Training Log Archive: Bash

As one of the defending champions of the Chuck Norris Invitational Adventure Challenge at Leanimal's annual New Year's bash, there was a lot of pressure on me in the weeks leading up to this very serious event. There were several times when I almost stopped eating Christmas cookies to go out for a run, but I usually managed to resist.

It was excellent news when the random draw teamed me up with Slice, since I knew that the girls of Team Slash would kick butt. We had an awesome start, and within the first block, we had passed Hansel's team (4th in Primal Quest 2006), who had started 3 minutes ahead. The clues were written as poetry, and solving them required knowledge of diverse subjects ranging from trigonometry to professional sports, along with good eyesight, a bit of luck, and lots of running around the neighbourhood.

All the teams missed some tricky fine print on a clue about 3/4 of the way through the race, so we all ran south on a road instead of a rail trail. I'm pretty sure we were leading the race at that point, although it's hard to tell for sure with the staggered starts. Slice, who has won more major North American adventure races than I can count, was awesome, keeping a hand on my back to increase our team speed. Unfortunately, we did an extra 1.5 km out-and-back on the road, looking in vain for our clue, before finally discovering our error and getting back on course.

Surprisingly, in spite of our extra explorations, we finished in 2nd place, just 2 minutes behind Zoolander's winning team. Most importantly, we were ranked ahead of our respective partners, Hansel and 'Bent, which was a fine way to finish 2006. :-)

Celebrating the New Year with a bunch of adventure racers was a blast. Just a few of the memorable moments...

- Leanimal's amazing ability to communicate just about anything in Charades - with near-military efficiency
- The astounding, decisive defeat of the women's team in the Smart Mouth game, which ought to have favoured our superior verbal skills, but apparently we left them at home.
- Slice's inspired performance that enabled us to guess the movie title: "Playboy's Wet and Wild 3". One glass of wine later, we had no luck guessing the song "Foxy Mop Handle Mama", even though her fox impression was excellent, in retrospect.
- Hansel spinning around the lawn in the rain, holding a burning Roman candle and accompanying each ball of fire into the sky with a pelvic thrust. Fortunately, he suffered no collateral damage.
- Saying farewell to AndyCam as he heads out on a 3-month cycling stage race through Africa (www.tourdafrique.com). They're raising money to buy local bikes for African healthcare workers.
- On the Citytv New Year's special, the jazz singer who performed Auld Lang Syne was wearing the World Wildlife Fund's "Hotter than I should be" T-shirt. Very appropriate as she stood there in the rain at the end of southern Ontario's warmest December on record. :-(
- But definitely, the race was the highlight - tearing through an unfamiliar neighbourhood, leaping streams, frantically scribbling down answers to clues on the run, and trash talking the opposition at every chance meeting.

'Bent and I and some adventure racing friends, ThreepinJim, LoTox, TheDobos and UltraCharmin, dropped the van off near Violet Hill around 8:30 p.m., then hiked on a very hilly section of the Bruce Trail through the night to get back home. We were colder than expected from the forecast because of the dampness in the air, so we started off with some jogging and fast trekking. Eventually, we slowed down to a moderate pace and enjoyed our wintry walk. There was 1-2 cm of snow on everything - just enough to make it slippery, but not enough to give us any grip or provide a soft landing. I was really glad that someone convinced me to bring trekking poles just before we left! It was a nice night with good conversation and lovely moonlit views across the countryside.

I felt good, especially on the hills, except that the lack of cushioning in my old Montrail Hardrocks gave the soles of my feet a "bruised" feeling after about 30 km. The new shoes give me blisters, so I knew this would be the trade-off. At least sore feet don't last very long compared to blisters.

Unfortunately, LoTox's IT band gave out about 6 km from our place. 'Bent, ThreepinJim and UltraCharmin ran ahead, while TheDobos and I walked along country roads, keeping LoTox company. After 15 minutes at a slower pace than I felt like going in the cold, damp air just before dawn, I became thoroughly chilled. The car finally arrived almost 45 minutes later. Although I had intended to run home after that, we all got in and were whisked to our fireplace, where we hugged warm dogs and took turns taking hot showers, followed by a big, greasy, guilt-free breakfast at the local diner. Fun! (Although it may be hard to stay awake until midnight on New Year's Eve.)

Not really a rest day - we're doing a 50 km overnight hike after dinner tonight.

Day 2 of recording my intended weight loss, and things are not trending well. But hey, I'm really enjoying Crash's Christmas cookies!

Power Yoga for Endurance Athletes - Caron Shepley DVD

To help motivate me for my post-Christmas weight loss program, I'm adopting Hammer's system of posting the amount of weight I have left to lose to reach my target. I'm using lb instead of kg so I will feel like I'm moving more quickly in the right direction. (I hope!)

I had some financial year-end stuff to take care of, so 'Bent, BulletDog and I ran cross-country to the Palgrave post office. There was a light sprinkling of snow and a nice chill in the air, but it doesn't feel like Christmas vacation unless we're XC skiing.

Ooooh, it was painful to look at Brian May's amazing ski photos from Larch Hills on the "Antarctica" AP discussion thread. Wow, that's a fantastic place. (Larch Hills, that is - although I'm sure that Antarctica is fantastic too.)

We ran home from the post office by a more circuitous route through the conservation area. I'm not feeling light and quick on my feet right now, but that's no surprise after all the turkey, stuffing and pie!

Attempting to burn off at least part of a shortbread cookie, I ran upstairs to the 8th floor of Brantford General Hospital at the start of the annual Rotary Club carol sing and Santa Claus visit to all the patients in hospital. The actual singing doesn't count as training, but there were some unreasonably high notes that might have burned another calorie or two if I'm lucky, given how much I enjoyed my dinner tonight. Post-Christmas weight loss program begins tomorrow!

Merry Christmas to all! :-)

Leg strength in my parents' home gym

'Bent, BulletDog and I explored the trails along the Grand River near my parents' place. We only knew about the rail trail, but it turns out there are other trails too - more interesting than we knew. It looks like we should head out for a really nice long run around here some day. Maybe MoeD will give us a tour!

Christmas is on Monday, so 'Bent and I did Hard Core Saturday instead.

Hi, you probably don't remember me, but my name is Bash, and I used to do some athletic training and log it on Attackpoint. And then I started to write Christmas cards and go shopping and stay up late working and go to parties and attend committee meetings... OK, OK, I know the first step is to *admit* I have a problem. (Sluggishness. And sleep deprivation.) 'Bent was kind enough to hold dinner until 8 p.m. so that I could sneak in a short run on the treadmill, just so this week wouldn't be a total loss. It's amazing how short a 30-minute run feels in the woods and how long it feels on a treadmill, but it did feel good to do something again. Hopefully I've returned to the real world!

An extensive tour of Palgrave West with 'Bent, BulletDog and my Active Ankle brace. My injured ankle didn't hurt, but it felt a bit weak. There were a couple of times when I felt an ankle twist get stopped by the brace.

Ignoring all that, it was a beautiful day - even though we prefer our December days to begin by shovelling the snow away from our front door! 'Bent said I was running more quickly than usual. That's because I have a ton of Christmas preparation work left, and can't afford the time to do long, slow distance runs! Sometimes 'Bent has a huge advantage, being Jewish.

The joys of living with dogs... When we got back, ThunderDog had managed to topple a huge, wrapped panettone (Italian Christmas cake) off the top of the breadbox, then she tore off the wrapping and consumed every crumb. She's drinking lots of water now, and I'll bet she's going to have one heck of a stomach ache. After we finished cleaning up that mess, we noticed that BulletDog had apparently rolled in something disgusting along the trail, so she was rushed straight to the bathtub to be scrubbed and disinfected. Sigh...

Power Yoga for Endurance Athletes - DVD, with 'Bent. The balance exercises are getting more controlled with practice. It's interesting to see how "right-legged" I am. It's much easier to keep my balance when only my right foot is on the ground than when only my left foot is on the ground.

Only two more Christmas parties, then I'll have a few days to try to lose weight before our turkey dinner. Woo hoo!

Two full days of resting my ankle in hopes that it will heal quickly and be ready to bend 'n' flex when the snow flies. (In spite of the pathetic weather forecast, I live in hope.) Unlike my ankle crunches in the spring, this one caused very little swelling or discolouration. The pain on both sides of my foot, just above the sole, was intense at first. I think it's a different type of ankle twist from the ones I've had before - more of a foot twist than a leg twist. Maybe that's a function of the healed ankle joint being less flexible, which is something I've been warned about.

This was one of those rare days when I practically had to boot myself in the rear end with my own running shoe to get out the door. I had planned a busy, efficient day, with a meeting in Orangeville, several long work-related phone calls, a couple of writing projects, a few Christmas tasks, an evening party - and a lunchtime run and leg strength session to fend off the sluggishness.

But a construction crew arrived first thing in the morning with 3 men and a bulldozer, ready to dig trenches for a project that I'd expected to happen in the spring. This meant a day with lots of noise and knocks on the door, and people working outside the curtainless windows of the room where I would have done my strength exercises if I weren't so shy. Argggh! At least I managed to hide in the bedroom for awhile and make some of the phone calls. This may be the first time in recorded history that a home owner has been disappointed when a contractor showed up *earlier* than expected.

The machines fell silent around noon, and I dragged myself out for a trail run in Palgrave West, even though my brain wouldn't stop stressing and making "to do" lists. I wasn't structured enough about it to call it interval training, but I accelerated to top speed about a dozen times for very short distances. I was thinking that I never run fast, and it would probably be good for my body to experience the feeling of a faster pace, and maybe start to feel more comfortable there eventually.

So this sounds like a Story With Happy Ending, where I didn't want to go running, but triumphed over slugdom by going out nonetheless, and then I felt awesome for the rest of the day. Well, it was going to be a story like that until late in the run when I stepped in some mud and crunched my bad ankle - arggghhh! I've been trying to wean myself off the Active Ankle brace on relatively smooth trails, and obviously my healed foot isn't as resilient as my uninjured foot used to be. I spent a couple of minutes swearing at no one and cringing at the pain, then I started to get cold, so had to start walking on the foot. I limped for a minute, then it wasn't so bad. I was still cold, so I managed to jog/run home. One hour and two ice applications later, the swelling isn't nearly as serious as I've seen it, so my fingers are crossed. It was a big crunch, and there is pain on the inside and outside of the foot, so it seems like a lot of soft tissue was involved.

CRAP.

Hard Core Monday with 'Bent. Because I'd done Caron's class on Thursday evening, HCM felt like it arrived too soon this week. On the bright side, it made me feel oh so virtuous! But not until it was over, and I finally stopped whining and swearing at the TV.

Thomass Bronte

Thomass Sprint at Bronte Creek South. Hammer tested out his new idea for reducing following in Thomass winter races. It involved the use of one or more 2-control butterfly loops originating at a particular control number in the middle of the race. The 2 controls for each loop were selected by the runner from a group of 8 lettered (as opposed to numbered) controls. The total required number of controls depended on age and gender, e.g. I had to visit 4 controls (2 loops) and 'Bent had to visit 6 controls (3 loops). M21 runners visited all 8 controls in 4 loops. After visiting as many of the loop controls as we needed to, we continued to the rest of the numbered controls.

One of 'Bent's goals for the day was to run by himself without being influenced by other runners, and he was very pleased with this loop system. In Thomass races, I'm not usually in the part of the pack where following is a big factor, so the main difference for me was seeing more of the other runners, which made for a more social race! A couple of infrequent orienteers came to see me before the race because they thought they were in over their heads, but once we walked through some examples on the map (which, thankfully, we got in advance), they were OK with it, and they did fine in the race.

I was feeling slo-o-ow and not overly competitive. I ran with AdventureGirl! for a little while and helped to haul her over an icy stream. She was the youngest-ever Thomass finisher today, and she's darned speedy too!

Thomass Chase. Our times in the sprint determined when we would start in the Chase, about an hour later. The runners with better results started earlier, with start times separated by the same interval as our sprint times, up to a 30-minute max. Apparently, my slow sprint wasn't too bad, so I was one of the early runners to start.

Considering that there are virtually no hills at Bronte Creek, this was a very physical race, with many routes crossing bumpy, tussocky fields filled with tangled weeds interspersed with ice covered pools. It was a runner's course, with a couple of long, flat legs where people streamed past me as I galumphed along at my usual slow pace. The Thomass Box used the same "loop" rules as the Sprint. The loops were relatively short, but the navigation was quite technical there, and I made a couple of Bozo errors. I was saved by my age/gender handicap, however, which allowed me to leave that tricky area sooner than a lot of people. I managed to squeak out 2nd place female, just behind Marianna W, last year's overall series winner.

I felt pretty stupid in parts of this race! If you're weak at reading vegetation (as I am), Bronte Creek is a great place to practise, since there is very little forest and hardly any contours. If you're not good at visualizing the shapes of thickets, you are (i.e. I am) in big trouble.

Overall, a fun event - always interesting to try something new! We also had a great GHO Christmas party following the race. Lots of yummy food (first sluglike pig-out of the season), great Secret Santa gifts, and the infamous GHO GHO GHO awards for people who did dumb things in 2006. I'm on a roll, with two awards in two consecutive years. The story behind this year's "It Wasn't Meant To Be" award is found in my Feb. 5 AP log entry.

Not enough snow to ski, and we didn't want to run because we've got two orienteering races tomorrow, so 'Bent and I decided to ride our bikes to Caledon East to buy food for the GHO potluck Christmas party.

It was -1C and sunny, with a fairly stiff west wind, i.e. a headwind most of the way to Caledon East. The rail trail was surprisingly bone rattling with a small depth of snow and lots of footprints. The ride home felt much easier, since we had a tailwind and we could ride in our previous tracks. Although it was great to be out on a nice winter afternoon, I'm still not a convert to winter biking.

I tried SO hard not to get cold toes again, but I failed miserably. I wore light synthetic socks inside winter-weight Sealskinz (neoprene with light fleece lining), then put neoprene covers over my bike shoes. The best I can say is that my toes weren't freezing quite as painfully as last weekend after the first hour, but it was uncomfortable. So I tried sticking chemical hand warmers (not the thinner, stick-on toe warmers) between my socks, and that was a disaster. They were too large, so my toes were all pins and needles within 20 minutes. I think they also need some oxygen to keep the chemical reaction going, so they cooled off a bit. When I stuck them in my pocket for the rest of the ride home, they warmed right up again. I'm sure I had better luck with the toe-specific warmers, so I'll try them another time.

Bottom line... I think the rigid, relatively tight bike shoes are a big part of the problem - reducing circulation and free movement. I didn't find the clipless pedals to be a big advantage, since I sometimes got snow jammed in them and had to fight to get clipped in. So I'm switching to my old pedals and toe clips. That's the configuration we use for winter adventure racing anyway, since it makes for warmer feet and faster transitions. My feet are usually fine in winter races when I'm wearing wool socks and Goretex running shoes without neoprene covers.

Someone just alerted me to the elite rankings lists on the COF web site. Through some miracle of modern mathematics, I was ranked 15th female orienteer in Canada in August, although I've now dropped down 10 positions, which is starting to approach something more reasonable. All I can say is... how do we get more women out to compete at A events (and thus be accounted for in the rankings)?!? Knowing the calibre of women out there, I should never make it into the top 25 nationwide.

By the way, you gotta love the fact that Katta Smith is ranked #1 in a year where she had a baby. Wow!!

First ski of the year! 'Bent and I put on our rock skis this morning and took the pooches out for a loop in Palgrave West. The ski conditions might best be described as "borderline possible". It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the dogs made their first snow angels of the season. I'd intended to go out with 'Bent for a second loop, but my legs were surprisingly weary after last night's workout, so he and BulletDog went on their own. Hopefully, taking it easy today will leave me with more energy for the weekend. After all, it's only been a few days since I was seriously dehydrated.

As of today, we know of 5 people who became ill from last weekend's infamous sushi lunch. We now know that it couldn't have been food poisoning, but it was probably connected to a sick restaurant worker. My sister-in-law flew to Alberta on Monday and managed to make her mother and sister sick out there. I've now reported our little outbreak (maybe norovirus) to Toronto Public Health. Hey, I've always wanted to be a statistic.

C3 running session on a very chilly night in Caledon East, coached by Barrie Shepley. It was slippery out there - I should have worn my Ice Bugs. I was pleasantly surprised to be near the front of the crowd - although far behind the pace of a couple of speedy folk including Hans Porten, a 50-year-old reigning world bronze medalist in triathlon! It's nice to run with other people, but even in this quiet subdivision, it freaked me out to have cars around, especially on a dark evening with icy conditions. However, considering that an idiot hunter shot (and killed) a hiker wearing a red shirt in a public forest less than 10 km from our place last month, perhaps I should take my chances with the cars.

After months of doing Hard Core Mondays with our DVD, I finally attended one of Caron Shepley's Hard Core Conditioning sessions in person. Just like the DVD, she's able to keep smiling the whole time, looks fabulous with nary a hair out of place, does almost 100% of the exercises with us, doesn't break a sweat, and never gives the impression that she is doing hard work. She has developed several tough new exercises that will be featured on her upcoming sequel Hard Core DVD. Worst of all, she has developed an evil habit of counting down from "8 more, 7 more..." until she gets to "1 more", and just when you're ready to flop to the ground in relief, she makes you hold the final awkward position for awhile, then finally starts counting again "And HOLD for EIGHT and SEVEN and SIX...". Ouch! Glad I'd done her Core DVD before, or else it would have turned me into a helpless pool of Jello.

Power Yoga for Endurance Athletes was the second part of the class, and it's also another Caron Shepley DVD that we own, although we haven't done it nearly as often. I recognized a number of things from that DVD, but once again, there was an additional degree of difficulty in the live class. I was relieved to see that most people were unable to do yoga push-ups - high plank position, dropping to low plank, then returning to high plank without touching tummy to the ground. I think Caron may have been the only woman there who pulled it off - wow. The one that gave me the most trouble was a long balance routine where we started on hands and knees, then did all kinds of stuff with our right arm and right leg not touching the ground. At first, I thought it was a mistake. SURELY she meant to say "right arm and LEFT leg". But sadly, no...

A fun evening all around, and nice to train with a group of motivated people.

Nice to feel human again! It'll be awhile before I can face sushi. Unfortunately, I didn't lose lots of weight after all. :-(

This was just a quick run around the woods at dusk. Gotta love that cold air! 'Bent XC skied to work this morning, but it warmed up during the day, so I'm afraid he's going to have to run home.

While watching the Daily Show. Since returning from NZ, I can feel definite - and much needed - improvement in strength.

Had great plans for this brisk, sunny day, but my sister-in-law and I have come down with what may be food poisoning related to Saturday's sushi. Hardly seems fair, since I skipped the all-you-can-eat sushi lunch to go running, and only ate a few small pieces of take-out that 'Bent brought back for me. Neither she nor I even ate any raw seafood, and she only had vegetarian sushi. Sigh... 'Bent did the Hard Core Conditioning DVD downstairs tonight, and it is tough to even *listen* to an abdominal exercise routine when you're feeling sick! To make up for it, he brought me a thermos of the salty mushroom broth that cured Tiny's tummy at the Raid Endurance Aventure, and we'll see if it works.

It's not often that we ride single track in December, but there wasn't quite enough snow to ski, and we wanted to do something different, so we headed to Albion Hills. There were at least a dozen other sets of tracks, so we weren't the only people with this idea. There were also tracks on Duffy's Lane, so I suspect that Crash was out today as well.

It was great to be back on my own bike after using rental bikes in New Zealand. When I rent a bike, people seem to think that I should have some cute little feminine model in a pretty colour, but my legs are actually the same length as 'Bent's, so I'd rather have a real *grown-up* bike! It was great to be back on a bike that fits me, has clipless pedals, and responds the way I expect it to. I still have my semi-slick tires on from the last adventure race, and they were surprisingly good at climbing snowy single track, but the wet off-angle roots were scary. Must switch to knobby tires before the next ride.

All of my cold weather biking gear worked well, except for the neoprene shoe covers over regular cycling shoes with SmartWool socks. I'm not sure if Sealskinz socks would do the trick. I probably need to use those stick-on chemical toe warmers if we're going to do much winter biking. (And I kinda doubt that we will.)

Cross-country through Palgrave West to Duffy's Lane, then around the Red Trail for the first time since the logging began several months ago. I've never seen Palgrave this wet, even in spring. The part of the trail that runs along Hwy 50 was flooded to mid-shin depth. The ground was sprinkled with a dusting of snow, so it was a frigid day to go for a dip! My bad knee twinged for the first 5 minutes (eek!), then calmed down. Otherwise, I felt pretty good. Nice to run in cold weather.

While watching the Jeep World of Adventure Sports, which I've rarely seen. I'm not always impressed with activities labelled as "extreme" or "adventure" sports, especially when they involve motorized vehicles. On today's show, it was awesome to watch deep water solo rock climber Chris Sharma climbing a stunning sea arch in Mallorca, including a 7-foot leap to a single handhold near the middle of the arch where the rock was nearly horizontal - wow. Good rock climbers move with the grace and coordination of professional dancers, and it's amazing to watch them.