Training Log Archive: Bash

Fantastic research news indicating that I've been been right on track all along:

Women who run regularly should make sure they eat enough fat to avoid injury.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM...

Woo hooooo!!! I can't wait for the follow-up study, "Women who skimp on chocolate lose strength quickly".

I don't usually log it when I walk the dogs, but today was a tough slog. It was foggy and rainy, and we have some bare ground. But still, it's mostly wet, soft, heavy snow. I went in knee-deep several times, and even thigh-deep once. (That's not an April Fool's joke!) BulletDog did some hill intervals while I post-holed along behind her. She's making a great recovery from her knee surgery. At this point, you'd really have to know what you were looking for to see anything out of the ordinary with her bionic leg.

I'm the proud owner of a 1-month membership at the Caledon Wellness Centre following a silent auction at Friday's semi-formal. This works out perfectly since it looks like the trails are going to be in rough shape over the next month - and even the roads in our area are mud pits right now. I'm normally not big on indoor aerobics, but it might be tough to prepare for an adventure race on May 3 without biting the bullet. Since it's usually not possible to buy a 1-month membership to the Wellness Centre - and that's all I think I would ever want - I feel like I've won the lottery!

Today I tried the recumbent bike for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes on the spin bike. I can see the appeal of aerobic exercise that allows you to read, although I'm a little suspicious of it for the same reason. Oh, and if you're out there Peggy, I was reading Psychology Today and Runner's World. (I probably should have written her for advice first!)

Various blasting machines.

I needed some good orienteering training to get ready for the Flying Pig and Salomon Giant's Rib Raid, so I rounded up Goose and 'Bent for a session in my personal navigational vortex - the Rocky Ridge/Hilton Falls area. We used snowshoes the whole time, but the snow didn't get soft until high noon, about halfway through our session. Conditions must have been reasonable for today's Thomass Eliminator, since the morning was cold.

It's a nice area, and it was a gorgeous day to be out in the snowy forest with friends. We tried different methods of navigating and different people leading. Without flags to help us in such a tough area, we had to spend a percentage of the time verifying our location at each control. We all learned a few things that should be useful in our upcoming races. Goose is navigating for another team this time, and they're going to be tough competition!

I'm wondering what conditions will be like on April 12 for the GRR. There is a LOT of snow in there right now. It's starting to melt, and we're going to have some warm weather and rain this week - but I think the slush and rock will make for slow going compared to snowshoeing over this nice, smooth snow that covers all the rough stuff.

Not much sleep, but it was a gorgeous winter day, so 'Bent, Coach LD and I headed up to Highlands Nordic for what will probably be the final skate ski of the season. Conditions were still pretty good, although in some places we had to watch for ruts on the trail. There was almost no bare ground showing.




The best parts were when we left the trails and started crust cruising around the fields. Snow conditions were absolutely perfect for that! At some points it was wide open, and at other times we had to thread our way through gaps between thorny bushes. It felt like we were a bunch of kids just playing and being crazy. We slalom-skied through a Christmas tree farm, bumped over snowdrifts, and held a contest to see who could reach a distant point with the fewest skate strokes. Fun morning!!

Rodney Yee Power Yoga for Flexibility DVD. Mmm, I needed that. I'll be nice and relaxed for Earth Hour now.

Eked out a narrow victory over 'Bent in our Earth Hour Scrabble by kerosene lamplight. (When we got low on kerosene, we cheated with headlamps.) We turned off pretty much everything - had to turn a breaker back on when some smoke detector started beeping and scaring ThunderDog. When we went out to see if the stars looked better than usual, we noted that the house of our arsonist neighbours - the ones who burned 70 acres of land around here last fall - was lit up like a Christmas tree inside and out. It was so bright that they *had* to be making a statement. Or maybe they were holding another one of their big parties - perhaps an Earth Hour bash for people who don't get it. Our *nice* neighbours to the east were dark - good for them.

Some members of the Caledon Navigators orienteering club were spotted at tonight's Dorados semi-formal, and they were nearly unrecognizable. No mud, no duct tape, no burrs on their pants. And in Goose's case, no pants at all!

Starting to get worried... Still no sign of the May 3 Frontier Adventure Challenge (which I've already paid for) on their new website: http://www.fastadventures.com/. The High School Adventure Race isn't listed either, which is a bigger problem, since kids (and their parents and teachers) need more time to prepare.

Ah... the power of Attackpoint. The race was added to the FAR website tonight, and I've just received an e-mail acknowledging my entry. And the sun is shining and birds are chirping...

With the Giant's Rib Raid just 2 weeks away and the forest full of soft snow, I decided to try an interval program on the treadmill while watching "Star Trek Voyager". The user's manual for our treadmill went AWOL awhile ago, so I tend to just push the speed and incline up and down on the rare occasions when I use it. I figured out how to set up a program today, and it was *definitely* better. My top speed was faster than it would have been if it were under my control outdoors. So maybe I should do this more, in spite of the "yeccchh" factor.

ThunderDog and I went hiking in the forest, and it's hard to know what would be the best way to get around. Some south-facing slopes are half-bare now, but I went up to my knees in snow on several north-facing slopes. Some parts of southern Ontario are getting more snow tonight too!

While watching the end of Voyager. The poor hologram doctor was really stressed out.

Hard Core Live with Caron. Ouch!

Power Yoga class with Caron. Tonight's theme was yin and yang - poses involving challenging repetitive movements followed by poses that are difficult to hold for a long time. (But we had to.) Tough workout.

Headed out into Palgrave West for a run on snowshoes - wow, that was tough! We got 10 cm of new snow yesterday on top of snow that was still pretty deep in many places. It's very heavy and wet now, and it formed sharp crystals that wedged into my shoes and threatened to give me blisters. Next time... gaiters!

The Thomass Eliminator race was postponed until this Sunday because there was snow in the forest, and it looks like conditions will be about the same as two weeks ago, based on the weather forecast. If I were doing the race (which I'm not), I'd wear snowshoes in order to focus on having a good physical and navigational workout, and avoid the risk of unseen obstacles under the snow. I think I would be disqualified for doing so, but Thomass is just supposed to be a fun winter training series, so I'd take the DQ.

The race director says that snowshoes are unfair - even though the top ten finishers in recent races have included a mix of snowshoe and non-snowshoe users. He also does *not* believe that Thomass is a fun series anymore, which is why this stuff matters. I suppose that people could get equally worked up about the unfairness of tall people racing head-to-head against short people in deep snow, racers with specialized orienteering shoes competing against newbies wearing running shoes in mud, or age/gender-handicapped races where no women crack the top 10 - all of which we've seen in this series. But they don't. I guess those of us who do these casual winter orienteering races just for fun need to keep smiling and enjoying the parts that *are* fun and do our best to avoid the silly stuff.

Another snowstorm today - on the 6th day of spring. What an amazing winter for skiers!

Just before I was going to leave to meet Leanimal for our hill interval run, I managed to mess up the touchpad on my new laptop enough that that I deleted my entire Documents folder. I'm surprised that it took me 6 days to screw something up with my newbie touchpad skills, but I hadn't expected something quite that spectacular on my first attempt. Luckily I had a 6-day-old backup, and I hadn't created many new documents since then due to Easter weekend. But - sigh - by the time I got all that stuff sorted out with my new best friend JJ from Dell Tech Support in Phoenix, there was no time left for training today. Well, that's not totally true - we had an indoor classroom training session with the Caledon Navigators tonight, followed by intensive debriefing at the Black Bull Pub.

The Caledon Crust Cruise hotline rang early yesterday with the news that it is now - temporarily - possible to skate ski just about anywhere you want to go. We were out of town for Easter but today 'Bent and I hooked up with Coach LD for a morning ski around the fields, rough bush and wetlands north of Bolton.


It wasn't the wilderness experience that Slice, Dog Runner and the gang enjoyed this weekend, but it was still the most fun that I've ever had skate skiing. It was a mix of cross-country travel wherever we felt like going, bushwhacking and occasional surprises - like the little piece of wire fence that flipped me onto my face.

We had a few centimeters of snow last night, and all the branches were lightly dusted with feathers of snow and ice that gleamed in the morning sun.






Conditions were certainly nothing like the photo in Revy's log today, but 'Bent still couldn't resist throwing in a bunch of telemark turns when we found a good hill. Coach LD followed his line doing parallel turns. As you can see, when we Ontarians talk about spring skiing in corn snow... we are talking about *actual* corn.

Happy Easter to all! I spent today gaining back all the weight that I'd lost since Christmas. Thanks, Mom and Dad. :-)

Event: Hard Rock Orienteering
 

We totally lucked out with this year's Hard Rock! Fantastic wintry weather, brilliant sunshine, and lots of good friends who came out - some of whom I hadn't talked to for awhile, so it was a real Easter treat. Even Meridian had returned from Alberta wearing his Lululemon down jacket. Another treat was meeting J-Ro in person. I thought she only existed on Attackpoint!

Although the snow was cold and hard at 10 a.m., I decided to wear snowshoes, since the course setters had hit thigh-deep snow the previous afternoon. My new Atlas Race snowshoes are light enough that they don't make me much slower than I already am, and I figured that it would be nice to have the metal teeth for traction. In the end, I was happy with my decision, since it allowed me to go pretty much anywhere I wanted, and most of the time, I barely sank in through the crust at all.

Fun, challenging course set by Bender and Hammer - thanks for your hard work, guys! It was a training event, but I started out in race mode, trying to reach each control by the most efficient method. Then I decided that I should practise different techniques, so for each control, I would focus on some aspect of navigation - landforms or compass bearings, etc. As always happens in the Hilton Falls area, I only had moderate luck when I tried to focus on landforms - but it's good to remind myself of that before the Salomon Giant's Rib Raid!

I didn't see many people out there, but I ran into Goose several times. We are approaching our point of equilibrium - the point where his vastly superior speed will trump my navigation experience. I thought it was going to happen today, but he went for an extra lap of the woods near the end of the race, giving me a reprieve. It's going to happen soon though! The only other person I saw a few times was Dr. Billy - whom we all know as a speedy, competitive individual, but when we arrived at controls close together, he would actually wait and hold the SI control until I got there to punch it. I informed Bender that Dr. Billy deserves a time credit for chivalry.

For the most part, I was pleased with my navigation. Much less sloppy than the Stars Thomass. I had differing levels of accuracy when I used different methods, but that's to be expected. One thing I realized is that this area - which has been a navigational nemesis for me at times - is *much* easier to find your way around at this time of year. Without any vegetation, the subtle contours are easier to pick out, and it was awesome to have all that snow smoothing out the rough, rocky bits. It'll be interesting to see how much it changes over the next 3 weeks before the Giant's Rib Raid. There will still be some snow for sure, and probably some good pockets of chilly slush too. Not a race for princesses!

Phatty graciously invited me to a fantastic Salomon Partner Day at the Alpine Ski Club in Craigleith. I was representing the Salomon Adventure Running Series. (Hmmm.... They've sponsored my event, so now they owe ME a favour?) In order to make a good impression on the Partners, PhattyDude set himself up with a colourful new wardrobe.


Leanimal and I spent a relaxing day as a pair of Salomon Ski Bunnies.


It had been about a decade since I'd last downhill skied. The new skis turn more easily - and go straight less easily! I've had a few joint injuries in recent years which made me pretty cautious out there, but that's OK. One of the fun things about this day was that I truly don't care anymore about getting good at downhill skiing, so I could just relax and enjoy. The view overlooking icy Georgian Bay was spectacular.


We skied for several hours, but I'm only logging half an hour to cover the skate skiing between lifts and the leg muscle effort. Gravity did most of the work!

There was a race, and Phatty tried really hard.


Leanimal and I had just been complaining that downhill skiing didn't involve much strategy compared to our other sports. But the premise of the race was that each of us had to take two runs down the course, and the person whose two times were the closest would be the winner. Leanimal and I made sure we raced against each other, since our speeds are so different (guess who's the slow one!) that our times wouldn't be influenced by swerving to avoid the other racer. We also made sure that we raced on the same side of the course each time. It paid off - Leanimal won the female championship!


Good thing they're getting married. They look *way* too cute together!

Caron's Power Yoga DVD #1

Watched an episode of Michael Palin's "Sahara", which was excellent. Had the usual frustrating time fiddling with things to get the trainer to work properly for my bike instead of 'Bent's. Next year we're getting an upgrade to become a 2-trainer family! Phone rang, then it was dinnertime, so didn't finish the full workout I'd planned.

As of tonight, I've officially switched to my new Dell XPS M1530 laptop, even though it will take weeks to get all my less-used programs and peripherals moved over and tested.

Major Con: No Trackpoint. By comparison, it is sooooo inefficient to use a Touchpad - or even a mouse, on those rare occasions when I'm sitting at a table. My old Dell had a Trackpoint - or to be generic, a "pointing stick". IBM had the right idea, but it hasn't caught on outside of business users.

Major Pro: Uncommon screen resolution - 1440 X 900. It's not quite as high-res as my old laptop, but it's still sharper than most. It's just enough bigger to make photos look better on websites - and I'm not objecting to the slightly larger text.

With rain, ice pellets and/or snow falling all day, this was *definitely* one of those times when I would have started looking for excuses if I hadn't planned to meet Leanimal for a run.

After our warm-up, we did 3 repeats of Deer Valley Hill, 1 repeat of Glasgow Hill (too long and steep for me to push all the way at high intensity) then 2 final repeats of Deer Valley. Good workout - my legs are feeling it now.

Hard Core DVD before a Chamber of Commerce dinner. Mostly a good evening, but since I was attending as a media rep, I had to bite my tongue as a real estate agent explained to our table that all sensible people understand that Caledon will need to grow from its current population of 57,000 to hundreds of thousands. Oh, and it will be great for the community, so it's too bad that people aren't onboard with the idea now. Given that we've been named the greenest community in Ontario and the safest community in Canada, just *imagine* how much more we could accomplish if we had six or seven times as many people! Don't worry - the "pretty" areas like the Oak Ridges Moraine won't be touched. All those houses will be built on that useless flat farmland and along those empty river valleys.

This was particularly annoying after listening to a fine keynote speaker who talked about the business value of corporate sustainability. Guess he should have talked louder.

Beautiful day - cool and sunny. It's amazing that we still have excellent ski conditions in mid-March, so 'Bent and I took a road trip to Duntroon to celebrate. We arrived just as a 20K loppet was finishing up. Too bad we didn't know about it, because it would have been fun! We ran into Goose and Coach LD, who had both had great races. Goose chased Almageddon and ended up just 3 seconds behind him, taking 3rd Masters and 5th place overall. Impressive!

Ski conditions were fast and fun.


Scenery was pretty. (Except for that person blocking the lens!)


Unfortunately, we came upon a gentleman in his early 70s who had hit a post with his groin, then skied a short distance before collapsing from terrible pain. 'Bent took charge with help from several of us, as a couple of people tried to get a cell phone signal to ask for a snowmobile. The poor fellow was just able to communicate, and the pain was spreading so that he also had chest pain and tingling arms (yikes!) He was obviously Canadian, because he apologized for causing trouble, and when asked if he had any medical conditions, he gasped, "Not until now!" So we knew his brain was OK, but it was awful to see someone hurting so much. A group of us transferred him from the ground into a child's pulk where he could recline and stay warmer. There were no obvious signs of internal bleeding, shock, elevated heart rate, hypothermia or anything that we could figure out with our basic knowledge. The most useful thing any of us did was when 'Bent asked him to start breathing more slowly, and he managed to stop hyperventilating, even though he kept moaning.

We collected a few jackets and emergency blankets to warm him up. The ski patrol arrived, did an assessment, put him on oxygen, then took him down in a toboggan. 'Bent was asked to ski behind the toboggan and watch the poor fellow. Since the pulk owners had continued on when their children got cold, I got the job of skiing back to the lodge with the pulk, including a big downhill. A few people asked what I was doing, obviously curious about whether I knew that there was no longer a child in my pulk!

The ambulance took the fellow to Collingwood, and we will probably never know how it turned out. They seemed to be leaning toward a diagnosis of a broken bone - pelvis or femur, which wouldn't be great, but would be better than severe internal injuries or a heart attack, both of which we had worried about while we waited for help to come.

Lesson #1: Always carry the phone number of the ski centre - or wherever you happen to be. It was tough to get and keep a cell phone signal, and precious time was wasted calling Directory Assistance. At least we always carry a cell phone, which was a start - but not good enough.

Lesson #2: Emergency blankets aren't just for adventure racing. I wish we had been able to add ours to the pile.

Lesson #3: The gentleman was almost unintelligible, but he managed to tell us his sons' names, and said "Cell phone". Their numbers were there, and in fact he was carrying a sheet of "in case of emergency" information in his fanny pack. His son was able to be contacted before the ski patrol took him down the hill. If I had an accident, I don't even have ID with me sometimes, and there are no numbers saved in my cell phone. Hmm.

Lesson #4: It's been a few years since my last Wilderness First Aid course. Time to recertify.

And I'm sure there will be other lessons as we think about it more. It was heartbreaking to see someone my Dad's age who had the spirit and fitness to go cross-country skiing on a beautiful day, and realize that he's probably got a long road to recovery ahead of him - and maybe he'll never get back to skiing. Life isn't fair sometimes. We went for another short loop after the ambulance left, but our motivation was gone, so we headed home in a pensive mood.

Fantastic films at the Banff Mountain Film Festival Tour last night! Each year the inspiring images and music in the intro trailer make me want to paddle a kayak over a waterfall, parasail off a mountaintop and ski off a 1000 meter cliff - ideally all at the same time. (Oh, and I'd like to survive!)

Only 4 weeks until the Salomon Giant's Rib Raid, so 'Bent and I needed to run. With the temperature at +4C, I figured that it would be less frustrating than classic skiing!

After a week of warmer weather with minimal precipitation, these are the best snow running conditions we've had since early February. The snow remains over knee-deep in some places, but it has consolidated a lot, which makes it easier to move through than the bottomless fluffy stuff we had at the last couple of Thomass events. Too bad about tomorrow's race postponement...

We followed the Humber Valley Trail and went off-trail in a few places to see how the snow was. It was an out-and-back route, doing the first half on snowshoes, then making the return trip on foot to see the difference. Our times in each direction were virtually identical, even though the portion on foot had a net elevation gain. There was some post-holing and trailbreaking both on foot and on snowshoe, but it all seemed to balance out. However, we agreed that the snowshoes were more fun and better suited to winter conditions.

When we got close to Bolton, the trail was mostly packed down.


When we were on foot, it would have been nice to have Yak Trax or spiked shoes for the hills. I missed the traction of my snowshoes more than the flotation - even though the snow got quite deep in a few places.


We only met two other people out there exploring the forest - Slowrunner and Lexie (sp?). 'Bent looks pretty happy posing with the ladies.

The Orienteering Ontario Annual General Meeting scheduled for this Sunday (48 hrs from now) has suddenly been postponed until April 27, when many of us will be busy with other spring pursuits. This isn't the first time that an OOA-related meeting has been rescheduled on ridiculously short notice. It's not even the 2nd time.

It's also not the first time that I've tried hard to encourage people to come out to an Orienteering Ontario-led meeting, then got embarrassed when the meeting was suddenly postponed. But it *was* the last time.

A number of us are working to raise the profile of orienteering as a sport in Ontario. This requires that we demonstrate a level of professionalism that today's decision lacks. Can you imagine the Ontario Cycling Association moving its AGM on 48 hrs notice?

As an aside, I should mention that today's decision was not supported by the entire OOA Board, so a pat on the back goes to the people who tried to keep the meeting on track as planned.

The stated reason for moving the AGM is that the race that was to have preceded it would take place in deep snow (like so many of our events lately), and some people don't want to race in deep snow anymore. Lucky for them, the race was postponed for two weeks, giving them the opportunity to do the final winter orienteering race of the year in deep slush or maybe even mud. As for me, in future I will focus on winter events like the SnowGaine or the Stars Winter Adventure Race - events that celebrate the season and expect competitors to deal with whatever conditions they find. Sadly, the wonderful Thomass winter orienteering series has become far too political and controversial for what was originally intended to be a fun, recreational series.

Hard Core Live with Caron. Tonight's theme was working some of our body parts (like legs) to exhaustion so that we had to rely on core strength if we wanted to keep doing the exercises. Ouch! Caron's new car was rear-ended earlier this week, so I guess she had to take out her frustration on somebody! ;-)

Power Yoga class with Caron. Small class tonight because of March Break. I don't know why I felt so good - I didn't have the best day. But every move felt like the perfect, tough stretch for exactly the right body part. I felt more flexible and better balanced than usual. I think if she had told us we had to fly, it just might have worked tonight. But that Rodney Yee thing where I'm supposed to think of my toes as buds ready to pop open in springtime... nope, that still wouldn't have worked for me. Not even tonight.

Someone contacted me today to ask me to vote on their behalf at this weekend's Orienteering Ontario AGM. We will be electing the 2008/09 Board of Directors, and we've seen how important it is to choose effective Directors. Sometimes there are other motions to vote on at the AGM, but nothing has been made public.

So... if there is anyone out there who is a member of a southern Ontario orienteering club who cannot attend the meeting this Sunday afternoon, you can download a Proxy Form from the meeting website and appoint someone to represent you. I don't know everyone who will be attending, but I'm pretty sure that Phatty, Leanimal, Sid, Nick, 'Bent and I will be there. Maybe Bender too? The more the merrier - we want our provincial association to represent our views. And besides, Sid is ordering us a yummy lunch.

AGM information is here. (Don't be concerned that it says "2007". The AGM is always considered to cover the previous calendar year.)
http://www.orienteering.on.ca/events/OOA/AGM2007.h...

Just a quick ski around Palgrave West, since we had to take turns waiting for Purolator to deliver my new blue laptop (Dell M1530). Fantastic conditions, and it sounds like we'll have at least one more wintry day before we head into the spring slushfest.

Leg strength exercises while watching the news. Must do more of these!

Leanimal dropped by after surviving yet another dental appointment with 'Bent. It's not often that someone starts skiing with their face already half-frozen! Officially, Tuesday is supposed to be our day to run hill intervals on the road, but we'd probably be breaking some law if we went road running on such a perfect winter day! We toured around Palgrave West on waxless skis. The temperature was around 0C, and the snow conditions changed a lot as we went in and out of the sun. More often than we would have liked, one or both of our skis would stick to the ground like glue - often quite suddenly when the momentum of the upper body was well ahead of the feet! It added an extra dimension to the challenge. Regardless, it was a beautiful day, and there was enough deep snow, hill climbing and trail breaking to get our heart rates up.



Taking this photo at the lookout wasn't easy. The camera was precariously balanced on a few flimsy twigs - it fell in the snow a couple of times. Before Photoshopping, the horizon was at a 45 degree angle.

At last - an article in the media that doesn't portray our snowy winter as a "bad" one. Also, it points out that our larger snowfalls are likely another aspect of climate change - which shouldn't be called "global warming" because of the confusion that term causes.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM...

I wasn't feeling terrific today, but decided that I had to go skiing on what might be the nicest remaining ski day of the season. The weather is forecast to warm up over the next few days with rain (aack!) on Thursday. For the first half-kilometer, I was breaking trail in deep snow. There were big snowdrifts on the trail - and no sign that 'Bent and I had skied there on Saturday during the storm.

Our neighbour's bench isn't so easy to sit on right now.


It's not often that we see tree wells in southern Ontario.


In some places, my ski track had a 40 cm vertical wall of snow beside it. Conditions were fantastic, and every time I came around a corner, there was another nice view.


I turned onto a little-used trail leading to a wetland and saw a gentleman snowshoeing through deep snow, carefully avoiding the ski tracks. I caught up, intending to thank him for being so nice. Then I realized... hey, *that's* no gentleman - it's Deep Bakes!


What a nice surprise! He'd come up from Georgetown for a dental appointment and a bit of birding. (Only two crows and a chickadee so far, but let's hope it got better.)

OK, confession time. Maybe this will be useful to some other outdoors-loving folk. Remember the Bear Attack in last weekend's SnowGaine? Well, it turns out that when I got home and looked more carefully in a good mirror, I could see a small puncture/scratch right where one of the dog's teeth bit me. Since I was in the woods all weekend, it could have been from a stray branch or something, but I wanted to know that the dog was up to date on rabies shots, since rabies is 100% fatal. If necessary, I could get the series of rabies shots.

I wasn't sure how to check on this, since all I had was an orienteering map showing the house that belonged to Bear the dog. I phoned the New York State Police and eventually got directed to a nice Deputy in the Oswego County Sheriff's Office. He offered to drop by the house based on my description from the SnowGaine map. Less than 3 hours later, we got a call saying that he'd checked the dogs' papers, and they'd had rabies shots in 2007.

Story over, or so I thought. Today I got a call from the Oswego County Public Health Department. They're disappointed that the police brought them into the case so late. Normally they would confine the dog for 10 days to watch for symptoms in addition to checking the dog's papers. (I'm kinda glad they didn't find out any sooner, since the 10 days would end tomorrow, so they're not going to do it.) They are going to check into it further and get back to me tomorrow. I've stressed to everyone that I'm not complaining, and this isn't a bad dog - just a dog that got over-excited when a couple of people ran by his driveway, so he jumped up and nipped one of them.

Anyway, I guess this is all good, since now I will be doubly certain of the dogs' health. And as a corollary, I'd be surprised if these particular dogs are allowed to bite any passing runners ever again!

Thomass Stars at the Huron Natural Area in Kitchener. It took us almost 2 hours to get there. Even the 401 was surprisingly snow-covered in a lot of places. We probably should have turned around when we saw what things were like, but we'd promised to lend snowshoes to a couple of people, and we'd arranged to give Phatty & Leanimal a ride home. Glad we kept going though, since it was a fun race. There's nothing more Canadian and childlike than playing around in deep, fluffy snow on a sunny morning after a big storm.

It was my first race in my Atlas Race snowshoes. Richard bought them "for me", and he has already raced in them twice! :-) They are light as a feather, but the snow was so deep and fluffy today that the flotation was not always enough. It didn't matter though - it was much better than post-holing in my shoes.

We had a map exchange, and the two maps had scales of 1:7500 and 1:5000. I didn't get a good feel for either scale, but that's probably because my speed was slower too, so distances didn't feel like they usually do. I blew past control D in the first box and ended up at 181. No biggie, I just changed my plan to head for C instead, since it was on my way back to the map exchange, and I hadn't been sure which of the 2 controls to drop anyway. I made a big mistake on the 2nd map because of my bad sense of scale, so I ended up in snow up to my bum - even wearing snowshoes - and I had to contour back to #7 from *much* too far away. I was the first person at #5 (I think), so it didn't seem strange that there were no tracks going in my direction. Sometimes my independent streak works in my favour in navigation races. Other times, not so much.

In spite of my sloppy nav, I guess other people had less-than-perfect days too, plus the race was slow in the deep snow, and my age-gender handicap gave me a shorter distance to travel in tough conditions. I finished 2nd to a speedy young guy without snowshoes who was doing his first orienteering race - good for him!

As always, Nick and the Stars put on a quality event. Thank you!

Reviewing the Thomass series points, it looks like I will come out on top in the women's category this year, but I don't feel like I deserve it because Slice and Leanimal both ran M-Elite. Looks like Leanimal was only 8 points behind me, and I think she should get the win. Not sure how we can handle this without upsetting orienteering traditionalists. Any ideas, Sid?

BTW, I've added a new activity called "Snowshoe Orienteering". It's come up so many times this winter, and I don't like always having to choose one or the other. Now I'll need to go back and make some updates.

Since today's orienteering race was so far from home, 'Bent and I looked at the map to see what else we could do to justify the drive. We decided to try skate skiing at Hilton Falls, since we know other people who go there. Phatty & Leanimal went snowshoe orienteering while we skied. As soon as we started, we realized that it probably wasn't such a good idea. The parking lot had been full, so there were lots of hikers and skiers out. The trails were soft and mostly unpacked. It's been a treat to "shred pow" so much in Ontario this year, but it's not much fun while you're skate skiing. Fortunately, it got better as we got further from the parking lot. I think the hikers were churning up the soft snow and making things worse.

I had an orienteering map and a park trail map in my pocket, plus there were maps on signs at each junction. So there was no excuse for just following other skiers and ending up at the top of the Beaver Dam Loop when we never intended to *go* on that trail. And then we discovered that the west side of the loop was ungroomed and far too narrow for our skate skis. Oops! We were worried about getting back in time to meet Phatty & Leanimal, so we picked up the pace on the way back. Beautiful, sunny afternoon in the woods, and in retrospect, we're glad we took the wrong turn, because we were all set to wimp out and switch to snowshoe hiking after half an hour. This was a *much* better workout. (But should we get credit for the extra training time if we didn't mean to do it?)

DVD with body band. Lots of stretching - mmm.

Before our long ski in the big snowstorm, we needed to tire out the dogs a little, so 'Bent and I took them snowshoeing.



The dogs loved it! They made dog angels and romped through the snow, which was neck-deep on them in some places. Then they paused to get a T-R-E-A-T.

'Bent and I toured around Palgrave East and West in blowing snow. This is right by our house.



Visibility was poor in some of the open areas, and the snow was prickly on our faces. Still, it felt awesome to be out in the storm. Our old ski tracks from yesterday weren't much help.



The Humber River was pretty, but looked mighty chilly.



We stopped by Crash's place to see if she was snowed in, but I guess she was out gallivanting. When we got home, I went to the end of our driveway to pick up the paper - that's the biggest snowbank we've ever had at our place!

Navigation coaching session at Albion Hills with Mrs. Gally, freshly returned from a relaxing trip to Florida. I'd forgotten our snowshoes (hadn't finished my morning coffee, so my brain wasn't warmed up), but turned around 2 km from home when I realized my error. Good thing, since we wouldn't have been able to cover much distance otherwise!

A few weeks ago, I made a comment in my log saying that the 4-day, 3-night Raid International Eco Endurance Aventure stage race sounded "awesome - except for the stupid inline skating". Much discussion ensued. Apparently Attackpoint matters, because the race organizers wrote me and mentioned that there would be no inline skating this year after all!

So now it just sounds awesome, period. When 'Bent and I did the Raid with Tiny and Gazelle in 2006, it was well-organized, creative and loads of fun. The mandatory gear list was short because you're expected to know what to carry and make your own decisions - refreshing! The race had a very international feel to it, with teams from Europe, the U.S. and Quebec.

The organizers are keen to attract teams from English Canada as well, and this year they're offering an amazing location in a corner of our country that we might never see otherwise - let alone while doing our favourite outdoor activities. The Lower North Shore of Quebec is just west of Labrador, inaccessible by road from the mainland. The quickest way to get there is to take a ferry from the northwest corner of Newfoundland. French, English and Innu are spoken there.

I spoke with several adventure racers who had concerns, and the organizers were very flexible about making changes. They will now allow teams of two or four, and they've extended their early registration deadline until May 15, which means a $495/person registration fee for a 4-day race. Also, they've offered an entry to their fall 5-8 hr race as a prize in the Salomon Adventure Running Series. They're looking into a bus from Deer Lake, Newfoundland to make things simpler for teams. I'm impressed at their responsiveness - they really are doing their best to make their event attractive to English Canadians. It's really nice to see such customer focus. 'Bent and I are looking at our schedules to see if we can get there. Anyone else want to ride in the Bullfrog Van?

Around Palgrave West with a detour to visit Crash and DC for coffee and yummy goodies. Brilliant sunshine and deep, deep snow. I could ski on my tracks from yesterday, so I was able to go farther in the same length of time. By the end, the temperature had risen a few degrees above zero, and my waxless skis were really sticky. At one point I was leaning forward on a downhill and my skis stopped suddenly. I think I pulled every muscle in my torso as the momentum took my body in two different directions!

Another storm tomorrow, and hopefully some colder temperatures. This has been *such* a fantastic winter. With BulletDog's surgery, we thought we'd miss our annual Feb/March ski trip, but we didn't need to go away to find snow this year.

Hard Core Live with Caron. She was really *mean* tonight. But that's why we pay her the big bucks.

Power Yoga class. Not sure why, but I started to feel queasy early on. It's hard to relax and focus on my breathing at the same time as I'm focusing on not throwing up. Feeling fine now - maybe I snacked too soon before class.

Another big storm is coming this weekend! Actually, I wish we could save some of this record-setting snowfall for another winter. There have been too many years when we only got 4-6 weekends of decent skiing. Anyway, I fetched a big load of firewood, and 'Bent and I are looking forward to hunkering down with the pooches while the snow flies.

I'd better give equal time to Mocha, Attackpoint nickname "BulletDog", age 5. It is now 8 weeks since her knee operation, and we met with her surgeon today. She's been given the green light to ramp up gradually to full activity over the next 2 months. Yahoo! Sadly, this is a much faster recovery than either 'Bent's or Hammer's knee has made.

We had another snowstorm last night - 15-20 cm, so I went out to Palgrave West to shred some pow. ;-) It was surprisingly hard work to break trail, but at least that made it easy to keep the heart rate up. Absolutely beautiful day, and I was fascinated by the patterns of shadows of trees and branches on snow. Heading back on Swamp Trail, I met The Neighbour Who Doesn't Like Orienteering. He was skiing too and asked about the "nice signs", which he thought got the message across politely about asking people to please not walk in the ski tracks. He looked disappointed to hear that most of 'Bent's signs had been ripped down within the first 24 hrs. So that rules out one suspect!

Tobler (Attackpoint nickname "ThunderDog"), age 11 1/2, enjoying the sunshine yesterday. This might be my favourite photo of her since her crazy puppy days.

Rodney Yee - Power Yoga for Flexibility

Abbreviated Hard Core - a selection of exercises from the DVD that I did from memory, going all the way around the core. My back muscles were the stiffest after the weekend because of the heavy pack with snowshoes on it, so this was good.

Day after a long race. Eat, eat, eat, eat, drink, eat, drink, eat. Nothing really hurts - it's just that pleasant, fatigued feeling of muscles that have been well-used.

Milhouse, Dee, 'Bent and I cheered for Slice, Dog Runner, Leanimal and Phatty as they headed out at 9 a.m. We had to wait until 9:33 because of our penalty.



Today was an absolutely gorgeous day - brilliant sunshine, fresh powder and deep blue skies. 'Bent and I had no choice but to use skis. His knee couldn't take the impact of running or even walking on snowshoes. After a good start, we headed into the woods to pick up 54. I was breaking a fresh trail, and within a minute, 'Bent was in so much pain that he felt like throwing up. He took some Advil, and we decided to just go to one control, then we'd return to the finish and I'd spend the rest of the day skiing. But the Advil had kicked in by the time we returned to the snowmobile trail, so he decided to keep going a little more. The first 100+ minutes of our race were a train wreck, and we actually referred to ourselves as "not racing anymore". I wasn't sure if I should be the sensible one and force 'Bent to quit the race. I couldn't focus on nav, and I even managed to get 200 meters uphill from a control before I realized that I hadn't punched it. I skied back down and got it - argggghh. The scenery was fantastic, so in the middle of all this, we agreed that it was a fine day to be in the woods.



My teammate 'Bent was quite the trooper! He would ski in a straight-legged fashion, using his arms as much as possible. We switched skis so that he had my older, grippier waxless skis. Whenever he got ahead, he would kneel in the snow to ice his knee. It was disconcerting, but he swore that it was hurting less now that he'd warmed up. I revamped our planned route to focus on skiing and avoid roads.



After the first 2 crazy hours, somehow we were back racing for real again. After 54, it was 52, 41, 65, 75 and 60 (not in the plan, but it kept us off roads). Phatty & Leanimal found us having a lunch break at 60 in brilliant sunshine. The ski trail into there was fantastic, and with the Advil working well, 'Bent and I were enjoying ourselves a lot. There's no question that skis were the way to go in this race. Much speedier on trails and more fun in general, even though there were a few awkward moments at stream crossings and steep, bushwhacky climbs. I'd love to return to this area just to do some XC skiing.



Then 43, then out to the road where we saw Milhouse & Dee coming toward us with only 4 controls left to go. Then 47, 74, 56, 30. I considered making a run for the finish there, but 'Bent convinced me that it was worth getting 44 enroute. That gave us a chance to enjoy more fabulous ski trails. Then at the next junction, our roles were reversed as I twisted his arm to grab 62, then trek hard to the finish in our ski boots along 2 km of paved road. Phew, it worked - the late penalties on Day 2 were more severe. Somehow in this shorter day with all our troubles, we managed to collect 703 pts, which kinda surprised us. We arrived with 11 minutes to spare and gobbled up the wonderful hamburgers, pasta, chili, hot chocolate and cookies offered by the hospitable CNYO folks.

Milhouse & Dee took 1st place overall, skipping only #34. The dynamic female duo, the Salomon Bobkittens - Slice & Dog Runner, took 2nd place overall. The top male team took 3rd place, then 'Bent & I were 4th and Leanimal & Phatty were 5th. So it was a good showing by the Canadians, and hopefully we'll have an even larger contingent for this fun event next year. Thank you, CNYO!

(Total distance covers both the running and snowshoeing sections of today's race.)

We joined the Canadian road trip to Sandy Creek, NY for the CNYO SnowGaine - a rogaine-style event where teams navigate around the same large map from 9-5 on two consecutive days, trying to maximize their points. Early registration fee was $35/team for the 2-day event including a huge quantity of hot food and drink at the end of each day. How do they do it?!?

The Bullfrog Van crew consisted of Slice (meeting her teammate Dog Runner in NY), Leanimal & Phatty, Milhouse & Dee, and 'Bent and me. We stayed at Harris Lodging, where each team got its own room, and we shared a communal kitchen and living room. Perfect arrangement, and it was great to have time to catch up with friends over the weekend. The driving weather on Friday night was horrible. We saw accidents along the 401, but our all-wheel drive and snow tires helped get us there in one piece - phew.

I think there were 16 teams, which means that a lot of people missed a great event. Eric Smith gave us our maps half an hour before the start. That's not much time to plan a 2-day race, so my plan was to try to divide the map into two areas as quickly as possible, then focus on choosing a reasonable route for Day 1. Eric had indicated that the top teams might complete the course, so I figured that the way to approach Day 1 was to assume that we would get them all, then we could always plan Day 2 differently if it appeared impossible. (Which it quickly did!) Last year we'd made the mistake of planning our Day 1 route so that we would skip controls on the outside of the map if we ran out of time. Then the next day we ended up going near controls that we'd already visited because we'd allowed our map to get "fragmented". This year I wanted to get out and completely finish the far northeast section of the map so that any missed controls would be closer to the start/finish, giving us maximum flexibility for planning a good Day 2 route.

The weather forecast was wintry - blowing snow and occasional ice pellets that made it very chilly along roads and in open fields. Looking at all the roads along our route, 'Bent and I decided to use snowshoes on Day 1, which was a mistake. We did a lot of road running (logged separately), sometimes on a hard surface and sometimes on soft snow, which was like running on sand. We used ski poles to push ourselves along while running, which was really helpful in the soft stuff.

For those who have seen the map, the control numbers will make sense. Otherwise, you'll just have to picture us running through the Winona State Forest, which apparently gets the most snow in the U.S. east of the Rockies. It was easy to believe!

Skipped #54 since I like to leave controls close to the finish area to allow more flexibility later in the day. Then into the woods in deep snow for 33, 72, 53. Found Milhouse & Dee's tracks at 33 and followed them for part of the time. Met Slice & Dog Runner coming toward us - hmmm, interesting. Out to 35 on the road, then turned north. Then I was the victim of a Bear Attack! No kidding, there were two big furry brown dogs barking and growling furiously at the end of their driveway, accompanied by two young children. I'm not afraid of dogs, so we kept on running as the children yelled, "Stop it, Bear!" Too late - Bear bit me on the bum. Argghh. We ran a short distance further, then 'Bent confirmed that my tights had no holes. I made a mental note to confirm in the evening that the skin wasn't broken, because otherwise I'd have to drive back to their house and ask for proof of rabies shots. Grrrrrr. (Luckily, it turns out that Bear was unsuccessful in his mission.) About 400 meters later, we were greeted by two barking pit bulls on the road, including an unaltered male. I love dogs, but this was different, since these two could kill us if they wanted to. We walked instead of running, keeping our poles poised and ready for battle. Their owner (shaved head & camo clothing) was yelling and running after them as they followed us down the road. Luckily, they weren't as gutsy as Bear. As long as we met their eyes (looking over our shoulders), they kept their distance. If we looked away toward the direction we were travelling, they ran up close behind us again. Some people don't deserve to have dogs.

Over to 61, then a 4.5 km out-and-back road run to 76 with snow whipping into our faces. We saw Milhouse & Dee and Slice & Dog Runner heading out as we were heading back.




No sign of Phatty & Leanimal all day, even on the sign-in sheets at each control. They must have done something *completely* different!

Then 36, where we stopped for a bit of lunch, then 57, which seemed a little misplaced. Fortunately, the three Canadian teams converged at the point where we expected the control to be, and we worked together to find it. Then up to 40, which was probably a mistake, but I didn't want to leave any controls in this quadrant going into Day 2. Slice & Dog Runner wisely turned west toward 60. Around 40, 'Bent's bad knee finally reacted to all the road running we'd been doing with heavy packs (snowshoes attached). We were as far as we could be from the start/finish, and he was using his ski poles as crutches to hurl himself forward. We decided to head to 77 (perhaps foolishly) then bail out. It was almost 11 km to the finish, mostly on hilly snowmobile trails covered in soft snow, and we had less than 1:45 to do it in. Pumped full of Advil, 'Bent bravely kept up a walk/run pace the whole way back. It would have been a little shorter to go through the woods and pick up 60 and 75 on the way, but we didn't want to take any chances.




It felt like Bargy Road would never end! In the last 2 km, Milhouse & Dee approached from behind, and we ran together to finish at 5:11 p.m., which gave us a 33-minute start delay penalty for Day 2. Total 540 points for the day. It felt like we had a good start, but things unravelled in the last 3 hrs. At least we succeeded in our goal to do all controls in one area of the map far from the start/finish, leaving all of the remaining controls available for Day 2. It was clear now that we couldn't get them all, so Day 2 would be an optimization exercise.

Road or snowmobile trail running during the SnowGaine.