Training Log Archive: Bash

Hiked with 'Bent and the pooches for a couple of hours. Nice to see 'Bent's back starting to improve. I'm glad he's been able to restrain himself from training too much and re-injuring it. Once we got past all the berry patches on today's hike, we kept up a good pace, so it's worth logging part of it. I'm not feeling too sore, even though my knee and hip twinged during yesterday's 25K run. I did a LOT of stretching afterward because I had time to spare while waiting for friends to finish the 50K. Whaddaya know? Apparently, stretching works.

Damn Tuff Ruff Bluff 25K trail run - Owen Sound

25 km trail race. This wasn't so much a race as a way to force myself to do some long distance training at a reasonably high intensity. I started off "pacing" ThreePinJim, who planned to do the 50 km race in double my planned time for the 25 km. We stuck together for 3 km, then he felt so good that he took off and finished in 5:08, taking 70 minutes off his PB!!

We did two 12.5 km laps, with the first 4.5 km getting us to the top of the escarpment, including some sections of the Bruce Trail where it was a steep, muddy, rocky scramble. After that, the rest of the lap was relatively easy, with nice flat forest trails on top of the escarpment, and 1 km of our descent taking place on a paved road.

Unlike almost any race of any kind I've ever done, people passed me right up till the end, and I didn't pass many people after the first few km. Usually it's the other way around. All I can guess is that I must have started out too quickly, even though it sure didn't feel that way. Or maybe these ultra-runners are all just better at pacing themselves than most of the people I usually race against. In the words of Paul Sherwen, I C-R-R-RACKED during the climb on the 2nd lap, but I dug deep into my suitcase of courage and pulled out a raspberry gel, which got me to the finish. :-)

Finished just ahead of mid-pack overall, and the same in my division. Compared with last year's 32K Iroquoia Trail Test, I didn't feel as good, but the ratio of my times is about the same as the ratio of the times for Tarno, who won both races. Very impressed with Tarno winning the 25K with a herniated disk, TVP coming 3rd in the 50K, ThreePinJim's amazing new PB, and Charlotte's relaxed 50K "training run" for next week's Jay Peak Marathon.

Rest day before 25 km trail race tomorrow. My hotel room in Owen Sound has high-speed Internet - something I can't get at home - so I may not get enough sleep before my 8 a.m. race.

Trail run in Palgrave West with BulletDog, who is now sleeping very contentedly.

Trail run around Palgrave West, checking out some of the devastation from Monday's storm. Huge leafy trees were pushed over as if they were toothpicks. Most trails are blocked in one or two places. There are places where I won't feel safe off-trail until we've had a few more good windstorms - and preferably a heavy snowfall. There are lots of damaged trees and limbs that don't look like they're quite finished plummeting to earth. Crash was almost taken out by one of those yesterday. Other than that, I enjoyed the slightly cooler temperature (i.e. below 30C), and it actually felt good to run.

Hiked with 'Bent and pooches to Crash's place, since we couldn't reach her by phone with the power out. We toured her beautiful new professional kitchen in a renovated barn. Wow! We had high hopes that she would be experiencing a crisis situation where huge pans of brownies thawing in the freezer would need to be eaten after 34 hours without electricity, but unfortunately, it wasn't our lucky day.

Our power came back on at mid-day after more than 36 hours without electricity. It was moderately adventurous for a little while, but it got old fast. In the country, no electricity also means no running water, which means no showers and only one flush per toilet. The biggest issue is keeping the fridge cold, so that was the main reason we turned on our generator from time to time. Both 'Bent and Crash lost income because dentists and chefs can't do much without electricity.

We never know if an outage will be 2 hrs or 40 hrs, so we spend a lot of time waiting around to do things, assuming that the power will come back on shortly. Our security system and various detectors kept beeping and emitting alarms at regular intervals to let us know that their battery power was fading. This meant that the pooches - especially ThunderDog - were highly stressed, and we didn't want to leave them here alone while we went to a movie theatre or something. I was feeling stressed too, because I'm working to a deadline this week, and I needed my computer. Yesterday was Alpe d'Huez, which added insult to injury, but we did see the race eventually.

I love living without electricity on canoe or backpacking trips, but I'm glad to have the lights back on at home!

Trail run in Palgrave West - Charlevoix Loop. I am awarding myself a gold star for heading out when the thermometer read 33C, especially given my current ambivalence toward outdoor training in the heat. However, it will have to be a very small gold star, because I was clock-watching the whole time I was out, and I stopped running the moment I reached my planned time of 30 minutes. Black and red raspberries are at their peak right now, so I took my time hiking home. Wildlife report: One wild turkey in the raspberry patch.

Hard Core Monday