Training Log Archive: Bash

OK, I admit that I screamed when the mouse was running around our bedroom the other night, so I have no idea how I'd respond to this!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM...

Parked at the chain on the abandoned railway line, then ran in to the Mizzy Lake Trail. 'Bent now has a full-fledged cold, so I led the whole way in order to keep the pace down. *Way* down. My theory is that the Mizzy Lake Trail was designed by an evil person who hates trail runners. There are long sections with slippery, off-angle tree roots standing up 20-30 cm off the ground, positioned about 30 cm apart. Then there are all the slick rocks and slimy, slanted boardwalks. Phew - it's a fun trail, but you can't take your eye off your feet for long, which is too bad because the deciduous forest in particular was spectacular today!

I had one bad skid that wrenched my bad knee, which has been bothering me over the past week. I thought I might have to switch to walking/limping, but the pain mostly subsided within five minutes of light running. Fingers crossed that that was the end of it, but I wouldn't bet money.

Grey day with occasional sprinkling rain. After a morning visit to the Algonquin Art Gallery, we headed out to paddle part of the loop that Phatty & Leanimal and friends did recently. We headed north from the lodge on Little Joe Lake almost to Burnt Island Lake, then turned and took the 1.1 km portage to Littledoe Lake. After that, it was a nice long paddle back around to the lodge, past our wedding rock, which was unfortunately occupied by campers as it usually is. We don't get to visit it very often. Fantastic day for a paddle - the autumn colours were extra vibrant on such a dull day.

On the way up north, we stopped at Algonquin Outfitters, and I bought heavy-duty Marmot gloves and mittens. That was the first gear purchase for the Rock & Ice Ultra, which promises to be (another) one of those events that make all my existing gear seem inadequate for the task.

Time for our annual belated anniversary trip to Algonquin Park! We always go back to the lodge where we and our guests stayed when we got married.



And most of the time we are there when the autumn leaves look really, *really* good!



'Bent and I rode the rail trail from Mew Lake to Rock Lake. Nice views! We usually ride the more technical Minnesing Trail, but 'Bent's mountain 'bent is off getting repaired - again.

It's that time of the year - Caron's core and yoga classes have started up for the fall. She was relatively nice tonight, giving us brief breaks after the hardest exercises. But there were still a few things that hurt!

Our first yoga class of the year started off easily enough, but it got steadily tougher. The only thing my knee couldn't do was pigeon pose without hands. Otherwise it wasn't too bad. I'm hoping that I'll be up for a long trail run on the weekend.

I found out why you should never put regular dishwashing soap into the dishwasher by mistake. Not even a little bit. Really, don't do it.

There's a mouse in the house. Rats.

Knee isn't feeling as much better as I'd hoped, so I'll give it another day off.

After a long hiatus, Leanimal and I met up to reprise our hill interval workout in downtown Bolton. It's a good one for us, since it allows the Speed Queen to motor up the hills while I use my "single speed" legs. Speaking of legs, mine were fatigued today, and I skipped one of the hill runs and just power-walked up until I met Leanimal coming down.

Luckily for me, Dr. Lee had time to work on my knee afterward. After a bit of abuse, it felt less tight, but I'm probably still a couple of days away from normal.

Probably won't see Leanimal again until the Big Wedding Weekend. This is getting soooo exciting!

Oooh, my legs are tired. My right knee is bending much better than it was last night, thanks to ibuprofen, ice and sleep. Somehow I suspect that a 10-miler wasn't the best cooldown from Storm The Ten.

Professional engineers and/or cat lovers may enjoy this popular Youtube flick, "An Engineer's Guide to Cats". Warning - it's 7 minutes long.

Figured that 4.5 hrs of adventure racing was enough of a warm-up for today's 10-mile run! Maybe a little too much.

This was the inaugural Caledon Hills Running Festival. Since it was only 10 minutes from home, and all proceeds went to the Lung Association, I wanted to support them in spite of being tired and stiff from yesterday's race. As Slowrunner said, "What could go wrong?" :-)

It was perfect running weather - 18-20C and sunny. There were some excellent athletes there, and it was great to see so many friends! I think there were about 600 runners in total, counting the grade school 1-mile race, which was free. There was also a 5K race and a relay category where each of two runners would do 5 miles.

C3 got terrific support from elite athletes. Simon Whitfield provided several hundred signed posters, and autographs were also signed (mostly for excited kids) by Ironman star Lisa Bentley, Olympic triathlete Colin Jenkins, national triathlete André-Paul Baillargeon-Smith, national triathlete Sean Bechtel and local Olympic rower Cameron Sylvester.



The 10-mile race course - the longest road run I've ever done - consisted of two very hilly 5-mile loops. As I came up the last hill around mile 4.5, I almost talked myself into stopping after the first lap. There would be no shame in that after yesterday's long race, right? But fortunately there was a long downhill section at the end of each lap, and I felt pretty good when I passed through the start/finish. On the PA, Barrie Shepley made comments about people that he knows, e.g. "A top masters athlete" or "Just did an Ironman two months ago". When I passed through, he said, "Barb Campbell - a massive, massive adventure racer"!!! He's right - I could stand to lose 2 kg if I'm going to do much more running.

I didn't push hard, and I didn't meet my goal of 90 minutes, but I wasn't too far behind. I finished 20 seconds behind multiple Ironman finisher Caron Shepley, and that was just fine by me. Overall, I was a dismal 84th of 97 finishers, but not surprising since there were a lot of *real* runners in this event!

It was an out-and-back course, so each lap I could cheer on 'Bent, Scooby, Thumbs-of-Death, The Archer, Serghei, etc. Teenaged GHO member Serghei Logvin placed an incredible 2nd overall in the 10-miler, 2 minutes behind an Ethiopian (I think) runner - finished in under an hour. Wow. 'Bent took 12th place in a tough field, finishing 1st in his age category with a time of 1:09-ish. The Archer was 3rd, so we were proud of both of them!



Well-organized event - glad to see the strong community support.

Added some photos to yesterday's STORM The Ten report

Event: STORM the Ten
 

Coach LD and I joined forces once again for Storm The Ten, a multi-sport relay on a marked course at Kelso Conservation Area. Like every Storm event, things were super-well-organized, and the volunteers were awesome. Even the weather was ideal.



Our laps consisted of a short run from the transition area down the stairs to Kelso beach, followed by a 6-minute paddle down the lake. After taking our boats out of the water, we ran along a gravel road, over a small ski bunny hill and through the tunnel under the railroad tracks to the bike transition. Then we rode up the escarpment on twisty, rooty singletrack, then had a nice ride around at the top before dropping our bikes to do a 3 km run on the Bruce Trail. Then we had a downhill ride that was tougher than last year - some sketchy gravel and a couple of logs and wooden ramps - so we had to stay focused till the end. Then we ran back to the boats, paddled back down the lake and ran up that loooong set of stairs to the transition area.



Last year, my best lap times were a hair better than Coach LD's. This year she kicked my butt (which wasn't unexpected). I was consistent, doing all four laps around 1:07-ish. Coach LD had a couple of laps at my pace, but also a blistering 1:02! There was no one else in our category this year, so we took home first prize, and from listening to the other results, it sounded like we had a respectable result overall.



It was great to see so many friends out there today - LoTox, FB, Sherpa, Mr. & Mrs. Flatfoot, Mique (who carried a cell phone because his baby is overdue), Mr. & Mrs. Gally, Beowulf, Mr. Blackwell, Tom New Guy (who won the solo under 40 division), Vin, Tiny, Nosnhoj - and STORM, of course. And probably some others that I'm forgetting. It was especially fun to see Sherpa out swimming in the middle of Kelso Lake in a triathlon wetsuit, looking as fit and strong as I've ever seen her. (And she always looks fit and strong!) 'Bent, Goose and Tavish came by to cheer, take photos (ahem) and go for a paddle.

I think I only had about 3 fast-twitch fibres left in my body, and this race used them all up! Maybe next year I'll have to volunteer. It was fun, but physically tough - I'm just not used to pushing that hard, and that's what you really should do on a marked course. When I'm navigating, there is always an excuse to stop and look at the map more closely! Having said that, I was able to get by on skills to a fair extent, in spite of my decreased fitness. The only person who passed me in any mountain bike section was Flatfoot, who was using a video helmetcam. Damned paparazzi! ;-) And I didn't get passed during the paddling either, but I was passed a few times on the run - especially the non-technical run between the bikes and the boats. That's to be expected!

Anyway, fun day - kudos to STORM on another fun, well-run and successful event. Oh, and thanks to FB and The Lad for providing me with a much-appreciated cold beer after the action was over - mmmm.

Before-dinner run around the 5K trail loop. A couple of new trees are down across the trail in KB forest, including a huge one. Hope someone with a chainsaw gets out there before ski season.

It was like a Disney movie out there with Bambis leaping to my right and left, and a flock of wild turkeys marching by in procession, the evening sun gleaming on their wings, snoods, caruncles and wattles.
http://www.saskschools.ca/~gregory/thanks/graphics...

Twisty Palgrave single track with Coach LD, my tag team teammate for this weekend's Storm the Ten. She is *so* much fitter than I am right now. We'll have to see if we can repeat our victory in the prestigious Female Tag Team category. I don't see any Bobkittens on the registration list, which improves our chances significantly!

Met up with the Bolton Wednesday night trail running group. I hadn't joined them before because I knew I'd be the slowest runner, but Rocky campaigned hard to get new people out, so I thought I'd give it a try. And yes, I was the slowest runner but the others kindly ensured that I wasn't left alone in the dark to be mauled by rabid coyotes. Nice night for running - I love the cool air!

Final classroom sessions at Banff Centre. It was 25C and gorgeous, so I was tempted to stay after class to do a short hike. But when my evening plans got scuttled at the last minute, I decided to catch the 6 p.m. flight home from Calgary instead trying to sleep on the midnight red-eye flight.

Some photos have been added to the weekend's log entries below.

Trekked along the river and up and down the bank to access different rapids where we took photos of kayakers at play. Yes Urthbuoy, this was my favourite photo session. Kayakers are soooo photogenic on a sunny day with bright boats, PFDs and helmets standing out against the beautiful moving water - not to mention all the action.

Banff Centre Adventure Photography Workshop. Today we had two long sessions taking photos of climbers and mountain bikers. I'd hoped to post a few photos, but I'm blocked from uploading to Picasa here for some reason, so that will have to wait. This is loads of fun, but it sure is an endurance event. We had breakfast at 7 a.m., and after that I was busy until nearly 2 a.m. between classroom time, outdoor photography sessions and homework.

Here is the view from my room.



And here are a few photos from today's climbing and mountain biking sessions. All the subjects are local enthusiasts who get paid by receiving at least 2 pictures of themselves from each photographer, and in return they sign a model release enabling us to sell our photos if we wish.

Made it to Banff, but had to get up at 2:20 a.m. Alberta time to catch my flight. Yawn! I'd thought of running up Tunnel Mountain, but the icy pouring rain was a deterrent. Instead, I visited some of my old haunts from when I worked in Lake Louise - Grizzly House, fudge shop, etc. I had to buy a whole bunch of chocolate from Bernard Callebaut because the sign said they were Bullfrogpowered. I almost bought a T-shirt with a beautiful view of silhouetted hikers moving along a ridge line with the slogan, "Bring your compass. It's so awkward when you have to eat your friends."

The Banff Centre is a cool place, and the 3 photographers leading our workshop seem really good. There is a guy in our class who liked it so much that he is taking it for the 2nd year in a row, which is an excellent sign.

Tonight we went through all the portfolios that everyone had submitted to be accepted into the course, and the photographers offered some good critique. This one seemed to be their favourite photo in my portfolio. Who can guess where it was taken?

Still feeling blah. I headed for a large private property in our area. There's no house on the land, but I've met the owner and obtained permission to use the trails. I'd heard through the grapevine that his mentally disabled son sometimes ATVs in there, but I hadn't met him in 10 years - until today.

I'd like to say that I was totally cool with it, but it got a little weird and finally freaked me out. He looks about 45-55 years old, and we started out chatting pleasantly enough. Then he got angry when he saw tire tracks and evidence of some logging that he wasn't aware of. He walked up and down the trail with me looking at the tracks and pointing at clues. He kept asking me who had done it and saying that it wasn't right. I didn't know, but offered some suggestions - the same ones, over and over again, every time he asked.

Finally I said that I was going to start running again, but he didn't want me to go because we hadn't finished looking at all the tire tracks in the forest. I smiled and said that I really needed my exercise, and he kept talking. Finally I just started running, saying "I'm sure I'll see you around again sometime." He answered, "When?" - in the innocent way that someone whose brain isn't quite right would interpret my words to mean exactly what I said, as opposed to being somewhat insincere. (Maybe he's the sensible one!)

As I ran off, we exchanged a few more friendly (shouting) comments, but I still felt strange about running past him again on the way out, so I headed out through VO2Max's property to Duffy's Lane and came home the long way. I feel guilty about feeling creeped out. It's not his fault, and I'm 99% sure he's harmless, but there was still that 1% - and this trail gets almost no traffic.

What a difference a day makes! No zip in the legs today at all. Too bad, since this was supposed to be a longer running day. I ran to my dental appointment, then took BulletDog with me when I left (she'd been working in the dental office). It was a little warm for both of us, and I hadn't had lunch, which might have influenced my energy. When I realized it was going to be a bust, I headed for Salty Steven Single Track, where "slow" is a reasonable speed - and where the GPS probably doesn't measure distance super-accurately. In any case, when it hit 10 km, I called it a day and walked the rest of the way home with the pooch. Following Urthbuoy's advice, I had some greens concentrate when I got home - as well as lunch at 3 p.m.

I've borrowed some nicer camera gear for my photography workshop from Hurtn. Now I need to figure out how to use it!

Oh yeah... forgot about donating blood yesterday afternoon. Since they always fuss over whether I'm too anaemic to donate, I suppose that I just might be missing the oxygen that those other blood cells used to carry around.

Coach LD and I met for a fun twilight ride around Albion. She is sooo strong, and it's great to be pushed. Well OK, it's not exactly great, but it *is* good for me. And the conversation is always excellent. I felt a little better than earlier in the day, but still kinda weak 'n' wimpy.

Around Palgrave West with BulletDog. As I was heading into the K-Bash woods to do the Charlevoix loop, I heard an engine and smelled fresh exhaust. They've been doing some logging in Palgrave West and on the adjacent private land, and I doubt they're expecting to see many people in the woods, so we turned around and went along the Bruce. My pace was nearly identical to yesterday's, which was surprising because the perceived effort was lower, the weather was warmer, and I had a dog to keep an eye on. Surely the training effect doesn't work that quickly!

Only two more days till Banff - lots to do before I go!

Our new road running shoes just arrived by courier - our prize from the Saucony RockstAR adventure race! (We would have had them sooner, but we had to go some place to try them on and look at different models before sending in our order.) Guess we need to do some road running now!

Trail loop in Palgrave West. I'm trying to get back into running after a lazy summer. I'm just going to bike for fun over the next while, since there's only one race with biking between now and next May - Storm The 10. For that, I should be practising hill repeats, since I'll be biking up the escarpment four times as part of my multi-sport relay loops. Otherwise, it's all running and orienteering races for the next few months - and then time to enjoy skiing and snowshoeing!

Half Hard Core Monday with 'Bent. Caron's classes are starting in a few weeks, and we'd better not arrive unprepared. We decided up front to just do the first half, since we were both looking forward to dinner more than core!

Fun and chatty early morning run on the Humber Trail with Rocky (who has returned triumphant from the TransRockies trail race), 'Bent, Vents, Mr. Biker, Goose, Scooby and The Archer. The rain started while we were out, and I was fine while we were running, but got myself really chilled afterward. Hot shower was good, but I'm still sitting here with two fleecy tops on - after wearing a tank top and shorts yesterday.

On the way home, we stopped at a local market to see a young farmer friend who tragically lost his wife earlier this year when she drowned on their first vacation alone since having kids. A conversation like that makes you appreciate what you have and think about the things in life that truly matter. Today is our 12th wedding anniversary, and we are very, very lucky.

Stars Challenge at Mansfield. Fun course on a nicely updated map with a very complex trail network. This area is going to be tons of fun for the 2010 North American Ski-O Champs.

I think my last orienteering race was in early April, and it was great to be back running around the woods. Nice to see various friends including Mick and Missus and our Coast Raid teammates, Tiny and Pixie. Goose, 'Bent and I drove up together and had a good chat enroute. Discovered an amazing new place near Mansfield for espresso, antipasto, gelato, panini, pizza, pastries and wine. I think we'll be skiing there more often this winter!

I did reasonably well, with one medium error (about 90 seconds) where I overran #7 and one large error (about 7 minutes) when I got within 50 m of #16 and thought I saw a main trail below me that was actually a campfire area. Thinking I'd gone too far, I retreated, looked around and finally relocated and was surprised to arrive at the same spot - and saw the control this time. Oops.

An even bigger oops occurred after controls #2 and #3 unexpectedly turned out to be hand punches instead of SI controls. I decided that this must be a barebones race with SI only placed every 3-4 controls. Not true, but for some reason, that's how I saw things as I ran the rest of the course, with the result that I hand-punched 4 controls that actually had SI punches at them. (The Caledon Navigators have hand punches that look just like the SI stands.) Duh. Nothing like 5 months away from the sport! Looking forward to more O this fall. Big thanks to Nick, Ilona and the rest of the Stars for a fun event.

Rodney Yee's yoga for stamina. (Ironically, my shortest yoga DVD.) Felt good.

Got my Gary Fisher Sugar bike back yesterday - and it's going to give my new bike a run for its money! Fisher replaced the cracked frame at no charge, and it's a beautiful royal blue now. 'Bent had eBayed me new lightweight wheels before the frame cracked, and I'd replaced the front cranks and ring last fall. The only things we upgraded when the bike was rebuilt this time were the chain and back ring. So for just under $300, I've pretty much got a brand new bike! The plan was that this would be my back-up bike, but it looks so nice that maybe I'll put different tires on each bike and use them in different conditions. Really, they're both too nice for the kind of riding I do!

Unfortunately, I'm not going to the World Rogaining Champs in Estonia, but this is the most awesome waiver form I've ever seen!

http://8wrc2008.rogain.ee/failid/WRC_indemnity_for...

Wind got really strong before thunderstorms later today, so I decided to stay out of the woods (full of dead burnt trees) and head to the basement. I started with some paddle training as a warm-up for strength. This will be a great winter workout. I watched Mythbusters, who determined that (a) the 5-second rule is false (surprise, surprise), (b) their toilet seat had less bacteria than any other place in their workshop (as per the urban legend), and (c) a dog's mouth has less bacteria than a human mouth (at least in their test - I've seen what my dogs get into, and it ain't always pretty!)

Workout #1 on the machine, upper body portion only. My previous settings are recorded on the chart, and it's a little depressing to see how much strength I've lost. Gotta get to work!

I really didn't have it today - in fact, I feel so fatigued as I sit here that I wonder if I'm coming down with something. My Tuesday morning run felt good, so I hope it's no big deal. I wonder if my body is telling me that 4 days of racing at the Coast Raid requires more recovery than I'm giving it.

Ran into some guys who were marking trees for logging. Based on what I found when I went off-trail elsewhere, it seems that they're doing some work in there already, so be careful about going off-trail in Palgrave West.

It wasn't a total waste - I wore my Forerunner and measured some distances that I hope to use for trail intervals.

Loop to Thinker's Hill Bench, out and back by different routes through F&M's - 1.5 km

Mad Dog Meadow Loop - 980 m

Front Door to Jct of Pine Trail and Mad Dog Meadow Trail, Short Route - 350 m, Long Route - 630 m

From Pine/Mad Dog Jct to Thinker's Hill Bench and back again - 520 m

Today is the 1-year anniversary of a day we'll never forget - the afternoon that our new-to-the-country neighbours accidentally started a 70-acre bushfire that we had to help fight. A firefighter suggested that I evacuate our home, so I had the strange experience of grabbing our most important things (starting with the dogs) quickly and throwing them into the van. If the wind hadn't changed, Crash's house might have burned. 'Bent injured his knee badly, tearing his MCL and cracking his femur. He had to sit out for much of the next 4 months and spent the first half of 2008 working his way back up to full activity.

Unfortunately, our forest has not fared as well. The meadows recovered quickly, but the coniferous forest continues to die. Blackened trees topple over on windy days, needles are mostly gone, and thick, tangled undergrowth has sprung up beneath the trees, making trails hard to find. So don't play with matches, kids, and try not to live next door to people who do!!

http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

OK, it's September, and it's time to either admit that I'm easing into the life of a couch potato or else get off my duff and start training for real. I went out early to avoid the anticipated 29C high temperature of the day and ran around Palgrave East and West. It is *so* sad to see the beautiful trails that we're going to lose under the new trail plan, especially the roller coaster Red Trail in the southwest part of Palgrave East.

Wildlife Report: 6 noisy grouse. I've never seen more than one of them at a time. I forgot to report a baby coyote in Koturbash woods during my run last week. He was a cutie, although I was worried to see him out on his own.

'Bent and I paddled at Island Lake with Goose and Coach LD and some of their family and friends. I only logged part of the recreational paddle time, but some of it was high intensity because 'Bent had brought a GPS to compare the speed of my old Current Designs GTS with his new light sea kayak. Oh, and naturally, 'Bent, Goose and I got a little competitive with one other!

My peak instantaneous speed with my current kayak was 10.3 kph, and I hit 10.5 kph on the new kayak. Not much difference there, but it seemed a little easier to cruise in the 9-10 kph range with the new kayak. After the testing, my vote is that 'Bent should either trade it in for a regular sea kayak that can carry gear for a 2-week trip - or else get a real racing boat. (The guy who sold it to him had left it open that he could trade for something different.)