Training Log Archive: Bash

I finally got around to rebuilding Princess; my poor road bike has been languishing in a bike box since I got back from Florida. I managed to do it without the assistance of a bike shop this time so things are looking up. I pulled my comfy mountain bike off the trainer and adjusted it to suit Princess. (She is soooo finicky about *everything*.) Then I continued my Daily Show/Colbert re-run marathon on the trainer. 'Bent joined me for awhile for moral support.

Finishing the year on the right foot - and the left one - I did my leg strength routine while watching yet another Colbert Report.

Happy New Year to my AP friends. It is awesome to have such a supportive, knowledgeable, interesting and fun online community to help keep me motivated. Thank you. :-)

"Epic" and "fail" (used as a noun) made the 2010 Banished Words List.

Trekked with 'Bent through the forest in soft, wet snow to and from Crash's wonderful New Year's Eve dinner and bonfire.

Bringing 2010 to a happy conclusion, Frankenjack has just announced a successful dive operation to recover our missing Zastera carbon fibre paddle blade from Monday's excursion. It was resting on the bottom of Georgian Bay in 8' of frigid water about 10 km from downtown Wiarton. Frankenjack is a hero.

Went up to Collingwood both for training variety and to enjoy Dee's excellent company.



We started off with a skate ski at Scenic Caves where - not surprisingly - the scenery is really nice.



Conditions for skate skiing were a little soft but otherwise very good - which was fortunate, since I'm still feeling under the weather. In case you missed the news over Christmas, Dee is now an engaged woman!



We're both building our skate skiing skills and we know we've got a long way to go. (I'm acknowledging that before Goose reads this and slaps his forehead at the photo.)



We were lucky to run into the Tarno family several times today and Mark passed along a few tips to us, giving us some good things to focus on.



We also did a bunch of "legs only" loops on the Wild Goose.

Here's another scenery shot near the end of our ski, shortly before we met the Rydlo family on the trails. Follow the red arrow if you can't find us in the photo. ;-)

While I could hold my own on skate skis, I wasn't feeling good enough to run on snowshoes for more than a few minutes. Dee was great about it and we changed the focus to conversation instead of heart rate. We travelled through gorgeous, hilly forest close to her place. Such fantastic terrain to have in your back yard... I'd be soooo fit if we had a bigger mountain here in Palgrave!

Attended an awesome dinner party at VO2Max's place tonight and met the newest member of the Caledon Navigators - just 3 days old. Welcome to our crazy world, Mari!

Warm-up with Coach Troy "Dropping The Hammer" then switched to The Daily Show upon realizing that I still don't have a hammer to drop. Skate skiing is in the plans for tomorrow so I hope to be feeling normal by then. Big improvement over yesterday, anyway.

Half-hearted ski around Palgrave West with 'Bent. Not feeling 100% today; maybe I consumed too many treats over Christmas.

Preparing for a February race in New Zealand's summer has made for some unusual training experiences. Today I headed up to Wiarton to paddle on Georgian Bay with Frankenjack. When I arrived, he was hot-gluing a pair of expensive new paddle blades to an old shaft since his paddle had flown home with Getawaystix after the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge. (Frankenjack ordered special Zastera paddle blades for us to use in New Zealand but we don't have the shafts yet.)

I wasn't sure what to wear for winter paddling. Luckily, it was -2C when we started, which isn't that cold. I had a dry suit with lots of layers on the bottom and a light polypro base layer on top.



Frankenjack didn't have a full drysuit and he paddled a surfski instead of a nice, dry kayak. Brave!



We paddled along the north shore of Colpoy's Bay. Frankenjack's rules for winter paddling are:
(a) There should be a road running close to the shore.
(b) Only paddle where you can get to land, i.e. no shore ice.



The first hour was amazing. Why doesn't everyone do this? It was beautiful and the water was calm. I was cozy in my drysuit.



Frankenjack's homemade paddle was too short for him so I traded him so he could try my new Epic clone.



After an hour, I realized that my toes weren't actually warm - they were numb. I took my shoes off so I could wiggle my toes. Next time I would stick toe warmers in my socks.

About 10 km from our starting point, we turned around.





A few hundred meters later, at the furthest point from our cars, the paddle felt wrong. I looked over my shoulder just in time to see the hot-glued paddle blade break away from the shaft. To my horror, it sank out of sight within seconds. "Uh, Jack...?"

We floated a search pattern over the area, peering into the depths of Georgian Bay's clear water. With enough time, I think we might have located it, but even if we did, it was going to be too deep for us to get with the gear we had today. Also, we were getting chilled now that we'd stopped paddling. My hands, which had been warm in damp gloves while we paddled, lost their dexterity. I pulled on my pogies, which eventually did the trick, but I would wear polypro liner gloves inside the paddling gloves next time.

So Frankenjack chivalrously returned my paddle and took the "marathon canoe paddle" for our return journey to Wiarton. It was all I could do to keep up with him on his surfski, so clearly he had been toying with me on our outward trip.



A surfski is tippy at the best of times, and when you're paddling on one side, the risk goes way up. Sadly, I don't have a photo of Frankenjack swimming in frigid Georgian Bay after tipping the surfski - which, incredibly, happened just once. I was too busy freaking out and asking what I could do to help, but he heaved himself back in with no trouble. After that, he asked a few questions about my drysuit. ;-)



Made it back to Wiarton around sunset, no worse for the wear. Note the big icicle in my hair!



Absolutely beautiful. :-)

Used my parents' well-equipped (but under-used) basement gym. 'Bent and I have now moved on to our traditional holiday assignments relating to maintenance of my parents' computers. Virus. Sigh.

With 'Bent while watching Daily Show / Colbert Report.

Tomorrow Frankenjack and I plan to paddle on Georgian Bay near Wiarton. Brrrr!!!

Congrats to Pete and Lee on the birth of their beautiful daughter!!!! :-)

Dessert penance run - actually wish I'd had longer since it felt better than expected to be out before breakfast on Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

So I ordered the cherries jubilee for dessert tonight and the deal is that I have to run on Christmas Day in penance...

Tested part of Phatty's Thomass Caledon course, aka the Humber Valley Hellrunner. Tough terrain - I suspect Harps and Tiny will want to stay home that day.

Leanimal and I went for a brisk-paced hike that started on the HVT then veered onto the frozen Humber River. We were hoping to trigger some baby action now that she is 6 days overdue but she continues to feel normal - pretty good, in fact. I went first to test the ice but Leanimal has a few pounds on me at this point, so it was really just for show.

Just read Outside Magazine's list of Top 10 Health and Fitness Trends of 2010. The only one I hadn't heard of was the Shake Weight. Oh my... is it just me or is this ad a little, um, I don't know what word to choose here because AdventureGirl! might be reading. Skip the video, kiddo. Supposedly it only takes 6 minutes a day but could anyone use it for that much time with a straight face?!? Whether people are using it or not, the manufacturers had made $40 million from it by April 2010.

When I really want to get my heart rate up, there's no better workout than skate skiing. As a pure classic skier for most of my life, I'm a fish out of water on those things. In fact, I can get my HR up just by sitting here on the couch and stressing about future plans to go skate skiing!

I'd thought I might sneak out today for a private, embarrassing, high intensity skate ski but somehow I ended up at Mono Nordic with some of the best skiers I know - VO2Max, Coach LD, Gosling and Goose (left to right).



Gosling and VO2Max were doing prescribed workouts based on their race schedule. Goose went with VO2Max to ensure he didn't slack off while Coach LD and I skied together. Fortunately, she was on classic skis so I had a fighting chance. It was tough but not as tough as the first skate ski of the season has been in past years. My efforts to develop my stupid, weak tibialis anterior muscles have apparently done some good.

I made sure to send 'Bent an iPhone photo at work so he could share in our fun vicariously. I won't repeat what he said in his e-mail back to me but I will admit that I deserved it. ;-)

Post-ski Cafe Mocha with way too much whipped cream at the coffee shop next to Booklore in Orangeville. Great company. Life is good.

Skied around Palgrave West to do some "track setting" for VO2Max, who arrives home for the holidays today. He's aiming to peak for a race on Jan. 6 so it won't be a leisurely vacation for him.

I can't imagine a better place to be at twilight on the shortest day of the year than a snowy forest.

Found a page in Facebook where I can see a list of people and the number of friends we share. At the top of the list is Ray Zahab with whom I share 24 mutual friends. Almost makes me feel like I should write and introduce myself since we are obviously meant to be pals! ;-)

A little pre-Christmas fun for Star Wars fans only. Press CC to see the lyrics. (Once video starts, click on arrow in lower right to see menu options.)

Frankenjack didn't make it home from the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge yesterday due to all the flight cancellations in Europe. Someone's gonna be late for work...

Snowshoe hill running in fresh snow sure gets the HR up! Warm-up around Short Bruce/Short K-Bash Loop, then up Poison Ivy Trail to the gate followed by Raspberry Hill, Hawk Hill, Thinker's Hill X 2 and F&M Trail from Finnerty to ORM Photo Viewpoint. A nice combo of shorter, steeper hills and long (300 m) gentle climbs.

While watching Daily Show / Colbert Report.

'Bent, Hammer, Etoile, AdventureGirl! and I snowshoed along a spectacular route through deep snow in the forest and on steep, snow-covered rocks beside Georgian Bay.

I won't name names but I'm not sure everyone was clear on the concept of snowshoeing.





There should be some video forthcoming from the new Dontgetlost.ca GHO-Pro camera. 'Bent was the videographer today.



I hope he was nearby when this happened... You might not recognize Hammer after this little swan-dive-into-hip-deep snow incident. Snowshoes didn't really help much!



Heavy snow falling, beautiful scenery, cold toes, warm company. It was great to see 'Bent and Hammer running together without knee pain in the soft snow.

While watching Colbert and an amazing Daily Show where Jon Stewart talked to 911 first responders with cancer who are aren't getting the treatment they deserve by the U.S. media or political system.

'Bent and I went up to Parry Sound for some winter fun with Hammer, Etoile and AdventureGirl!





Snow fell the entire time we were there - nice! We skied at the Georgian Nordic club - the first time for 'Bent and me. We were on classic skis while the Wadds were skate skiing, which meant we got a good workout! I carefully charged the battery for my little waterproof camera then left it at home, so there isn't much photographic evidence of this expedition - *except* on Hammer's GoPro head-mounted video camera. Check out Hammer's log to see the video of his major wipe-out on the Bunny Trail!

Went for a snowshoe tour on and around the Wadd Squad's beautiful new property beside Georgian Bay. This included 10 minutes to get around the Gula Stigen loop, which as far as we know is the record on snowshoes. AdventureGirl! was leading the way and probably did it in 9:58 so the record is hers.

BulletDog and I did a sunset loop through Palgrave West. Sky was purple, pink and dark blue-grey, and everything in the forest was coated with blobs of fluffy snow. Spectacular. Would have liked to stay out longer but pre-Christmas tasks are temporarily getting in the way of real life. On the bright side, I've made it through all the parties except for Christmas itself without gaining any weight so far. Booyah!

Hard Core Live with Caron - shorter version due to Christmas class

Special Christmas yoga class with live keyboard music by Patrick Dilkie. Fantastic! I was paying so much attention to the music that I messed up a sun salute but I got better at multitasking as the session went on. We had cookies and drinks afterward and convinced Patrick to play and sing "Hallelujah" as an encore. I had a good debrief with Sean Bechtel on his first Salomon Dontgetlost.ca adventure run. (His team won the Half Raid.) It turns out he's good with maps - he credits his geography classes at McMaster.

The New York Times on the benefits of exercising before breakfast - one of my training goals this year.

From a physiological point of view, it appears that the benefits are more health-oriented than sports training-oriented. They don't talk about the psychological benefit here but I feel like the Queen of the World when I get back from a pre-breakfast workout and the rest of the day seems more productive. Apparently, my muscles would be less marbled with fat if I did it more often - although I might not get as much benefit from my workouts if I did it too often.

Shredding pow in Palgrave West! We got 10-15 cm of new snow in the past 24 hours; it just doesn't get better than this. I wanted a hard workout so I put on the Atlas Race snowshoes and ran while breaking trail in deep, fluffy snow. I normally can't get my heart rate that high while running - holy crap, that's hard work!

Aaack - no time to train today.

Today's cultural note... I went into Winners in Bolton to buy a gift certificate and found their new Diversity Gift Certificate display. (I think that was the name.) There were dozens of gift cards saying Happy Diwali, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hannukah, Happy New Year and some cards with no text - just photos of flowers and babies. I asked the cashier if they had any Merry Christmas gift certificates. They did not but I could have their one remaining torn Happy Holidays card. In principle, this is a great idea but Diwali and Hannukah are over until next year. And at least in our little town, Winners might want to rethink their strategy of ordering the same number of Kwanzaa cards as Christmas cards.

Racers in Abu Dhabi must be bitterly disappointed after training in the off season to prepare for a 129 km paddle. Another big wind is predicted for mid-day so organizers have announced that racers will just paddle from Corniche Beach to Lulu Island and back three times. On the satellite map, it looks like the island is about 600 m away from the beach - but it's a big island so maybe they'll paddle to a point farther along its length. Not exactly an epic race leg - not that it's anyone's fault.

***Update: They are now describing it as a 33 km loop around the bay, which is better, if not wildly exciting.***

GUATS has finished 8th in Abu Dhabi less than 5 minutes ahead of Poland's Speleo Trail Team. Congrats, all!

I hope Frankenjack's feet aren't too bad. (He referred to them as "trashed" after the desert trek.) Coast to Coast is less than two months away so he'll be back to training soon. At least all his paddle training for Abu Dhabi will come in handy in NZ even though he didn't get to paddle much in AD.

Everything I was supposed to do today got postponed till tomorrow because the roads were bad.



With snow falling and blowing, I skied to Palgrave East and went around the old Red Trail loop, keeping my effort up since this was taking the place of a run in my training plan. It was easier said than done since the Conservation Authority is allowing the northeast part of the Red Trail to regenerate due to concerns over summer use in the wetland. (Skiers are still campaigning to get it opened seasonally in winter.) I broke trail in snow over my boots most of the time with occasional faster sections when I happened upon half-buried tracks that were several hours old. At one point, the snow piled up to my knees. In the northeast section, it was like using awkward 185 cm snowshoes, scrambling over shrubs and through tall weeds. My binding was pulled open and there was a disconcerting moment when I couldn't see my ski deep in the snow - like losing a shoe in mud! I almost skied onto the thin ice of the Humber River since the trail beside it was impossible to see and even the river wasn't that obvious at times. Awesome!











The sun came out right at the end.

Skied around Palgrave West on and off-trail, scrambling over fallen trees and ducking as necessary and doing a little bushwhacking. Winter is here! :-)

Made it to the bitter end of "Gone With The Wind". And oh, it was bitter indeed. It turns out that, frankly, Rhett Butler didn't give a damn. Alas, Scarlett, you blew it.

I'll have to find some other long trainer movies. It is time to reassemble Princess from the bike box and start training in the nasty, uncomfortable road biking position. I'd hoped to take her on the road one more time to make sure I put her together properly but given all the snow we've had, that might not happen till NZ.

After the 2-day desert trek in the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge, Team GUATS Adventure appears to be in 9th place. (Not sure if the leaderboard has been updated to take into account the optional CPs.) Most teams missed optional CPs on the trek and a number of teams - or individual team members - have missed mandatory portions of the course over the first 4 days. GUATS skipped the final optional CP after at least one team member threw up at the final mandatory CP. It is very, very hot and a lot of racers are having trouble. Last stage is a 2-day sea kayak section with a mandatory overnight stop on an island. It'll start tonight in our time zone. The SPOT tracking has been great but the optional CPs make it hard to follow these long sections.

Meteor shower tonight - possibly the best of the year!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/10...

Thomass Chase Sprint. In spite of the cold, rainy weather, the forest was beautiful and open and I felt great running. There was a lot of mud! It was hilarious to drag myself up the steep, slick slopes, clinging to saplings and sliding backwards whenever I couldn't get a good foothold. Going down, it was easy to skid out of control into big piles of dead leaves or (worse) logs. I was sloppy on a couple of legs and lost several minutes to silly errors because I wasn't super-focused for some reason. But it was fun and I was happy that 'Bent had gone out hiking with the Chase map to test his knee post-surgery. He had a great time and navigated really well since he had time to read the map in detail for once. Here's the post-orienteering ice pack pic.

Thomass Chase. I crunched my ankle between 1-2 which wasn't a great start but otherwise it was another fun, imperfectly navigated race in nice, open forest. I made a 7-minute error between #4 and #5 after using the "ridiculously rough compass" method of navigation. Turns out I wandered off the edge of the map which is why it was confusing when I tried to relocate - oops! Can't think of the last time I did that. Anyway, the important thing is that I totally crushed AdventureGirl! in the finish chute. She's in the middle in this pic - between her cousins.



I almost got Nick and Griz too! There was a reason for my final burst of speed... I could hear people from another club cheering a runner behind me and I wanted our club to get the extra point. It worked. (The burst of speed, not the cheering.)

At today's Dontgetlost.ca/GHO Christmas party, I was surprised and truly honoured to win our club's Ted de St. Croix Athlete of the Year Award. I don't come from an athletic background and if someone had looked into a crystal ball and told me about this 10 years ago, I would have said it was completely impossible. So... life is full of surprises and I'm excited about whatever new things may be coming up in future that I couldn't possibly guess now!

Big thanks to Hammer, Phatty, Leanimal and 'Bent who worked to assemble a photo slideshow (using the Hockey Night in Canada theme as the music - haha!), a list of 2010 race results and a sweet write-up. It's not the first time I've thought about how fortunate I am to have you all in my life.

Note that Hammer was trying to imitate the photo projected on the screen behind - the one where Getawaystix held my arm up after Logs Rocks & Steel (and nearly hoisted me off the ground).

Still more "Gone With The Wind" - it seems to be approaching a conclusion at last. I'm enjoying the movie but Scarlett continues to be a jerk. I pushed hard and thought about engaging core and large back muscles.

GUATS Adventure has moved to 8th after Day 2 of the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge! Turns out they had some issues on Day 1 - a broken paddle and a couple of mechanicals with the organization-supplied bikes that sent them to the back of the pack temporarily. The best coverage of the Canadian team is on the Breathe Magazine Facebook page.

Great ski up at Highlands Nordic with 'Bent. They have tons of snow for early December and we practically had the place to ourselves. It felt great to push hard and go fast on groomed tracks!

Urthbuoy has generously offered to help whip this sorry whitewater kayaker into shape for Coast to Coast. Vancouver in January, here I come! (Gotta love Aeroplan. And http://www.less.ca.)

Team GUATS Adventure is in 14th place of 50 teams after Day 1 of the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge. The race is close at the front and they're in the mix of top teams. The initial two stages are sprints, then the last four days will be a long desert trek and a long sea kayak paddle.

This was going to be a snowshoe run through the single track of Palgrave East - but that would have been serious overkill so I just wore Yak Traks. With the soft snow, slick hills and hidden tree roots, my pace varied but it was all tempo effort and felt surprisingly great. Maybe the extra training volume this fall is paying off but I think all this sunshine and snow would make anyone feel great! Lost the trail a few times - it's snowy enough for that. Slight knee twinge from yesterday's Bizarre Grocery Store Food Attack but it's going to be fine.

Hard Core Live with Caron

An awesome running strength workout using yoga poses.

The Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge starts at 11 p.m. EST and Team GUATS Adventure (Getawaystix, Frankenjack, Dr. Wells and Jennifer Johnson) will be at the starting line. Today was the race briefing, gear check and skills test, and the opening ceremony should be winding up as I write this. It'll be bedtime soon for our jet-lagged friends.

Many of the top teams in the world compete in this race for cash prizes that are awarded to the top 30 of the 50 teams. There is also a special cash prize for the top North American team - and there are only four of them.

In addition to the race website, which will feature SPOT tracking, you can follow the race at Sleepmonsters and Twitter. Lots of updates posted already.

After all the trash talk, I was expecting a big rematch at this Sunday's Thomass Chase but it seems that there's more talk than action. Registration closes tomorrow night! P.S. Tiny, watch out - there are picnic tables at this venue.

Leanimal and I went out for a snowshoe hike in the Humber Valley on a brilliant, sunny day. At 39 weeks, she wouldn't have complained if our snowshoeing had hastened the baby's arrival.



We didn't just plod along on the trail. Leanimal led us up the bluff beside the river.



The valley is beautiful after this week's snowfall.



Eventually, we decided that it might be wise to move to the non-treacherous side of the river.



I predict a quick comeback to competitive racing for Lee. Nothing stops this girl from training!

Treadmill iPod intervals.

Still more "Gone With The Wind". Scarlett is still being a jerk.

Happy Hannukah, 'Bent!

When I grow up, I want to be Joy T. I met this amazing British Columbian well into her senior years when 'Bent and I were paddling down the Nahanni River. She had incredible stories of outdoor trips in her earlier years, including hiking the West Coast Trail before all the ladders and boardwalks that exist today - and carrying the pack of a male companion who was having trouble!

She is now 86 years old and every year I worry until her Christmas card arrives. Two years ago, no card came and I assumed the worst. Then last year she wrote again and referred vaguely to a hospital stay. I did a happy dance around the kitchen.

This year's card just arrived with news of an upcoming 21-day trek in Turkey and a story about a recent hike up a mountain on Vancouver Island in 8" of snow where they "relied on a friend's GPS" and she "had no trouble descending the steep, slippery trail because [she] wears Yak Traks". I know 35-year-olds who couldn't keep up with Joy.

She mentioned how much she enjoyed reading about our outdoor exploits and hoped we were still - I had trouble reading this word at first because it was unexpected - "competitive". Wow - 90% of the people I know think we're crazy and simply express hope that we don't kill ourselves. But she was right on the money.

I can only hope to be like Joy when I'm 86 - and I am really hoping hard!

P.S. If I'm going to live to 88, I'm going to have to be *way* more careful. I was in the grocery store today when a guy passed me pulling a dolly with one of those big stacks of food on plastic shelves several feet high. In the corner of my eye, I saw him fumble the handle. The stack tipped and exploded - shelves of food flying apart with several of them aimed directly at my legs. I screamed like a little girl as they hit my shins and knee and I leapt away, dropping the food I was carrying. My heart rate shot up to its max and I'm afraid I employed an expletive in my response when the staff finally got around to asking me if I was OK.

What disturbs me is, I knew I wasn't in serious danger. There was definitely the risk of a knee or leg injury that could take me out of sports for awhile and my reaction to that was surprisingly visceral - I still felt shaky 20 minutes later. But that poor employee couldn't possibly have understood why anyone would care about their legs that much and I feel kinda sorry for him now. (And a little sore below the kneecap of my bad knee even though I didn't get hit that hard compared to a dozen incidents in Raid The Hammer.)

Tentative 2011 rogaining schedule - info gathered so far by the USOF Rogaining Committee, on which I sit:
* (January 22-23: Spain)
* February 5th: 6-hour in Tar Hollow State Park and Forest, OH. NSF Adventures.
* March 5-6th: 2-day (7 hrs/day) Snowgaine, NY. CNYO.
* March 12th: 6- and 3-hour rogaines, Salt Fork State Park, OH. COAR.
* April 9th: 12-hour at Escure Ranch (S of Sprague, WA). MergeO
* April 23rd: 12-hour rogaine, southern Indiana. Planet Adventure.
* April 30th-May 1st: Eco-endurance, Nova Scotia
* May: 6-hour at Big Muddy
* (July 23-24: 8ERC, Latvia)
* August 6: 6-hour night rogaine at the Great Seal State Park, OH. NSF Adventures.
* Rumored for end of August: SAGE rogaine, BC
* August 13-14?: 24-hour RMOC.
* August 20-21: 24-hour Dakota rogaine. Rick Emerson
* August 27-28: 24-hour. CNYO.
* October 8-9: 24-hour at Colockum Pass (NE of Ellensburg WA). MergeO
* November 12th: 12-hour rogaine, southern Indiana. Planet Adventure.
* November 12th: 12-hour rogaine, near Zaleski, OH. NSF Adventures.
* December 3-4: 24-hour. Get Lost!

Watched more "Gone With The Wind" and stopped paddling when the movie stopped at the Intermission. Really, it just stops for awhile with the word "Intermission" blazed across the screen. Scarlett is becoming a little more likeable. Pushed harder today since I didn't have much time.

Dropped my car off in Palgrave to get snow tires put on then picked up BulletDog from the dental office and ran home on trails and across fields through 15 cm of fluffy new snow. It's been falling all day and the forest is spectacular. I love winter! Before going out, I'd thought my legs felt tired and heavy so I'd debated whether I should run today but once I got going, I felt light and energetic, even on the hills. Maybe there's something to this whole training business.

Congrats to our youngest Tree Hugger, VO2Max, on kicking off his XC ski racing season in style. He made it to a Sprint A Final for the first time, finishing ahead of some National Ski Team members and a few other good sprinters. Lots of racing coming up over the next two weeks. Go, Pate!

Palgrave is just barely snowy enough to rock-ski so we drove 30 minutes north to Dufferin Forest where we could play in 15 cm of snow.



We did some twisty single track then switched to double track to avoid any surprises to 'Bent's knee. For the same reason, I did most of the trail breaking which was slo-o-o-ow going on my waxless rock skis (which I didn't need in such good conditions but that's what I'd brought). It was a great workout anyway - like a NordicTrack with the resistance turned way up. Unlike last weekend, this felt like actual skiing. Yay, winter is here!!



It was quiet but near Airport Road we saw a couple of hunters with crossbows. 'Tis the season (deer) until the end of December.



We found a wonderful, quiet single track trail with a small sign that said, "Ken's Trail 1966-2010". I'm wondering if this is the same Ken who was the manager of Mansfield Outdoor Centre. I worked with him a couple of years ago to put on our mountain bike orienteering event there and I also talked with his wife who was the Dufferin County Forester for the adjacent public land. Whoever Ken's Trail is for, it must be a sad story since the man was only 44. Does anyone know about this?

When we got back to the nearly deserted parking lot, another vehicle was arriving. Turns out it was a couple of our Caledon friends, Rocky and Slowrunner heading out for a snowshoe. Nice surprise!

'Bent and I joined the C3 triathletes for their Saturday morning spin. I was afraid I'd get bored but this was their annual session where Gary (surname?) spoke about exercise physiology and racing and occasionally jumped off his bike to draw graphs on the whiteboard. There was a fair amount of review, since I read about sports science on most days, but it was all good and you can't be reminded of that stuff too often. There were some different ways of looking at things that were useful.

A key concept in today's discussion was "decoupling" - the phenomenon where your power output decreases during a race while your effort/heart rate increases. Winners in events like the Ironman World Championship have a constant power output during their 180 km bike ride. They start out with a low perceived effort that increases then levels out and stays constant for the rest of the ride. They go slower up hills and accelerate down hills.

Even in the top 10 in the world, it's not unusual to find racers whose power output starts out too high, then decreases during the race - and they feel steadily worse as the race goes on. Studies have shown that racers who choose and maintain the correct power output will have the best race result. The jury is out on whether a negative split is desirable but you definitely don't want a positive split.

There are several reasons for decoupling:
- Starting at too high a pace
- Dehydration (stroke volume of heart decreases with dehydration so the heart needs to beat more often to push the same amount of O2 to the body)
- Nutrition (mostly a factor in races over 2 hours)
- Heat (80% of your effort goes into creating heat. Above 16C, heat starts to degrade performance and you need to choose a slightly slower pace to compensate)
- Slow twitch muscles tiring out due to insufficient training for the chosen pace, forcing fast twitch muscles (which need far more glycogen and are not well-trained in endurance athletes) to take over

Random thoughts:
- In a long race, avoid even short bursts of anaerobic activity such as pushing up a hill, since this will reduce your body's capacity to perform aerobically over the long term.
- Most endurance athletes have sufficient glycogen stores to race for up to 2 hours without taking in calories. (Nothing much, anyway.) If you are racing longer than 2 hours, start eating earlier to postpone the exhaustion of your glycogen stores. For example, I may not need any calories for a 2-hour run but I may expend 600 calories if I continue for 3rd hour. Rather than waiting until the 3rd hour to eat, I should try to take in 200 calories per hour from the beginning.
- In the days leading up to a race, work harder than usual to preserve your glycogen stores. Even if you go for a short run, eat something during the session or within an hour or two of finishing.
- A power meter is one of the best investments you can make for your bike. It will make more difference than, say, buying lighter wheels.
- Base training - at least 40 km/week of running and 100 km/week of road biking (for triathletes) for 6-8 weeks. Long run should not be more than about 35% of total weekly running and should not increase more than 10%/week.
- Ironman finish rankings almost always = Ironman bike + run rankings. You can't make a big difference on the swim but you can over-exert yourself on the bike and wreck your run. You need to think of performance on the bike/run together as a unit.
- When it comes to training, the priority is running. If you don't have enough time for all the training you want to do, keep the running and reduce other activities.
- Visualize and prepare.

There was more but that's all I can think of for now. I couldn't take notes because I was busy pedalling. Interesting, interactive discussion with lots of people in the room drawing on their own racing and training experiences. No chance of getting bored!

I am such a weakling...

Note
End-of-month report card on 2010 training resolutions:

GOOD:
- Goal was 450 hrs total annual training and I'm at 568 hrs with a month left to go - the most since I started logging on AP in 2005. Training for Coast to Coast has inspired me put in a lot more hours than usual this fall.
- Crash and I have revived our Bash & Crash 500s, which means both intervals *and* training before breakfast.

NOT SO GOOD:
- Strength training - min. 1 hr/week. Nope. But doing more as the weather makes indoor training more appealing.
- In bed by midnight at least 4 days/week - Fail. Some might even say it's an "Epic Fail" - but anyone who reads NewPatrick's log wouldn't dare.

I am loving the novelty of training for Coast to Coast. I've never been a hot weather vacation person but it was awesome fun to do a high volume training week in Florida. Tomorrow 'Bent and I are joining the local triathlon club for the first time for their Saturday spinning session and Frankenjack and I are planning a winter paddle on Georgian Bay over the holidays. I'm also looking into some whitewater paddling in January, which is another first. New adventures keep things interesting!

While watching The Amazing Race.

Upstairs while Frankenjack and 'Bent worked out in the Adventure Basement.

Blatant promo request. We'd love to get the 2010 GUATS Logs Rocks & Steel soft bamboo shirt voted "Best Event T-Shirt" in the annual Get Out There Magazine Readers' Choice Awards.

Here's the shirt (click on the mini-photo):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29904&id=114...

And here's the Survey. Best T-shirt is #9 and there are lots of other categories you can vote in to recognize other events, organizations, stores and outdoor facilities you like.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K5PYPW7

Hard Core Live with Caron

Lots of hip flexor, twisting and side core work tonight. We're going to have live music at our pre-Christmas class - the same guy who wrote and performed the music for Caron's Power Yoga 2 DVD!

Got up in pitch blackness and left at first light to meet Crash at our post on the Bruce Trail for another edition of Bash & Crash 500s. We revived them a couple of weeks ago and our times were significantly slower than they had been in summer. Today my times were back to where they had been and Crash had moved in the right direction (sub-2).
2:13
2:09
2:08
2:08
2:08 (huge perceived effort - I was sure I'd set a new record but it was exactly the same as the previous two)

I've noticed that some New Zealanders are hiking up mountains on weekends to prepare for Coast to Coast. So when I got home, I scaled Mount Tobler twice, once by the usual southern route and once up the rarely-climbed north face.

I somehow managed to make it this long without ever seeing "Gone With The Wind" so it's my trainer movie this week. It is almost 4 hours long so I've got another couple of sessions left. I decided to pedal at higher intensity during any bad dialogue or acting and as a result, I got a really, really good workout.