Training Log Archive: Bash

My 2nd lap was just before dawn, and I needed lights for the first third of the course. Good thing it wasn't pitch black, as my Digital Head Trip was failing right from the start, in spite of performing well in tests at home. I didn't do much of a warm-up at 5 a.m., but at least I didn't need to wait long at the transition, since VO2Max appeared right on time after another speedy lap. The air was cold and wonderful, and some of the dust had settled with a little more moisture at the end of the night. At this time of day, there are fewer riders on the race course - nice. I knew I wasn't going quite as fast as last night, plus I had more darkness during my lap, which made me a bit more cautious. I'm not a sprinter, and it doesn't come naturally for me to do two 1-hour race pace efforts in a 12-hour period! Although I enjoy 36-hr adventure races, I find that 2 hrs of all-out biking in a relay event is plenty for me.

I'm not sure if it's meaningful, but VO2Max was 40% faster than me last year and 30% faster this year. I was also closer to 'Bent's times this year - about 3 min. per lap behind him instead of 6 min. As a masters athlete, I'm always grasping for any small signs of improvement (as opposed to decline!!)

24 Hrs of Summer Solstice - Albion Hills

7th year for the Tree Huggers. Great team this year - about half of them new members. I like to mix it up for the Solstice weekend, pulling together different people who enjoy camping and biking, and focusing on having fun at an amazing, phenomenally well-organized event. Team members have their own individual racing goals, and there are some internal competitions between friends, but overall, we don't take this event overly seriously as a race. I always figure that if we did, as the captain, it would be my duty to cut myself from the team and look for a better rider - so I'm happy to keep it casual!

That said, we were in 5th place of 127 teams after our first 4 riders (VO2Max, Logan, 'Bent, Angus), and finished 18th after 24 hours with 24 laps. For a fun team, we've got to be happy with that! (Heck, we were 26th for the past two years, and we were happy with that too.)

The roster this year was Knobless (only other 7-time team member besides 'Bent and me), VO2Max and his friend Logan, Smash and LD, Sid, Crooksie, 'Bent and me. Great rides by everyone, with Logan taking the Fastest Lap Award at 45:23, and VO2Max putting in four impressive laps in the 48-50 minute range after a year of national and international cross-country ski competition. Smash came close to his former students with a smokin' 53 minute lap. 'Bent pulled in a 57 minute lap, even as 2000 people watched his recumbent bike go by and said, "No way - that thing can't do single track!"

It was great to see so many friends throughout the weekend, including Rocky, Tiny, several Caledon Navigators, and the folks from the Caledon Cycling Club camped next door. There were a number of appearances by Crash whizzing by on the race track that passed our camp, wearing a different attractive biking outfit every time. Our camp cuisine was taken to a new level with a generous supply of Crash brownies, LD cookies and Pate's Mom's cookies. Yum!!

Lots of fun as always!

For the first time, our 9-member team made it through a full rotation before total darkness fell. Since I always take the last spot in the line-up, I think my first lap has always been dark. So this year it was quite exciting to be able to see for most of my ride, then I just needed lights in the forest sections for the last few km. (Good thing, because my light wasn't aimed well.)

I had done a much better warm-up than usual, but badly misjudged the timing and ended up waiting at the transition area for 30 minutes for a teammate who had crashed. I started my lap with legs that felt like concrete. It didn't take too long to get into the groove though, and the cooler evening weather was sweet. All the riders I encountered this year were super-polite, whether they were passing me or vice versa. Some years I've encountered aggressive riders who have made the racing experience less fun. I think it helped that this year's course had more double track sections where people could pass each other safely and without interfering with one another.

My semi-slick tires worked well. I skidded a little more in some places, but they were nice and speedy on the long open stretches. I felt good about my riding, and made it past a few technical obstacles that I usually wimp out of on our training rides, since I didn't want to hold anyone up. I was hoping to break an hour on this year's faster course, but I missed by 36 seconds - oh well!

It's always fun running errands around Caledon on the day before the 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice. Wherever you go in town, there are cars with bikes on the roof, or hanging off the back, or crammed inside. It's the largest 24 Hour mountain bike relay in North America, and it feels like the whole world is coming to our little town! Fantastic weather forecast - should be a great weekend.

Smash, LD and I headed out on the spur of the moment to do a final pre-ride lap on the 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice course The course is in excellent shape, and the weather was perfect. Smash led with a strong pace throughout. It wasn't quite race pace, but it was a big step up from our Wed. morning group rides, which was the right thing to be doing this close to the race. Halfway around, we discovered Guitar Man hiding under a shady tree, enjoying an easy day out because of his injured ankle. He said he knew it was us coming because he could hear me chattering away!

Around the 4th control in the first sprint last night, the back of my left calf started burning with pain. I hadn't seen a particularly nasty plant, and there didn't seem to be a thorn to remove, so I assumed it was a bee sting. In about 5 minutes, the worst of the pain was gone. When I checked it after the race, there was no mark and no swelling. Strange. And today it's numb and tingly for several cm around that spot, but still nothing to see. Very strange. Weird new plant reaction? Stealth snake with very small fangs?

To celebrate losing a few pounds, I went to Dairy Queen last night. It might take awhile to lose the rest.

Rode to and from Albion Hills for our Wed. morning group ride. This week we had 7 friendly riders, including 3 newcomers! Crash led the way, hotly pursued by El Jefe, 'Bent, LD (aka Mrs. Smash), Stan, Crooksie and me. Crooksie had an impressive crash, but appeared to have recovered from the worst of it by the end of the ride.

We pre-rode the 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice course. All of us who had done the race before found it easier than usual, with fewer hill climbs and less technical riding. We're expecting some fast lap times! I still hadn't changed my semi-slick tires to knobby ones, and after seeing the course, I think I'm going to take a small risk and leave the semi-slicks on. I may skid off some damp tree root at 4 in the morning, but hopefully the need for extra caution in technical sections will be balanced by higher speed on the rest of the lap.

Sid put together a couple of fun courses at Christie Conservation Area for the GHO Sprint Champs. What a treat to have SI at a low-key event like this! Sadly, the best event organizer in the world couldn't have stopped me from messing up my first sprint. In my defence, the map could use some updates. Some of the white open forest is actually dark green, and my biggest error occurred in an area with a huge fence, but it turns out that the fence isn't on the map, although it is close to a hidden one that is. So no wonder I had such trouble finding the trail I was looking for. My next error was just, um, careless.

Anyway, my chances at the GHO Sprint Championship had been dashed, so for Sprint #2, I partnered with 9-year-old AdventureGirl! for a team run. ("Team Doggies", she named us.) She was awesome. We navigated together, and most of the time, she was nice enough to not run too far in front of me. We ran from the final control to the finish line holding hands, like good teammates.

Leanimal and I headed out for our Tuesday run under threatening clouds that gave way to sunshine, heat and humidity. Considering how tired my legs were from Sunday, this was a much better pace than I would have done by myself, which was great! We caught up on as much news as we could squeeze in, since it'll be awhile till we get out together again. Leanimal is off to the 6-day Raid The North Extreme adventure race in beautiful B.C., then when she gets back, we'll be trekking in the Dolomites.

Not sure if I should admit this on Attackpoint, but... Of the 4 orienteering races I did on the weekend, the one where I felt most focused and accurate was the Long course on Sunday. At the start, we were handed a humongous map, and I immediately folded it as I ran to control #1. Throughout the race, I folded and refolded, but never looked at the full map. So last night was the first time I noticed that it was a 1:15,000 scale - I'd done the entire race thinking it was 1:10,000. My first thought was "You idiot!", then my second thought was "Why did this race go better than the maps where I DID know the right scale?" I decided it came down to a couple of things: (1) I was reading features a lot more than I was worrying about distances, and (2) I've orienteered in Copeland Forest before, so some of the areas were familiar. In retrospect, I guess when I did use pace counting, the control was always a bit further away than I expected, but I don't think I ever pace counted more than 150 meters, so the error wasn't glaringly obvious. Interesting.

Something that has come up before, but became really obvious over the last week is that I can't continue in major volunteer roles for two different orienteering clubs. It was a nice idea, but my volunteering-to-orienteering ratio is getting way out of hand, given that orienteering is only one of my volunteer activities. Understandably, in such a volunteer-oriented sport, it's hard to set and stick to limits on how much time and energy I can give to each club, and it feels bad to say no, but I need to say it more often. Must get my various O and non-O commitments sorted out over the next few months.

There are rumours that Raid The North has a low number of entries, so I sent in a $500 deposit today to prove that our team is sincere. (And if the race doesn't run, that will pay for the Fall Champs.) If anyone else wants to do this race and hasn't registered, please do - and consider sending a deposit as well. It would be really disappointing to go through 2007 without a single overnight adventure race. :-(