Training Log Archive: Funderstormin

Nice morning paddle on Little Lake.

C • help... 19

Mrs. Tiny, Andrew and I got out for a tour de Puslinch right before the rain hit.

Event: Pick Your Poison
 

Never done this race before and thought it would good way to build my confidence back up after my first DNF in Copper Canyon. Didn't turn out quite that way though! For some reason, I was really, really anxious today and could never really get myself to settle down. Sitting in my car before the race, my HR was already in zone 2, and stayed in 5 for most of the race despite the fact that I was not going very fast.

First loop went okay. Ran part of the loop with Myka and Amber who were both looking awesome. Felt like I was running easy and thankfully, my Achilles barely said a peep the whole time. Finished first loop around 1:32 and was hoping for an even to negative split as I thought I'd been conservative on the first lap. My plan was to stay that way until the first aid station on the second loop and then try to pick up the pace. Felt okay to the aid station but then started to decline. Stomach was sloshing around with whatever I tried to eat or drink. I probably shouldn't have worn my HRM as it freaked me out to look at it as it was rarely going under 188, even when walking up the hills. If it had been a longer race, I seriously would have sat down in the forest to meditate for 10 minutes to calm myself down, but didn't think it was worth it in a race so short! So instead of pushing the pace on the last 8-9 km, I was definitely slowing down.

When I finished, I walked for a bit and then sat down and watched as it took my HR about 10 minutes to settle. Even after sitting for 5 minutes, it was still around 150. No idea what was going on but it wasn't pleasant! That said, the course was beautiful and the temperatures perfect. Will just chalk this up to a bit of a bad day!

C • warm weather and nerves? 4

Short spin around Puslinch. Soooo nice out! Place was jammed and trails are in awesome shape.

Had hoped to go for a nice bike ride tonight - guess I should have paid more attention to the forecast! I've been staying off my feet as my right achilles has been really sore since Sunday. Will try a short run tomorrow to see if PYP is going to be feasible or not. The pain isn't at all intolerable, it's more knowing that the problem is worsening going into the beginning of racing season. Argh!

Went straight from Rib Raid to a conference in Toronto and sitting around for two days left me feeling like crap. This helped, but definitley need to be doing more of it (although I suppose I could say that about a lot of things!).

Event: 2013 Salomon Giant's Rib Raid
 

Oh goodness, where to begin! Things started off really well with CPs 1-5, but then we had a fair bit of trouble with 6 for some reason. 7-9 were fine, but then the shit hit the fan. We were going to start with 16-17 on the butterfly section, but took the wrong trail towards 16 and ended up closer to 17. Backtracked to correct the error of our ways. Back to 12 then on to 10-11. Took another wrong trail to 10 and spent a good 30 minutes looking for it, trying from several different points. Then 11 caused us some grief as well, but we eventually found it from a different attack point. Were heading back to 15 when we realized that weren't going to make the cut-off at the next aid station. We really wanted to do the Controlled Blast section so rather than continue to die a slow death in butterfly hell, we went from 11 to 20 and then finished the rest of the course. Of course, once we did that, we nailed everything else. Frustrations ran high at one point but once we bailed we regrouped quickly and laughed about how terrible we'd been. Nice to finish on a good note through the very fun Controlled Blast section and find out we'd won a draw prize. Awesome day to be out in the woods, even if some of that time was spent wandering around in circles! :)

C • Dying a slow death 7

Absolutely perfect morning run in shorts and a t-shirt on Puslinch trails before the rain came. I had only planned to go out for about half an hour as I'm trying to take it easy due to some ligament damage I have on my right ankle and that I'm trying to baby a bit so that it gets better and not worse. Hard to believe that I still get lost in my own backyard, but that's exactly what happened when I decided to take some different trails than I normally do. Perhaps I should be running with the Stars O-cup map! Ended up as far away from my house as I could be when I needed to be back in the shower getting ready for work! Eventually had to resign myself to heading back on the road (ugh!) but on the plus side, I saw two little turtles on my way back.

C • Lost at Home 4

Lovely morning trail run at Puslinch. Perhaps at some point I will learn that the daily temperature high for the day doesn't usually occur at 6 am. Was a bit chilly in my shorts!

C • shorts 1

Short but sweet spin around the Puslinch trails, which are in awesome shape.

Did a few loops around the lake this morning while the sun was shining and it wasn't too windy. Tried my best to remember Angry Seagull's advice from a few weeks back but am not sure how successful I was!

If I'm going to ride on the road, it is this type of ride I like the most - combination of paved road, unpaved road, dead end road (oops) and a tour through the doubletrack at Puslinch, which was surprisingly rideable. Nice rolling hills and a couple of good climbs.

Hilton Falls loop with BiT and Mrs. Tiny. Plan seemed questionable on the drive up as we drove through rain and sleet, but was a great decision once we got out there. Trails were in good shape on the first half but once we crossed over 6th line to the other side, there was a lot of storm carnage to crawl over and under and wade through. I didn't have the most up to date map with me and as a result we took a wee detour towards the end of the run but managed to get ourselves back on track in relatively short order. Seemed like we managed to get out in the best part of the day and we said many times how glad we were that we had decided to run. Fun adventure!

Had a VO2 max test done over my lunch today. My last one was from two years ago and I wanted to see if my zones had changed at all to ensure I was using accurate data in my training. I was quite pleased (and surprised) to find out that my VO2 max has increased 14% since I was last tested, but more thrilled to hear that my lower zone training seems to be paying off. When I was tested last, my zone 2 max was 142; now it's 160, which was my former zone 3 max. In other words, I've become quite a bit more efficient at using fat as fuel rather than having to dip into carbohydrate stores while exercising. It also means I can be running a bit faster than I have been when trying to stay within zone 2.

C • Crazy 7

Spin class at Good Life. In retrospect, I should have just ridden outside but I am not trusting Mother F^&*(^$ at the moment.

Stars Urban Adventure Race with Mrs. Tiny. She has every right to log this as a 3 but I genuinely felt like a 4 for a good part of it so don't want to lie about it after the fact!

This was a fun, cheap and creative event that started and finished at City Hall in Cambridge. We were given four maps: the first had CPs 1-6 on it, which could be visited in any order, as well as 3 stars, which represented maps a, b, and c and took us to different parks in the area. Once we got there and punched the lettered control, we could visit the CPs in that park (between 3-6) in any order. Lots of route choice meant people going in all different directions which was a lot of fun.

Our goal was to clear the course and we were able to in lots of time. Once we got back to City Hall, we traded in each of our 'points' (1 per CP and 2 for each of the A-C maps) for a playing card and the best poker hand would win a prize. Although we got the maxiumum amount of cards possible, we still could only come up two pairs. Oh well, it was a beautifully warm (albeit windy) day and we saw some really neat parts of Cambridge along the way.

C • Fun 1

Mrs. Tiny and I met up at my place for a road ride on our MTBs. Nice combination of paved and unpaved roads with a sojourn through the trails at Fletcher Creek. We took turns complaining about how bad the hills felt and that it was windy. We definitely got out in the best part of the day though.

Tough to get out of bed for this as I tied a wee bit of one on last night at the GLB Tap Takeover at Imbibe. I fully recognize that my two favourite hobbies are somewhat at odds with one another. :)

C • that's understandable 2

Phil Maffetone's Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing is my bedtime reading at the moment. Last night I read a chapter on the importance of raising the heart rate slowly through a longer warm-up, and I put this to the test on the treadmill at the gym this morning. Normally, if I just hop on and start running at a usual pace, my HR spikes and takes 10-15 minutes to go down to where it should be (let's say 160 in zone 3). With a longer warm-up, I was amazed at how I was able to keep my HR well below my aerobic threshold. The difference was pretty significant - about 30 beats - at the same pace. Throughout the run I also found that I was able to keep upping the speed without going above 140. Interesting stuff! I'm getting my zones retested next week as the information I'm using is two years old.

C • Cool 7

Easy run on the treadmill before hot yoga.

Made it in time for the first hot yoga class instead of lying on the floor yoga. Really like this instructor.