Training Log Archive: Bash

OK - some New Year's training resolutions:

1) Strength training - min. 60 min/week, including at least two leg strength sessions and more core strength than I've been doing. (Up from 30 min/week in 2005, with delusions that I was somehow doing more.) It seems low, but I want to start with something that I can definintely achieve, so I don't get discouraged and give up too soon. Also, from looking at other people's logs, I notice that 1 hr/week of strength training is huge by orienteering standards. Among my AR friends, Bent and Skidder do more strength training than that, but they are both guys whose physical strength makes a major contribution to their teams. I just need to be strong enough for me - I'm unlikely to be the one who carries the team's heaviest pack or pushes someone else's bike up a mountain.

2) Running form exercises - 1 session/week.

3) Speed and/or Hill Intervals - Min. 1 session/week.

4) Find ways to improve technical orienteering skills. I should have a specific goal or two here, but I'm not sure how I'm going to do this. I'm looking forward to learning more through my GHO Canada GHO involvement, maybe setting a couple of courses, and hopefully some map making.

5) 500 hrs total training (9.6 hrs/week, which is 2 hrs/week less than 2005, but I don't expect to do as many long races, which skew the number up)

That's probably enough for now, since I'm always adjusting my training goals as I go along, and if I have too many resolutions, I'll lose focus.

Racing goals for 2006:

??? Not sure yet. Since starting to adventure race, I've said that 2006 will be my last year in the sport. There was no particular reason to choose this year. I just figured that 4 years is long enough to train for a sport that is so demanding in terms of time (due to multi-sport training and time commitments for races), gear, team organization and money. My knee injury this year was an indication that I might be overdoing it with endurance sports. I couldn't be less of a natural athlete, and I don't know how long I can continue to race credibly against people 10-20 years younger.

Also, our Tree Hugger teammates have increasingly busy lives, and I suspect that it will be harder to get them out to as many races this year. It seems like the logical time to start winding down our team, rather than going into a rebuilding phase with new people.

On the other hand, I absolutely love the physical and mental challenges of AR training and racing... hmmm, what to do?

Outside of AR, some early goals are:

1) Top 3 in women's category of Thomass winter orienteering series - maybe even win the coveted toque with the help of my high handicap?
2) Medal in COCs (may be beyond my reach, given the strong competition there is likely to be when the event is held in central Ontario, but it's good to have a stretch goal)
3) 25+ km trail race - top 3 in age category?? (not sure if this is at all realistic, but I was 4th in the 32 km Iroquoia Trail Test last year)
4) Enter a female team (probably) in the North Am Rogaine Champs, and win our category. (Did this in 2005, and am looking forward to a race where the bears are smaller.)

Oops - just thought of training goal #6:

Introduce the concept of periodization into my training schedule over the next few months.

I've never been good at following training programs, since I tend to go skiing whenever the snow is nice, and I stay out a couple of hours if I don't have other obligations - not because it's a "heavy training" week. But there must be some way to take advantage of ideas like cycles, recovery, building to a peak, etc. in my training. I need all the help I can get!

Today's outing in Palgrave is difficult to categorize. Bent and I were snowshoeing, but it was mostly upper body exercise, since we carried pruners and saws, and worked on opening up several km of trail that were blocked following the snow/ice storm. Good progress! Bent's commuting route is open now. I can sure feel my arms from yesterday's skate-skiing, and today I was made aware of yet another group of muscles. Maybe this is why I get away (more or less) with so few hours of strength training - it gets built into other activities.

Skate skiing with Bent at Hardwood Hills. I think this was my 3rd time skate-skiing, so I still felt uncoordinated about 25% of the time. I hate to admit this in public, but I've been classic skiing for 30 years (gulp!), so I expect skate-skiing will take awhile to feel natural. What amazes me is how much WORK it is compared to classic skiing. Bent described it as being like riding a bike that only has a large chain ring. That's a pretty accurate description from my perspective. It feels like I always have to push - I can't ever slack off, except on mild downhills.

When I did the Canadian Ski Marathon, I skied 160 km over two days in just over 20 hours. There is no way I could skate-ski that far (not that skating is an option for the CSM), because I can't go that hard for that long, and I can't figure out how to do a "long, slow" skate-ski.

However, for all my whinging, there is no question that we were absolutely flying compared to the speed we'd be going on classic skis, except on steep uphills where we can run up faster on classics than we can skate (at this point, anyway). It was also cool to feel that I was working different muscles than usual, and they were starting to feel stronger and more effective after awhile.

I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of other classic skiers who learned how to skate-ski.

Racing with The Laner in the Chuck Norris Orillian Adventure Fun Session for Jerks, a highly competitive event at Adidas P&L's New Year's Party. There was no map, but there was challenging navigation, plenty of clues (written as poetry), lots of questions to answer, and the same amount of bushwhacking as in this year's Beast of the East.

The Laner and I worked well as a team, in spite of meeting for the first time only a few minutes prior to the race. I handled the algebra questions and (unbelievably) the NFL clue, while he steered us in the correct direction with his understanding of the word "chicane" and also devised a clever towing system from his own jacket to increase our team's speed. Oh my lungs!!! I can't remember when I've ever run that fast, since I didn't want to let down someone I barely know!

The objective of the race was to get all 16 questions correct, then any ties would be broken based on race time. We were the only team to get all the answers, so luckily it didn't matter that Bent's team ("Recum-Bakes") beat us by 1 minute! Our Santa Trophy for 1st place was truly stunning (apparently it has been re-gifted several times), and we look forward to seeing our names engraved on it. A fun race and a great party!

I've only been logging my training since mid-March, so I can't do a real year-end summary. Still, it's fun to take a look at the end of 2005 and see what I've been doing. The totals don't reflect the correct proportion of skiing and snowshoeing, since I'll be doing a lot more of that in the remaining 10 weeks of my training year.

2005 Training (42 weeks): 488 hrs

Adventure Racing 172 hrs
Orienteering 106 (incudes a 24-hr rogaine)
Running 63
Cycling 51
Paddling 29
Strength 21.5 (pathetic!!!)
XC Skiing 20.5 (this number will increase - probably close to my cycling hrs over a 12-month period)
Trekking 17
Snowshoeing 8 (also will increase)

Tomorrow I'll log my New Year's training resolutions, and ask for abuse to be rained upon me if I fail to live up to them. :-)

Happy New Year to all!

Snowshoe running around Palgrave West. It's much colder today following two days of rain, so the ground is icy-hard. I made a clattering noise as I ran, thus there are no wildlife sightings to report today. Felt pretty good, considering that I'm carrying some extra pounds due to turkey, stuffing and dark chocolate.

Around Palgrave West on a dreary day. I had to force myself out the door, but felt surprisingly light and energetic once I started running. I slowed down and turned toward home when ThunderDog seemed to be having trouble with the thin ice layer over the deep snow. Just before we reached the boundary of the conservation area, the "poor doggie" took off like a shot through thick forest, following some interesting scent. I eventually managed to catch up after floundering through sharp tree branches and snow-covered logging debris on a steep hillside. She definitely won't be getting any sympathy the next time she pretends to be having difficulty!

Probably my most important training activity of the day was purchasing a DVD recorder in a Boxing Day sale. This means that the old DVD player can be moved to the exercise room so we can watch Bent's new Tour de France 2005 DVDs while using the weight machine and bike trainer! (I need *something* to inspire me to go down there more often.)

Leg and core strength exercises. I'm working on an appropriate New Year's resolution related to strength training, since my 2005 total time spent on strength is much lower than I would like.

Palgrave got a dump of heavy, wet snow on Christmas night, so we returned home to a winter wonderland. It's the kind of snow you see on the west coast, which unfortunately is too much for our trees to handle. Today's ski was slow because we had to keep stopping to knock snow off branches as we attempted to get bending trees to stand up straight so they won't break. Some huge branches had fallen, and we dragged them off the trails where we could. We'll need to return with saws and pruners to deal with the carnage, but it will be a major job to get all of our trails back in good skiing condition this year.

Forgot to mention that we met Rocky when we were out today! She was snowshoe-running at a good pace in heavy snow. Only in the world of Attackpoint can you run into someone you've never met and instantly guess who they are based on what you know about them from their training log! :-)

Several days ago, I went into the woods to get some firewood and managed to do an endo when my foot swung into an unseen boulder. Before landing on my face in the snow, I managed to hyperextend my right leg - the one with the injured knee. For the past few days, it's been loose and "rattly" again, although not too painful. It feels like I've undone the last 6-8 weeks of healing from my injury on Labour Day. Rats!