Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: Frontier Adventure Challenge Canadian Champs
 

The FAR Fall Classic is usually the last big adventure race of the season, and it was great to see so many friends in beautiful Bon Echo. I admit that I missed having 'Bent with me. As a couple, we're lucky to be able to race and train together as much as we do. But his knee is not ready for prime time, so my excellent Tree Hugger teammates were Goose (renamed from "Smash" to appease 'Bent) and 3PinJim. Goose's first adventure race was ESAR earlier this year, which we finished in 3.5 hrs. He was curious to see how a 10-14 hr event would go, since ESAR had been his longest race to date of any kind. Meanwhile, 3PinJim, who recently medalled in the 100-mile Haliburton trail race, expressed groundless concerns about his recent lack of bike and speed training. Both of them were great teammates and looked strong all through the race - especially when they were at the front of my tow rope! :-)

We gathered at South Beach for the 4 a.m. race start. Everyone had to scramble to find one of two points, then answer a trivia question at CP1, which was the canoe rental dock. From there, it was a quick paddle across the water to the east side of the lake. Good thing we were relatively quick to get there, since it looked like it might be hard to squeeze the final boats onto the landing. Most teams headed up the stairs, but we jumped off after the 2nd flight and headed south a short distance to avoid a swamp before starting our 2 km bushwhack to meet a "cottage road".

It was far less civilized around Shabomeka Lake than the map made it appear, but there was definitely a lake with occasional cottages hidden down the hill from a rough snowmobile trail (including one place with a very irritated dog). The compass directions all made sense, even though it wasn't the easy run we had envisioned. We arrived at CP2, then I went on tow behind 3Pin for the dirt road run to our next attack point. We left a bend in the road to head for the middle point of the northwest bay of McCausland Lake - a conservative route, but I don't take many risks at night. We followed an ATV trail that ran approximately along our bearing for 350 m, then we saw the lake with the fire burning on the peninsula at CP3 on the opposite shore. 3Pin was keen to swim (100+ m), which I would have done in daytime, but since it was still dark and chilly, we bushwhacked about 700 m around the north end of the lake to the peninsula. The first part had some nasty, steep rocks with ankle-grabbing crevices, then the forest smoothed out for nice running on pine needles over the last stretch to CP3. Not the fastest route, but never any doubt about where we were going in the dark, and that's worth a lot.

From there, we bushwhacked along the shore with Beowulf, hitting the road before they did. 3Pin suggested that we go into stealth mode (heh heh) with headlamps off to avoid showing the location of the road - a little nervewracking, since he started towing me around that time, so I couldn't see potholes in the road that might turn my ankle. Eventually I had to turn my headlamp on to see the map, which is one little problem with stealth mode at night! Beowulf eventually emerged from the bush, and we took turns leading on the run to CP4//TA1, with one team taking over the lead whenever the other team paused to check their map. We made it to the trek/paddle TA in 5th place, just ahead of Beowulf. Adrenaline Rush, Salomon-Suunto and the Bobkittens had already left by the time we arrived, and we talked to SRS in the TA.

It was a long and very pleasant paddle leg by AR standards, mostly on flat water surrounded by a forested shoreline glowing in brilliant autumn colours. The sun rose partway through - mmm, nice... We had a couple of short portages and a river section where I had to get out a few times, but mostly my gentleman teammates pushed the boat along, floating me over obstacles while I sat like the Queen of Sheba in the centre seat. That didn't last long - neither the Queen of Sheba feeling, nor the centre seat. For our 3rd person, we've always used a hanging seat made of nylon fabric, metal supports and rope. It's always been OK, but not great. In the canoes we had today, it totally sucked. I ended up getting dumped on the floor of the canoe a couple of times. Since the canoe was so short, my paddle banged someone else's paddle whenever I stopped for a second, so I eventually gave up and sat on the floor of the canoe with my back against the thwart - ouch. (I've already gone out and bought a collapsible plastic stool from Canadian Tire, just like the one Dog Runner showed me. A new era has begun!)

The canoe had very little freeboard, and there were a few gasps when we came close to tipping due to over-boisterous paddling. We avoided swimming, but that didn't mean staying dry, of course. In the bottom of the canoe, I had the pleasure of sitting in 2" of cool water at all times, with fresh stuff being flung at me from my teammates' paddles at regular intervals. (Did I mention that I'm not a fan of threesomes in canoes?) On the bright side, Goose didn't land any major blows to my head like he did at ESAR. I'd intended to wear my bike helmet, but since I'd forgotten to move it from the bike TA bag, I paddled with great trepidation. Luckily, today there were only a few light taps to remind me to sit up straight and paddle hard - no serious Goose eggs.

We started the paddle ahead of Beowulf, then they got ahead on Kashwakamak Lake. (Whenever we wanted inspiration, we shouted, "Kashwakamak!!") After awhile, we decided to push to catch them and draft for awhile. Once our arms were rested (thanks, Gally!), we paddled past them toward the Bobkittens, who were not enjoying their defective boat. After another brief draft and chat, we passed them to arrive at TA2 in 4th place, which turned out to be our best position of the day. We saw all the leaders except Adrenaline Rush at TA2. Unfortunately, I'd gotten hypothermic on the paddle and lost my dexterity, so it was a slow TA. Anticipating this problem after last year's September race, I'd packed a complete set of dry clothes in the transition bag, so I changed on the treeless knoll where our TA bags were. (Apologies to anyone who is still having nightmares.) My slow TA allowed the Bobkittens and Beowulf to move back ahead of us before we started the bike section.

Even in dry clothes, the first part of the bike ride on roads was chilly with wet hair. I took occasional tows from Goose, but made a point of pushing myself up some hills just to generate body heat. We passed through the active metropolis of Plevna, then rode through rolling countryside on paved roads to CP6, where we learned from Jim Cassell that the Mayfield high school AR team had finished the trek safely - yahoo! We headed into the forest on a fun ATV trail with lots of rocks, roots and slimy logs interspersed with some smooth riding. 3Pin and Goose were in their element - except for one spectacular crash of Goose's on a slimy log bridge that made me glad to know that he's already had all the children he was planning to. Shortly before arriving at a main trail marked as a road on the map, we heard a gunshot *very* close beside us. A minute later, we met a couple of good ol' boys in a pick-up truck, and 3Pin advised them that there were at least 60 more cyclists behind us, so they might want to look carefully before shooting. I really think that autumn AR events should issue race jerseys in blaze orange, and I'm not joking. I had a huge, nasty crossbow pointed at me during moose season once, and of course Leanimal stepped into a bear trap last year, but an orange race jersey wouldn't have helped her.

We got to the turn-off for the advanced section - a simple 2 km ride/trek on an ATV trail that got worse the further you went in, so you were advised to dump your bikes at some point. Then we were to come back out the same way. I checked the map at the junction, and just when we'd decided to turn, we saw the silhouette of a coed team coming over the rise behind us. Crap, I know I'm not the best technical mountain biker around, and now we'd been caught from behind. They were riding beside us within a few minutes, and when Gally said, "Hey, I'll bet you're surprised to see us!", I said, "Surprised? Try "thrilled"!! We thought you were way ahead." So we rode in toward CP6A with Beowulf, and we met Salomon-Suunto, Adrenaline Rush and the Bobkittens coming out. When the trail got too nasty, we dropped our bikes and continued on foot. It was an unmanned CP where we were supposed to note the colour of a wooden box at the south tip of a swamp. Although Beowulf was jogging ahead of us, Goose noticed the box before we got all the way there. We turned on a dime and hightailed it back to our bikes. By then, Beowulf had caught up, then they cranked ahead up the hill and never looked back for the rest of the race! On the bright side, we didn't meet anyone on our 2 km trip back out to the main road, so we knew that we weren't being stalked from behind - phew.

More dirt road riding and hill climbing to a scenic hydro cut, with some fun trails winding around it. CP7 was unmanned - a broken boulder at a high point on the trail. The info we were given for the next section was deliberately vague, and there were several intersections where you had to go with your gut more than anything else. I wasn't happy about this, since we hadn't prepared the high school AR team for this much ambiguity, and I couldn't stand the thought of them being lost in there at night. (BTW, they did just fine in there.) We actually only made one wrong turn, which we realized within 150 m, but we didn't hammer because I was constantly looking at map, compass and terrain features as I rode along. It was a beautiful moment when we finally turned onto the fantastic, fast trail leading to unmanned CP8 - the cabin with the Labatt's Blue logo on its storage tank. After that, we hammered as hard as we could to CP9. There was always the small hope that one of the leaders had made a wrong turn back there, so every minute might count.

Arriving at the bike/paddle transition at CP9, we learned that we were still in 6th place, so nothing had changed since Beowulf passed us at 6A - oh well. We hopped back into our boat for the final 1-hr paddle to the Bon Echo campground. This time I kept my helmet on so that Goose could bash me in the head if required, but he managed to avoid the temptation. I think I put the fear of God into him with my glare after the ESAR Incident. Mazinaw Lake was another fantastic, scenic place to paddle, but the scale was hard to comprehend. We could see the narrows (just before our destination) from the time we started paddling, and it took *forever* to get there. We noticed boathouses that would never seem to get closer. Most importantly, we saw several competitors' boats ahead of us when we started, and we never *did* get closer to them.

After dropping the boats at the canoe rental, we had a short run through the campground to the finish line at race HQ. This was a bit Laurel-and-Hardy-esque - definitely my worst navigation of the day, since we allowed ourselves to go by gut feel from our morning recollections instead of following the precise directions that I'd written down. It probably cost us less than 2 minutes, but that's what you get for letting your concentration go before you see the finish line.

It was great to cross the finish line and see so many of our friends who had done so well! Our buddies on Salomon-Suunto had won!! Yay to Phatty, AndyCam and Billy W (who soooo needed to win something after the Adventure Sports Games). SRS was 10 minutes behind, with Leanimal's dangerous Bobkittens just a few minutes behind them. Wow, those felines are awesome - they make all women proud! After them, I think it was the amazing Beowulf, followed by Adrenaline Rush, captained by 56 year old Dan Mallory, who inspires us all. We were next in 6th place, 53 minutes behind the leaders. That was good for 2nd Coed, 22 minutes behind Beowulf. The top five are all great teams, and the Tree Huggers were honoured to be in the same group - even though we were at the back of it. After our six teams, there was a long break before 7th place came in - close to an hour, it looked like, although I haven't seen the results.

I was even more excited a short while later to hear that the Mayfield high school team was on the final paddle. We stared at our watches and crossed our fingers, and some tired-looking boys ran across the finish line 4 minutes before the deadline. Good on them!! They'd gone from winning the Sault Challenge, which had one 500 meter bushwhack to a river, and now they had completed one of the longer Adventure Challenge Long Courses there's ever been. Those guys, aged 16-18, are totally awesome and mature beyond their years.

It sounded like everyone enjoyed the course and had a good time. There were some murmurs about wanting a longer trek, but this was a race with more paddling than usual, and that's a nice variation too. After a very poor quality Raid The North this summer, I wasn't prepared for this race to succeed with flying colours, but Geoff really came through and gave us a fantastic event. My only minor complaint was with the poor map print quality, which made it a struggle to distinguish between contour lines and minor roads - or sometimes even to see contour lines at all - without taking a hard look. But overall, FAR can be really proud of this event. It was a fun way to finish the AR season, and I had a great team to race with!

Well, I've certainly done a great job of tapering this week! Off to the FAC Champs 10-14 hr adventure race today with Smash and 3PinJim. I'll be missing 'Bent, who will be home taking care of his injured meniscus. :-( Looking forward to seeing our local high school team, Mayfield AR, doing their first adult race. Hope they don't kick our butt too hard!

It was a late night for me, plus we had lots of rain, thunder, lightning and wind overnight. I backed out of the final Wed. morning group ride of the season today, since I don't like to damage wet trails - and I was drowsy enough that I probably would have skidded out anyway!

Lost my big toenail from the rogaine - that's two this week so far. There might be one more to go - that's definitely a record for me for a single event!

Our thermometer is reading 30C at 5 p.m., so I can only imagine how hot it was when Leanimal and I set out for our run at 12:30 today. At first we reassured ourselves with comments along the lines of, "Sure it's hot, but it's a DRY heat." About 10 minutes in, with sweat pouring down our faces, we retracted that statement. It was hot AND humid, damn it, and the air quality wasn't all that terrifc either. Not sure if that's part of the reason, but both of us felt like crap out there - physically unwell and a bit uncoordinated after awhile. I've called it level 4 intensity today because it was such hard work - but it sure wasn't fast.

When we got to our turnaround point, I told Leanimal that I might have to start walking at some point on our return trip. I felt badly about letting her down, since this was our first run together after her silver medal in a field of 51 runners at the 5 Peaks 15K trail race, and I was feeling pretty pumped about my celebrity running partner.

Our run goes through rolling countryside for awhile, then there is a steep descent to the river on stairs, followed by a climb on the far side of the valley. I decided to push myself until we got to the bottom of the stairs, then start walking up. When I told Leanimal my plan, I encouraged her to carry on running. She said, "I've been wondering when the heck you were going to say we could start walking!" So we walked the uphills and ran the downhills, making our miserable way back to Bolton. Strange how you can do the same run every week for months, but it's never the same experience, and on some days it can totally defeat you.

As Jon Stewart would say, here was my moment of Zen today... At the grocery store, the cashier noticed that I was buying two identical sympathy cards. Helpfully, she told me, "You know, if you buy three of them, you get a discount." Keeping my face utterly deadpan, I said, "Only two people died." She replied, "Well, keep your receipt and bring it with you if you buy another one."

'Bent and I went for a Naked Moraine Hike yesterday afternoon with Knobless, Gorgeous and 5 dogs. I should point out that it was the moraine that was naked, not the hikers. This is the result of the big fire a few weeks ago. It's been interesting to watch the burnt meadow areas regenerating surprisingly quickly. The grass is such a brilliant green that a neighbour actually asked if I had planted some grass seed.

The burnt forest is a different story. The trees appear to be standing in big, blackened sand dunes, and there's not much sprouting beneath the canopy. The bare ground revealed an abundance of little craters built by Ant Lions, which Knobless and 'Bent knew all about, but were new to me.

Originally, we had high hopes for the burnt forest. In spite of some charred bark, most of the tree trunks didn't look too bad, so we hoped they could overcome it. After all, fire is part of the natural process in forests, right? But I got an e-mail from Hammer last week, mentioning that he'd flown over my house and had seen all the dead trees. I went out to take a closer look, and sure enough - a lot of the coniferous trees have turned completely brown now, and their needles are fluttering to earth. Some of the deciduous trees aren't looking too happy either, but we won't know their fate for sure until next spring, since our leaves are already changing colour and falling.

Very sad. I'm continuing to pursue the issue with Town Council, trying to get the rules relating to fire bans tightened up a wee bit. Nobody seems to disagree that a fire ban should have been in place at the time, so they need to re-evaluate their policy.

Turkey Trot 'A' Meet at Albion Hills, put on by the Ukrainian Club. Fun, challenging course set by Eugene. Other than NavStock and Forks of the Credit, I don't think I've done any regular orienteering races in 2007. It felt great to be back among friends, enjoying a high-quality map on a beautiful fall day. I felt rusty, but luckily, I didn't feel super-tired after yesterday, even though I couldn't take it up to full race intensity. I did the Long course, about 7K. No major errors, probably some less-than-optimal route choices, and one leg near the end that I took too casually because I was losing concentration, looking forward to the finish. Lucky for me, there were a couple of big features to steer me into that control!

Not a bad result - about 6 minutes behind Elena, who always provides good competition and shows me whether I had a good or bad day. When we last met at NavStock, she beat me by 84 seconds in a 2-hr race! I'm just going to have to keep trying. Luckily, she's in a younger age group in most events - phew!

The bad news is that my new Active Ankle gave me a blister at the back of my heel. When I started to feel it, I stopped and removed my shoe and the brace. Ironically, I was wearing the brace to prevent any last-minute injury before next weekend's long course adventure race, but now I have a different injury to heal!

'Bent tried running on the rail trail, as the chiro had suggested. No dice, he's not ready. I feel so sad for him.

Lost my first post-rogaine toenail today. It looks like there will be a couple of others.

Event: Storm the Ten - Adventure Relay
 

At a time when the sport of adventure racing seems to be in decline, we've been fortunate to have two brand new multi-sport events in Southern Ontario, two weekends in a row. Last week was the Adventure Sports Games in Collingwood, six separate races over a 2-day period, testing skills in paddling, running, biking and navigation. After each race, we drove to the next race location, changed our clothes, had a snack, and started whenever we felt like it within a 1-hour period. High intensity, no transitions.

This weekend was Storm The Ten at Kelso Conservation Area, which took almost the opposite approach. The 10-hour race was set up like the popular mountain bike relays, with a mix of running, biking and paddling in each lap, and a variety of team configurations. Solo racers were at the hard core end of the spectrum, and at the other end were more fun-oriented teams of six, who raced their laps in pairs. Teams set up tents in a base camp area around the start/finish area where there was music, a concession stand, Axis Gear shop, and a friendly, fun atmosphere. The weather was perfect.

Each lap started with a run down a grassy slope to 6 (?) steep sets of stairs leading to the beach at Lake Kelso. Then we hopped into our kayak (or canoe, for teams racing in pairs) and paddled to the far end of Lake Kelso - only 7-8 minutes, much of it spent dodging canoeists who didn't know the J stroke! Then we ran up and over a hill, then under the railroad tracks to the bike transition. From there, we rode to the west side of Kelso and ascended the escarpment in a series of big single track switchbacks on the Bruce Trail. I've climbed the escarpment in many places, and this was about as painless a way to do it as I've ever done. (Although I was always happy to get to the top, especially in later laps!) The trails we rode at the top of the escarpment were mostly fast and non-technical. There were occasional rocky or loose sections, but much of the time, I could stay in my big gear. At the far end of the bike loop, there was a SportIdent control to punch. Upon returning to the top of the ski hill, we dropped our bikes at a beautiful viewpoint and went for a rocky, rooty trail run - about 3K, I'd guess - with another SI control halfway around the loop. Then we grabbed our bikes and rode down beside the ski hill to the bike transition. Total biking was about 6 km. Then we ran back over the hill (a ski bunny hill) to our boats, paddled back down the lake, and ran up, up, up all those stairs to the tag-off area where we would pass our SI card (carried on a cord around our neck) to the next racer. So there were 8 transitions per lap, and the fastest racers finished their laps in just under an hour. Phew!

I tried to reduce the impact of the transitions as much as possible, so I wore my bike helmet and running shoes for the entire lap, using platform pedals with PowerGrip straps. Thus the bike/run and run/bike transitions only took a few seconds. The paddling transitions were longer, since we had to wear PFDs and haul our boats to appropriate parking spots. If I were doing this race solo, I think I would take the time to change shoes at the end of the paddle before starting to run, rather than having wet feet all day. Today I was racing in the tag team format with Mrs. L-D, so we were able to dry our feet out between laps.

A big step up from last weekend, there actually was one other team in the female tag team category! They were good competition, taking a 7-minute lead on us in the first lap, which began with a surprise distribution of a map showing a control that racers needed to find to before starting the paddle. I'd guess that it added about 1.6 km of running to that lap. Mrs. L-D ended up trapped at a dead end in a park works yard with several other racers, and they had to roll under barbed wire to get out! A bit more adventure than they were counting on, and it meant that the teams involved had to play catch up. We slowly gained time on our competitors, passing them in our 4th lap. I think we finished about 19 minutes ahead at the end of 8 laps, but I was always looking over my shoulder, knowing that one flat tire could make a huge difference!

As expected, there was great race organization by Storm Events. It was fun to do a different race format, and - like last weekend - this was high intensity stuff. There were several highlights, including biking behind Gally (the captain of Team GimpKnee) as he impressively towed a teammate up the escarpment on twisty, rooty, rocky single track. Wow, I wouldn't even be brave enough to accept a tow in that terrain! Given all my recent falls while trail running, I was feeling quite smug since I was wearing a bike helmet. Naturally, with this increased level of protection, I managed to stay on my feet. 3PinJim and daughter Skye dropped by to visit, as did Smash (Mrs. L-D's husband) with their two kids.

We had a candlelight awards ceremony down on the beach - very nice. Lots of categories and lots of draw prizes, which makes it fun for everyone. The overall winner was the speedy Jason Lane, who somehow managed to squeeze in 10 laps, which STORM had believed was impossible. Particularly impressive after his 2nd place finish in last weekend's Adventure Sports Games. I think the 2nd place male solo managed to do 9 laps, then the winners of most categories had 6 to 8 laps.

We did 8 laps, and both female tag teams finished ahead of the two coed tag teams. (There weren't any male tag teams.) Mrs. L-D was a strong partner, and I enjoyed the tag team format, since it enabled me to push harder when I was racing, knowing that I'd get to rest for an hour in between. It was kind of like doing adventure racing intervals! My laps were all about the same - 1:05, 1:04, 1:07, 1:06. I think I'll log the approximate time doing the different disciplines, rather than logging it all as adventure racing.

Attended my first USOF rogaine committee conference call last night. Good group of people. I'm impressed at the capacity that some clubs must have to be able to put on these major events - and some of them do it year after year! My local club has two active volunteers (including me) and very little going on. My main club, GHO, has more volunteer capacity, but it's still a significant challenge for our resources to put on 5 O events and 3 adventure runs each year, along with a handful of club training nights. Even to do that, we had to hire a professional race course designer for one of the adventure runs - the Snowshoe Raid - because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. The volunteers are just stretched too thin.

Are there any Ontarians reading my log who have ideas about how we could put on a rogaine here? Perhaps not as long as 24 hrs, to make it easier. We could hire Bob again, as one idea. Or perhaps several clubs could go together on it. Where could we hold it?

A quick Bike-Run-Bike outing at Albion Hills with Mrs. L-D, my tag team partner for Storm the Ten. One final pre-race test of my PowerGrip pedals. Glad I decided to use them, as last night we received a map of the 10K relay lap. It's going to be Run-Paddle-Run-Bike-Run-Bike-Run-Paddle-Run. We'll be climbing and descending the escarpment on our bikes. Some of the runs are short, e.g. getting from the lake to the transition area, about 150 m. Anyway, this race will be all about the transitions - with 8 of them happening in each lap, and each lap taking about an hour! I'll be wearing running shoes and bike helmet for the whole lap. For such a short lap, it won't be worth carrying a lot of water. I'll have to think about anything else we can do to improve efficiency.

Trail run in between our two bike loops.

Great turnout for the Wednesday group ride in sunny weather - Crash, Leanimal, Stanimal and his friend Rob, who used to be a bike mechanic at Sporting Life before he became an Air Canada pilot. This background turned out to be handy when Leanimal traded bikes with him so she could try out his bike - just as her front tire went flat. (Coincidence? Hmmm...)

It's that time of the year when there isn't much bike racing left, so our elapsed time on the trails was a fair bit longer than my logged riding time. I think we stopped to chat almost as much as we rode - which was just fine on a sunny fall morning. This was a speedy group, and I was even farther behind than usual as I practised doing single track with my Powergrip pedals in preparation for Storm The Ten this weekend (I don't plan to change into and out of bike shoes during every multi-sport lap). We heard all about Bromont, where Crash will be spending the weekend with "12 tall men" (better than 7 dwarves), since Rob was quite familiar with the area. Sounds like fun, although Leanimal and I agreed that we are probably too wimpy to point ourselves down a ski hill, even though we'd love to get a photo wearing all that cool armour.

As requested, here is the reminder: The general store at Sutton has an excellent bakery with lots of yummy food. Crash must visit it, and she must return with gifts. (OK, I made up that last part.)

Gurlz Run with Leanimal on the HVT. My painful upper quad is not a factor when I run, nor when I try to lift the leg in different directions. Leanimal advised me to keep checking for lumps that might be contusions. Funny how something can hurt so much without bruising, swelling or affecting the movement of the muscle. Anyway, it's improving, so I guess the mystery will remain, but the problem will hopefully go away.

We had a nice run through the countryside in moderate temperatures. The sounds of nature were interrupted by crunches when Leanimal turned first her left ankle, and then her right ankle, at almost the same spot on the trail near the start and finish of our out-and-back run. When she hit the ground in the second incident, I think I looked like Macauley Culkin clutching his face in "Home Alone". I've had enough bad ankle moments to feel a rush of immense empathy! I hope there's no swelling or bruising now...?

No training today! There's a story from the weekend that still makes me smile. On Saturday, Bill Trayling smoked the field in the Beaver River paddling race. Chris Owen Halper got a fantastic photo of Coach Bill in (perfect) mid-stroke wearing the facial expression of a serial killer. There was a small rapid in the river at one point, and Bill was using one of those toothpick boats that weigh about 300 grams. He went downstream over the rapid, but on his way back upstream, he hopped out of the water as he approached it. In his bare feet, with his boat on his shoulder, he ran a short distance and found himself standing bewildered in a field with no water anywhere in sight. It turns out that the river made a big turn there, and he'd been too focused to notice. Yes, that's right - he made a nav error while travelling up a river that he had just paddled down!! This sets a new standard for all those trail runners who have gotten lost while following supposedly marked race courses! Anyway, Bill gritted his teeth as he jogged in his bare feet back to relocate the river, then he kept it in sight as he went past the rapid. He still won handily, but he (and everyone else) had a good laugh afterward.

This weekend was the first edition of the Keen Adventure Sports Games, a new concept in Ontario, although there have been similar events in other locales. Six events were held at different locations in the Collingwood area over a 2-day period, with about 90 minutes between events. On Saturday, there was a 5K or 10K river paddle, a 30K/60K mountain bike race, and a 5K/12K/20K trail run. On Sunday, there was a 10K open water paddle on Georgian Bay, a 20K mountain bike navigation event, and an 18K adventure run nav event. People could enter any individual event, or they could do all 3 Saturday events as the Multi-Sport Stage Race, or they could do all 3 Sunday events as the Adventure Stage Race. The grouping of all 6 events was called the Keen Ultimate Adventure Challenge, and the top team of two would win a $10,000 trip to Australia for the Keen Great Ocean Road Adventure Race, where representative teams from 5 or 6 different countries would face off in the finals.

I love non-stop, long-distance adventure races - they are a good fit for my slower speed and ability to withstand sleep deprivation. However, I think the Adventure Sports Games is a big step in the right direction, given the shrinking numbers in our sport. It attracted people from different sports who don't usually adventure race, and hopefully it piqued their curiosity about things they may not currently do, like navigation or paddling. At minimum, it increased ARC's mailing list!

It was also interesting to approach each discipline one at time, within the context of a full day of mult-sport endurance activity. Before each discipline, there was time to dress in dry clothing, have a snack, review maps, refill water or whatever. And during the events, most of us pushed at higher intensity than we would dare to do during a non-stop race. It was also more social, since we got to see the other racers before and after each race, comparing notes and sharing laughs. Unfortunately, 'Bent was unable to race because of his knee injury, but I was lucky that he, BulletDog and ThunderDog came along to cheer and support me. It would have been a lot more difficult if I had to get my own kayak on the roof rack, and I never would have had that yummy beaver tail from the Village At Blue between races!

I hope that Keen will stay involved, allowing this event to continue and flourish in future years - it's a great concept. By the way, I know that some of us have been FAR snobs, avoiding ARC events because of past bad experiences, but you should give ARC another chance. With Bob Miller as Race Director, course designs are high quality, and the courses are actually tested - unlike, say, the recent Raid The North. Some of the race starts were delayed slightly, but the event was noticeably well-organized in spite of its complexity. We had detailed, accurate pre-race information several days in advance, smooth registration procedures, a friendly post-race pub dinner, well-informed volunteers, electronic SI timing, partnership with an orienteering club, and a great field of competitors. Well done, Bob and ARC!

The 10K Georgian Bay open water paddle took place shortly after sunrise, and it was so pleasant on the water that I sometimes had to remind myself that it was a race. We headed out toward an island with a big lighthouse, which we had to circumnavigate clockwise before returning. Since Georgian Bay is low, there were areas with rocks and shoals, so we had to be careful and sometimes make large diversions to avoid trouble in the waves. I was using my Kevlar touring kayak with a rudder, so I had to watch the water depth and pull the rudder up as needed. I did end up in one shallow, rocky area where I had to get out and pull the kayak a few meters until I could float again, but I didn't lose any time to the people who paddled around the shallow section. There were some big swells in the cold water, and I saw a few boats flip.

My kayak is not a racing boat, but I love racing in it anyway. It's light and low, and it's taken me hundreds of kilometers on Georgian Bay and Lake Superior, so I know what it can handle. A year and a half of paddling classes with Bill Trayling improved my technique, enabling me to do more with less upper body strength, which is helpful for a woman competing against men. Today I tried hard to use good technique and to push myself with intervals of harder paddling. Unfortunately, I was also hit with heart palpitations at several points in the race, so I had to slack off for a few minutes here and there.

In the end, this turned out to be my best result of the day. It's hard to know how to talk about my results from this event, since I was the only person who signed up for the Adventure Stage Race, i.e. the Sunday-only events. So I was competing against people who had raced on Saturday in some very tough events, which put them at a disadvantage. On the other hand, it's also a disadvantage to be a woman 10-15 years older than my competitors, so I think the playing field was relatively level! Anyway, I finished 3rd of the 14 teams or solos who were doing the 3 Sunday events, all of whom were male except for one female duo and one coed team. I finished 42 seconds behind the 2nd place team - my friend AndyCam and my Chuck Norris Challenge teammate, Jason. There were also a few paddlers in highly specialized boats who finished at the top, including a former Hungarian Olympian paddler, but that was their only event of the day.

Next was the 20K mountain bike orienteering event at Pretty River Provincial Park, known as the Three Stages. I knew this would be the toughest event for me because I'm chicken-hearted when it comes to biking on wet slanty tree roots, mossy rocks, puddles of muck, and steep, rutted downhills. Three Stages offered all of that after yesterday's big rain, along with some huge hills, plus I had to watch the map as I rode, which occasionally caused me to veer into saplings or deep puddles. A good mountain bike orienteer needs better map memory than I have! It was fun looking for opportunities to bikewhack through the forest to save time - I don't think that's allowed in real MTB-O, but all's fair in adventure racing. I was one of the last to start, and for a long time, I hardly saw anyone. About halfway through, I met up with some other teams, then I had a massive screw-up looking for #12, which was in a complicated trail network, but should not have been that hard to find. Rats - I probably lost 10 minutes there as I bikewhacked through the forest and hooked up with trails that weren't making sense. Tiny thinks that the control may have been misplaced, which could be part of the explanation, and since I eventually found it through dumb luck, I can't offer any opinion on its placement. I placed 7th of 13 teams/solos. Given my extreme caution and the amount of hike-a-bike I did, I feel lucky that I didn't do worse! Actually, I mostly feel lucky that I didn't smash my knee on some rock.

Finally, we had an adventure run at Kolapore. I was excited about seeing this beautiful area from a completely different perspective. The race had a 3-hr time limit, and there were different penalties for missing any of the 9 controls, ranging from 5 to 40 minutes. If you arrived back late, they doubled your late minutes, e.g. if you arrived at 3:14, your result would become 3:28.

I had a dilemma. I measured my planned route with string, and it was 18K. I knew it would be a stretch for me to orienteer that far in escarpment terrain with a dubious ankle. So I spent awhile analyzing whether it would be worth planning to drop a control right from the start, i.e. planning to take the penalty and treating it like a score-O. The problem was, I guessed that the nastiest control would be #3 of 9 controls, with a 30-minute penalty, and I hated to throw in the towel so early in the race. Finally, I decided to go big or go home, and if I was going to go down in flames, I wanted it to happen while I was trying to do it all! It was a challenging race, with lots of hills, some thick bush and a few swampy sections. I forgot my ankle brace, so I had to be highly aware of my foot placement in the rocky terrain. It was a nice, cool, sunny day for running, and it felt good to be out there.

I got to #5 after 90 minutes, and it seemed possible that I could just squeak in under 3 hrs. Unfortunately, I had a bad fall on the trail just before the last control, which was an easy one at a trail bridge. I wasn't sure if I might have broken a rib or severely damaged my quad, and I couldn't see out of my right eye because I'd landed on my face, and my glasses were dirty. So I struggled to my feet and stumbled past a vague trail intersection where I should have turned right. As I crossed an unexpected creek shortly afterward, I looked at my map (not a detailed O map) and wondered if I'd gone too far. But some passing mountain bikers assured me that everyone else was ahead of me on that trail, along with trail intersection #61, which I was looking for, so I decided to give it some time. I probably gave it 3 minutes before deciding that they were wrong. When I went back, I found the intersection that I'd missed, and it was still hard to see. I got the final control, and by then it was too late for my planned trail run to the finish, so I bashed straight through some nasty swamp and forest, soaking my map in black grunge and coming out serendipitously right at the intersection of the trail that led straight to the finish. It wasn't enough - I finished in 3 hrs 2 min. But it was still worth taking the 2-minute penalty compared to the penalties for missing any of the controls. The winning time was 2:29:35 by Team Running Free B&B - wow! That gave them the overall event victory. I was 5th of 13 teams/solos, and I think only one team behind me got all the controls, so there were a lot of penalties awarded.

It was sad to see my friends on Team Urban Athlete (Billy Wells & Martin Rydlo) lose their trip to Australia on this one race, after leading for the entire event. They had difficulties with #3, the control that I had considered skipping. Ironically, if they had skipped it and just taken the 30-minute penalty, they would have won the event overall, since they came into the adventure run with a 50-minute lead.

Overall, my total time for the day was 3rd of the 13 teams/solos who completed all three Sunday events. I'm sure that wouldn't be true if I'd raced on Saturday, but I'm still happy with that. I'm not exactly known for my prowess in high-intensity races like these. I'm also *really* sore from my fall, but if anything major had gone wrong, I think it would have blown up by now, so I'll be good to go for Storm The Ten on Saturday.

One mildly sour note, but it didn't detract from a great day... At the post-race dinner, the ARC manager pulled me aside to ask if I'd mind if they didn't mention me at the awards ceremony to avoid taking attention away from the 2-day racers. I wanted to ask if he minded the fact that my entry fee was contaminating the pool of money that the 2-day racers had given him, but I bit my tongue and said of course I didn't mind. He pointed out that nobody else (no teams, no male solos, noooobody) had entered the 1-day Adventure Stage Race, but I had "won it fair and square". I felt a little patronized, since I'd worked really hard and had a good day relative to some very strong racers, and in my mind, I heard it like he was saying, "Yeah, well, of course you won your easy little category, and it would be embarrassing to include you with the serious racers." Although actually he was much more polite than that, so I shouldn't put words into his mouth. But really, speaking as someone who has been involved in organizing events, this seemed like a bizarre request. How much trouble would it be to take a minute at the awards ceremony to shake the hand of the one competitor who supported an advertised 3-race combo event? Anyway, he handed me a gift certificate for Keen shoes, which is a fabulous prize, and I happily stayed to enjoy the party and cheer on our friends. Big kudos to AndyCam and Jason for placing 2nd overall by only 17 minutes in an event with a 14-hr winning time. I'm very proud of them!! And the Milton Basement Racers were solid and consistent in 5th place, showing that they belong with the best adventure racers in Ontario.

Event: Adventure Sports Games
 

If we're in town, we always try to do the annual Terry Fox Run to raise money for cancer research. I know that some people who read my log weren't even born when Terry had to abandon his run, but I remember crying then, and I still have to fight tears when the media retells the story of his journey each fall. Although he never had a chance to live beyond the age of 22, Terry was one of our great Canadian heroes.

Unfortunately, we can't do the run this year. Too bad, because BulletDog recently received a letter from the Terry Fox Foundation (addressed to "Mocha Campbell") because she had such a high level of sponsorship last year that they wanted to thank her specially and give her a commemorative pin. It would have been fun trying to decide where she should wear the pin!

Anyway, I'll pledge $50 to the first Terry Fox runner who asks me. Look forward to hearing from you.

Poor 'Bent's knee is still too injured for the Wednesday morning group ride, so I left him at home to sulk and do weight training. Nice cool morning, and last night's rain was just what our dusty trails needed.

I had two unscheduled stops during my ride to Albion HIlls. First, I saw our neighbour's car sitting partway out of her driveway, running. I waved as I approached, but the car didn't move, and then I noticed that the driver's head was slumped forward. Yikes, that got the adrenaline pumping! Just as I approached the window, she looked up from her Blackberry and rolled down the window to say hello. She was waiting for the school bus with her son in the back before continuing on to work. Phew! So we chatted for a moment, then I carried on.

Once I got to Albion Hills, I noticed trail closure tape, orange cones and cryptic signs near the road. I stopped to talk to a man who was placing a sign on the road. He told me that they're filming a TV show, which we learned during our ride (when we met him closing a trail) is a new YTV show called Adrenaline Challenge. Today, a group of teenagers is learning the sport of Dirtsurfing, and tomorrow there will be a race.

Our ride, which seemed almost wimpy by comparison, was still a good workout. Leanimal led the way at a good pace with Stan (Stanimal?) and I chasing behind. We did a good selection of of AH single track and discovered a few slick, off-angle tree roots along the way. It's been such a dry year that we'd almost forgotten about them! Lots of fun, great weather.

Humber Valley Trail with Leanimal. Nice to have cooler weather, although it was still surprisingly humid. We both felt *much* better than last week. I was quite chuffed to note that we had reached our turnaround point in record time by several minutes, but when we finished the run in the same time we always do, I revisited my arithmetic for the first half, and oh well... I guess we can be proud of our consistency.

Went to Albion Hills on an evening with a steel grey sky. Checked out a few control locations for tonight's training session that I planned to do with our local high school adventure racing team. The trails were nearly deserted, and I heard many cougars.

I guess I'll call this trekking, even though I had a map in my hand, because I made the high school guys do 99% of the navigating! They're going to be doing an adventure race that starts at 4 a.m., so we'd planned an evening session with the idea that we'd have some light and some darkness. The sky was so dark with clouds that we already needed headlamps on our way to the 1st control. Too bad, because I'd made the first few controls more difficult, thinking that we'd do the easier ones in the dark.

It was fun watching their teamwork and seeing them go through their decision-making processes. They made reasonable navigation decisions throughout, and they each had different ideas to contribute. The one piece of advice I gave them that should hopefully speed them up is to stop being so darned polite to one another! They'd be on a bearing, e.g. 400 meters of tough bushwhacking in the dark at 195 degrees, and they would pause to have a well-mannered discussion to agree on which tree to aim for. They're really nice kids, so they found it tough to make the transition to less democracy and more efficiency, but I could see they were starting to get the idea. When they know where they're going, these guys are super-fast. They were 1st of 60 teams in the Ontario high school adventure race this spring, so I'm hoping they can kick some adult butt (although not OURS, if I'm lucky!) in the FAR Fall Classic later this month.

We met Smash back at the parking lot. He'd gone around the controls backwards in hopes of meeting us enroute, but we'd managed to miss one another. Sounds like he had a good run.

My core is SORE after resuming my Hard Core work! Guess I shouldn't have let it lapse. I'm going to be paying for it in the classes.

Paddled around Island Lake with 'Bent and Mrs. L-D, my teammate for Storm The Ten. The water is really low, so we had to be careful not to fling weeds at each other with our kayak paddles! Mrs. L-D and I traded back and forth between canoe and solo kayak, since we'll be using that kayak in the race. The rudder was finicky, but all went well otherwise. 'Bent was glad to be outside doing something that didn't bother his knee.

Biked to Albion Hills with Mrs. L-D, who was heading home to Bolton. We took a detour for a Tour de Feu behind our place. I did a bit of single and double track at Albion before heading home. It was eerily quiet after the crowds of summer.

'Bent decided that the Hard Core DVD should be possible with his knee injury. It's been gathering dust for the last few months while we've been playing outdoors, and we knew it was going to hurt when we started up our fall training again. Since I'd gone biking and paddling today, I figured that the first 15 minutes would be plenty - so as a result, I only exercised 2 of my 186 core muscles. That's OK - Caron's classes start up this week, so I can't avoid the pain for much longer.

I went cross-country, scouting all the burnt/unburnt boundaries I could find in forested areas, carrying 10L of water in case I needed to douse more embers. It looks like yesterday's heavy rain did the trick. I didn't find anything smoking or glowing anywhere, even in the farthest nooks and crannies of the conservation area.

It's really cool to see the grasslands starting to regenerate already. There are 10 cm blades of pale green grass growing a few cm apart. A few days ago, the fields were one big, black expanse, and now they look greenish.

The woods will take longer to come around. The forest that burned was mostly managed red pine, and much of it had been logged recently. With the undergrowth burned off, the charred trees on the Oak Ridges Moraine look like they're sitting in a huge sand box. It's hard to imagine how anything ever grew on that soil.

We've come to the conclusion that the worst thing to be is a snail. We've found countless burnt shells on the ground. For some reason, snails aren't good at outrunning wildfires.

I don't think I'll need my big water container anymore, but I'll bring a garbage bag on my next trip into the forest. Understandably, firefighters don't have time to pick up their drinking water bottles, face masks, burnt hoses, etc.

'Bent is supposed to keep his injured knee mobile, but he's not supposed to run or do technical biking. So to keep him from going stir-crazy, we drove around to Neumanns', then rode the rail trail to Caledon East for frozen yoghurt. Nice!

We met an interesting family who had biked there with young children all the way from Cheltenham. The father was the president of Ace Bakery, and they were customers of Bullfrog Power, both of which led to all kinds of good conversation.

Went for a trail run with BulletDog immediately after our bike ride - Short Bruce Loop in Palgrave West. No smoking embers and no big kitty cats, so it was a good day all round.

'Bent and I are celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary today with a little firefighting, a dental emergency on 'Bent's day off, sports chiropractic appointments together, progress on several writing assignments of mine, and volunteer work for different committees. Fun! If all goes well, we should be able to get out for a nice dinner tonight anyway. :-)

Leanimal and I moved our Gurlz Run to Thursday for this week only, since Tuesday was busy with fire-related stuff. It was 31C with a smog advisory, but we're no princesses, so we headed out just before high noon. It was like running in a convection oven. Hot weather is my kryptonite (too bad I don't have any superpowers to compensate), and any energy I might have had at the start melted away in the first 10 minutes. We had a good time rehashing our rogaine anyway. After the run, we immediately went for ice cold cranberry gingerales. I snuck to DQ later for a hot fudge milkshake too (tsk, tsk).

By mid-afternoon, there was a hot, gusty wind, and I knew that the risk of embers flaring up would be high. But - I didn't want to go on my own into the midst of all those charred trees, some of which are precariously balanced on spindly, blackened trunks, just waiting to crash to the ground in a good breeze. So I waited until things calmed down after dinner, then did a quick fire patrol of several private properties, but didn't go into the conservation area. For the first time, I found no glowing embers or smoking stumps. I'll do a larger sweep tomorrow.

Finally registered for a couple of events that I've been planning to do!

- Adventure Sports Games - solo - Sunday Adventure Stage Race only (10K Georgian Bay Paddle, 25K MTB orienteering, 18K adventure run)

- Storm The Ten - Female Tag Team with Sian, aka Mrs. Smash

Preliminary news coverage of the fire with a couple of my photos. The Enterprise's deadline came up before the Fire Department had issued a press release, so there should be more details in the next edition.

I went out with my camera today, expecting to take photos of the fire totally out after the heavy rain last night. I imagined the wet, black burnt area with the sun shining on it, and thought that the images might be powerful. However, I didn't get away from home for the first few hours. At the back corner of our property, I noticed orange flames under a small log, and I used the 10L water jug that I now carry everywhere to try to put it out. Then I noticed a 2-meter circle of hot white ash by the log, where tree roots were burning below. Then I looked up and saw that a huge old maple tree had smouldering coals inside it up to a height of 4 meters or more. OK, time to dial 911. We ended up with 4 fire trucks here for 2.5 hrs. They used a chainsaw to take down the large tree, and they dug up the roots and flooded everything with water. Ladies, I now have enough firefighter photos to make an excellent calendar for 2008. :-)

Later in the day, I headed out with my water jug and hiked all over the burnt area. Compared to yesterday (pre-rain), there weren't many seriously smoking stumps, but there were still a few to pour water on. I ran into an MNR truck that was patrolling the woods too, but only from double track trails. The guy was worried about the fire staying down in the tree roots for days on end. Since he was from the MNR, I mentioned our cougar in the same forest. He said that there have been cougars sighted all over the place this year.

Took a couple of long walks through the fire-blackened countryside today. Firefighters remained on the scene overnight until around noon today, keeping an eye out for places where flames would suddenly arise from tree roots or peat. I was doing the same thing on my walks, and I'm getting pretty good at snuffing out embers. I've heard that 500 acres burned, but it looks a lot closer to 100 acres to me. Regardless, it sure looked scary in the helicopter footage on Global TV news. There was another TV news station around here today, and I was interviewed for tomorrow's Caledon Enterprise. (Hope they leave out the part where I mentioned our fire-starting neighbour!) They're also going to publish a few of my close-up fire photos.

One firefighter mentioned that the people responsible for starting the fire must pay the firefighting costs - $385 per truck per hour. At the height of the fire, there were close to 30 trucks, and there were still several involved as of this morning. Do the math! ($11,550/hr)

The air stinks, and my lungs feel filthy. I've been fighting a headache all day. Every once in awhile, I see smoke wafting through our yard, and I race out to make sure that nothing new is happening. In spite of that, all of us are just very lucky to be OK and not to have lost our homes. This fire has been another reminder of what fantastic, resourceful neighbours we (mostly) have.

It's raining now. Absolutely beautiful weather!!! :-)

Today's plan was some relaxing yoga while 'Bent went biking in Albion Hills. Less than an hour after he'd left, I heard a vehicle in our driveway and peeked out to see a fire truck with lights flashing. I don't deal well with this sort of thing ever since police cars came up the driveway to inform us that a family member had been killed by an impaired driver. I thought that 'Bent had been hit by a car while biking.

As I walked toward the truck, the firefighter wouldn't meet my eye. I spoke to him, then realized why he wasn't looking at me. "We've got a fire here, Ma'am." Huge clouds of reddish-brown smoke were billowing from our neighbour's back yard, about 125 meters away. My first thought was, "Oh good, it's nothing to do with 'Bent." Then... "Oh my God - should we leave?" "How many people are in the house?" "Just me and the dogs." "Well, it's not a bad idea."

It's one of those things you see on the news... people have to evacuate their homes quickly and only have time to take along a few possessions. Inevitably, in their panic, they grab something silly like a Disneyland tea towel and leave their passport behind. So now it was my turn, and here's what I put into the van - in this order:
1) Dogs
2) Laptop computers
3) 'Bent's wallet and my purse
4) Wedding photos and video
5) A bunch of other photos, but didn't have time for all of them
6) My nicest jewellery
7) A couple of good-sized, uncashed cheques.

And yes, I forgot our passports.

In the middle of this, I phoned 'Bent to advise him to come home, but NOT through the forest, since it was burning. In his haste to return, he slid out on his bike in some gravel and twisted his knee. He met our neighbour, VO2Max Sr., enroute, and dropped his bike to take a ride the rest of the way home. By that time, there were two trucks sitting on our lawn, and the wind had blown the fire along the back of our property, so it looked like our house was in the clear - but now we were worried about Crash and the Neumanns. With our pooches and other main valuables stashed in the back of the van, we headed around to Duffy's Lane to see if we could help. No cars at Crash's place, and no signs of dogs around. Good. Over to Neumanns' place where we could see smoke moving over the forest, and it seemed to be staying further north. We went back to Crash's place, which had been established as the latest forest fighting HQ, with trucks lined up along the narrow road. VO2Max Sr. and Mr. Wheelie were conscripted to give firefighters rides into the forest on their ATVs. If the wind direction stayed the same, it wasn't looking good for Crash's house. She wasn't answering her cell phone.

A firefighter casually commented that our next door neighbours had been "having a little fire". We'd heard some construction project going on earlier in the day, so perhaps they were burning some debris. Given that it was a breezy, 30C, sunny day in an area where there's been a drought this summer, some very bad judgment was involved - assuming that the firefighter's version of the story was correct. These are the same new neighbours who blasted booming loud party music across the area till 1 a.m. a few weeks ago, which made me feel that they didn't respect the countryside. If the story turns out to be true, then my gut feeling was accurate, and I will be crossing them off my Christmas card list.

We eventually ended up in the woods with the firefighters as 1-meter orange flames burned across 'Bent's commute trail, just 15 meters from our property. The wind had changed, so the fire was coming toward our place again. Following their instructions, we hauled in big containers of water and went along the perimeter of the fire-blackened area, putting out mini-fires and throwing logs with live embers down to the blackened former grassland, where nothing was left to burn.

They eventually got a mini-pumper truck into the back of Belusas' property, and the water quenched the flames. I have to admit that I now see the value of having a swimming pool out in the country where there are no fire hydrants. For these firefighters, it's all about whether they can get water to these remote forest areas.

The firefighters said that there were other pockets of fire in different places, including in the Palgrave Forest & Wildlife Area. I asked about Crash's house, and they said that no houses had burned - phew!! The new Palgrave West orienteering map might need some updating though. It was around that time that I cracked a stupid joke about our poison ivy problem being solved in the area where we were standing - and then I realized that some of the smoke around us had come from poison ivy, which can lead to throat and lung inflammation. Crap! It usually takes me at least 48 hrs to respond to poison ivy, but I'm going to be taking lots of deep breaths for the next few days, and - knowing me - imagining that things are tightening up.

We are supposed to go out there each day and keep checking for embers, and call them if anything is too big. The ground is smoking, and they can't get it out completely. We love that forest, and we're heartbroken to think of what might have happened in there. I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight... NOT.

We didn't go away for Labour Day weekend because we've been away too much, but we still wanted a change of scenery, so 'Bent, BulletDog and I drove over to Inglewood to get a different starting point for our run. The original plan had been to bike to Inglewood, but ironically, it took 'Bent so long to fix his bike rack this morning that we had to cut the biking from the agenda! Probably just as well, as this was more than enough effort for the Sunday following a rogaine.

We couldn't find our ESAR 2005 maps that would guide us through the trail network from the village of Inglewood up to the Bruce Trail and back again at the end of the run, but hey, how hard could it be? Um, actually not as easy as you'd think. We didn't have a compass, so we were navigating by the sun and by looking at the shape of the escarpment. Periodically, we'd get views that would let us know where we were. "Oh crap, there's the golf course. We're too far south." But the exploration was fun, and once we got to the Bruce Trail, it was an easy (if sometimes hilly) jog to Belfountain. We walked on the steepest hills - and down Devil's Pulpit, which is technically a cliff, not a hill. We had a wonderful 40-minute break at the Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain, sipping iced mocha and scarfing down cookies while we people-watched from the patio. BulletDog took advantage of their big dog bowl, then sprawled happily in the shade. She went swimming a few times along our route, and was just about as happy as a Lab could be. We'll both sleep well tonight!

Deliciously cool morning for a ride around Palgrave East with 'Bent. We did a mix of single and double track and, for the first time this year, rode through the high weeds along the river in the northeast section. Lots of stinging nettles, but I guess they're past their prime, since we only had minor reactions.

As a result of the new Palgrave trail plan, a lot of the trails we rode today will be closed completely - or just closed to bikes - by next year, so we might as well enjoy them while we can. Kinda sad, since we moved to this area specifically to be able to cross-country ski out our door to join up with this amazing trail network. As an environmentalist, I do appreciate why they want to reduce the number of trails, but I don't have to like it as a neighbour! The result is a much smaller trail system where all the users of different types will be squeezed together, which will ruin the ski tracks and increase horse-bike-pedestrian conflict, amongst other things. The big Red loop has had a long section removed, leaving smaller loops that will only be long enough for Sunday hikers with kids. To get in a good outing, the rest of us will have to do out-and-back routes with little side loops. :-(

Horses have been busily covering the trails in poop. At the trail advisory committee meeting, the equestrian rep from Toronto (who has never been in Palgrave, to my knowledge) repeatedly mentioned all the money that the equestrian industry brings into Caledon. He also liked to chuckle knowingly about the silly people who are bothered by getting horse poop on their shoes, dog's feet and bike tires, because horses are vegetarians, after all, and everyone knows that vegetarian poop is desirable for the forest, the trail, and even the carpets in your home when you track it indoors. I'm tempted to send 'Bent, 3Pin, Tiny, JTor and Urthbuoy over to relieve themselves on his front lawn since he would obviously consider it a favour.

On our way out, I glanced out of habit toward the side of the road where the murder victim was found earlier this summer. There was a bicycle down in the ditch, with its front wheel reversed and two dead trees placed on top of it. It was probably stolen, and it looks like it should still work OK. I called the police, and hopefully some kid will get his bike back.

Some recent cougar notes:

- A Bolton veterinarian was unsurprised to hear about the cougar in our woods, since he has treated several local pet cougars over the years, one of which had reached the weight of 400 lb with the benefit of daily, human-provided meals. Like the Ministry of Natural Resources, he is convinced that any cougar around here would have escaped or been released from captivity, and he believes that domestically-raised cougars are even more unlikely to harm a human than wild ones (who also tend to leave humans alone).

- In London, Ontario, there have been a number of cougar sightings this year, including two by police officers, and at least one on a commuter bike trail within city limits. Here's a typical government bureaucracy thing... because the Ministry of Natural Resources has an official position that the only cougars roaming Southern Ontario are escaped pets, and because their only mandate is to deal with wild animals, they didn't see it as their job to get involved. So there was squabbling between the police, the City and the MNR, trying to figure out who should look into the cougar seen on the urban bike trail. In a place like Canmore, it would have been more clear who to call. In the end, the City forked out the cash to hire a wildlife specialist to investigate the situation.