Training Log Archive: Funderstormin

Earl and I left Willow Bay and did a bit of driving around before heading back into the NY side of Allegany to check out a couple of different trails. First up was Bear Caves / Mt. Seneca that was a point-to-point trail with some cool rock formations. I was looking forward to seeing the "summit" but realized that after I'd been going down for some time that I'd missed it, oops! The trail sign had said 4 miles but I assumed that was one-way and was surprised to come out to the end as early as I did. The trail was lovely but I hate out and backs so I just rambled back to the van along the road.

After the Bear Caves trail we headed over to the Red House area of the park where I was planning to camp for the night. They had SUP rentals which I thought would be a fun way to mix it up for the afternoon but as I was filling out the rental form, we heard thunder and they said they couldn't (understandably) rent me a boat for at least half an hour after the thunder had stopped. There was another trail I wanted to check out that went up and over a hill so decided to do that in the pouring rain instead. I did have a brief moment of "is this the best idea?" as I set out in the rain but the trail was short and sheltered. Took a beer and some nuts in my pack to enjoy at the "summit" but it was too wet to eat the nuts. The Ellicotville Session IPA went down well though. :-)

Rain kept up the entire time but it was really fun. I had my poles with me for extra traction and it was neat to know I was the only crazy one out there at the time!

After hike #2, I drove around to choose a campsite and decided NOT to choose the one beside the guy who had a big sign out front of his proclaiming "God didn't save us, Sam Colt did." And then it said something else about guns being awesome. I can't make this up! Gotta love 'murica!

Saturday morning at Tracy Ridge it was pouring rain, so I decided to hang out in Earl a bit longer and enjoy a good book to see if it let off. It did eventually, but not until nearly lunch time.

I'd planned a longer run / hike on the trails in the Tracy Ridge Recreation Area which included a portion of the North Country Trail. The area is well signed with lots of length / route options. Ran for the first hour or so but my Achilles was giving me grief so I settled for hiking the rest instead.

It was lovely and green and humid in the woods, but the scenery was pretty unchanging and the humidity brought out the FDFs, so I was happy enough to have gotten about 20km or so in and head back to Earl in time to head to our campsite for the night down at the bottom of the ridge at a place called Willow Bay. It was much less wilderness-y and family-oriented than Tracy Ridge but I did enjoy the hot shower and had a cool site backing onto a babbling creek!

Earl and I headed down to the Allegheny / Allegany region (why do they spell it differently?) for the long weekend. We both get very excited about the prospect of unexplored trails! We were staying on the PA side for the first two nights but stopped in the NY part of the park on our way to down to check out the Black Snake Mountain (mountain is a bit of an exaggeration) trail as it crossed the NY/PY border and I thought that it would be cool to see the marker!

It was raining as I started and I was the only person on the trail, which made my NY/PA border selfies much less awkward.

Ran a bit, hiked a bit, but am too lazy to try to figure out how much of each. In my Ambit, I call it "rambling".

A fun start to the trip! When we were done we headed over to the Tracy Ridge Recreation Area on the PA side for the night.

Went out for a lovely later evening (well later for me to be running!) run along the Grand Valley and Grand River trails.

I love this class so much.

Event: RockstAR
 

RockstAR with Mrs. Tiny. She had never done this race before! It is without a doubt my favourite of the season and I always look forward to seeing what new fun things will be on the course this year.

When we got our maps Saturday morning we decided to head to the southwest section of the map to go for the high pointers. I'd never been down in that area before as I usually skip it because it looks very hard! But I also knew that if we wanted to be competitive we would need to aim for the big ones. I checked with Bash who described that area as Frontier Adventure Challenge / Wilderness Traverse type navigating which sounded intriguing! We might as well go for it!

After the bike section we decided to approach 84 via 61 in the canoe. Things got a little sketchy fairly early when we couldn't find the Zeth / Red Paint trail we were hoping would take us most of the way there. We looked for a bit and then just started bushwhacking using the water as a handrail. It felt like it took forever to get there but after 84, the other three CPs in this section went smoothly. On the way back to the boats, the elusive Red Paint trail was much easier to find and made for a pretty efficient route back. Mrs. Tiny saw a green snake which made her very happy.

Once back at the boats, we stopped in at 41 so I could go to the bottom of the lake for the underwater control. This is probably my favourite control and I am always happy to be the one to swim down and get it, especially on such a hot day! From there, we checked in at the Hub (mmm...mango juice!) and decided to set back across the lake in the boat to get some of the CPs at the north end. On our way there, we did the SUP control and the trail building one, which was a fun new addition this year!

Once at the top end, we went for the 60-pointer, then tried to get 51 but got messed up by the swamp that wasn't on the map. In retrospect, we should have trusted our nav skills and ignored it, but it definitely flummoxed us and we wasted a bunch of time wandering around the mystery swamp. It was just after 6:00 at this point and we decided that we needed to be back at our boat by 6:30 at the latest and still wanted to get 50 and 46, so we begrudgingly left 51 unpunched. Got 50 and 46 without incident and had a smooth paddle back. We got back with about 13 minutes to spare - urgh! We thought briefly about running over to get the low ropes CP but heard it was tough and there was a wait, so we called it a day. In retrospect, it only took us about 15 minutes to get across the lake so we could have used that time to keep looking for 51.

As it turned out, that would have been a few more minutes well spent as we were bested by the Breakfast Club by 20 points. Stupid mystery swamp! :-/ Oh well. Looking at the map the next day, we also wondered if we would have been better off focusing on the big point controls at the north end rather than the southwest, as it was pretty slow going in that area. Something to think about for next year! :-)

As always, there are so many fun elements about this race, many of which take place after the race is over! We had a very fun night (and into the morning) hanging out with Bash, 'Bent and FB in his teammates at the post-race party. We may have been second in our category, but I like to think we were first in fun at post-race shenanigans! I came up with a few 18+ modifications for next year's course, some of which involve beer and/or fireball.

Thanks STORM, Browner and everyone else involved for putting on such a fun event!

C • Great race! 2

It was a perfect morning for running! Even though there isn't a lot of it, it makes me so happy to have the Grand Valley and Grand River trails to explore a short walk away from my house. :-)

Went out to explore a section of the Kissing Bridge Trailway that I hadn't been on before. Was a good reminder of how much I hate rail trail riding, especially on my soft tail. Was a nice evening though!

10K at North Face Endurance Challenge. I did the half-marathon last year but did not find the heat and elevation to be much fun the day after volunteering for the longer races. I'd signed up again to marshal on the Saturday, and since I haven't run much long distances since Born to Run, due in part to my dumb Achilles, figured the 10K was a good way to get a few hilly miles in.

Had a decent run - was mentally prepared for the Grind and the ups and downs once we got up to the top. Enjoyed this course more than the year before but coming straight down the ski hill was a bit of a let down as it was too steep to actually enjoy!

Had a super fun weekend volunteering, running, and catching up with friends. Bob Miller sure does know how to design one tough course!

Lovely out and back toodle on the Grand River trail. Ran into a woman who said she talks to a deer every morning. I thought she was nuts but then I saw the doe and she did seem to respond to the woman's voice. The deer had a baby and they hung around for a bit and then frolicked away. Great start to the day!

I joined Heidi and Hanna for a morning of SUP'ing down the Grand River from Paris to Ancaster. I'd never SUP'ed on a river before and I loved it! We had beautiful weather and this section of the river is beautiful - a nice mix of lazy, flowing sections and deeper sections that required a bit more work. I also really enjoyed looking down and seeing the fish swim around - it was like paddling through an aquarium at times, although with less exotic fish.

C • Sounds fun and different! 5

Lovely morning run with Bash at Hockley, doing all the side trails on the first side of the loop, followed by a Black Birch lunch, which, let's face it, is half of what gets me out to Hockley in the first place!

It was great to catch up with Bash, hear all about Lavaredo, and get a longer run in.

Mrs. Tiny and I had plans to meet up for a Friday night ride at Puslinch, followed by dinner at the Old Marina, which is pretty much my favourite way to spend a Friday night. Only problem was that Mrs. Tiny found out her bike needed some work! Instead, she ran and I biked. We weren't sure how this was going to work out but with her pushing her pace and the twisty singletrack back there, it worked out just fine. I joked that it would be funny for me to yell motivational things at her whenever we saw other people so that I could pretend I was her coach. We also came up with a new Mantracker style sport but I'm not spill the beans in case we decide to market it. ;-)

Earl was pretty sore about missing out on last weekend's adventure, so I promised him we'd spend some quality time together this week. Thursday after work we headed out to Laurel Creek, one of my favourite local hidden gems that is only 10 minutes from my work!

Did a short run on the trails. Is it weird that I loved how hot and humid it was?

C • Yes 4

Hiking out from campsite back to the parking lot. I had another leisurely morning and camp pack-up and really enjoyed this last day of hiking. My pack was a bit lighter and I felt generally more used to carrying it. I can easily see how people adapt to a routine like this when doing longer hikes.

Although the landscape felt pretty familiar to me, I really enjoyed how varied the trails were in the park. There were lots of ups and downs but nothing soul crushing and a few technical sections but they never lasted very long. All of the intersections were well marked and I never worried I was going the wrong way. Sites were huge and private and while food hanging was recommended, there had been no recent bear sightings so I felt very safe wildlife-wise except from that jerk snake Sassafras!

Once I got home and recovered with a couple of nice cold Michigan IPAs, I got out the topo map, marked the route that I had taken and started to plan what I would want to do the next time I go back there!

C • Nicely done! 3

Had a lovely leisurely morning enjoyed coffee in my hammock before packing up and setting out for my next site. I vowed to meander a bit more today than yesterday and enjoy the trails. The weather was perfect - sunny and warm with enough breeze to keep the bugs away.

Arrived at campsite 8 just after lunch to find people on the site I had booked. Eeek, this was one of my fears! There was a family who had booked sites 8A, 8B and 8C for three nights but because I had booked 8B for Saturday they had been moved to 8D for the last night. They asked if I was interested in 8D instead so I went to take a look at it and it was beautiful! It was up on a little ridge overlooking Birch Lake and set well away from the other sites. I set up camp and had a wonderful afternoon collecting firewood, swimming and hammocking. I did discover that 8D was also double booked...with a ton of rat snakes!

Now, I like to think of myself as a friend of wild life but it seemed that everywhere I went, I ran into one of these big fellows. They are harmless to humans but the largest snake in Canada and a constrictor so a little bit imposing to come across: https://www.ontario.ca/page/gray-ratsnake There was one that I swear was taunting me on purpose - I named him Sassafras and yelled at him a few times but he was not the least bit scared of me. When I went to get some firewood, there he was. When I went to hang my food, he was in the tree I wanted to use. What a jerk! Because I have an active imagination I was pretty sure I was going to find him loitering outside of my tent on Sunday morning. Fortunately, I think he was sleeping in.

C • Note to self: keep tent do... 8

I loved the backpacking trip that Mrs. Tiny, Allison and I did in Killarney last year and wanted to get a couple in this year as well, so on February 1st, when the sites for this past weekend opened up, I booked a couple of nights at Frontenac. I'd never been there before which was part of the allure!

Drove up Friday morning and hit a bit more traffic than expected which resulted in a later start than I'd wanted. Thunderstorms were in the forecast so I felt a bit antsy to get to my site (13A) and get set up. I enjoyed the hike and the variation in the trails but didn't dawdle much because the humidity had brought out the FDFs. When I arrived at my site I was thrilled! It was large and private and right on the water. I got everything set up before the thunderstorms came, and when they did, they were quite brief.

Hoofed my hammock out there with me which was totally worth the weight of carrying it. Was able to set it up between two trees right by the water and enjoyed a lot of hammock time!