Training Log Archive: Bash

Browner and I are running a 60K trail ultra on Saturday so we switched to mountain biking today. Even though we aren’t resting up for our race, we figured it might be wise to stay off our feet a bit. Also... biking in February!! :)

Browner found us a couple of nice 29ers to rent - a Specialized Stumpjumper for her and a Specialized Camber with wider tires for me.



We went to the Sweetwater Preserve in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains beneath Wasson Peak, yesterday’s hike.



It’s a great set of trails, mostly beginner to intermediate level with a few tricky, rocky sections here and there. Lots of fun! We rode almost all of it - some short trail sections twice.





I wore my new Watt Riot jersey supporting Flight’s female cycling team.



No falls and - more importantly - no cactus thorns embedded in any body parts!
(Time includes photography.)

Browner and I headed to the west side of Tucson to hike up Wasson Peak in Saguaro National Park. Based on the recommendation we received at the Visitor Center, we drove around on a bumpy dirt road and started from the north on Sendero Esperanza, which led up the ridge to the Hugh Norris Trail.





The desert landscape was beautiful with lots of saguaros, not surprisingly!





Views from Wasson Peak.





It’s never too early to train for Storm The Trent!



After a 15 min break to admire the scenery (time deducted), back down we went.

Mrs. Gally led us in a “slightly more aggressive” yoga class on the patio - nice. Restaurant patrons and hotel workers seemed very curious!

Browner, Mrs. Gally, Dee and I are in Tucson for a training week, and I was excited to learn that Cristina, Melissa and Lukas would be here too! Cristina offered us a guided tour of the Bear Canyon Loop - a Tucson classic.





We had a spectacular day for it although later on it got a little warm for our Canadian blood. This was a hike/run since most of us needed a relatively easy effort today.



Right off the top, Cristina found the tourists a javelina - not *this* one but our javelina kept hiding behind a cactus so my photos aren’t great.



We had to negotiate a number of tricky creek crossings. (The desert is easier than the Snowshoe Raid.)



Bear Canyon was jaw dropping.









When we’d climbed high enough, we had great views back toward Tucson.



Along the way, Cristina shared interesting snippets of local knowledge and taught us the names of some plants.







We took a break at a high viewpoint for photos and yoga led by Mrs. Gally.







Then we continued running - more downhill now.





Finally we arrived at the end of Sabino Canyon and dropped into it.








On the way out, we successfully crossed several Hazardous Bridges.



Luckily, Mrs. Gally didn’t learn about the local mountain lion until the end.



Thank you, Cristina! This was an incredible day.

Mrs. Gally is a talented yoga teacher working toward her full certification. We had an awesome impromptu class in the courtyard of our hotel. I took a break in the middle to meet Lukas (AP name Haakon) at last. He’s adorable!! Nice to see Melissa for the first time since Norway. :)

O Cup #4 UKR
Scanlon Creek Conservation Area

Wow, this race was educational - but not in the way one might guess.

I helped 'Bent get on his way to his volunteer dental mission in Guatemala yesterday, which meant a lot of help with last minute details followed by an evening of white knuckle driving to and from the airport in heavy snow. I'm proud of him but a little worried about their small plane flight within Guatemala (this turned out to be a bus ride and they’ve arrived - yay!) and the riverboat dental clinic in an area with malaria, dengue fever and maybe (or maybe not) crocodiles.



Today was snowy again so the driving wasn't great. I had to get things ready for the house/dog sitter and I still need to do most of my packing for my own flight to Arizona early tomorrow morning.

However, I thought I was totally cool with all of this until I started orienteering this morning. It's not uncommon for me to take a control or two to get a feel for a map, especially with a different scale (1:5,000). I'm pretty good at staying focused after an error and fixing whatever I did wrong. But from start to finish, this was chicken-with-head-cut-off navigation and I couldn't make it better. I knew what was happening and I wasn't able to do anything about it. Thinking back on it, I had a couple of cups of extra strong coffee shortly before the race and I wonder if I was super-caffeinated in addition to everything else.

My grand finale was racing into the finish from the wrong direction, then realizing I'd missed the last control. Luckily, they let me go back out to get it. I returned to the last control I'd visited so I would do the route to the finish properly. Looking at the GPS track and adding on the extra time for my 2nd run (no GPS track), I can count 20 minutes of errors out of 60 minutes of running - and that's ignoring small inefficiencies.

Wow. It felt like getting a lab test indicating that I'm sick but I didn't realize it until that moment. Apparently I’m pretty stressed out. Anyway, it was a super fun course on a beautiful wintry day. I was one of the few people to use snowshoes and I really enjoyed them although it was still lots of work in the fresh snow. I was leading the O Cup Series but today ended my short time at the top in spectacular fashion!

Thanks to Eugenius and Ihor for all their hard work in snowy weather to give us a fun time. Now to get back to packing.

Another beautiful sunset ski around Palgrave West, this time accompanied by AdventureDog. Some of yesterday's tracks had drifted in but a lot of the route was in great shape. If I'd had grip along with my glide, it would have been perfect!

Palgrave West seems to be attracting a better class of hiker this winter. Dogs sometimes step in our ski tracks but most of the humans walk to one side where we - and others - have made snowshoe tracks. 'Bent didn't even have to put up his polite signs this year.

Still battling a mild cold and hoping it won't go any further. All the activities in Arizona next week will be tough if I'm sick - especially the grand finale of a 60K trail run.