Training Log Archive: Bash

A group of us met at Albion Hills for a two-wheeled celebration of Wilberto's first half century of life. The riding was fun with great company and gratitude that we are able to do this. We went to Stratenger's in Bolton for lunch and conversation afterward. Terrific party. Happy Birthday, Wayne!



(Bike computer distance)

The Orienteering Ontario AGM was tonight in Dundas so I did my first Dontgetlost X-League race beforehand. It's a 30-minute score-O and I learned that I'm lousy at planning for 30 minutes. I finished early since the only remaining controls were too far away to pick up within the time limit. Fun anyway and it was great to see some Hamilton friends!

Running fail. I'm still sore from almost 2 hrs of boot camp and TRX on Monday evening but I assumed I would loosen up as I ran. I didn't. My glutes and upper hamstrings hurt too much to run even my normal slow pace. I bailed early since there really wasn't much point. Wow, I knew my body had broken down a little after several long races in a month but strength workouts don't usually affect me this much.

I "ran" an out-and-back to Centreville Creek Rd. via the Oak Ridges Trail. Parts of the trail are nice but other sections had grass and weeds up to chest height hanging onto the trail. ORTA may mow it down at some point but for now, I'm going to avoid this part of the trail. I couldn't stop thinking of ticks - yecch!

2017 has been a fun year for "training" and racing with lots of variety.

Early in the year, I prepared for the Transgrancanaria 82K mountain run in late February. I did some running but didn't follow a program. I just tried to stay generally fit by skiing, snowshoeing, strength training or whatever.

March was a confused taper/recovery month before I ran the Zion 55K in early April.

After that, I had to prepare for three big races in four weekends in different sports - the Storm the Trent Trek Elite adventure race, the Big East River X 40 km canoe race and the Mohican 100K mountain bike race. So I had an excuse to do pretty much anything and call it training. I liked that.

Now it's time to get more focused for a few months. Ultra Tour Monte Rosa is in early September and I will need to be able to run and climb hills - lots of them. It's going to be four marathons in four days with an average of 3,000 m elevation gain per day. Eeeek. There's some hard work ahead but I'm looking forward to it.

Foothab etc. I am surprisingly sore from last night's workouts. Boo, Caron! ;)

The Western States 100 is approaching fast so I'm catching up on films about the race. Today I watched "Life in a Day", Billy Yang's film about top women in the 2016 WS100. It motivated me to run, which isn't easy on a treadmill!



We saw another good Western States short film at this year's Trails in Motion Film Festival: Thirty Hours. This one made me cry.

TRX class. After a month of racing and being hard on my body, it's time to rebuild.

Caron's Boot Camp. Ditto.

Flew home with Mom

Canham family reunion weekend on the shore of the St. Lawrence Seaway near Morrisburg - a gathering of descendants of my Dad's mother and her siblings, all of them gone now. There were 81 people in attendance; a number of west coast family members sent regrets. Most of our extended family lives in eastern Ontario, and I have no first cousins so there were many people I hadn't met - especially children and grandchildren - and it had been years since I'd seen most of the others. Very nice - and I know we all appreciated the detailed name tags. :)

Mom and I visited the house where she was born and lived until she went to university. It has changed but is still recognizable.



We also visited the house in the nearby town where Dad was born. As kids, we visited both of these houses regularly so I have my own memories, especially of the dairy farm Dad grew up on where I got to help out.



We walked around a block in Mom's home town and she stopped at one point. "My childhood friend ran a jewellery store here for 50 years." It's a used book store now and Mom is in her 80s so it made me a little sad when she decided to go in to see if her friend was there. Incredibly, she was! Shirley had retired for five years but decided to start a new business. They hugged and had tears in their eyes as they told us stories of riding their bikes out of town to have picnics and buying a single milkshake at Mom's uncle's store because they couldn't afford two. They got in trouble for passing notes in class. They fondly remembered each other's parents. All of this happened 70+ years ago but they remembered it like yesterday. It was really nice. :)



We visited several cemeteries to pay respects to other relatives, then we went to the main reunion, which was lots of fun. No training this weekend but that's OK. We were asked to wear Canadian colours, in case you're wondering!

Flew to Ottawa with Mom for a family reunion.