Training Log Archive: Anvil

Just noticed a dogleg on leg 5 of Tio. Clearly these Swedes need a level 2 controller to look at their courses ;)

Ripper long run from Grouse Mountain car park to Deep Cove, with Louise, Nate and Ed.
Got a bit tired in the last 20 mins, probably cause I never usually run for that long. Felt the effect of the softer than usual trails in the legs now as well.
Some real nice sections of trail and forest, I liked all the sections along the rivers and bridge crossing. Wanted to swim in Lynn Canyon but knew it would be a little too chilly at this time of year - water looked so nice though....

Ran out to Beaver Lake in Stanley Park. The signage around the lake says it's a 1km loop, so I figured that would be good enough to do some reps around.
Was skeptical about the distance, but Garmin measured about 950-970m per lap so that's good enough for me.
Was only gonna do 3 as my heal was feeling a bit sore on the run out, but felt quite good on the 3rd so decided to do another. Unfortunately on the rest between the third and fourth I somehow became the unofficial Stanley Park Tour Guide for everyone walking the tracks. Are there any beavers? Why is it called Beaver Lake then? How to I get to bus 19 from here? Does this track lead to the Rose Garden?
The best was a Japanese woman who asked me why I was training (I made up I was training for the 10K race next week, I wasn't going to explain orienteering), she then asked if i was going to win and then got into what type of shoe she should be wearing cause the ones she was wearing were hurting her feet (she had quite a similar shoe to mine and she wanted to know if my feet hurt as well!).
Once everyone left I picked the one track that none of them walked down for the final rep. Unfortunately it had a brutal hill in the middle and my legs had started to cool down after the extended break, so it was a pretty shit final one.
3:26, 3:26, 3:28, 3:56
Not displeased with those times since I was by myself and it's the first lot of intervals I've done since Easter. Tried to imagine I was with Pete's group, but it just doesn't work!

C • temps 8

Warm up to the start of the WET, purposely caught a bus that would put me that far away to force a warm up! Nice houses out this way.

Wedneday Evening Training at Camosun Bog. Bog by name, bog by nature - came back muddy up to the thighs.
Interesting course, 'dog ears', eight lots of three controls joined together as a triangle. Enter the triangle at one control, run the two edges of the triangle, exit and start on a new one till you've done all eight.
When I was out there the format annoyed me, as the map was almost all green so it was mainly muddy track running and you often had to rerun the same track two or three times as you made your way round the triangles.
But looking back it's a bloody good format for practicing planning ahead - three times I missed a vital junction cause I was so immersed in what I was going to do next!
Had no push today, think it's time for a rest day.

Easy cruise around the waterfront.
Took a long time to get going today, but was happy with the pace once the motor started revving. Part way through decided to start counting how many other people were running as well - got to about 70 by the end of it and about double that on bikes. In Tassie at the same time of day you'd be lucky to see 5.
An upcoming 10K race gets over 50,000 people racing, Hobarts biggest race (City to Casino) usually gets over 1000. (Granted this Vancouver race is one of the largest in the world)
Vancouver has roughly triple the population of Hobart. They're both similar cities, large waterfront, surrounded by mountains and easy access to the outdoors. I wonder why such a large difference with regards to runners/healthy people.
Possibly analogous, I've only seen two people who I'd classify as bogan here. It's good.

Next day edit - seems I had the population of Vancouver wrong. A google of 'Vancouver population' brings up 600,000, but that is only the central city area. If you count the North Shore, Surrey, Richmond etc 'Greater Vancouver' is more like 3 million! So all the bogans and fat people must be in one of the outer areas, where they belong ;)

C • Coquitlam, probably! 2

Caught the bus up Grouse Mountain to do the Grouse Grind, but it's still closed from winter. There was a sign at the carpark for another trail that led to Lynn Canyon, so followed that for a bit. It was under power lines the whole way and then seemed to stop and just become a driveway at a big gully. No markings of where to go, so I went back and headed down through Capilano Canyon, which was way nicer, lots of photo stops.
Had planned on running back to the seabus terminal, but as soon as I popped out of the canyon onto the main road it started raining hard and a bus came past, so I hopped on that.
Not the most beneficial session, but a good explore.

Easy, turning the legs over run round Stanley Park.
Caught the bus there and back, felt like a bit of a loser for doing so but glad I did cause got to explore a lot of the tracks and it was all off road, all forest.
Nice day, but still cold.