Training Log Archive: Bash

THOMASS Scanlon Creek

We started the morning with a surprise Skype conversation with Gazelle and Gazette in Tajikistan - awesome! Thus we arrived at the event with just enough time to get our shoes on and gear together, but not enough time to warm up. I noticed less than a minute before starting that I had accidentally grabbed my crappy old adventure racing compass that takes a couple of seconds to settle. Oh well. Most of us started the race with painfully cold fingertips, which were pretty distracting for the first 15 minutes or so. ("Is that the trail junction? Do you suppose that a person could lose all their fingertips permanently from doing a Thomass race?")

I felt like every fibre in my body was slow-twitch today, including brain neurons, although my legs got faster toward the end. It's crazy how long it takes me to warm up! Luckily, the nav wasn't difficult today, although I still managed to make a careless error at a trail junction, which forced me to change my plan for the Thomass Box.

I've been lucky that a couple of Thomass courses this year have favoured racers with higher handicaps and lower trail running speed. This race was not one of those! We ran around the area twice. The first map was the Thomass Box, and the second map was a course with 5 additional controls spread around the area that we all had to visit, plus the finish. I arrived at the 3rd last control with Slice and Leanimal. The next control was on the far side of a lake, and I decided to take the less likely direction around, since I knew that my only hope of squeaking ahead of those speedy women was to choose a different route and keep my fingers crossed. Well, my sneaky scheme didn't work, and my esteemed competitors tied for 6th overall - congrats! I came in at 16th overall, 5th woman. Fun event with lots of friends there.

Skate skiing at Hardwood Hills with BillyWells, Bender, BobTheNavigator, Leanimal, Phatty and 'Bent. Coach Billy shared a few pointers, and it was useful to just watch his graceful technique for gliding up hills. We went around the Pine Loop and all of its side loops. Lots of hill climbs, and much of the time, it was quite a push to keep up with such a fast crew. I can't remember the last time I went skiing in a group of 7 friends, and it was a gorgeous winter day too - so I'll rank this "A" for Awesome.

Normally, I would have called it a day after spending 75 minutes doing my first real skate-ski of the season, but I didn't want to be a total wimp - only a partial one. So I opted out of moving on to the more difficult Olympic Loop, and all of us except for Billy and Bobby took a drink break in the chalet. Then we headed out to the Meadowlands Trail, where the hills are gentler, and we had the luxury of working on our technique. At least that was the idea, but I was fatigued enough to have trouble staying consistent. 'Bent still seemed full of energy at the end, although he did have a spectacular crash on his final approach to the chalet, so perhaps even he was starting to feel it! Fun afternoon.

Planned rest day. 'Bent and I hosted a public tour of our solar power grid-tie system, and folks hung out for a couple of hours munching on cookies and chatting with like-minded people.

Nice ski around Palgrave East and West with 'Bent and Leanimal. BulletDog needs to be cured of her over-enthusiastic habit of leaping at me while I'm skiing down hills - and she did the same thing to Leanimal. 'Bent is immune for some reason. Conditions are very good right now, but they'll be even better tomorrow after the predicted 5 cm of snow, which is already falling. :-)

I felt good except for sore calves from yesterday's leg strength exercises. I went a bit overboard with calf lifts, since I can feel that I've lost some strength there, and now I'm paying the price - ouch.

I was able to get tickets to Calgary on Aeroplan points, so we're going to stay with our friends, Walker and Cathy, at their vacation rental property in Canmore for a week - woo hoo! They are Canadians who live in Japan, and we've only seen them once since Walker was in our wedding party more than 10 years ago. Looking forward to trying out the Nordic Centre at last!

BulletDog and I did a quick ski of the Charlevoix Loop - not because I needed the training before tonight's C3 workout, but because it's such a treat to be able to ski at last! It was -15C, and I didn't wear warm enough gloves, but everything else felt fine. I've been cheating by using waxless classics on my last couple of skis, but I went back to using real gear today, and it was great to have glide again!

While watching the Daily Show, recorded last week. A fair bit of discussion on Fidel Castro's new artificial anus. I feel sorry for Adidas, since their logo was predominantly displayed on Castro's jacket in the video clip.

Ran in Caledon East with a small group of C3 diehards on a frigid night with light snow falling. My eyelashes got crunchy-frozen early on, and there were other small patches of ice on my face that I didn't notice until I got back - yikes. We only did 4 hill intervals this time, plus some loops of the big block. 'Bent was looking speedy in his cool new Salomon jacket from Phatty.

I need to think of a different way to describe tonight's session with Caron Shepley, because "Hard Core" doesn't seem sufficient to do it justice. Perhaps "Evil Core" or "Nasty, Difficult Core" or "Just Hold That Position for Another Count of 8." Ouch. No question, she was enjoying our pain. She's doing it all with us, so she's not purely a sadist. She's a masochist too.

Power Yoga to finish off the evening. There were a couple of things that I totally could not do, both of which involved holding my entire body up with my arms. (Or not.) Otherwise, it went well and felt great. My balance is improving slowly.

Unplanned rest day. My weight seems to have stabilized - unfortunately - after losing half of the poundage that I'd hoped to shed after Christmas.

Great news! Crash has volunteered her back yard bonfire as the race HQ for Thomass Caledon on Feb. 18. She's even hinted at a few yummy treats that might be offered to orienteers who make it out of Palgrave West alive. Thank you, Crash!!

Met Luscious and K/O on the Humber Valley Trail to do a photo shoot for my upcoming magazine article on trail running. Poor Luscious was forced to do a lot of hill intervals for the sake of art, but they both kept smiling. I could have stayed for the rest of the run, but wanted to go into town for some quick grocery shopping, then go skiing.

Unfortunately, it turned out that 'Bent had put his heart and soul into producing this particular grocery list, which I'd agreed to shop for. It was one of his most impressive ever collections of eclectic items that cost a lot and take forever to find in the store, yet leave me feeling like there is nothing to eat in the house. E.g.:
- Organic Tamari Almonds
- Indian Mango Pickles
- Gluten Flour
- Frozen Chopped Spinach
- Canned Organic White Beans
- Anchovies
- Mini Ritz Cracker cheese sandwiches (for adventure racing only)

Under the circumstances, I felt that I'd better get creative and toss in a few items of my own, like bread, juice, milk and fruit - just in case I ever get hungry and don't crave an Indian Mango Pickle. It's a good thing 'Bent is such a talented cook (not to mention the *only* cook in this house!), so I'm willing to spend time searching for his organic tamari almonds.

Thanks to my shopping escapades, it was late in the afternoon before I could get out skiing, so I packed a headlamp. My first stop was Crash's house, where I delivered her prizes from Saturday's race and hung her medal around her neck. It is so cool to be able to ski to a friend's house! Then I continued around Palgrave East and West. Conditions are amazing, considering that it was green grass just 9 days ago. Unfortunately, Palgrave East had been well-toured by horses, who churned up the snow and left patches of brown klister on the trail in inconvenient places. Regardless, it was a beautiful evening, and I headed back when the light faded. Less than a kilometer from home, a 30 kg dog with a flashing red LED collar leapt at me. It turned out to be my own BulletDog, apparently unaccompanied in the dark. A minute later, 'Bent skied around the corner. She'd caught a whiff of me and had taken off down the trail. It was a nice ski home together with most of our little family.

Crash had mentioned that she was holding a bonfire tonight, complete with hot mulled wine, espresso and other treats. An offer that good was too tough to resist, so 'Bent and I put on headlamps and skied over to join the party. Thank you, Crash! Mmm... I'll bet if I'd put hot mulled wine into my Camelbak in Saturday's race, it wouldn't have frozen. Sure, I might have made the odd navigation error, but on the bright side, I wouldn't have cared, really.

When I came downstairs this morning, ThunderDog was sitting up with her back to me, staring out the picture window, framed by the view of snowy hills and trees - looking just like a Norman Rockwell painting. She was so absorbed that she didn't even hear me come up behind her. So I knew that I couldn't ski without her today!

It was one of those perfect days with fluffy, untracked snow and a sun-dappled forest, and I wished that I had lunch in my pack and a 40 km ski to a back-country hut ahead of me. But no, I needed to come back and read about water vapour feedback in climate models, thanks to Doc Hammer - although I confess that I skied too long to finish all the reading that I should have done for tonight's lecture.

ThunderDog continued to act half her age, as she has been doing on these snowy days. At one point, she took off into thick bush, and finally I went after her, wearing my nice new Salomon jacket from Phatty that I'd promised myself never to bushwhack in. Lucky for both of us, she popped out of the woods before I did any damage.

Bring on more winter!! :-)