Training Log Archive: Bash

Only 3 months to get ready for 10,731' of elevation gain in 80 km of running. I anticipate some Hockley Loops in my future.

BazingaDog joined in on any exercise where my face was less than a meter off the ground, increasing the degree of difficulty. We got his DNA test results today and he is mostly Lab Retriever with a good dollop of Golden Retriever and a small dash of West Highland White Terrier - the mystery ingredient.

I'm feeling good after the weekend but it's been a busy week so not much training yet. Foot blisters haven't healed completely but muscles/joints feel fine after 102 km on foot. At a meeting tonight, a woman asked whether our new puppy had caused all the scratches on my arms. I didn't think they were that bad, which shows how low my standards are. Good thing she didn't see my legs!

There aren't many advantages to getting older but one of them is that you can buy yourself nice birthday presents. I belatedly gave myself a 17" Macbook Pro today. Time to play. :)

CNYO 2011 - Brookfield Horse Trails
Diary of a Rogaine

One Month before - Jason Urckfitz will do the CNYO rogaine with me - yay. I hope we can work together for 24 hours in spite of our language barrier. (He talks about "Fahrenheit" and "miles", spells "rumour" with only one "u", and lives near some place called "Rachester, NY", pronounced similar to "ratchet".)

Two Weeks before - Jason wins the inaugural Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race by an hour. I finish another 40 minutes back. Yeesh, what was I thinking? Nervous.

One Week before - Note to self: Being the assistant RD of a sold-out 30-hour adventure race is not a "weekend off". I do virtually no training for seven days and get only three hours of sleep in 60 hours on Wilderness Traverse weekend. I'm well prepared for our rogaine - if sleep deprivation training is all that counts. Now feeling nervous *and* guilty.

Two Days before - Looks like Hurricane Irene will hit New York on Saturday night. I pack an extra layer.



The Night before - I stay at the Urckfitz' home a few hours from the event site. Jason and I go for a twilight paddle on Hemlock Lake followed by yummy dinner and wine with his family, then bedtime at a reasonable hour and I actually sleep. So relaxing... I should do this before every race!

Early Sat. Morning - Jason fires up the espresso machine and makes two vanilla lattes for the road. So far, my teammate gets a solid A+ on all the important criteria; I don't even care whether he owns a compass.

Before Pre-Race meeting - Great to see Team GHO Slo, Jim and Sue Waddington.



We lay out mapping supplies and check our backpacks a final time. Last night I transferred my stuff into a smaller pack than I normally use for rogaining - a men's Salomon Raid Revo 20. It's a tight squeeze but I hope it will be more comfortable for running. No camera, same as last year. As designated team slowpoke, I don't need extra weight. Later on when the weather turns hellish, I will regret this decision. Those photos would be great to have.

Jason and I talked about rogaine route planning last night. We're both engineers who enjoy messing with numbers and our approach is similar with one significant difference. He normally races on speedy teams who set out to clear the course so they don't need to analyze which controls to drop. This time it'll be different. I pull out my 1:30,000 string and propose a reprise of the 70 km straight-line-distance-between-controls plan that seemed to be working for Tim Grant and me at last year's CNYO Rogaine until Tim's Achilles got fed up.

10:45 Pre-Race Meeting - Tim and his regular partner Audrey Kelly are looking strong. The Milton Basement Racers did Wilderness Traverse last weekend and Tim's main goal for this event is to win the Trifecta Cup, CNYO's prize to the top overall competitor in their three 2011 rogaines - Snowgaine, Regaine and Rogaine. (He succeeds.) Tim and I want to see each other's team on the podium tomorrow - but in a different sequence of course, so we exchange a little trash talk. :)



11 a.m. Map Time - We tape the three maps together and calculate points totals for different areas. Thanks to Stina Bridgeman for posting the map. Click magnifying glass to zoom.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/fYEfYefduAyt...

The southwest quadrant near the Hash House is rich in points - not surprising since there are also 6-hour and 12-hour events. I usually head far from the Hash House early in a rogaine but this time the farther controls also appear easier on average than the nearby controls. We want those southern points and we'd rather get them in daylight while we're fresh. So we'll start with a clockwise loop south of the Hash House then head north near sunset.

A river runs north-south in the northeast part of the map. After roughly laying out my 70 km string (there isn't time to do it properly), we plan a route that excludes the controls east of that river. Less than half an hour after getting the maps, we have to seal them up and rush to get ready. I love rogaine route planning and strategy and would like another hour but c'est la vie.



12 noon - Go! After a play-scuffle with Tim off the start, I dive into the bush after Jason. We grab the highest-value control on the map (89) down the hill then skirt a small lake to 44. My teammate moves quickly and as I scramble to keep up, I take two swan dives over hidden logs along the lakeshore. Luckily, he doesn't notice. My hair is full of shredded weeds now - lovely. We revise our plan within the first half hour, deciding to skip the lowest-value control 33 and go straight to 76. With 20/20 hindsight and an unfolded map, we should have gone 86/76.

We usually run downhill on good trails and occasionally on flats. I worry about keeping up but Jason patiently lets me set the pace for the entire race so I still have energy remaining at the finish line. To my surprise, we never crack out the tow rope.

Early afternoon - I half-inhale a large insect that stings my throat. As we bash along, I spend 30 minutes coughing, choking and wondering whether my throat will swell completely shut. Will Jason have to use my bladder hose and mini Swiss Army Knife to perform an emergency tracheotomy?

37-43 then a long road hike/jog to 56 in a field. On this map, open fields can be anything from low grass to chest-deep tangled goldenrod and thorns - more often the latter. We tend to move faster through the forest beside a field. I look down and the left leg of my tights is torn open from knee to ankle. I thought Jason was brave to wear shorts and gaiters with his knees showing and now my bare calf will be exposed to poison ivy, thorns and ticks for the next 20 hours. Argghh. Jason stops to tape a toe.

79-67-49. Our feet get completely soaked at 49 (hydro pole in marsh) so blisters or trench foot may be an issue later. The next water stop always seems too close or too far on our chosen route and we're told that some springs marked on the map may not be running. If I'd worn my bigger pack, I could have carried a 3-liter bladder or an extra bottle. Doh! I am drinking a little less than I want but I only run out once. Although I'm eating well, I back off at times since there's no point eating without drinking. It's a hot day and I feel a little spaced out but I'll be fine when the sun gets lower.

Mid-to-late afternoon - 86 then 69. Confusing - the trail has been altered by logging. It's the first serious puzzle that we have to solve and I'm very glad to have two experienced navigators on the team. We didn't talk beforehand about how to work together - we're just doing it. We both follow the map and agree on safe attackpoints and routes as we approach each control. Whoever happens to be in front leads the way and each of us tries to spot the control first. Because we're both staying on top of the nav, small errors rarely turn into bigger errors, and when one person's concentration lapses briefly (as is inevitable over 24 hours), the other person usually catches it. We both watch the compass and estimated distance. It's all good. We find everything we look for.

66 (painful climb) - 48. Our first water stop on a hot day. Bliss. It's been 18 km straight-line-between-controls and 27 km actual route. It's only 5 controls till the next water so we can drink all we want. We are moving quickly on our planned route and will have to add some controls that we'd planned to skip - the opposite of what usually happens in a rogaine. The decision point will come later.

63-81-46 (small dry pond, tough to find in dense woods) - 72. It's getting dark in the forest but the next control is at a horse camp so we'll get our lights out there. We just have a 700-800 m bushwhack, possibly crossing a field. (Private property is not out of bounds but we must use discretion and not intrude on anyone.) Then it's 1 km on paved road to the camp.

Dusk - We emerge by a well-kept field and plan to walk around its edge until we notice the electric fence. OK, we'll follow the outside of the fence - the road is just 300 m away. We get caught in thick alders and tangled weeds over our heads. Progress is painfully slow. At one point, it's impossible to move forward and we drop into the creek until it gets blocked with vegetation too. Argghh. We should have stayed in the woods but there's no going back.

The farmer sees us and calls over to ask if we're lost. Fortunately, he is friendly and finds our dilemma amusing. He did orienteering in the military. He explains which wires are electrified. I touch them all and get a good shock from every one. From a distance, he must not realize that we are beyond the outer fence. As he walks toward us, we climb into the creek and duck under a low road bridge to get closer. We meet at a place where he can hold the wires apart for us to step through and he walks with us to the road. So lucky he is a nice guy and not using us for target practice.

We walk toward 82 having lost 15 minutes, a lot of energy and a wee bit of pride. We get our lights out, pump and purify water, and replenish food. I switch my brimmed hat for a Buff. I miss my larger Salomon pack with its handy, organized pockets. I need to find a way to attach my NightLightning battery to my headstrap instead of carrying it awkwardly in my pack. Because I'm fussing with gear, this stop takes me too long. Stina Bridgeman and Anne Schwartz, whom we've been leapfrogging for several hours, arrive after us and sail out efficiently. Coming on the heels of the Great Electric Fence Caper, my inefficiency here bumps up my stress level for the next half hour. Fortunately, Jason remains focused and stops me from making a wrong turn on the simple road walk to 77, the control guarded by friendly horses.

20:30 - Long road hike to 78. Sore feet, both of us. I'm finished with running on pavement - only trails, dirt roads or shoulders from now on. We revise our route for the northeast quadrant. We've got time to do a lot more than we'd planned. It's another long road hike to 62. We trade stories to stay alert - "how did you meet your spouse?" and that sort of thing. As we head to 52, a team jogs toward us looking strong. It's Tim and Audrey - great to see friendly faces. From then on, we see "MBR" and times written on all the intention sheets and we try to reconstruct their route in our minds.

61-71-39. (Skip 35.) After the nasty bushwhack to 39, we head east to an overgrown north-south road. With our revised route, we should have gone south to 58 but we go north to get 74. (We skip 51 - the highest value control we dropped.) The map shows a Y-junction of major trails but our side of the Y is not there. We retrace our steps, analyze forest boundary signs and make forays into the bush. Nada. Well, crap. The alternative is 700 m of bushwhacking (which can be nasty) and we'll need to aim off to hit a road or we'll be in the bush even longer. We start and within 150 m, I notice a reflector way off to my right. It's the trail. Happy dance!

At 74, we discuss crossing the marshy area and river to 84. Either of us would do it if the other person really wanted to, but I suspect we're both relieved when the other person doesn't push it. We head north to 53 - a conifer veg corner by an overgrown creek. As expected, it's tough to find with the conifers mixed in with other thick vegetation.

Sun. 1 a.m. - Northeast quadrant. Climb to 59. Skip 42 - probably should have gotten it. Enroute to 57, the spitting rain becomes a downpour. Raincoats on. Dry socks and foot cream for me, and I feel like a new person. Goretex pants on before 68. The rain is ridiculous now. We meet Francis Falardeau's Laurentian Rogaine team coming toward us and they are not running either. I keep trying unsuccessfully to clear my glasses until Jason explains that the world is foggy, not my eyes. We plan to do a shortcut bushwhack down a hillside to 84 but it's steep and wet and we procrastinate until our road hits the main road. This makes it easier for pace counting - although we also have a secret weapon in Jason's eagle eyes which can spot the faintest "herd paths" (aka "elephant paths" where I come from) where other teams have gone.

As an aside, although I don't have photos of my own, here is what the storm looked like elsewhere in the northeast U.S. This gives you a good idea of what it was like out there.









4 a.m. - This is our low point. Jason is sleepy, we're soaked and cold, and we've got a long road hike to 83. (Should have gone 40-54-83. Skipping 38 was OK though.) As rain lashes us, I serenade my poor teammate with "wake up" tunes including "Singing in the Rain". As we enter Brookfield, I spot a school with covered doorways and we huddle away from the rain and wind to drink our much-anticipated Starbucks canned double espresso. Heading further into town, the convenience store has just opened up. We review our maps and drip on their floor. The owners laugh and roll their eyes. We still have plenty of time but we haven't tackled the northeast section as efficiently as we could have. We'll do an out-and-back to get 54 and 58, then start heading back.

6 a.m. - It's morning and we only need lights in the woods now. I'm wearing two polypro layers and a toque but Jason is still wearing his original jersey and must be chilled in the heavy rain. Feeling bad for him, I do more running over the next few hours than I did all day yesterday. Although my feet are painful and blistered, the rest of my body feels good - and hey, we get to the controls faster. We put the lights away after 58 and are finally heading home. After 64, we get the first major gust of wind to go along with our heavy rain. We exchange glances and laugh. How could we ever explain our crazy hobbies?

Down to 47 and up to 41. Rivers are running down roads and trails. Near 41, we get the answer to what happens when a tree falls in the forest. The wind isn't constantly high but when it hits, it is wild. Treetops swirl. Sometimes I just stop and stare in disbelief. It gets better in valleys but high areas are scary. We're both chilly now. We look at the map and decide it's not worth the risk to get the 34-pointer next on our list. However, we've left high value controls 73, 88 and 87 till the end and they are kind of, sort of on the way to the Hash House so we soldier on. We meet the Nightcrawlers, Eric and Mary Smith, at 88. After 87, we can't get out of the woods fast enough - although we know we won't be able to nap in Jason's truck while it is parked under a tree. We finish more than an hour early, content to leave points on the table.

11 a.m. - We're greeted by friendly smiles and CNYO's usual variety of hot post-race food. We've earned 2583 points out of 2856. The Laurentian Rogaine male team was first with 2667 points. The mystery is Tim and Audrey, who aren't back yet. Turns out they're about 40 points behind us so we're 1st Coed and 2nd overall. I know Wilderness Traverse wasn't the best taper for MBR but I'm happy with our result. It's an all-Canadian podium - if we count Jason as an honourary Canadian, that is. :) The amazing Nightcrawlers win the Masters category and finish 3rd Coed with 2076 points - the only other team over 2,000.

13:00 - Nap. Sandwich. Latte. Shower. Long drive. When podcasts make me sleepy, I belt out Broadway tunes to stay awake.

Measured our route with string:
Straight line distance between controls = 65 km
Actual route (not including weaving around) = 102.5 km

Sun. 21:30 - Home and safe. Thanks to Mark and Barb Dominie for all their hard work to put on this event. And thanks to Jason Urckfitz, an awesome teammate in a hurricane. :)

Event: CNYO Rogaine #21
 

My CNYO Rogaine teammate JayXC lives near the Finger Lakes and just got an Epic V10 Sport surfski so I had the perfect excuse to drive down early for a peaceful sunset paddle on Hemlock Lake. We switched boats at the far end of the lake and although the surfski definitely felt tippy, I didn't swim. This was fortunate since the lake is a public drinking water supply and there was a big sign warning against any body contact with the water. I apparently wasn't pushing the surfski's limits though since I didn't make it move any faster than the kayak. JayXC is so lucky to have this beautiful, quiet lake close to home!

Funderstorm and I are doing the North Face Endurance Challenge in San Francisco on Dec. 3. She's doing 50K and I'm going to attempt my first 50-miler. Who else is coming for a nice seafood dinner with some Napa Valley red followed by a post-race hot fudge sundae? The 50-miler is worth 2 points toward UTMB and the 50K is worth 1 point. (You need 5 points.)

I love that Torontonians greeted Jack Layton's coffin with applause and bicycle bells. He would have loved it too.

Fyi, I've been continuing to update the Wilderness Traverse Live Coverage page with links to racer photo albums and reports. If you've got any material you're willing to share, please e-mail me. If you have a Facebook album, I'd like the public link that non-Facebook users can see - "Edit Album...Edit Photos" and go to the fine print at the very bottom.
http://www.wildernesstraverse.com/index.php?option...

Leaderboard has been updated to reflect SportIdent times at unmanned CPs, plus I changed the finish times to the exact SI times rather than "volunteer's watch" times. This didn't affect rankings but a few teams' finish times changed by a minute or two.

OK, so I need to know which experienced racer is going to be pregnant next summer so she can be my co-pilot doing live coverage at Race HQ for Wilderness Traverse 2012. P.S. Thanks, Dee - you did an awesome job! :))

My parents, aged 78 and 79, took a self-portrait on their iPhone and e-mailed it to me from their vacation. I'm so proud! They were probably equally pleased when I took my first step. :)

Something that helps me stay positive and focused as a navigator is knowing that even the best navigators make occasional mistakes. I want to learn from my errors but never let them discourage me. If you want to feel better about your own nav, check out this video from last week's World Orienteering Championship Middle Distance race where some of the most skilled navigators in the world show how difficult our sport is!

Just thought I felt an earthquake. And now Twitter is full of info on a 5.8 earthquake in Virginia two minutes ago. Lots of excitement in Washington D.C. Pentagon evacuated.

Now a report of a building shaking in Hamilton. Our Caledon newspaper felt the tremor.

First time I've been on Twitter for something like this. So cool to watch it unfold.

Just when JayXC was probably thinking that my only training for this weekend's rogaine was going to be sleep deprivation, I added an inadequate run to the program. Home heading west via Bruce Side Trail and up K2 to the stile at the main Bruce Trail, then back again. Turned off the GPS for one section so data is adjusted. Felt pretty good but the best training for me right now is probably sleep, not running.

If you felt the earthquake, you can report details to scientists here. (Click on the red dot in the northeast U.S. That is our earthquake.)
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww...

What a weekend! As HQ manager and assistant RD for Wilderness Traverse, the last few days have been non-stop but awesome fun.





Above all, hats off to our racers, who provided a terrific show and a very high level of competition. I was equally impressed by some of the less experienced racers who ventured far outside their comfort zones and kept smiling.

Bob and I were aiming for 30 teams this year after getting 20 teams in the first year of the race. To be honest, we weren't entirely sure where all those extra racers were going to come from. To our surprise, registrations crept up past 30 teams and we had to calculate how many people would fit into the tiny Stanhope Community Centre. We closed registration at 40 teams and every one of them made it to the starting line. Lots of friends were there - so great to see them! If they weren't racing, they were volunteering. It was a big reunion of the central Canada AR community including a few familiar faces from the past.

There are lots of news updates and photos on the Wilderness Traverse website
and our Facebook page so I won't re-tell the story of the race here. It was exciting to watch!

Caledon was well represented by defending champions Team Salomon-Suunto.



Team Shed Coffee Bar was there too - 'Bent, ShedMan, T. Rex and Bender. This was 'Bent's return to 24-hour AR after spending the past ten months recovering from knee surgery. I had my fingers tightly crossed that he wouldn't re-injure it. I was proud to see his team doing so well. They reached as high as 5th place on the leaderboard and finished 8th in a tough battle.



In spite of heavy rain and a tough race course, 21 teams finished the entire course before the 30-hour cut-off. Another seven teams completed authorized short courses, two finished unranked, one short-coursed team missed the cut-off at the final TA, and nine teams withdrew.

The top ten teams finished within 2.5 hours of each other but other than the start-to-finish lead of Pentathlondesneiges.com (aka "Snowpants", thanks to Hansel), positions in the top ten shifted constantly during the race. Teams were separated by as little as 2 minutes at the finish line.

It was exciting to watch the SPOT trackers, which worked pretty well for most teams most of the time. SPOT coverage is never perfect, especially in forest, and teams need to keep it pointed properly at the sky, which can be hard to do. But they worked well enough to provide a fun spectator experience when combined with the leaderboard. I updated the latter constantly since I hate watching races where the leaderboard is meaningless and/or outdated.

Dee was awesome, helping spectators, answering dozens of Facebook questions and writing the lion's share of our live coverage updates. For a long time, radio/phone calls and problem solving were non-stop for me, and the leaderboard spreadsheet used up most of my spare time in between. Crazy but fun.



I naively brought along running gear and offered to put out the final two CPs during the day on Saturday. Racers were going to be on the opening trek for 6-12 hours so I figured it would be slow at HQ. Hahahahaha. As it turned out, it was all I could do to get a few 90-second bathroom breaks . The race had been underway for 16 hours before I had 2 minutes to make a cup of coffee in the kitchen, which was only a few meters away from my computer.

We dealt with minor logistics issues like getting empty water containers picked up, refilled and delivered to TAs where racers had been extra thirsty. We had to decide when it was safe for CP staff to leave based on the location of the final teams to pass through. We also had bigger stuff to deal with, e.g. two ambulances for minor incidents, lost racers (some of whom talked to me on the radio), and pick-ups for shivering drop-out racers waiting for rides in the rain

After the dust settled, Team Pentathlondesneiges.com triumphantly took Bob The Beaver home to Quebec - for a year. We'll miss him here in Caledon but we hope he'll be home soon.



'Bent has looked better but he had a great race and felt pretty good afterward for a guy whose knee has sidelined him for over a year.



Good times! I wasn't sure if I'd wish I were racing but it was rewarding to be on the other side and inspiring to chat with so many incredible people. It was great working with Bob right from the first course scouting last October until our countless radio conversations in the wee hours of Saturday morning. He cares about doing a good job and that makes for a rewarding volunteer - and racing - experience.

Congrats to all the teams!

Event: GUATS Wilderness Traverse
 

I haven't been able to work on my kayak roll lately but now I know how NOT to roll.

Report is posted for Saturday's Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race. Apologies for the puppy-related delay!

To get the new year off to a good start, I went for a pre-dinner run in Palgrave West. Legs felt great for some reason. Beautiful evening!

It's been a month since 'Bent and I lost Tobler and we miss her a lot. Fifteen years is a long time to share your life and home with someone. There will always be a gap in our family without her.

One thing we hadn't realized was the different dynamics of a single pet family vs. a multi-pet family. When Mocha arrived on the scene almost 8 years ago, things changed around here and it turns out we changed too. It feels weird to just have one pet. It's been cool that our dogs had distinct personalities and a relationship with one another that didn't involve us. When we went out, they hung out together. Mocha spent a lot of time alone in her puppyhood before she joined us and she loved having a big sister.

So Richard and I wanted to find a dog in need of a home and share some more doggie love. Tonight we welcomed Brody to our family. He's a 4-month-old Lab mix from a rescue organization.
<http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/20475515>
(We changed his name slightly.)

He hasn't been mistreated but he's been moved around a lot in his short life so he needs stability and training. It's too early for him to run but he looks like he'll be a great training partner when his muscles and joints have matured. He is already housetrained and pretty well-behaved - although he has lots of crazy puppy energy, which we'd kinda forgotten about over the years. I'll be taking some nice long early morning walks in the forest over the next while in order to tire him out.

Attackpoint name TBD!

Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race

Frankenjack has been dreaming and scheming about this ambitious event for months - a race from top to bottom of the rugged Bruce Peninsula, from Cabot Head to Wiarton.



Approximate splits from Garmin:
Bike 1 - 1:50
Run 1 - 2:15
Paddle - 1:57
Bike 2 - 1:26
Run 2 - 0:37

Transitions total: 0:23 (could still use work!)

It was awesome to see the event come together this weekend. The local support was incredible - 119 volunteers ranging from rescue kayakers to videographers to physicians. There were numerous links between the event and local businesses and organizations. The community spirit in the area is terrific and we all felt very welcome. The publicity was so good that almost everyone we encountered along the route knew about the race. There were people cheering for us on lawnchairs in front of their cottages early in the morning, and I noticed some of the same people again further along the course. So cool! I hope this event will keep running and evolving for years to come.

The Bruce Peninsula is a beautiful place where I've spent very little time so I was looking forward to travelling its length by bike, foot and paddle. Because it's not a navigation-style race, I didn't feel any pressure to do well - although I absolutely did *not* want to DNF. Beforehand, I was worried about making one of the time cut-offs so I didn't race with a camera, which is a shame given how beautiful the course was - not to mention that I was nowhere close to missing any cut-offs. Because the spectacular scenery was a big part of the day, I've scavenged a few nice photos from websites with the caveat that I don't have permissions or credits but I am very grateful to these talented photographers. On the main BPMR race website, there are some excellent photos of the short course including this awesome helicopter shot of the kayak start - one of the best race pics I've seen in awhile.



The long race course was just short of 100 km point-to-point. Working backwards, that meant a 3:30 a.m. alarm (and a lot of espresso) before a 4:30 am. race briefing. You may think this picture of the race briefing is blurry but the fact is, the entire *world* is blurry at 4:30 a.m.





Then we had a long bus ride to get to the 6:30 a.m. start at Cabot Head Lighthouse.



As usual, I had trouble falling asleep the night before and ended up turning a short sleep into a near-non-existent sleep. Arrgh. As much as I hate to do it, I think it's time to look into the sleeping pills that Baloney told us about last year - the ones that some ultrarunners use at stage races. I can't keep going into big races feeling exhausted at the starting line.

After the race briefing at the Wiarton Arena, we loaded onto the bus. The first part of our trip was dark, then the sky brightened with streaks of pink and blue. As we picked up our bikes and gathered in front of the lighthouse, the sun snuck above the horizon. Gorgeous!



The first part of the bike course was about 38 km, starting with some fast gravel roads, then entering some ATV tracks and rough, partially overgrown forest trails.



There was a 1 km section of rocky Bruce Trail on private land where we had to dismount and run with our bikes, monitored and cheered along by volunteers from the Bruce Trail Association. Much of today's course crossed private land, and the landowner agreement prohibits any maps of the race course from being published. So those of us with Garmin Forerunners were asked not to post our routes online. It is remarkable that a first year event was able to get access to trails on so much private land, so we definitely don't want to cause problems for future editions of the race.

Videographers filmed the bike section from their motorcycle and uploaded it immediately to the website - just like the Tour de France. :)



We made our way past Dyer's Bay and Cape Chin, eventually arriving in the village of Lion's Head, where we dropped our bikes and grabbed our running gear. At this point, I was the 2nd place woman - and incredibly surprised. I guess all those years of bouncing around rough trails on my bike have done some good. There are no photos but the videographers got a few clips of us here, including Jokeysmurf (FJ's little sister) and me.





I'd decided to use a different pack for four of the five legs of the race. (I used the same one for the two bike legs.) Each pack was set up with a pre-planned amount of food and water or sports drink, so I didn't have to fuss with refilling water or mixing up drink powder or checking to see how much food I had left. I did have to move my mandatory gear from pack to pack at the TAs, but I'd packaged it up to make it easy. It felt like this saved some time and energy along the way since there was virtually no thinking to be done at the TAs. Frankenjack is the master of races like this so I was inspired to try new ideas.

We left the village, cheered on by residents who had come out to watch. The next part of our route took us around the edge of Lion's Head Provincial Park Reserve, following the Bruce Trail for almost the entire 16 km run section.



Lion's Head is a well-known, extremely technical section of the Bruce Trail. It is very rocky and there are foot-eating potholes and crevices in the limestone, as well as small cliffs to scramble up and down as part of the trail. The trail twists and turns and climbs up and down - you have to watch the Bruce Trail blazes very carefully. On top of all this, the trail frequently meanders near the edge of a 200' cliff overlooking Georgian Bay.





On race day, some of the rock was covered with a light layer of mossy slime from the recent rain, adding to the challenge. We'd been warned to watch for venomous Massasauga rattlesnakes - no problem since we needed to look down a lot. We'd also been warned to keep an eye out for bears but there were many times I could have walked right into one since I was watching my feet so closely. Even so, my left foot slid sideways into a crevice at one point, and my right knee (the one still hurting from the canoe-trip-mouse incident) smashed down onto the rock. I decided that if I totally ignored the pain, it wouldn't swell up - and I got lucky. :) Another time, I caught my toe and did a swan dive but even though my arm was dirty and bloody, I avoided both rock and poison ivy as I landed, so it was no big deal. (I'm still waiting to see if I'll get P. Ivy somewhere though. I've rarely seen so much.)





To a fast runner, this trail probably sounds terrible. For me, it was great news because my slower running pace is best suited to technical race terrain. In a multisport event, I know that most of my competitors will be strongest at running, so anything that slows them down on the run gives me a chance to make up time on paddling and technical biking sections. I ran quite a bit in this section to avoid losing too much time but other than my two crashes, I was super cautious. I knew JayXC would not enjoy pulling an injured teammate up all the hills for 24 hours straight at the CNYO Rogaine in two weeks!



Early in this section, I met a small group of fast-looking guys including Mr. Logie who had lost the Bruce Trail and looped back. I pointed them in the right direction and they dashed off. This was a long section - over 2 hours - and I expected to be passed by fast runners whose technical mountain bike skills were a little weaker. There wasn't much action and I probably passed about the same small number of guys that passed me but I was waiting to see one woman in particular. After about 9 km, there she was - Jokeysmurf, FJ's younger sister. She is a local who knows how to run like the wind on the rugged Peninsula trails. I was happy to see her pass me and felt that the order of the universe had been restored now that she was ahead. I knew one more woman was ahead but I didn't know who it was. It turned out to be Ang, and Jokeysmurf passed her later in this run. Ang caught her later in the second bike section so they had a healthy rivalry.



Finally, the trail spit us out onto road and we headed into Barrow Bay to pick up our kayaks. I was excited to paddle Jake, my downriver racing kayak from New Zealand that had never been used in a race. I wasn't sure Jake was the right choice for Georgian Bay but I figured I would find out and know better for next time. Things turned out really well. I haven't seen splits yet but I'm sure this will turn out to be my best split relative to other racers. I caught and passed 4 male competitors, including the top Masters male, from quite a distance back. Sometimes my crazy adventure race training is useful for something! (The Masters male champion passed me in transition and finished the race 6 minutes ahead - easy come, easy go!)

There were rescue kayaks stationed at different points in open water along the route - so nice! These were friendly volunteer kayakers who would chat with us as we passed, making sure we felt OK and offering a silent reminder that the rules specified that we couldn't go too far from shore.

The bay was beautiful - like glass at first, then some ripples as we rounded Cape Dundas and entered Hope Bay into a light headwind. (These pics aren't from this section of shoreline but it looks very similar.) We couldn't have been more fortunate. There's a reason that Georgian Bay is famous for its shipwrecks! There was an alternate paddling course on a river so we would have been fine in bad weather.





We came ashore at the sandy beach at Hope Bay after about 16 km on the water. I would have loved it if the paddle had been twice as long because I was having such a great time out on the Bay. When I got in, volunteers told me that I was 7 minutes behind the 2nd place woman. That never changed over the next two hours of racing (although the 1st and 2nd women changed places), which is cause for celebration in my world.

The next bike section was about 20 km and more technical than the first section. Rocky horse trails, excellent single track, open fields and a bit of gravel road. I rode as much as I could since I figured that many racers would get off and walk sections so it was to my advantage to push my comfort zone when I could stand it.

I made a wrong turn in this section onto Slick's Trail - a wrong turn taken by enough racers that we should campaign to get it added to the official course! Unfortunately, the trail crew had used orange flagging tape, the same route marking used by our race, although it was suspicious from the start since the tape looked older and shorter than the regular route markings. Some people continued on from the end of Slick's trail and pushed through a field to the road, which was about the same distance as the real course. I didn't see flagging tape so I went back to the main route and got back on track after riding 11 minutes out of my way on bumpy single track. It was fun riding even though it was wrong, but now a group of guys had caught me after making the same wrong turn but not going as far as I did. I called out, "It's this way!", then pedalled off as fast as my legs would go. I kept looking over my shoulder until the end of the race but they didn't catch up.

'Bent was stationed between fields at a farm gate, which he would open and close while advising racers to watch for the cattle and "friendly bull" in the next pasture. Ironically, he had exchanged his green volunteer shirt for a red shirt signifying that he had first aid training. After that, he had to go into the field with the bull to flag part of the course. He started a small - but friendly - cattle stampede. He took a pic as I passed.



Earlier, he took a pic of Mr. Logie who had stopped to get some water.



In the section after that, I ran into Mr. Logie for the second time in the race - and let's face it, I should never see Mr. Logie after the starting line so he wasn't having a good day (trouble with course markings). He had a look of resignation as he changed a flat tubeless tire with goopy Stan's all over everything. I expected and hoped to see him again but the repair took awhile and I'd forgotten. Then he passed me on a double track so fast that I nearly jumped out of my pedals. *Nobody* in my part of the pack ever passes me that fast! It was cool to see, once my heart was back in my chest.

After dropping our bikes by the water in Colpoy's Bay, we headed up a hill for a final 6 km run on the Bruce Trail. I started out feeling good then suddenly felt a severe burning pain in my lower right abdomen unlike anything I've felt while running. There are lots of potential explanations for such things in a long race but naturally, my mind gravitated to the most spectacular possibility - an inflamed appendix. I knew that Frankenjack's big sister Dr. N, a physician, was at Bluewater Park working as Chief Safety Officer. I imagined how interesting I could make her day if my appendix ruptured right at the finish line. (In long races, your mind can wander to crazy places.) Although my legs felt fine, I decided to slow down by 1 min/km which got the pain under control. With only 5 km left at this point, it only meant a few minutes longer and hopefully I had that much time to play with. [Edit: Looking at the Garmin, it appears that I only did this for 2 km.]

The trail remained technical and we descended into Wiarton by a long spiral staircase that I think is connected to a ruined mansion on the escarpment. It felt appropriate to do Frankensteps as we approached the finish line of Frankenjack's race.



We ran a little farther on loose, rocky trail until coming out onto the road and running past the Wiarton Marina into the back entrance of Bluewater Park. Another 800 m on flat trail to the finish line - yahoo, 8 hrs 28 minutes and I didn't DNF!!

It was great to see friends after the race. Eco and WandAR were there. WandAR had an awesome race in the short event. (She is doing WT next weekend so no long race this time.)



Mique and his teammate John won the relay event on the Long course.



Katie and Jaxson were there too. Look out, Jaxson is going to be taller than Dad!



The solo winner with an hour's margin over 2nd place was my rogaine teammate, JayXC! Do I know how to pick 'em or what? Congrats, Jay!



JayXC's friend Angela won the female title. That's the last time we invite foreigners to our race. They take home all our medals! ;)



I was top Female Masters (congratulated by a police representative in this pic) and 3rd woman overall, about 8 minutes behind 2nd place (Jokeysmurf) and 33 minutes behind the female winner. This vastly exceeded my pre-event expectations and I am happy. The course was more technical than I'd expected and that helped a lot.



Congrats to Frankenjack, Leigh and the huge team of volunteers for pulling off an impressive first event. They are already making lists of improvements for next year but they did a great job the first time out.



The post-race party was at the Wiarton Inn. JayXC had won a $100 gift certificate for the restaurant so we craftily wangled an invitation to dine with him, Ang and Vincent. Turns out they didn't use up the entire $100 so he covered most of our dinner too. Who could have foreseen that? Merci! :)

Local singer Coco Love Alcorn performed for us. I'll leave you with my favourite song of the evening, an ode to many adventure racers and orienteers I know and a nod to my type of guy, "Intellectual Boys".

Packing up for the Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race tomorrow. 100 km of biking, trail running and paddling along the beautiful Bruce, organized by our good friend Frankenjack! It's a lot like planning for Coast to Coast - five race legs and I need to think about which bag I'm going to see when, and which shoes and hats I'll need in that bag, and how much food and water for each leg, etc., etc. I am soooo much less stressed when I'm packing for a race where I don't have a chance of being competitive. (This will be a speedy hammerfest with no nav - not my forte.) But I don't suppose that is a good enough reason to change my focus to events where I'm expected to do poorly!

Aug. 27-28 CNYO Rogaine details are posted. Earlybird fees till Aug. 19. Who's coming?

Cool! Got my 100,000th AP log hit today. Wish I knew as many people in real life. Thanks for stopping by. :)

In the "better late than never" department, here's our Algonquin Park canoe trip report. Lots of photos and a surprising amount of legit training. All three of us (including BulletDog) needed to rest after our vacation!

Rodney Yee Power Yoga for Flexibility - Very, very rusty. Wow.

Just a quick run to make sure all the body parts are working. It's too late to improve my fitness for this weekend so I'll just have to make do with what I've got. BulletDog and I went around Palgrave West; she was totally in her element. We tried to sneak out between storm cells and almost succeeded.

" A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things. "

Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
U.S. Naval Officer and inventor of the first software compiler

And I thought *I* had problems with my strength training...
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bodybuilder-cant-...

Met Dee and Mr. Logie in Collingwood for a Georgian Bay paddle. As I drove up to their unit, I was horrified to see a 7-months pregnant woman lying face down on the pavement beneath a truck. But Dee is hard core and she was just doing a good job of tying on her pretty new sunset-coloured Cobra Eliminator kayak. She politely refused assistance as she had the situation totally under control.

We didn't see much of Mr. L. on the water since he was on assignment to go diving in search of Dee's favourite sunglasses near one of the islands. Sadly, in spite of his best efforts, the sunglasses remain with the fishes.

Dee and I carried on to the lighthouse and back. After all my paddling last week, I talked Coach Dee out of cracking the whip since I just wanted an easy conversational paddle on G. Bay to catch up on news and see if my JKK Eclipse feels like the right boat choice for next weekend's Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race. It should be fine although I'm not sure it'll be any faster in those conditions than the carbon Wavemaster sea kayak I used in last year's Logs Rocks & Steel. The tight cockpit on the Eclipse means that I'm practically guaranteed to dunk myself on entry, exit or both, since I somehow have to get my legs inside before sitting down. Perhaps I should take wagers on how many swims I'll have!

Beautiful area to paddle, great company and an excellent lunch afterward at Chez Logipolie. Drove home through some heavy rain, glad to be done my training for the day!

Today would have been Tobler's 15th birthday. Lots of great dog memories and a few tears.

'Bent, Mrs. Tiny and I headed out from her place in Kitchener for a fun road ride. Mrs. T had chosen an interesting route that toured around villages in the K-W area and through the last covered bridge in Ontario at West Montrose. (The place where Funderstorm and I finished our Grand River kayak paddle a few weeks ago.)

'Bent's rear chain ring was loose and noisy, and he didn't have the tool to fix it. We knew there was a good bike shop in Elora, then we remembered that ThreePinJim, who owns every tool ever invented (not just bike), lives 3 blocks away from the bike shop. So it was a great excuse to stop in for a chat and a glass of wonderful cold lemonade with the Follas family.

They suggested Van Gali's restaurant in Fergus so we rode 5 km further before taking a delicious lunch break on a shady patio. We rode back to Elora to work up an appetite for dessert - mine was a peach smoothie. Then back on the road where we made the most excellent discovery that Kitchener is downhill from Elora. We hadn't noticed this on the way up but I suppose the direction of flow of the Grand River ought to have tipped us off.

Fun day! When we were riding (and not being tourists in Elora), our little pace line moved at a decent speed so the training was as good as the dining. Princess was glad to get out of the garage for a change. Great to catch up with Mr. Tiny afterward as well and get a tour of house and cats.

Historical note: the last time 'Bent and I did a road ride from K-W to Elora was the day we met for the the first time on a group bike ride more than 20 years ago.

Day 1 report from our Algonquin Park canoe trip is posted.

http://www.ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920...

Cav is a free agent. Sadly, after a very successful Tour, Team HTC-Highroad has been forced to disband due to lack of sponsorship.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/htc-highroad-disba...

I bought the spray version of my usual sport sunscreen as an experiment, and this is what I've learned so far:

1) I use less sunscreen.
2) It makes the room smell like a chemical factory.
3) It sets off the carbon monoxide detector. Yikes, that was scary until 'Bent figured it out.

Started with a 40-minute family run in Palgrave West with 'Bent and BulletDog, then we spun off in different directions as planned. 'Bent wanted a shorter, faster run and I wanted long slow distance. Unfortunately, the heat, humidity, long training hours over the past week, and inadequate meals today combined to make this run feel a lot harder than it should have been.

Much of the value of an LSD run comes from running while fatigued, and I figured that I was able to get that value earlier in the run than I usually do. So I turned around and cut it short at just 17 km. With the Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race next weekend - and its 4:30 a.m. race briefing! - it's time for some rest and recovery.

I'll fill in details and photos for our Algonquin Park canoe trip over the next day or two, and when I've finished, I'll put a note here for those who are interested in that sort of thing. Of course, if you were just interested in *serious* training logs, you wouldn't be here anyway! :)

From Town Hall in Caledon East to The Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain and back with 'Bent. We were fast on the rail trail but ended up on some painfully slow single track in our latest explorations between Inglewood and Belfountain. Mosquitoes, horse-trampled muck and poison ivy - ugh. 'Bent was flying today on the good trails with his new racing tires.

There were four different modes of transportation parked outside The Shed today.

Algonquin Park canoe trip - Day 6

This morning our weather luck ran out.







BulletDog couldn't figure out why we would want to be outside on a day like this. Isn't this why we have a house?





We paddled to the south end of Big Trout Lake, then portaged to the Otterslide River where we spent several hours winding around bends in the rain, passing lots of other canoes going in the same direction. Where did they all come from? We saw almost no one on Big Trout Lake for the past few days.



Our lunch stop made us chilly, then we paddled soaking wet into a strong headwind for awhile. Today's plan had been a half-day paddle to Burnt Island Lake, which would leave us just a couple hours from our car tomorrow morning. The idea was to enjoy swimming and sunshine on our way out of the Park but I decided that I'd enjoy a nice restaurant more than sitting in the rain, so we continued on past Burnt Island Lake to Little Joe Lake. That's where Arowhon Pines lodge is, the place where our wedding was based.



The clouds did some cool things and by the end of the day, the weather had turned nice again but by then, we were committed to moving forward.



For the first time in ages, our wedding campsite was unoccupied. We stopped to visit and walk "the aisle".



I gave BulletDog a backrub to get her to look at the camera. This is where we stood during the ceremony 15 years ago this September.



And so is this.



Then back to Canoe Lake and into civilization.



Sometimes even Dairy Queen isn't enough. After a terrific dinner and drinks at Muskoka on the Rocks, we went to Kawartha Dairies in Huntsville. Apparently, this is the small cone. (No, I didn't eat both of them!)

Algonquin Park canoe trip - Day 5

Less wind today and incredible sunshine so we made another attempt at the day trip to Burntroot Lake. At the north end of Big Trout Lake, there is a 300 m portage to Longer Lake. I told 'Bent we were going to run intervals there and he grumbled about the boredom. His Wilderness Traverse teammates will be pleased to know that I talked him into it and he worked pretty hard. You're welcome.



We did out-and-back as a warm-up, then 5 faster intervals out with moderate runs back. The portage turned out to be hillier and more technical than most 300 m portages, so we limited the "fast" speed to "technical trail race" speed, and the return run was a little faster than a normal interval resting run. Then we finished with another out-and-back at moderate pace. This was the only occasion on our trip when we ran into people while we were doing silly training things - running on portage trails and using kayak paddles. They were polite about it. :) Then we did one final trip across the portage with our stuff.



We paddled up Longer Lake into a river system, then there were another couple of short portages into Burntroot Lake.





Burntroot Lake was really nice but we couldn't stay long today. Just stopped at an island for a swim with BulletDog, then turned around to head back to Big Trout.





Back to our campsite for a final night of enjoying the view. No visits from Darth so dinner was relaxed. Chocolate mousse (not mouse) tonight - yum! This was our first trip where we relied heavily on packaged dried meals. They've come a long way since we started doing this stuff and they were delicious.

Algonquin Park canoe trip - Day 4

Another gorgeous morning. 'Bent and BulletDog got up early and I slept in - mmm.



We planned a long day trip up to Burntroot Lake today. We hoped our food was out of Darth's reach - not to mention any other wildlife that might visit in our absence.



I loved this rock beside our bear rope.



We headed up Big Trout Lake and after half an hour realized that we'd be crazy to get too far from our campsite in a low, unloaded canoe in strong wind and rising waves. This was morning and the wind would get stronger through the day. We were carrying survival gear but didn't really want to turn our vacation into an epic adventure. So we headed a different direction to check out the marshy river in the southeast part of the lake, heading toward the Merchant Lake portage.











There were still some hairy moments during our return paddle to the campsite but fewer than there would have been if we'd done the trip we'd planned. When we got back, we did some leg strength/stability exercises.





BulletDog found a place to rest.



We went for a nice, calm evening paddle.







BulletDog loves, loves, loves the tent and will ask to go inside with or without us - something she would never do at home, where she likes to be with us all the time. Tonight we had a campfire, which we rarely do, but she decided to skip it and hit the sack early.



She has her own sleeping bag on a PFD by our feet but in this pic, she'd crawled up onto 'Bent's softer one. In the morning, we often found her stretched out full length between us.



Typical night life in Algonquin. 'Bent reading a book on his iPod.



And me reading an old-fashioned paper book that is heavier but doesn't need its battery charged.

For the RTNX racers who are catching up on AP, congratulations on a great job in a super tough race! I'm posting this entry in advance for a future date to welcome you home since I'll be off the Internet for a week till Thurs. night and can't post well-deserved congrats on your logs yet because the race isn't over!

In the meantime, just so there's *something* in my log, here's the report from Equinox Traverse, the 46-hour race I did right before RTNX when RTNX racers were heading west and not reading AP anymore!
http://www.ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920...

Looking forward to reading everyone's race reports. Welcome home. :)