Training Log Archive: Bash

I did an out-and-back road run to the first hydro pole past the Duncan Escarpment Provincial Park parking lot, which is exactly 4 km from our front door. Some of this is paved and some of it is gravel that gets down to one lane wide with steep-walled ditches on each side. Not a great place to meet a car but I was only passed at the 15-minute and 35-minute marks. In the first 3.3 km from our place, there is 9 m of climb and 134 m of descent, followed by a steep hill climb to the parking lot. In other words, the way home is painful!

Considering how little I've been running, this felt just fine. My Apple Watch says my VO2max has dropped a bit lately and I was trying to impress it, but I failed.

'Bent, AdventureDog, Stephen and I went for our first family run around the Kolapore Church / Paradise Highway loop. This was Stephen's longest run so far and he did very well! He and A-Dog ran well together too, even though Stephen is on leash and A-Dog is off. Although we tried to get Stephen to learn from watching A-Dog, he has so far refused to drink from creeks. Of course, running with dogs meant extra stops to sniff and explore but that's OK.

I dragged everyone off-trail to bushwhack to one of my control locations from the Kolapore O event. Friendly locals picked up a few flags for me, and I hadn't attached the laminated control code cards very well. Amazingly, only one card was missing, and I hoped it might be on the ground by the control. No such luck. If it fell there, it's now buried under leaves so I'll make a new one.

A really nice outing!

(Slight time/distance adjustment because I accidentally turned off my watch.)

Sad news: Bill Trayling passed away yesterday. He was diagnosed with ALS a few months after he retired last year - a very cruel disease, especially for someone whose physicality was such a big part of his identity. He was a Dad, a partner, a teacher, an athlete, a coach and much more. He was a friend and the first real coach I ever had; it was transformative.

He had a long teaching career after paddling competitively in his youth. HIs plan for retirement was to coach paddling again. It would have been amazing to get on the water with him.

Thinking today of his daughter Molly and partner Julia.

At Wilderness Traverse:



Coaching:

'Bent and I put up signs and flagged the Metcalfe Rock snowshoe trail - the one that will hopefully prevent some snowshoers from hiking on the ski trails. It was a little harder than we expected to find last year's exact route. It's bushwhacking but we had done some pruning so people wouldn't get too many saplings in the face. A few trees have fallen since last winter so we had to reroute a little. It was a nice, crisp afternoon with snow on the ground. Hope we'll be skiing soon!

More trail clearing with about 5 cm of snow on the ground. It almost felt wrong to be walking on the trails but I was following a fat bike track (grrr) through the mud puddles, and I met a group of six out-of-town trail runners - a couple of them in shorts - as the snow continued to fall.







Sigh...

Trail clearing sections of our trail and the Kolapore Trails - cleaning up after some windy days in the past couple of weeks.

More trail clearing - this time with 'Bent, who was already worn out from his long run with Tarno and AdventureDog. One more long session tomorrow and I should be finished the trails I'd volunteered to clear. All these trails were cleared last month - some of them by me - but a lot of branches have come down. There is one huge tree down across our trail that will require a chainsaw. That could be complicated to arrange so I built a short bypass.

I took my bike out on a weirdly warm November day. Once I got to Palgrave East, all the trails I rode were different from our Saturday ride, which is pretty cool for a small area. The Palgrave trails get a lot more use than they did before the pandemic and more tree roots are getting exposed, just like at Albion Hills. It makes for trickier riding uphill but these are still awesome trails. I wish there was a place like this near Kolapore.

'Bent and I did an easy run around Glen Haffy together. By "easy", I mean that I ran partway up long hills and walked the rest. Also, I was cautious because the fallen leaves hid the many ankle-busting rocks and roots. 'Bent sometimes ran ahead, which only backfired spectacularly once when he attempted to tap dance across the creek on half a dozen uneven rocks. Splish splash!

We checked out a new fire break for part of our climb up the Dingle. We hit a dead end and needed to bushwhack back to the trail. We found another tick on Stephen this morning so I'd been hoping to stay out of the weeds. There'a another warm week coming up - boo. On the bright side, running didn't feel too bad after doing so little of it lately.

I had a bunch of Kolapore Trails work this morning then 'Bent and I snuck out for a ride in Palgrave East. It was quiet in there.

Covid vaccines #3 and 4 both knocked me on my butt for a day. After shot #5, I was fatigued with a low fever but functional. Today I was just fatigued with a sore arm, which wasn't bad. There were many other reasons to be tired this week anyway.

Covic vaccine #6 - Pfizer XBB. It's been just over a year since my last vaccine. Glad to bump up my immunity before the winter.

Coach LD's birthday party! We started with a beautiful hike around the rugged Duncan Escarpment Loop. 'Bent and AdventureDog were the token men at the party. Afterward, we had a tailgate party with most of the treats generously provided by the Birthday Girl.











Coach LD sang her traditional "Oh Canada" with custom lyrics at one of the most scenic locations.

The party continued with a paddle on the Beaver River. Only Coach LD, 'Bent and I were tough enough to keep on partying. There was plenty of water in the river. It was beautiful in a bleak November way. Glad we had this excuse to get out paddling!

'Bent and I went straight from the Beaver River to the main Kolapore parking lot so we could walk in and pick up 3 more orienteering flags that were within sight of the trails. Deer rifle season starts in the morning and I left 3 flags in the woods that I'll have to pick up later in the month.

Etoile and I went out to set up the Novice Course for Kolapore Old School Orienteering. I'd put out the off-trail controls already but most controls were along trails so they had to go out today. I'd forgotten that it would be dark at the time we had to go, so it was a little more adventurous than I'd pictured it. Etoile followed the map and got to do a little navigation and hiking before a very busy day of volunteering at the event. I couldn't have done it without her. Thank you so much!!

Great to see 70+ people (including shadowing parents and younger siblings) at Kolapore Old School Orienteering today. We got lucky with the weather - cool and clear with no wind. There were some great 80s/90s themed outfits. Hammer prepared an awesome 80s playlist for us.







This event celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Kolapore Wilderness Trails and was a tribute to the 1983 and 1998 Ontario Orienteering Championships at Kolapore. I used the 1998 map (the most recent map!) and historic control locations from the 1983 and 1998 Champs. Dave Bishop, son of Lloyd Bishop who was the Event Director for the 1998 Champs, met Timato, the Event Director of the 2023 Champs a quarter century later. This event was only possible because Lloyd kept a big binder with all the maps and courses. Lloyd's son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons all raced in the event.



Everyone was so positive and cheerful. There were a lot of super-enthusiastic little kids. Because I was using historic control locations even for the Novice Course, I debated whether I should put one optional control on the "hidden" side of a big boulder like they did in 1998 or whether I should place it facing the trail. In the end, I put it out of sight. Several kids commented; it was definitely their favourite control because it really felt like a treasure hunt. One small boy confided that he saw another racer go right by the boulder without seeing the flag. "Did you tell them?" "No!!" Lol.



I had a ton of help from Etoile and Tarno during the race and from Goose and Denise beforehand. Hammer and 'Bent helped set things up before they raced and took down controls later. Anvil provided help from afar beforehand. Bob lent us an event tent and other supplies from his race management shed. Thank you, everyone! It made things so much nicer on the day.

Eddie was the overall winner with Timato in 2nd and 'Bent in 3rd. Hammer was 4th because he skipped the optional bonus controls when his knee told him to. Just as Etoile and I had finished reviewing our Old School control cards and identified one missing racer, he arrived half an hour late, safe and sound. Phew!

This was a slightly crazy concept so I'm glad it went smoothly. Several experienced orienteers felt the map had aged well and could be used again, which I hadn't considered doing. Nobody reported seeing a deer hunter, falling hard on a rock or spraining an ankle. It was a fun day for me, largely because everyone was so positive - even when the 2nd bag of Fudgee-Os ran out.

I followed Denise as she tested the Long Regular Course for Kolapore Old School Orienteering. Goose went out a little earlier to test the Advanced Course and Optional Bonus CPs. (Thank you, Denise and Goose!) All the flags were still there after 2 weeks and I got a few more ideas about things to mention in the pre-race briefing.

After his course test last week, I'd asked Goose to move one control to a different location to shorten the Advanced Course and allow more people to finish. I figured that two people should confirm each control location so I went out to see the flag. Goose had mentioned that the map wasn't entirely clear. He was right so I spent a fair bit of time trying to be sure we'd put it in the best place based on the map and the direction of travel of our racers. Because I'm using historic control locations for this race, I only have limited flexibility when moving controls.