Training Log Archive: X8A7

warmup

Red course at Observatory, 6.6km straight line. I wanted to finish off the "Canmore/Banff" training camp with another long day. I felt as if the increased training this week was paying off and planned on a long day of running. Was pretty tired in the morning as the flight, an evening flight, was delayed a couple of hours due to the 2017 great active shooter hoax of YYC. Good training if I'm every actually put in that situation I suppose, but it led much less sleep than I had wanted. Observatory is a great area, but I generally never navigate as well as I would like. After the logging (so lots of slash), the trees are growing fast in areas, so the mapped vegetation is not that great in those areas, which leads to some of my errors. Other errors were just due to lack of concentration. I was good through 4, going to 5 I had to run around a downed tree in the trail and I jumped trails because of it. The boulder at 6 has been problematic for me in the past, and it was again, but not nearly as bad. There's some green patches in the white leading up to it. Couldn't find the yellow stripe in the aspen grove leaving 8 (not sure its there anymore, ran through there again during control pickup and couldn't find it then either), but on the trails near 9 I got confused by big berms in the trail, which from a distance look like they should be mapped knolls. Generally good through 14. Going to 15 there's no fence as mapped at the property boundary (others made note of this), which led to some confusion. Leaving 15 I tried hard to follow the map closely, but gave up after a bit so just headed "west", and I popped out at the fence along the road more north than I wanted. Overall, actually quite a nice course, so thanks to Doug for that.
Quickroute: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98725947@N05/3456384...
Results: http://www.rmoc.org/index.php?option=com_content&v...

C • 2017 great active shooter hoax of YYC 1

Control pickup.

More control pickup.

Just a short loop, wanted to double check the trails between 4 and 5.

Red - Splits

Grassi Lakes. Given it was a travel day, it was a planned day off, the hike was too slow to log.

Lake Louise to the Lake Agnes Tea House, to the far end of the Lake Agnes, to the Beehive, and back. Total moving time was 2:16, but will log only a portion of that as AHR was only 96. Great views, lots of people, still snow/ice above about 6500'. Saw a salmonid in Lake Agnes, must be stocked given the huge waterfall at the outlet.

warmup by running up to the Nordic Centre.

Shorter O-course at the Centre.
Quickroute: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98725947@N05/3498655...

After the orienteering I watched what appeared to be a jr biathlon team training. They were doing some shooting and some easy rollerskiing. I ran the rollerski trails to see what they were like and kept out of their way. I kicked stones and sticks off the trail as I ran. Then ran back to the hotel in a non-direct route to lengthen the run. It was perfect weather, it had rained all night, but stopped just as I left the hotel for the workout, it was a perfect cool temp (~50F) and overcast. Felt like I had more endurance today compared to yesterday, but still a bit sluggish with the increased training.

Was fairly tired from yesterday so an easy hike seemed appropriate. Perhaps it was too easy, but I still ended up taking two naps in the afternoon. Hiked up to Stewart Canyon on Lake Minnewanka. No bear sightings (on the hike), just an ewe looking to cross a bridge.

warmup

At Nordic Centre. Its funny, there's barely any mention of the Olympics anywhere around town or at the Nordic Centre. The guy at the rental shop, who sold me some "required" bear spray, showed me some original Olympics trail maps, he said they are rare. I told him to scan them and put them online. He also said that some of the Olympic trails don't exist any more and many new trails have been put in (all to keep up with FIS standards), as new trails are added, some old trails have to be removed as for environmental reasons there has to be no net change in total trail. I asked if they rent roller skis as they have a pretty sweet roller ski course. He laughed, said too many broken wrists.

Anyway, I did buy an orienteering map and ran it. There's so many trails that it took a bit of getting used to and caused me to totally blow a control. Total time was 52:24 but there was a lot of head scratching... Also the woods are quite thick, white woods would be light green most places. The map needs a bit of updating, which the guy warned me about...
Quickroute: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98725947@N05/3520667...

With nothing better to do, and wanting to really run myself into the ground today, I decided to run the course again. This time with no mistakes and trying a few different route choices. Even though I was certainly running slower in many spots, my time was significantly faster.
Quickroute: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98725947@N05/3524360...

More running to try to get close to 2 hours total on day.

Town trails in Canmore. Perfect weather and the trails were very extensive, still lots of trails that I didn't hit. Bringing a map was a good idea as without it I would have had no idea how to put together a good loop like I did.