Training Log Archive: Bash

The pooches and I took down the 10 controls from Thursday's Caledon Navigators night sprint. It was fun to see the frozen footprints in the snow showing which way everyone went. There are some depressingly large patches of non-snow, especially on south-facing hills.

While watching the Colbert Report

Forecast is for heavy rain and +8C during the day and a windchill of -27C tonight. WTF? I'm wondering if our local ski season might be over for good. :-( On the other hand, it sounds like the skating might be excellent.

'Bent and I watched the first part of the 1993 World Road Cycling Champs in Norway. Cycling afficionados will know why this was a milestone. There was pouring rain and wind, and more than half the field had been lost to crashes at the point in the race where we paused the DVD. It was nice to see a place that had worse weather than we've been having! (Although not much.)

We were whizzed through 5.5 hrs of their race in just an hour of DVD time, but it looks like we'll move through the rest of the race closer to real time - and will undoubtedly get many opportunities for those "pedal hard to beat the competition" moments on the trainer.

It's interesting to notice 21-year-old Lance Armstrong's face appearing in the peleton occasionally with little mention of his name (so far, that is) by commentator Phil Liggett.

When the forecast rain got postponed, I thought I could ski one more time today - but I thought wrong. In fact, I even felt pretty silly on snowshoes in some places, since there were patches of bare ground. I sure missed having Hammer to tow me up the hills!

This was fun, actually. ThunderDog and I went out and hung 10 flags for tonight's Caledon Navigators indoor/outdoor training session. We're going to do some route choice exercises indoors, then do a night sprint, then eat cookies by the fire. It makes me feel quite cheerful to look out the window and see CN's shiny new flags poking out from various nooks and crannies. :-)

I was feeling oogie today but couldn't pass up a chance to ski in the sun before the forecast rain. Only 3 weeks till the Rock & Ice Ultra! It was +1C, so I took out the waxless skis for the first time in awhile. It was like skiing on maple syrup in some parts of the forest, but it made for a better workout, I guess. I found another place in the snow where a squirrel had become a hawk's lunch. I didn't realize it was so dangerous to be a squirrel around here. Maybe I won't get quite so grumpy when they try to get into our bird feeder.

We finally looked at the calendar and realized that 'Bent and I cannot attend the Thomass Stars race to challenge for the overall series victory - boo, hiss! 'Bent is a little disappointed, since he's had two Thomass wins this season and was well-positioned going into the final race of the series. I'll get the women's title, but this was my first chance at the overall win. Oh well, at least we have a good excuse... we have a podium position to defend at the CNYO Snowgaine in New York that weekend! At last count, three vehicle-loads of Canadians were planning to go down and challenge the Murkins for the medals. Last year, Canadian teams took 4 of the top 5 positions, but we're going back without overall champions Bob and Dee, so we have our work cut out for us.

Skied to Palgrave to meet someone, then took the long way home around Palgrave East. Speedy conditions, lots of sunshine, great wax = fun! The only downer was the growing realization that my throat was sore - just a few hours after 'Bent had noticed the same thing. Argghh, I've already had a 3-week respiratory infection this winter - I'm supposed to be done for the year! :-( We leave for the Rock & Ice Ultra in just 22 days.

I passed by the scene of yesterday's "crime" and noted that the hawk (I assume) had returned to devour the squirrel.

While watching the Daily Show

While watching the Colbert Report

Eight years ago today, police knocked on the door to tell us that a close family member had been killed by a drunk driver. A senseless loss like this doesn't end with the funeral and mourning period. It doesn't end with the painful legal process, the trial, the victim impact statements and the sentencing of the impaired driver. The impact is felt every single day - forever - as spouses live alone and siblings feel the void, and as children grow older without their parents and never get to introduce their own children to their grandparents. 'Bent and I will be spending time with family this week.

Be a good friend - let's keep an eye out for each other. Here's a Blood Alcohol Calculator.

It's based on averages - it doesn't account for individual differences in response to alcohol. Note also that the "standard" drink sizes may be smaller than what you actually get served, so your glass of wine might actually be closer to two glasses of wine. And finally, note that the legal limit in Ontario is 0.08, but it's 0.05 in some jurisdictions that want to prevent driving at a level where judgement starts being impaired in a significant percentage of the population. So you might want to consider 0.05 to be your personal limit, just to be on the safe side.

Skied around Palgrave West on a bluebird day. Lots of new snow - the forest was beautiful. It was moderately breezy, and the trees were cracking a *lot*. More than once, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a huge tree above me made that gunshot sound like it was about to split in two.

It was a great day for seeing wildlife - unless you prefer your wildlife to be alive. I skied over a thick stick and decided to go back and remove it from the trail. It turned out to be the bottom 30 cm of a deer's leg. Later I startled a large raptor that was unsuccessful in taking flight with its prey. I skied off-trail to investigate - it looked like the black spikes of a porcupine, which would be surprising. I was still surprised when I discovered that it was a black squirrel. I'm sure the bird planned to come back, since he still had lots of lunch left. I skied away feeling a little sad about the squirrel, since we have a nice group of them that hang around our place. My thoughts were interrupted by another black squirrel that leapt across the trail just in front of me - another "jump out of my skin" moment!

Hope the skiing stays good this week, but Wednesday might be rainy - yuck.

Beautiful ski around Palgrave West with 'Bent and the pooches. I feel a little tired from yesterday, but nothing hurts or felt stiff. There's about 15 cm of fresh, fluffy snow on the ground, and big flakes were coming down as we skied. We were happy to meet up with Crash and her three dogs for a big pooch party on the trails. ThunderDog and BulletDog are snoring by the fire now after all the excitement.

Caron's Power Yoga DVD #1. I was going to follow up with some upper body strength, but it was clear from the yoga push-ups and one-armed side planks that my arms were tired from using poles yesterday. So I did some more work on my gear list for the Rock & Ice Ultra instead.

Today was my very first Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Snowshoe Raid - what a blast! Bob Miller had designed an interesting course with 45 controls. When I saw that it stayed north of Horseshoe Valley Rd, I was convinced that some team would get them all, but I was wrong. In fact, the winning team (Sudden & Turbo) didn't even enter the Matrix, earning just 1220 of 1450 pts. Kudos to Bob for pulling this off - that's the way a rogaine-style race should be designed. It's one of the few events I've done where you would run into people, then head off in different directions, then run into each other again later on, having done completely different things. There were that many ways to approach this course.

A wild card was the "walk the line" section that wasn't marked on the map - just an "X" at the start and an instruction to head north and follow a marked trail for 1.3 km. There were 100 pts available, so it was worth doing, but it meant that we didn't know where it would take us, so some of our route planning had to remain a little fuzzy.

Hammer is one of my longtime navigation heroes, so I was looking forward to this race - but with some trepidation. (Backwoods is another one of my heroes that I've raced with, and she shares her brother's calm confidence with a map.) Hammer and I had divided up the roles so that I was in charge of planning, and he was in charge of execution. It worked well, since I love planning a rogaine map; we did the fine-tuning of control sequence together. On the course, I monitored distance (until my Forerunner stopped) and time while running on a tow line for most of the race, trying not to lose my balance as we skidded more or less in synch down some very steep, sapling-covered hills. Hammer found efficient routes for us and kept a nice pace at the front of the tow rope. I'd wondered if it might drive him crazy to not be able to run his natural pace, but if it did, he was very polite and patient about it.

Toward the end, we were running short of time, and we had to decide how to approach the finish. Hammer convinced me to do one more control than I would have done on my own. We finished with a mad dash to the finish line, crossing it exactly at the 3-hr mark. Woo hoo!

Comparing notes with 'Bent, we realized that we'd scored the exact same number of points!! But he and Eugenius arrived a few minutes before we did, so they won the Masters division (not entirely unexpected), and Hammer and I were proud to take a close 2nd place - and 7th overall out of about 85 teams.

Big congrats to Sudden & Turbo on the win, Tiny & Hotshot Lawyer for an awesome 2nd place, Nick & XCDan for 3rd, Tarno & Riddler for 4th and Dee & Harper for 5th (and 1st Coed). Congrats also to Slice & Leanimal for taking their usual win in the Female category and to Rocky & Crash for roaring into 2nd place in their adventure run team debut! AdventureGirl! & Etoile also took 2nd in the Family category, and Mr. & Mrs. Gally took 2nd in the Coed category, so it was a great day for our friends all round.

It was great fun to hang out afterward at Coach Trayling's beautiful home and get some extra time to catch up with Slice, Leanimal, Phatty, PhattyJR, Kari and Kona.

Yahoo - nice fluffy snow to ski in! It's not a lot, and it won't take long to wear down, so I wanted to get out skiing while I could. We leave for the Rock & Ice Ultra in a month, and we probably won't be skiing around here as long as that, so every snowy day is precious.

I should be doing an upper body strength workout today, but decided not to because I'm feeling fatigued and a little food poisoned. Instead I just used my poles more emphatically than usual in hopes of getting a bit of an arm workout. Now it's time to taper until the Snowshoe Raid when I will need to be ready to chase Hammer as fast as I can.

The local pit bull was just here again - half a kilometer from home. I phoned the owner, and she yelled at me. If I wanted to talk about the dog, then I had to call her husband at 6:30 p.m. When people yell at me, I either yell back or get overly polite, and fortunately it was the latter this time. But that didn't stop her from yelling and refusing to discuss it. I won't be near a phone at 6:30, so I'll just print the relevant legislation and leave it in the mailbox with a covering note for her husband. The local laws apply equally to our Labs, who can't wander free on other people's properties without permission. The provincial laws for pit bulls require a few extras like tall fences and muzzles.

Once again, it's the dog owners who are idiots, not the poor dog, thus I'm not calling Animal Control yet, because that would punish the dog more than the people. I'm told that pit bulls seldom attack humans - unlike their reputation - but they've been genetically engineered to fight other dogs, and that's where I draw the line. ThunderDog and BulletDog should be able to wander around our yard without worrying about that.

Rodney Yee's Yoga for Flexibility. Just trying to keep up with Zoolander. I wonder if he's able to imagine that his toes are buds ready to burst into blossom in springtime? I always have trouble with that one.

Not much time before a meeting, so only saw half of the Colbert Report. Legs are starting to feel a little stronger. Unfortunately, my right lower back/hip region is hurting for some unknown reason, and neither yoga nor strength exercises made any difference. Gotta be healthy for my first Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Snowshoe Raid!!

My legs were fatigued after a great weekend, so I promised them nothing but yoga today. But then 'Bent e-mailed me after running to work and deciding that he would like a vehicle to drive to Bolton for a knee treatment. I had an errand near his office, so he generously suggested that I could leave the car at his office and run BulletDog home along his commute route. Well, it's not that long since Valentine's Day and Family Day, so how could I say no? [Note: An hour after I got home, he e-mailed sheepishly to say that he couldn't get a knee appointment tonight after all, so he will be leaving the car at the office and running home too. That's if he's not too embarrassed to come home!]

My run was OK. It was a good reminder of why I don't like to run cross-country at this time of year. Goose's accident has sensitized me to the ease with which a little ice can deprive someone of many months of fun outdoor activities. I ran the first part on the rail trail, which was mostly glare ice, then a block on road through Reddington, then on trails through Palgrave East and West, where the crusty snow is so hard that snowshoes are no longer needed.

On a side trail in Palgrave West where I rarely see anyone other than Crash or 'Bent, a nervous-looking woman was hurriedly putting a dog on leash as I approached. I put BulletDog on leash, then asked if her dog would be OK if we came by. She said that he didn't like other dogs, so she would just take him into the forest. As we passed them, she was leaning back and hauling on the leash with all her might while some very muscular dog - either a boxer or a young bull mastiff - was attempting to leap at us like a charging stallion. It was clearly not the time to stop and chat with her about whether she planned to bring this beast off-leash into our woods on a regular basis, but I toyed with the idea of running back after taking BulletDog home. Why do stoopid people with unfriendly dogs inflict them on the rest of us - and why wouldn't he have been on a leash *before* she saw me if she is so scared of what he might do to another dog? I'm not that worried about dogs attacking me, but I *am* worried about our dogs getting hurt. If I see her again, we will need to talk.

In honour of Family Day, we looked for a family to spend the day with. The Wadd Squad generously agreed. 'Bent and I loaded up the van to drive to Horseshoe with Etoile, Hammer, AdventureGirl!, ThunderDog and BulletDog.

In case anyone is worried about the effect of the recent thaw on next weekend's Snowshoe Raid, the snow is still chest deep, as you can see.

We skied on the West Trails with the Wadd Squad. It was so slick that I did a lot of double poling and skating instead of classic stride. That's OK! We headed into a field to ski AdventureGirl!'s name in the snow. (Her shorter non-AP name, that is.) Bluebird day!

We took the pooches for a walk that turned into a Skijoring experiment with BulletDog pulling AdventureGirl! - FAST. Hammer also took a turn, and he was even doing slalom turns. It went surprisingly well until her leash clip broke. Wish we'd taken more video!

Hammer and I had a team practice for next weekend's Snowshoe Raid, and we graciously allowed 'Bent to join us. I made Hammer do a lot of towing, just to keep it realistic. I made him do all the nav too, although I got to pick most of the controls we visited - which is supposed to be my one contributing role in the race if I can keep track of where I am while I'm trying to keep up with this speedster! (He was actually very good about slowing down for me. Good thing - he's going to get plenty of practice!)

There's a mix of crusty snow and bare ground in our neighbourhood (boo hoo!) but the skiing was awfully nice on a crisp, sunny day at Highlands Nordic in Duntroon. Yay, winter! :-)


'Bent and I went up there with Goose and Coach LD. Goose took a sit-ski. It will be a few weeks before he's allowed to put weight on his broken ankle.


'Bent and Coach LD looked awesome skate skiing together, and Goose looked impressive coming up the hills with arms only.


He didn't limit his skiing to the easy trails (much to Coach LD's chagrin). I was so sure that he'd wipe out on this curved downhill that I stationed myself at the corner with the camera. But he sailed by looking just fine. It wasn't until the hairpin turn on the final descent to the lodge that he finally tipped the thing over, but fortunately for him, my camera and I were elsewhere and thus unable to document it for posterity.


At one point, a guy in a red coat flew by me, giving me an even worse inferiority complex about my skate skiing than I already have. At the next trail junction, I ran into Guy-In-Red-Coat who said, "Hi Barb". Turns out it was Tarno, so I didn't feel quite so bad about it.

It's Valentine's Day, so 'Bent and I watched a romantic afternoon movie. Well, not exactly. We were on our bike trainers, and the movie was "American Flyers" - a 1985 flick about brothers doing a big bike race in Colorado. 'Bent insists that it was a Girl Movie because a very youthful Kevin Costner was one of the stars (he looks just fine in Spandex) and because the brothers hugged and said "I love you". It was an ideal trainer movie because there were many obvious sections to pedal harder - like when the pit bull chased them down the road during training and, of course, lots of racing scenes. It's the first time that I've ridden through an entire movie from start to finish - hope I can do more of that while the skiing remains so bad around here.

Good news on the trainer tire front. We gave it the Full Monty - hair dryer on the bumpy bits as per Cedarcreek's suggestion, sanding the roller, talcum powder on the sticky rubber and pushing the roller harder against the tire. I've now got a nice, smooth, quiet ride once again! (And I will not be leaving it with the roller touching the rear tire anymore.)

Some of Slowrunner's new upper body routine while watching The Daily Show.

Trainer Tire Saga continued... We were on our way to Queenston for a surprise birthday party and stopped in to see the new Burlington MEC. Nice!!

In the bike dept, I noticed trainers and asked if they had trainer tires. The clerk hadn't heard of them and couldn't see any on the shelves, but checked the computer system and found 10 in stock. She said she'd call a senior staff member to locate them for me. I said I'd come back in a little while, since we didn't have much time to shop. She insisted that I wait for the other staff member, which took several minutes.

The senior clerk immediately started explaining that I could use any road tire on my trainer. I smiled and said I knew that, and I had a road tire at home, but I was looking for a real trainer tire - one of the 10 tires that the clerk had just found in the computer system. She tried to change my mind, and I politely said "No thanks". She turned around and called across several aisles to the junior clerk, "Well, THAT was a total waste of time!"

I was so shocked that I didn't think to point out the waste of my time waiting for her to show up in the bike dept. Oh well, I'm one of the longest standing MEC members (over 25 years) that this obnoxious chickie has ever met, and since it's my first bad experience with MEC staff, I won't worry about it. But next time something like that happens, I'll try not to get stunned into silence!

Not as long as I'd hoped, but my new trainer tire has started making an obnoxious squeaking sound, so 'Bent and I spent awhile trying to diagnose/fix it to no avail. There seems to be a bump on the tire surface, and we're wondering if the rubber deformed while the bike sat unused on the trainer for weeks when the ski conditions were so good. We're hoping it might resolve itself, but my new trainer tire might be landfill already. :-(

Joined the weekly night snowshoe trek from Caledon Hills Cycling in Inglewood to the Belfountain Inn. The weather forecast mentioned "Rain warning", "Wind warning" and "Low +3C", so I made an executive decision to leave the snowshoes at home and wear Yaktrax instead. I took poles with the hope of getting some ski-relevant exercise in the middle of the monsoon. I think Yaktrax and poles were the way to go - also Salomon Goretex shoes and gaiters.

There was a great crowd tonight including Crash, Rocky, Mrs. Gally, Patty, Keith, Rick, Jeff, Leesa and more. The trails were a mix of soft snow, glare ice and a bit of mud. As we got closer to Belfountain, there was more ice, and we really had to watch our footing. With 45 minutes left to go, the rain really began pelting down, so we were all soaked to the skin. There was more uphill than downhill since we finished at the top of the escarpment - my glutes are feeling it now.

It was a truly an adventurous trek! When we got to the Grange Sideroad, Rocky slipped on the ice, and I looked quickly up the hill to make sure a vehicle wasn't coming. Yikes! A cargo van was turned sideways blocking the entire road, wedged between the snowdrifts. He was lucky, since he was just at the start of the steep Grange bobsled run.

The next adventure was descending Devil's Pulpit on treacherous ice, clutching the cable by the cliff. I kept thinking that if any one of us slipped, we'd take out everyone below. There were some interesting moments in the rest of the descent too, including a painful-looking bum slide when Crash went down some icy stairs and fortunately stopped before going into a pond. Crossing the railroad trestle was another adventure - probably best done at night when I couldn't see a darned thing! Last but not least, Rocky had an adventurous time along the entire route since she'd forgotten her light. What a hero - I think I'd have slipped into the gorge without a light.

Arriving at the Belfountain Inn was awesome. We had dark beer and hot chocolate (separate glasses!), and the pub owners very kindly gave us some chili and Caesar salad for free - wow! Everyone, please patronize the Belfountain Inn. Any place that would let 12 soaking wet outdoor fools through the door and feed them free food gets a high rating in my books. Very fun evening!! (But oh, that hot shower felt good when I got home.)

Time to cheer for Urthbuoy, FB and the rest of Team Spirit Canada as they race through Patagonia.
Sleepmonsters reports and photos
Patagonia Expedition Race - Live Tracking
SPOT satellite tracking on the team (hint: patagonia)

Stoopid cold isn't finished after all. Coughed last night, then sneezed today. Scared ThunderDog, who thought I was barking at her. I had to cancel my blood donation for this afternoon. Sigh.

Tired - especially the legs!! I'm declaring my cold to be over after 2.5 weeks. It was strange, mostly happening in my lungs. I wonder if it was a reaction to all the dust in the house from changing our HVAC system.

I was going to whine about the warm weather ruining our skiing, but after reading this Australian's log and looking at his photos, I am reminded how lucky we are to be in Canada worrying about optimal ski conditions...
http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_1524

Fun new upper body routine from Slowrunner, while watching the Colbert Report. Here's Slowrunner demonstrating how it's *really* supposed to be done.

Trekked cross-country from our place to Thomass Palgrave and back again. Such a treat to be able to walk to a race! (Although Crash had it even better.)

Thomass Palgrave - a fun course designed by Eugene. With the warm weather, the snow was *heavy*. I was glad to have snowshoes, but when I sank down and got snow on the decking, it sometimes took serious effort to get my foot up again. My legs sure felt the fatigue from yesterday's unexpected 3+hr run.

We started with a Thomass Box, then came out to #1 where I was happy to see Crash, 'Bent, Rocky and Ilona. Harper, Bob, Hammer and Tiny appeared shortly afterward, but they had more controls to do in a 2nd Thomass Box before the finish, as did Crash and 'Bent. I saw 'Bent leaving the final control #7 and was running 100m behind him near the pond when one of my snowshoes came off - the heel binding strap must have caught on something. Andrei passed me and commented on my predicament. I looked back and saw Crash and Rocky approaching looking strong. Eeek! I grabbed the snowshoe and ran to the finish line wearing one snowshoe while carrying the other in my hand and listening to Crash and Rocky gaining on me. I was luckier than my Snowshoe Raid teammate, Hammer, who arrived with one of his snowshoes in three pieces!

I squeaked in ahead of Crash, who squeaked in ahead of Rocky. We were the top 3 women, finishing 3rd to 5th - woo hoo! Andrei was 2nd, and the winner was... (drum roll), for the 2nd Thomass in a row... 'Bent! I'm very proud of him, although pretty soon he's going to be completely out of excuses for why he forgot to read his map in the Stars Winter Adventure Race, ahem.

Awesome fun girls' adventure racer party hosted by Mrs. Gally at her Granny's amazing place in Milton and coordinated by Dee. Thanks so much! :-)

Heh heh, you're probably as surprised to see this in my log as I am to be putting it here! I misinterpreted the party invitation, which mentioned some group snowshoeing at 2 p.m. before cocktail hour and acknowledged the possibility that some people might not have snowshoes, so we might need to trade around. I envisioned a sociable snowshoe trek around the perimeter of Mrs. Gally's Granny's farm, admiring the view and chatting with the ladies.

Um, no. Well, we *did* do a lot of chatting, so that part was accurate. It turned out to be a 3hr 20min run, mostly in energy-sapping, soft snow on the rocky, rolling Bruce Trail north of Kelso, with a few km of road running and a cross-country trek through thigh-deep snow at the end. It's just as well I didn't know the plan - I would have been sure that I couldn't do it since I haven't run since my marathon two months ago today. But actually, it went surprisingly well, and I was able to stay in the middle of the group. (Group was Mrs. Gally, Dee, Kelly, Funderstorm and Patty. Lenora, Audrey and Mrs. Flatfoot wisely arrived post-run.)

The only minor problem was that I hadn't brought anything to eat or drink, and I didn't want to share anyone's water since my stoopid cold is still hanging on. So I guess I looked pretty hard core - yeah, hydration is for wimps. Who brings a Camelbak for a few piddly hours of running?

I'm guessing that I might not be too energetic in tomorrow morning's Thomass race... :-)

Skied around Palgrave East and West with 'Bent. Fantastic, sunny day. Trails were fast even though I was wearing 'Bent's waxless skis. He was testing grip tape, and we traded skis near the end. There were several variables, so I can't say for sure what the problem was, but I was slip-sliding all over the place with the grip tape in these conditions (about -2C, mostly packed trails). He headed out for an extra loop, and I took the most direct route home. Poor ThunderDog was cowering because one of our smoke detectors had a battery problem and was making a piercing "beep-beep-beep" sound every few minutes. I let the dogs out, and she refused to come in until I eventually thought to bribe her with chicken.

Spent most of the day at Mountainview Ski Centre in Midland, volunteering at Goose's XC ski race for 450 students. Great to hang out with kids who have so much fitness and enthusiasm!

I really didn't have time to ski, but conditions are so fantastic right now, and it's all going to be wrecked in Saturday's warm rainstorm. :-( So I went out for a quick tour around Short Bruce Loop shortly after dark. The moon was about 2/3 full, casting a bright light that projected weird-shaped shadows through the forest. Awesome.

Hard Core Live with Caron

Power Yoga class - lots of twisting poses tonight. It was a good chance to test whether my right shoulder has more mobility after Leanimal's treatment yesterday. I think it might, but the main difference was that it hurt differently. My right shoulder often hurts with a sharp, intense, focused pain, and tonight it was more diffuse - a little less scary. So maybe there is some progress already on treating a very old injury!

Fantastic ski around Palgrave West. Conditions are excellent - I'm soooo bummed about the rain and high temperatures forecast for Saturday and the warm week to follow. I hope things go well for the CSMers, all of whom have been training so well.

Time was tight today, so I skied faster than I usually do. Fortuitously, it appears that 'Bent deviated from his commute significantly, so I had the benefit of speedy pre-skied trails through much of Palgrave West.

I'd hoped to try out the new upper body strength program that Slowrunner gave me today, but with all the errands in town, the day flew by far too quickly. Thanks, and I can't wait to try it soon! :-)

I'm determined to do a better job of monitoring my 2009 training goals as I go along so that I don't wait till year end to figure out what's working and what's tanking. So... here's my January report card.

40 hrs of training with 6/31 rest days. That's OK, given that I was sick for the last 10 days of the month. It's on track for my goal of 450 hrs/yr. About 60% XC skiing, 25% snowshoeing - what a fantastic winter this has been!

Strength training was only 3 hrs - aiming for 4 hrs, which is a pathetically easy goal compared to, say, Leanimal's strength training. But I'll give myself a break for being sick and having contractors in the house for two weeks.

No points for training quality, and I think I only did one workout before breakfast. The bedtime before midnight plan (5 nights of 7) got off to a very bad start, but improved when I got sick, and hopefully I'm developing better habits.

Skied to the Palgrave post office and back, taking some detours along the way. Fantastic conditions! Unfortunately, the long range forecast says that we'll have daytime temps above zero for 7 days straight starting Saturday, so 'Bent and I are planning to ski as much as we can this week! Next week, it'll be snowshoeing and the bike trainer.

While watching the Daily Show

Although I've taken off the sick flag, my respiratory system is still under the weather. After such a busy weekend, I figured that a day off might do more good than my planned snowshoe run. As it turned out, I had a tough 10-minute non-snowshoe slog in snow over my knees when I had to chase after ThunderDog who seemingly decided to start hiking to Crash's house on her own through neck-deep snow. Given her age, I was torn between being proud of her and being annoyed at her! The groundhog saw his shadow, and already we're getting 5 cm of snow tomorrow - woo hoo!

Snowshoe-O training in the sunshine with the Caledon Navigators. Lots of enthusiasm from the newbies, who were picking up the basic skills nicely. CN is turning into an interesting club. I don't think any member would say that orienteering is their primary sport, but they all love the outdoors and have a great sense of adventure. Our next activity is a 2.5 hr night snowshoe trek to a pub! :-)

This would have been longer if a certain spouse had brought all three pieces of required ski gear to Mono Nordic. If he had left his *poles* behind, he could have done some valuable "no poles" drills. But unfortunately, there's no value in doing "no boots" drills. So he went to Harmony Foods to stock up on organic food while I went for a quick ski.

At different places along the trails, two families stopped and pointed me out to their kids, "See how easily she goes up the hill, Johnny?" I actually *don't* find hills easy when I'm skate skiing - but filled with an unaccustomed sense of responsibility as an adult role model, I felt obligated to keep up my pace and avoid huffing, puffing, scowling or swearing. I even managed a little "Woo hoo!" for the kids' benefit when I got to the top.

On the paddle trainer watching a snippet of Woody Allen's "Radio Days".