Training Log Archive: Bash

Chilly, speedy and fun trip around the revised trail system at Hardwood Ski & Bike. Goose, Coach LD, Leanimal, Phatty, 'Bent and I kept moving at a good pace to stay warm in spite of challenging conditions for grip - very cold, but somewhat icy in the tracks. With K-Rock coming up, we'll need to do more of this.

Great New Year's Eve party later on at Leanimal's folks' place in Orillia. We missed a lot of the regular attendees, but dinner and party games were as fun and competitive as ever. After the Canadian Trivia game, Identity Crisis, Charades and Taboo, the girls' team was declared victorious over the boys, thanks to our greater verbal abilities at 3 a.m. (Jildo was the exception by that point. Leanimal has a great photo to post to her log that will explain all.)

Nice big snowflakes falling for most of the day, so I'm hopeful that we'll have great ski and snowshoe conditions soon. About half the ground is covered with snow 2-3 cm deep, and the rest is covered with very heavy snow about 30 cm deep. Here and there, the light snow covers glare ice - fun. I decided to resort to the trainer again, watching the first half of Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life". I did a harder workout than Sunday, including four 1-minute level 5 intervals.

Off the bike trainer and onto the paddle trainer, still watching the movie. Had to dial back the tension a lot compared to the way 'Bent uses the machine. Left shoulder a little sore - that's a new one.

Next I did upper body weights on the machine. Upper body and core strength need to improve for the K-Rock. I only want to have to deal with the weather conditions. I don't want fitness to be an issue - and it shouldn't be if all goes well, given that we're only skiing about 45 km/day. The Canadian Ski Marathon is much longer and hillier - but the trails are groomed, temperatures are usually warmer, backpack is lighter (except for CdB Gold), and aid stations are closer together and better stocked. So it'll probably be a toss-up for difficulty during the day. Aside from the cold, the preparation of meals, carrying our own race food, drying our clothing in the evenings, and sleeping out for 2 nights will make the K-Rock feel harder - at least, that's my guess.

Skipped the last machine in our basement gym - the treadmill - in favour of a trip upstairs to do leg strength exercises while watching The Daily Show. These are some of the exercises that Slowrunner gave me three years ago when I wrecked my knee. I felt a lot stronger after a winter of doing them - gotta keep reminding myself how good that felt.

It's official! 'Bent and I have signed up for the K-Rock Ultra - a 3-day, 135 km ski marathon in March in Yellowknife, 500 km below the Arctic Circle. We'll need appropriate gear for potentially very cold temperature skiing, and we need to be prepared to sleep and make our meals in floorless tents at -40C. My little brother, who winters in Miami, will be horrified.

Here's what happens to your property when you let those geothermal guys loose with their heavy equipment!



Oops, wrong caption. These are actually photos of our nearby forest trails after yesterday's wind storm. Now you know why we stayed indoors and rode our trainers!





*This* is what happens when you turn geothermal guys loose on your property. And boy does it happen quickly!

ThunderDog and I went for a strange snowshoe hike late this afternoon. Strange because we were sometimes walking on bare ground and sometimes in a foot of heavy snow. We surveyed the fallen branches and trees from yesterday's storm and noted a couple of places where deer had walked up to the new conservation authority fence, then opted to turn back rather than trying to jump it (which they're supposed to do quite easily, according to the conservation authority). It must have been hard work for ThunderDog out there today - she's sleeping by the fire now, and I don't expect her to be too lively tonight.

With wind gusts up to 90-100 kph, we weren't going into the forest today, so it seemed like a good time to set up my new trainer. 'Bent and I pedalled while watching "The Interpreter", a pretty good flick with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. It was my first time on a bike in awhile, so I spent the end of the movie stretching instead of riding. But it was my longest trainer session ever (i.e. less boredom than usual), so this idea just might work.

Happy Holidays to all!

'Bent, BulletDog and I snuck out for a quick snowshoe run around the golf course behind my parents' place. It was hard work with the dense snow and breakable crust!

Merry Christmas to all!
And Happy Hanukkah to 'Bent and Dlevine.

P.S. If you're one of those rare people who enjoy those annual holiday letters, e-mail me and I'll send you ours - if my incoming e-mail ever starts to work again...

I packed up my backpack with Christmas deliveries for five neighbours on our block of land - a borrowed book that I was returning, a photo CD for VO2Max, a card for Crash, etc. With the deep snow and new snow falling fast, even the trails were slow. I bushwhacked halfway to the Russells' place, which made it almost a 30-minute ski from our house. The hot cookies fresh from the oven made it well worth it! Then back to VO2Max's place for a brief visit. It was headlamp time by then, and I bushwhacked much of the way to Crash's place in the dark, then took trails to the Belusas' and Wiegards' places. 'Bent and I met in our yard coming from two different directions in the snowstorm. A very cool almost-Christmas outing. Wish it wasn't going to rain tomorrow.

The front page story in our current local paper talks about a crisis. A 7-year-old child was dropped off at the wrong school bus stop and had to walk over 500 meters through a rural subdivision to her home. That's right - more than half a kilometer! Through a subdivision! Perhaps I grew up in a neighbourhood where our parents loved us less, but we all walked farther than that to school starting at age five for kindergarten. Am I just becoming one of those old farts who rants about how far I had to walk to school when I was a kid? Or are modern parents being overly protective compared to the true abilities of their children at that age? I'm sympathetic to the fact that the poor kid was upset by an unexpected change to her routine, but is this a serious enough incident in our community that it deserves to be front page news?

Training With The Enemy! So far, 'Bent and Goose are the biggest competition for Team Bash 'n' Hammer in the Masters division of the Snowshoe Raid. I figured that I'd best go out with 'Bent to keep an eye on his training strategies. BulletDog came along to help me.



We did a fair bit of running, including some intervals around the posts in the old Hwy 50 parking lot. It was hard work because the snow was deep after the storm! (Remember - we're wearing snowshoes in these pics.)





The wind was gusty today - brrrr! We'd planned to go back to Highlands Nordic to watch ski racing, but we didn't want to do the drive in blowing snow. We picked our route carefully to avoid the worst of the widowmaker trees.

Great to see so much snow on the ground after yesterday's storm - the 2nd of 3 storms we're supposed to get in 5 days! Now that my marathon is ancient history, I'm training for the Salomon Snowshoe Raid - an event I've never raced because I've been the course tester since its inception. It's particularly daunting because I'm racing on Team Bash 'n' Hammer for the first time. It's obvious that Hammer will provide the team with Brains and Beauty, so I'm going to have to train awfully hard to become The Brawn.

'Bent and I headed up to Highlands Nordic today to cheer on some young skiing friends. It was great to see VO2Max home taking a break from the rough life he's been leading in Whistler.



He did well in today's skate sprint races, placing 3rd in the B Final, 9th overall. That's him in the white toque.



It was a treat to see another Tree Hugger, Brittany Webster, in one of her first races back after an 18-month hiatus due to two broken bones in her leg. She did an awesome job, finishing 3rd overall.



In case anybody wonders what the Olympians do during the off season... A couple of years ago, he did Raid The Hammer, and today Adam van Koeverden raced against the national ski team! The national ski team won, but I give him full marks for racing different sports for fun and training value, regardless of whether he can make the podium.



Goose (seen here wearing 2009 Salomon clothing from head to toe) was the Doping Control Chaperone!

Big snowstorm today - yay!! Unfortunately, it meant that we had to postpone 'Bent's staff Christmas party until late January, but the skiing was excellent.

'Bent skied to Palgrave for a haircut. By the time he got back, his hairstyle was the traditional Canadian "Hat Head".



He took the pooches for a ski in the storm. Look at our ThunderDog galloping at the age of 12 and a half! They both love winter.



Later in the day, it was my turn for a ski. Even with touring skis on, the snow sometimes was mid-shin deep. I had waxless skis, but I hadn't realized how waxless they actually were. It was -14C (a good temperature for grip), and I thought there was wax left on the skis from last season - oops. So I got a great upper body workout as I pushed through the powder. What an amazing day to be out in the forest breaking trail!



I got home just before dark. It was still snowing steadily.

Just reached 30,000 log hits. Hello out there, whoever you are!

Hard Core Live with Caron to the tune of disco Christmas carols. We're always glad to finish core class, but we were *especially* glad this time!

Time to get back into things. I've taken a long break post-marathon - mostly because I was so far behind on my Christmas tasks. My knee started to ache a *lot* yesterday, and I'm pretty sure it's telling me that if I don't use the surrounding muscles, the joint is going to go on strike. So no more of this R&R!

Power Yoga - I was surprised to notice some residual tightness from the marathon here and there - quads, hips, etc. But it was my shoulders that took a beating today - one of these days I must get Leanimal to zap them with her Magic Laser. Our yoga music was the Charlie Brown Christmas CD. I couldn't help myself - I had to boogie a little!

We're hunkering down for what the radio weather forecaster is calling "Snowmageddon". I'm thrilled to have snow, but we have a busy weekend planned, so I'm hoping it falls conveniently in between our social obligations.

Life in the country - there's never a dull moment.
Today's adventure: Stalking The Wild Pit Bull.

While sipping my morning coffee, I looked out the window and noticed a pit bull in our yard wearing a 3" spiked collar and a muzzle. BulletDog went insane - luckily, she was indoors. I stepped outside with a dog treat and tried to call him over, but he took off. After a couple of conversations with nearby vets, I learned that a dog wandering lost in the woods with a muzzle is in big trouble because it can't eat or pant. The Animal Control officer was only willing to look around the area roads, so I grabbed some bear spray (in case he didn't like me) and headed out to follow his footprints into the woods. He got his tracks mixed up with the local coyotes, so I wasn't able to figure out where he went, but there were no tracks through 'Bent's new gate into the conservation area, so I knew the pit bull was somewhere on our side of the fence. Late in the day, I learned that he is our new neighbour, and he might be one of a pair of pit bulls who are apparently impossible for their owners to control. Argghhh. When I called to let them know, the lady was unhelpful and unreassuring. Argghh again. We have some great neighbours, but the ones who aren't great (like the ones who set the 70-acre bush fire last year) are *really* not much fun.

'Bent, Crash, Rocky and I went up to Highlands Nordic and were lucky enough to get a couple of hours of excellent skate coaching drills from Coach LD. It was chilly, and ski conditions were mid-winter-fantastic. Nick was out as well, and Mrs. Sudden was arriving just as we were leaving. Great day - lots of fun! Especially when Rocky tried on the very fashionable dinosaur hat in the ski shop. Wow, look at all that snow!!

Snow is crusty and midcalf deep! 'Bent and I met the TRCA rep and hiked out to the new chest-high fence that blocks us off from our beloved Palgrave Forest & Wildlife Area. He kindly granted us permission for an opening at our usual entrance. He's a nice guy who wasn't involved in the flawed Trail Plan, so we can't be angry at him - even though we're not happy campers. We can't understand the rationale of building a tall fence through the middle of good wildlife habitat. Supposedly deer can jump a chest-high fence if they see it - although one of them died recently when it ran into a similar new fence across the road. Based on our dogs' attempts, it looks like the coyotes are going to be stuck living on whichever side of the fence they were patrolling at the time it was built.

Not much of a week for training while my sore quads recovered, but there was lots of catch-up after being away.

I almost skipped getting a Christmas tree this year, but I feel much more holiday cheer after bringing home a real tree and filling our living room with that nice balsam smell.

I was looking for a web domain for my company (White Pine Consulting Services Inc.) and happened to notice that www.barbcampbell.ca was on the list being released to the public yesterday. I registered it for a year on a whim. Maybe it will be useful. If nothing else, I'd rather have it myself than trust it with someone else!

I'm feeling a little bummed. We've been planning for ages to go to the 2010 Olympics, where we expect at least one friend - and maybe two - to be competing. We ordered tickets to 14 events, very few of which were designated as "high demand", so we figured we'd get a reasonable selection to make it worth the trip.

No such luck. We were allocated tickets to exactly 2 of our 14 events - a preliminary hockey game and the men's 50 km XC ski race. The events are 12 days apart. Anybody want overpriced hockey tickets in Vancouver on Feb. 16, 2010? I guess I'll save the XC ski tickets for VO2Max.

Grumble, grumble.

'Bent and I travelled home from Tucson today. Although he outran me yesterday, he couldn't walk any faster than I could today. We can't remember our quads ever being this sore, even though we've done lots of longer events. 42.2 km of mostly downhill-sloping pavement was a whole new experience for our bodies!

Our favourite moment was in the Toronto airport when one of those electric carts stopped to ask whether the "disabled" people needed a ride through the terminal to Customs. (We declined with big smiles.)

I'd made a conscious decision to train almost exclusively on trails to avoid injury. I'm glad I did, but my body wasn't used to the pavement, and that's what did me in. The only time I felt aerobically challenged was near the start of the race when we climbed a long hill at over 4,500' altitude, and I felt like I was gasping to get enough O2. Otherwise, the challenge was entirely muscular.

It turns out that I maintained a slightly higher pace in the very hilly 25K Dundas Valley trail race compared to the first 21K of the marathon, and I felt a lot better afterward. I'd expected to go faster on pavement than trails, since that's what I've done in 10K road races - but apparently not. I only needed 10 sec/km faster than the Dundas Valley race to qualify for Boston, which is why I gave myself the 50/50 chance, but clearly I had NO idea how punishing pavement running is. Oh well, trail races are more fun anyway!

The post-race marathon celebration in a big hot tub was the best part of the event. There were a dozen people from Caledon - 6 did the marathon, 4 did the half, and 2 cheered. I think only 2-3 people achieved their goal, but that didn't prevent us from enjoying a round of Bailey's and lots of laughs in the hot tub. Dinner with the gang at Sauce (wine and interesting pizza) was another highlight, especially since it was only a 2-minute drive from our hotel. Zzzzz.

I wish I'd had more time to take photos in Tucson - and I didn't have my SLR camera. Here is a sampling.

Caron (of Hard Core DVD fame) and Barrie Shepley are our neighbours in Palgrave, but they also have a condo in Tucson. They acted as gracious hosts and tour guides for the rest of us.



On the day before the marathon, most of us went for a desert hike in the Catalina Hills. The scenery and vegetation are so totally different from home. We were staring at every little thing.









Between the post-marathon hot tub and dinner, 'Bent and I drove out to Mt. Lemmon and got a short distance up the road before the sun started to set. Wow, Tucson has great sunsets!

I'm going to Boston, baby!

As support crew and chief photographer, that is. To summarize my race... Not. Even. Close. I tried my best in the first half, using the long downhill sections to improve my average pace. Unfortunately, a couple of urgent pit stops pushed me behind the 4-hr pace bunny by the half. I think I was 2:06 at that point, and I could tell from the pain in my quads that I wasn't going to have a miraculous negative split and achieve the necessary 4:00:59.

At that point, I quit racing. If I couldn't achieve a Boston qualifying time, then I simply wanted to finish my first (and only) marathon, and I didn't really care what my time was. Road running isn't important enough to me to risk injury at the start of winter sports season. So I switched to run-walk and admired the stunning mountain and desert scenery. If I were trail running or bike riding, I would have simply enjoyed being in such a beautiful place, but I'm not keen on the physical experience of road running, so I just wanted it to be over.

Caron had passed me at 19 miles looking good, but she'd had an asthma attack earlier in the race. At 25 miles, I ran up behind her walking and not feeling well, so I stopped to walk with her. We agreed that at this point, we would only be upset if we went over 5 hrs, and we had plenty of time. We started running when we turned the final corner, doing the final half-mile and finishing together. It wasn't the result that either of us had hoped for, but for me, it was an honour to cross the line with a friend and multiple Ironman finisher.

Am I disappointed? Honestly, not that much. It would have been cool to run Boston with 'Bent, Crash, Rocky, Superwes and the gang, but I'm looking forward to taking their photos and helping them out. It's possible that if I'd done serious marathon training for 4-6 months that I might have succeeded, but I never would have done that because I love my multi-sport life too much. So the 6-7 weeks of training I did was about all I would ever have been able to stand. Unlike 'Bent and Goose, I don't have the raw ability to pull it off without long-term specific training. I've never been a runner, and I had a comment today on my inefficient running gait. In some ways, it's a relief that I missed it by a lot because there is absolutely no temptation to try again. But hey, I had to give it a shot since our hotel room is already booked in Boston!

'Bent took an impressive 8:35 off his Toronto Marathon time, finishing in 3:10:17. We agreed that a marathon with lots of downhill sounds better on paper than it actually is. Our quads are killing us! In the first half, we looked forward to the downhill sections. In the second half, we looked forward to the uphills. Yay, different muscles!

There is some good stuff to report. No blisters or chafing. Shoes felt good, and my feet are better than some of our other friends who ran the marathon. Everything worked just fine - clothing choices (including the arm warmers that Slowrunner suggested), iPod, Garmin Forerunner, Camelbak with eLoad (turns out there were other Camelbak wearers), food that I carried. I guess that's the stuff that adventure racing prepared me for - testing my gear and taking care of myself. Best of all, my gimpy knee didn't so much as whimper during or after all that pavement pounding. That was my biggest fear, but Leanimal has obviously whipped it into decent shape.

Some really nice photos of Tucson are yet to come, but we need to get to sleep for our 7 a.m. flight!

Arrived in Tucson today. Beautiful place! Some of the mountains have weird, cool shapes, and the sunset was impressive. (Unfortunately, I was driving and couldn't take a photo.) Six of us are here from the C3 club, and we went out for a big Mexican dinner. Four more people from Caledon are arriving later. We're going for a short hike in the Catalina Hills tomorrow to remind our legs how to walk after the airplane ride, then we'll drive the marathon course and go up Mt. Lemmon. 'Bent and I are hoping to see Biosphere 2. Not sure what's there anymore.

I send out the Salomon DontGetLost.ca Adventure Running e-mails that many of you receive. It's a long story, but my new Bell e-mail service was cut off today as a result of sending out last night's e-newsletter. Yes, with my head hung in shame, I admit that I've been apprehended as a spammer. I've been worrying about this possibility for a long time, but it has never been urgent enough to divert my attention from other more pressing matters. But now they have my attention. Luckily, we hadn't cancelled our old Internet provider yet.

I phoned Bell using my best manners, but they flatly told me that once you exceed your message quota, you're toast for the rest of the month, and nobody has the power to spring you from spammer jail. After devoting 3 hrs to this issue today, and talking to Bell reps in three countries, it looks like I'll have a Bell business account activated a week from now that will allow me to spam people to my heart's content. Watch out!

I'd hoped to take my gimpy knee to Leanimal today for a final pre-marathon pain session, but there's no time now. I still need to pack and run. It's way too hard to imagine what I'll want to wear in a desert climate when the view outside our window is snow, snow, snow.

Easy run while watching the news. What a mess in Ottawa!

Tomorrow we're heading to warmer climes in the colourful southwest U.S. Ten people are going there from the C3 triathlon club, including Barrie & Caron Shepley, who have a place in Tucson. Restaurants have been selected for group dinners, and some other tourist activities are on the schedule, so it will be a nice little vacation. Most of us are participating in the same tourist activity on Sunday morning. Look at that mountain scenery!
http://www.tucsonmarathon.com

I hope the downhill course helps as much as the rumours suggest.
http://www.tucsonmarathon.com/Assets/08+TM+Elevati...

My one serious goal is to finish the marathon. After doing adventure races up to 72 hrs nonstop, I'd be mighty annoyed to DNF, and then I'd be stuck with doing another one some day. But injuries and illness are always possibilities...

If I finish without qualifying for Boston (4:00:59), that won't be nearly as big a deal. It drives some people nuts, but I honestly believe that my chances are 50/50, and I'm not being negative by saying that - just engineer-realistic. I only hope I'm not flattering myself by thinking it will be that close to the wire. If I'm nowhere near the magic time, that would be more disappointing than missing it by 3 minutes. But don't get me wrong - I'm going to try my hardest!

Regardless, it's going to be an awesome time in a beautiful place, and I know 'Bent is going to set a new marathon PB!

Just a few days till the marathon, so it's time to recharge my batteries. Not in the metaphoric sense - I really do have lots of batteries to recharge. Camera battery, extra laptop battery, iPod and Garmin Forerunner.

Finally got all the papers into the Town this week to start the ball rolling on the two separate permits for our new geothermal system. The Oak Ridges Moraine permit will trigger a full zoning review of everything on our property. Who knows if the people who owned the house for 30 years before us did everything legally, but I guess we're about to find out. Could they make it any more difficult to do the environmentally correct thing? Wait, don't answer that one. I should already know after dealing with the Ontario Power Authority and Hydro One for the past three years regarding our solar panels. Sigh.

Some helpful advice for men shopping for Christmas gifts for their partners:
http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/videoPage.aspx

Boston pace plus or minus. This time I tried using the iPod instead of TV, and it was harder to keep going. I almost stopped after 30 minutes - after all, it's too late to improve my fitness now - but forced myself to go the extra 10 minutes precisely because I didn't feel like it. I'm sure there will be moments like that in the marathon, so it's good mental training. (Four hours on pavement - yeeesh!) The national XC ski team talks about "going into the pain cave", but for me it will be the "boredom cave" or maybe the "motivation cave". But hopefully the view of the Catalina Mountains will hold my interest - not to mention the hundreds of runners out there with me.

Both 'Bent and I are starting to come down with colds. Rats.

Our winter storm wasn't as severe as expected - which is what *always* happens when we make good storm preparations. Lots of snow here anyway - hope it stays so we have a white Christmas.

Here's what the weather looked like late yesterday afternoon - an impressive start.