Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent and I met Mrs. Gally and Dee at Georgian Peaks for some ski hill repeats. Each of us was on a different schedule today but the ladies went up and down together a couple of times. Early on my 2nd repeat, I started to feel super fatigued and a little lightheaded. I toughed it out for a while since I was aiming for 1,000 m of vertical but eventually I decided that would probably do more harm than good.

Not sure what was wrong. Toward the end of yesterday's long run, I was congratulating myself on how good I felt. My legs haven't felt 100% recovered this week after carrying very heavy loads on our canoe trip so maybe the last two days of running piled on more load than I could handle. Or maybe I was dehydrated or overheated. Or maybe it's the two drinks I had yesterday - not much but more than I usually have. Or the poor sleep before yesterday's early long run. Hmm. It took hours until I felt sort of normal.

(Elapsed time was considerably more!) 'Bent and I went for an easy paddle around Collingwood Harbour to check out the action at the Harbour Festival, aka Sidelaunch Days. The highlight was the kite festival, which we also saw from our kayaks last year.







These things are huge!





Mrs. Gally was hosting Jerrick's fishing birthday party there, and Dee and kids were in attendance. Mrs. Gally sure knows how to throw an impressive party! :)

Early run starting with the Tarnos at Pretty River. I ran the first hour with Jackie, who pushed me by running a lot of uphill to the high point of the Bruce Trail. I would normally wimp out and start hiking briskly a lot sooner than she did.

Jackie headed home so I had an hour on my own before 'Bent and Tarno were done. I went back up to the Bruce Trail high point and came back down to the road.

Then 'Bent joined me for 2.5 hours to stretch it into a long run. There was plenty of climb and technical running so we didn't cover a big distance but it was hard work. I had two hard falls, one of which made the meniscus in my right knee click - ugh. I was able to keep running without pain though. A few hours post-run, my right Achilles - the healthy one, - was pretty sore. Not sure what that's about. Fingers crossed that I'll wake up pain-free tomorrow. Race day is less than 3 weeks away.

'Bent and I had an ambitious plan for a long run in the Kolapore area today but a poisoning scare with BazingaDog took over our morning. 'Bent walked the dogs behind the neighbouring condo development (not a great idea since they don't really like it) and saw BazingaDog scarf down a few pieces of sliced hot dog in a place where there was no explanation for finding hot dogs. It's a rare occurrence but when evil nutbars decide to poison dogs, they have sometimes used hot dogs. Ugh. To make things more suspicious, B-Dog threw up within a minute - but possibly not all of it.

After a few phone conversations with 'Bent's sister (a vet), calls from her to vet clinics around Collingwood, and a call to a U.S. Pet Poison Control Center that almost cost us $75 US, 'Bent noticed a sign about a lost dog posted in a car window. He phoned the number and learned that the owner had put out hot dogs in hopes of attracting her lost dog. Phew! It would have been nice if she had placed a small sign but we felt sad for her so we didn't say anything.

After all this, we only had time for a short run up, down, up, down and around Blue Mountain before a 4 p.m. meeting. It was a beautiful day - cooler than it has been.

Easy, chatty ride with our Collingwood neighbours on the Georgian Trail to Georgian Peaks and back.

5-day Algonquin Park canoe trip with Timato, Mrs. Tiny, Teeny Tiny, Mick, Laura, John, Paul, 'Bent and AdventureDog. Details and photos to come. Great trip - the kids (aged 4, 7 and 7) were rock stars! :)

When I have time, I'll try to separate the portage time from the paddling and deduct our lunch stops. Our pace was relaxed but the portages were legitimate strength training since our group had 6 adults and 3 children. We all carried super heavy loads and often ran back on the trail to take another load.