Training Log Archive: Bash

Skate ski at Highlands with Dee and Mrs. Gally. I was nervous. I never skate ski with anyone else due to my poor abilities but we had fun and I didn't get left behind. I wouldn't have wanted to go too much longer though! Great conditions and beautiful late afternoon light. Time includes stops for conversation and photos, including a chat with Goose who was working on a trail crew cleaning up from the storm.

Short classic ski after the ladies went home. I was staying for the Highlands spaghetti dinner so I had a little more time. The sun set shortly after I started but there was enough light that I didn't need to turn on my headlamp. It was lovely to look down and see lights around Georgian Bay.

Hoo boy, my whole body is so fatigued from the past few days! But I couldn't waste such glorious weather and snow conditions so I went to Scenic Caves for an early afternoon ski after a lazy vacation morning.

Unfortunately, according to our Scenic Caves Rule, I was required to skate ski for 30 minutes before I could go out on classic skis. So I fatigued myself a little more.

I had good glide, dubious grip and fantastic scenery.

Then I dashed home to take BazingaDog and AdventureDog to the dog park - something we rarely do. At home we have a large, fenced country yard with lots of trees and interesting smells but Tree Hugger ABC isn't as much fun for pooches.

I got them out of the van with a leash in each hand. A-Dog jumped out in a way that wrapped the leash across my back. No biggie, the dog park gate was only 20 meters away. A woman was standing near her car with a large dog on leash. My dogs took off like rockets in his direction to say hello. I went down hard in the slippery parking lot but clung to the leashes as I lay there so the dogs didn't actually reach her or her dog.

I leapt back up and apologized. She said coldly, "You *have* to be able to control them, you know."

In hindsight, I wish I'd said, "Why, thanks for asking. Yes, I'm OK."

So glad we don't have to go to dog parks at home!

I let Bob know that if there were any Snowshoe Raid controls left on the course today, I could go out to pick them up. A couple of volunteers worked on it over the weekend. As of today, there were 8 controls remaining in the northwest quadrant of the map.

Snow kept falling for 24+ hours after the race so I knew it was going to be an adventure. Even the drive up to the north end of Pretty River was magical.



I planned a large counterclockwise loop starting with 52. Here's the map again - click to make it bigger.



It was an absolutely spectacular day.



The trees look so amazing because they are coated with ice beneath all the new snow. There will be a lot of damage from these storms.



The forest was beautiful.







The view toward the sky was like a work of art.



Although the forest was lovely to look at, it wasn't conducive to bushwhacking - and I needed to do a lot of that. There was so much snow that it sometimes felt like I was swimming through the white stuff. In many places, visibility was nil.







Just like Saturday, my gloves got soaked from all the snow. Next time I would bring a 3rd pair of gloves in my pack. I had a 2nd pair but wanted to keep them in reserve until they were absolutely necessary - which they never were. But my fingers got chilly because I had to untie the knots on the flags with bare hands then shove them back into frozen gloves.

Bushwhacking wasn't just wet. Because the branches and shrubs were bent low and often frozen together or to the ground, moving foward sometimes felt like breaking out of a jail cell. Many times I had to change course to find a way through.







But it all worked out eventually. This is 54. My route was 52-54-53-51-56-35-43-57.



I have one confession. Between deep snow and thick vegetation, I got pushed west on my way to 53 then I headed for a hilltop that seemed to be in the wrong direction - but damn, it was definitely a hilltop and that's exactly what I was looking for. Of course I was in the wrong place. Worried about my cold hands, I was tempted to bail to the snowmobile trail and continue to the next control but I didn't want to leave Bob with one control to pick up. So I pulled out the Avenza app and relocated the electronic way. (I'm so ashamed.) That was the only time I cheated!

I had only visited one of the 8 controls during the race so today's route had a completely different feel from Saturday. I was breaking trail most of the time since the racers' tracks were seldom visible.

Once I started climbing the escarpment, my hands warmed up so it was a nice finish in the sunshine. What a beautiful and totally exhausting outing!

World Snow Day at Highlands Nordic - wow! Timato, K-Way and Aubrey were supposed to join me but got turned back by nasty driving conditions so I went for a ski on my own.

Snow had been falling for most of the past 36 hours so even the trails that had been groomed this morning felt pretty wild - especially with ice-laden branches hanging over them, sometimes at face level. It was slow and adventurous, and it was definitely hard work. Absolutely beautiful.

The time includes many photo stops.





Dr. Seuss trees

Event: Snowshoe Raid Adventure Run
 

Dontgetlost Snowshoe Raid
Pretty River Provincial Park

I think this was the 9th Snowshoe Raid that Dee and I have done together. After missing a checkin deadline at RockstAR last summer and getting DQ'ed, we were determined to plan a route that was compact and achievable. I'm often tempted by creative routes that are great if they work but disasters if they fail. On top of that, my plans sometimes exceed my declining fitness level.

So we headed out with what I felt was a boring, obvious, low-stress route plan that took virtually no risks and was unlikely to differentiate us from other teams of similar ability. But that's exactly what we were aiming for.

My first nav error was a failure to notice that we weren't leaving from the usual bus departure location. Since I'd left my snowshoes in my vehicle, there wasn't time to get to that parking lot and back to the buses. I phoned Bob and got permission to drive. Oops.

The Raid started with a steep climb of the snowmobile trail just west of the parking lot. Nice way to warm up!



The conditions were wilder than in any Raid in recent memory. Last weekend's storm coated the trees and branches with ice that still hasn't melted. There were snow squalls in recent days, and today was a blizzard with wet snow and gusty winds. Visibility was often poor because trees and branches were snow-laden and bent toward the ground. Even major trails could be hard to find. It was intense - more like an Arctic expedition than a race.



After the initial climb, we headed north toward 40, slogging through a field covered with 30+ cm of fluffy snow. Then we continued north to 41 and west to 38. (Click on the map to make it larger.)



Then it was a steep scramble up the escarpment - sometimes on hands and knees, sometimes sliding backwards. We grabbed at saplings and crawled over rocks. My gloves got soaked here but fortunately my hands never got too cold as long as we kept moving. We were aiming for 43 and planned to use the main Bruce Trail to confirm our attackpoint. We crossed the trail without seeing it and ended up on the blue-blazed Bruce side trail. We decided to head for 37 first since we'd already come that far east. We could pick up 43 on the way back.

We'd planned a decision point at 37. We wanted one full hour of race time remaining when we entered the Matrix at 31. Based on the time remaining when we reached 37, we would decide whether to pick up 42 (short route) or head west of the Matrix to 53 and 56 (long route). Conditions were so slow that we just headed from 37 to 42. Once again, we crossed over the main Bruce Trail without seeing it but balked when it seemed we were about to plunge down the escarpment. We scrambled back up through boulders and tangled branches and found the trail.

From there, it should have been a straightforward run to 42, which was on the trail, but the trail was blocked in many places by thick curtains of icy branches. We pushed them aside over and over; sometimes it wasn't clear where the trail went on the other side. It was tiring - like bushwhacking. At the top of the cliff, a gusty wind blew wet, gritty snow onto our faces. I had to take off my wet glove to warm my cheek when I felt frostbite starting.

Back to 43, then down the Bruce Trail to 31 in the Matrix, where Dee and I could split up. She went for 32 and 35 while I went for 33 and 34. We both had some nervous moments but found our controls and made it back to the mandatory Aid Station meeting point within 3 minutes of one another.

We had 29 minutes to run east to the finish with detours from the trails to pick up 36 and 39. That seemed about right but I was a little nervous since there was no time to screw up. Luckily, we didn't and we made it back with less than 3 minutes to spare. So our boring, conservative plan turned out to be at the edge of our abilities in these crazy conditions.



I've been feeling discouraged lately about injuries, aging and fitness so I was shocked and ridiculously thrilled when the results were posted and we were 5th overall of 80 teams! I think it was my best result ever in about a dozen Snowshoe Raids. We were 1st of 32 female teams. Apparently, "boring" is a good way for us to choose routes - at least on a day like this when the running ability of fitter teams was less helpful to them than it usually is.

Big thanks to Bob and the volunteers for all their hard work on this fun event!

Dee and I met for what was supposed to be about 90 minutes of gentle snowshoe hiking. We're racing the Dontgetlost Snowshoe Raid tomorrow so we wanted to take it easy. Turns out we've both had foot pain in the past couple of days so we were concerned about that too. Dee had a deadline to get to a physio appointment for some treatment.

We started at the bottom of Osler with the plan of finding Dee a link to the Bruce Trail at the top so she could do longer loops. The basic Osler loop is just over 6 km.



But the forest was incredibly beautiful after yesterday's snow squalls. It was crisp and cold, and the snow was deep and fluffy. Trees branches sagged toward the ground with the weight of last week's ice and this week's snow. The sun was shining and the sky was blue.





When we got to the spot where we should have turned back to our cars so Dee could get to her appointment, she hesitated. The snowshoeing seemed to make her foot feel better. Mine didn't hurt either. She phoned her physio from the middle of the woods to cancel her appointment, and we continued up the hill and did a short trail loop in the northeast corner of Pretty River Provincial Park.





Although I'm calling it "trail", we often had to search hard to see where the trail was. The branches were bent down so far that it was often impossible to tell what was trail and what was bushwhacking. Adding to the challenge, Dee dropped her phone in 30 cm of snow and it vanished without a trace. Luckily, it still rang! We returned down the southern Osler snowshoe trail.



This was the wrong thing to do before a 3-hour snowshoe race but it was totally worth it. :)

2020 wasn't supposed to have any zero training days. On the bright side, I got a lot of stuff done today. I'll take a mulligan and start again.

My right heel was super painful - ugh.