Canada with very cool strategy.

'Bent and I teamed up and put together a decent plan that I changed at the last minute as we were heading out. In most cases, that would be a mistake but this time I think it was the right choice.

We headed to the west side of Airport Road first since there was a high concentration of points in a relatively small but hilly area. I've only been in there a couple times before and the terrain is really interesting. (Who owns it, anyway?)

About 25 minutes in, 'Bent simultaneously stomped on the back of my snowshoe, pushed me uphill and asked "Is that helpful?", while ripping the right side of the binding off my snowshoe. :( Luckily, he had some repair gear to strap the snowshoe together although it wasn't super solid. It took us another half hour to realize that switching snowshoes to give him the broken one was the key to a happy marriage.

We lost about 8 minutes in various stops to deal with The Snowshoe Incident. Before that, we had been in the mix with some good teams and it felt exciting but now we were alone and didn't see anyone for a long time. It didn't feel like we were racing anymore and it took awhile before I started concentrating properly on the map again.

Luckily, that was our only real problem and it was a really fun day for snowshoeing. We had to skip 1 or 2 controls that would have been possible if we hadn't lost time before, and we finished 8 minutes early without any other controls within reach.

It was fun to see Hammer on the course several times and he gave us a couple of photos. The big news of the day was the impressive victory by Adventuregirl! and Hermes - the first female team to win Stars W.A.R. overall! Congratulations! Timato and Audrey were the Coed champions and 2nd overall. Lots of other great performances too. Thank you to Nick and the Stars for a terrific event!

Rodney Yee's Power Yoga for Flexibility DVD with some assistance from AdventureDog.

I dragged 'Bent into Lulu Lemon yesterday and passed him to a sales rep in the men's section as I headed for the yoga pants. She asked him, "Where do you practise?" He couldn't figure out how she knew he was a dentist... :)

Barrie Shepley was giving a talk tonight at the Personal Best fitness studio. Ever since it opened, I've thought about running to and from a class - or at least one way - but it hasn't happened. Most of the run is on the Oak Ridges Trail and Bruce Trail, and there are lots of hills. 'Bent agreed to give it a try this evening. We left a little late and had to bail to a road from the north part of Glen Haffy in order to make it in time. This meant running along the shoulder of Hwy 9 for the last 1.5 km - yikes! It was a little cold sitting indoors in damp clothes, even with the extra layers we'd carried. Caron made us coffee, which warmed us up perfectly! The talk was good too - insights and stories about dreams, working toward goals, celebrating the process, etc.

We ran home in the dark - chilly and invigorating! This time we didn't have to hurry so we took snowy trails almost the whole way and stopped to look at the stars. It's a net downhill coming home from Glen Haffy so it's always more fun. :)