Training Log Archive: Funderstormin

It's been a long time since I've run two races two days in a row and wasn't sure how this was going to feel. Legs were heavy for the first mile but I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly they loosened up and generally felt really good. The 5 mile course was on a loop I'd never down before and I really enjoyed the novelty of it.

Perfect running temperatures both days - coolish and overcast. I didn't get rained on at all but my friends in the full and 50k definitely did.

Super fun weekend...so much so I decided to stay Sunday night and make the trek home in the wee hours of Monday morning!

Went back down to Michigan for the Trail Marathon this weekend, as much or more to hang out with friends as to run, but the combination works out well!

In other years I've just run the full marathon on Sunday, but this year they introduced a new combination called the "No Wimps Junior" which was the half on Saturday and 5 mile Sunday, and I thought that sounded like fun. It was the first time I have only had to run one loop of the course and that was a mental boost!

Ran with a slightly faster friend until mile 7 when I stopped to refill a bottle and let her go. It was just the right amount of push for me to try to stay with her. Slowed down a bit in the last 6 miles but was still generally feeling really good.

Wouldn't say I brought my A game after a night of beers around the campfire the night before, but I felt like I had a solid B- game with me today.

Have been battling a weird tummy bug for the past couple of days that I think I got from drinking my physiotherapist's homemade kombucha. I am no stranger to the booch but this tasted a bit off to me and I started feeling funky right after finishing it. Symptoms have been reminiscent of my two battles with the beaver fever (not to be confused with bieber fever which I have NEVER had) only slightly milder. Hoping it clears up before my races this weekend! :-\

C • Boo! 6

Woke up on my own accord early enough to see the sunrise, which was an awesome (albeit chilly) way to start the day. Decided that my breakfast potatoes (an Earlventure Sunday morning breakfast staple) would taste better if I ran first, so after two leisurely cups of coffee I headed out for an out and back on the main Fanshawe Lake trail. It was lovely and quiet and I wished I'd brought my mountain bike as I didn't feel like running the whole thing but it would have been a beautiful morning to bike it. Much better mojo than the day before - afternoon / evening runs never feel that good to me.

Earl and I are headed to Michigan for a weekend of racing next weekend so this was just a short dry run to make sure we both remembered how everything worked!

At Fanshawe Lake with Earl. Well, he didn't run with me but he's a big part of why I only rated this as a 2! I really didn't have my mojo on and all I wanted to do was get back to him for happy hour. We had a beautiful site up on a little cliff overlooking the lake and no one else around, which we like!

Wanted to get out for a run on sore legs to mentally prepare myself for two days of racing in Michigan in a couple of weeks so headed to Shade's Mills after family Easter festivities. I don't know why I don't run there more often, the trails are so lovely! It took awhile to get warmed up but my brain was harder to motivate than my legs. Park was nice and quiet and the trails were in great shape.

Event: Raid the Rib
 

Teamed up with Hermes and Amber for RTR (aka Raid the Re-entrant) after we had such a good time at the Eliminator Adventure Run a few weeks prior. We knew we'd be dropping lots of the optional controls and planned on the ones that looked the most fun, like the riverbed hopping Canada 150, rather than those that were worth the most points. We planned to do that, the EMC, the Dogbones and see how much time we had left for the Matrix at the end.

Unfortunately, things took a hard left on our route to CP2. We crossed the bridge and I knew we were looking for a trail on the left, but had to go down the doubletrack a bit to get to it. We saw several teams going up the trail right after the bridge and even though it felt wrong, we followed suite. It didn't take too long for things not too be adding up, but it did take a loooonnnggg time for us to realize that when the trails aren't making sense to three people who know how to navigate that something has gone wrong. Eventually, after the better part of an hour trying to make what we were seeing on the map fit the terrain, we went back down to the bridge and went further down the doubletrack. As soon as we were on the correct trail, things made sense...surprise!

The rest of the race went by uneventfully by comparison, but we wasted so much time looking for 2 that we didn't have much for the fun, optional stuff on the way back as we knew that we'd be pressed for time just doing the mandatory route. We did one dogbone on our way to 14 and took our time on the slippery rocks in the latter part of the course. Got in with just a few minutes to spare but all four teammates in relatively good shape!

Clusterf%^& on #2 aside, it was a wonderfully fun day in the woods with great company, and it was fun to race in a location that was a bit less familiar.

C • And veggie burgers at the f... 5

With Browner, STORM, and DD11 on HAFTA trails. A beautiful day, a mid-ride beer stop and a post-ride lunch on the patio at the Chop House. Perfect way to spend a Friday off!

With Allison in Breithaupt after work.

My new favourite source for running news is Jamil Coury's weekly Mountain Outhouse newscast on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, it's good for a laugh!

https://youtu.be/aleQhHEJYmA?list=PLZS_k6BQeW_KnXm...

C • I've been watching it too 4

Mrs. Tiny and I had a lovely post-work run at Puslinch. We saw a giant frog and three garter snakes. We stopped to watch one climb up a tree!

With a refuel at the Old Marina afterwards, this was a perfect way to spend a Monday evening!

On the treadmill watching videos from this past weekend's Barkley.

My second Orangetheory class. Fun to see my heart rate on a TV and feel like I am motivated to work harder because of it, but I don't think this is for me. Complaints include insufficient warm-up and cool down, and an emphasis on speed vs. form.

Went down to Ohio this weekend to run the Fools 25k for the second time. A group of us went in 2015 and really enjoyed the course and the Americana. We were partway through the drive this year when Allison read us an email indicating that the race had been cancelled due to the amount of rain the area had gotten in the last few days. The decision was made by the National Parks Service, not the race organization, and I felt for them having to deal with an infinite number of questions and many angry racers. When we heard we experienced about two minutes of disappointment before thinking this would only make the weekend more fun, and it did!

Now, instead of having to mind ourselves on Friday night and wake up early on Saturday for the race, we visited an outstanding brewery in Erie, PA (Voodoo Brewing), stayed up super late enjoying the wares of said brewery, had a cartwheel showdown in the hotel hallway 'round 1:00 a.m., took our time getting going in the morning and went out to the trails anyways to run what we could of the course, as we figured it might already be marked. In the parking lot, we met a guy from NYC who had decided to do the same thing, and the next thing you know, we had a new friend who joined us for dinner that night as well! The course was mostly marked and we were able to run most of it (but missed a loop). While the forest trails weren't in bad shape, the cross-country trails that were part of the course were swampy muck, and we could see why the NPS wouldn't want 500 racers coming through there. We all got to run together, stop when we wanted to for pictures, and had lots of laughs along the way...way better than a race!

C • Perfect way to spend a week... 3