Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent and I and the pooches did a full tour of Palgrave West on a sunny autumn afternoon - really nice. We were going to hike in Mr. K's woods too, but we could hear so many gunshots (probably from Islington Shooting Club) that I got a bit nervous about the possibility of meeting deer hunters on private property. They can't use guns in Caledon, but we're in the middle of their 3-month bow hunting season, and apparently there is someone who illegally takes a bow into Palgrave West sometimes. Having already been a little too close to a gunshot in a recent adventure race, I'm a bit skittish right now. Also, it's almost exactly a year since a hunter killed a hiker on public land just north of here, thinking that the woman in the red sweater was a deer. Yes, I know there are lots of responsible hunters out there, but it only takes one who is irresponsible...

Tomorrow we see the surgeon and find out the prognosis for 'Bent's knee. A nervous time.

Event: The OMM
 

Got 'Bent's MRI results yesterday. The good news is that his meniscus is fine, which is a pleasant surprise. His medial collateral ligament is badly torn, and that usually repairs on its own without surgery over a few months, but perhaps with the use of a brace while exercising. It would have been better to know this earlier because he probably overdid it at the start. (It's almost 8 weeks now.) The weird thing is that he is not just 'Bent - he's broken! As part of the twisting injury, there's a little fracture at the bottom of his femur at the back of the knee joint (lateral femoral condyle), but it is still sitting in the right place. Luckily, the appointment with the surgeon is Monday, so we don't have to wait long to find out what happens next.

Put out 16 SI controls for the Cadets meet this morning at Palgrave. There were 180 people in the old parking lot off Duffy's Lane, including a whole bunch of remarkably well-behaved teenagers. ("Ma'am! Yes, Ma'am!!") The rain was coming down quite hard for awhile, but hopefully things will get better later today. Always nice to see young people learning the sport.

After placing each group of controls, I got to do some trail running. Not that I really needed it after last night!

Trek or Treat Trail Race - Kortright Centre

Plans are coming together nicely for this year's AR End of Season celebration at Albion Hills on Nov. 17. This is the latest evolution of the Tree Huggers party, but this year, we'll give the overall event a generic name, reflecting the fact that it now belongs to the AR community as a whole. The fun race will still be the Tree Hugger Invitational. Budgeting is still in progress, but the price will probably be around $30 for the entire event, or $15 for race-only or dinner-only tickets, and free for kids aged 12 and under. Any profits will go to a charitable cause, as yet undetermined.

BTW, everyone is welcome, so let me know your e-mail ID if you haven't been to a TH party in the past, and you'd like to be invited to this one. We just need to monitor the RSVPs so we have firm numbers for maps and food.

We're very lucky that so many people have offered their help over the past few days. Along with the Tree Huggers, the event will be co-presented by ESAR, STORM, FAR, ARC, DontGetLost.ca Adventure Runs and (probably) CARA. Confirmed evening slideshow presenters include the incomparable Slice (RTNX), the long-pedalling AndyCam (Tour d'Afrique) and pro navigator Milhouse (Keen AS Games). Thanks to everyone for your support, and a special thanks to Mark and Heather at Hark Events, who offered major help to make sure this event would happen when they heard that I'd decided not to hold it because it had outgrown our home.

Trek or Treat Night Trail Run. Great costumes on almost all the runners this year! I dressed in a generic jack o'lantern theme, all orange and black. Slice went as a Conscience (angel wings & devil tail), and Leanimal was coated in spiders and webs. I admire creativity in costumes - I've never had the knack!

Most things were done really well - this is a class event. Lots of great volunteers, nice indoor facilities at the Kortright Centre (handy since it was raining on and off), baskets of Hallowe'en candy, free pumpkins to the first 100 entrants, hot pizza afterward, and plenty of spooky decorations. Unfortunately, some of the course markings were damaged by racers, and Flatfoot thought that some may even have been stolen. The bottom line is that Slice, Leanimal and I ran three different distances, all greater than 10K, and an unknown number of people ran a shortened course, and based on who we saw out there, not all of them spoke up about it.

It was loads of fun, it was spooky in the mist, and there were some very scary haunters along the route, but unfortunately the results are suspect - particularly Slice's result, since we're pretty sure that she was the 1st woman to complete the full course, but the award was claimed by a woman who ran without a headlamp! (Darned near impossible, I'd say.) Slice and I met at the 2K mark. I had missed a turn, along with a bunch of other people, after someone had kicked down some flagging tape and a right turn arrow. I'd actually looked down the trail to the right and noticed reflectors, but there was nothing at all marking the corner, so I thought I'd better keep going with the rest of the runners, since maybe the regular trail markings at Kortright just happened to be reflective too. Unfortunately, I arrived at the finish line 200 meters later and had to dash back to the turn which was being tied off again as I arrived. Shortly after that, I saw the 2K marker (a jack o'lantern), then Slice ran back toward me saying that she had seen the 9K marker. Because of my earlier error, I knew we were on the correct path, and I had a vague recollection that the race map had indicated that we would run a few of the same trail sections more than once. So Slice turned around and was off like a shot. I knew my time didn't mean anything anymore, which was bad of course, but also good because I felt relaxed after that, and took the time to think about running form and other things that don't usually come to mind during a race. Meanwhile, Leanimal fell in with a bad crowd of fast runners early on. They ended up in places with no one around, then they got back to the finish line too early. Leanimal decided to keep going to make it a good training session (maybe 13+ km?), but believes that some runners finished early. Oh well - at least we had fun! And it was great that 'Bent came out too - nice for him to hang out with some other adventure racers who weren't racing tonight.

First C3 training night of the season. Barrie Shepley coached our run, and it was an exercise that should get you to your anaerobic threshold, which seemed to be about 166 or so for me. We were running on a paved road with a couple of hills, and we would start at the stop sign, then go relatively hard for 2:30 before turning around and coming back for 2:30. Then we got 2 minutes rest and headed out again. Repeat 5 times. There were a couple of things to work on:
1) After running out 2:30, the 2:30 run back should bring you back to approximately the same place you started.
2) Each time you run out for 2:30, you should get to about the same place. If you can't, then you went out too hard at the beginning. I was really worried about that, but I found that I went a little farther each of the 5 times, which probably just shows how long it takes me to warm up. The 2:30 return run was a difficult push every time - I guess because I didn't get to rest first.
Fun!

Hard Core - Live with Caron Shepley. Since I think I've done about half a DVD's worth of core exercise since Caron's classes ended last spring, I was prepared for some shaky collapses when I finally couldn't hold the tough positions any longer, but things went better than they deserved to. My core must have been getting some exercise somehow!

Power Yoga class.

After all 3 parts of today's workout, I know I'm going to feel some fatigue in the muscles tomorrow. Not the best way to go into a 10K race, but fortunately it is a fun Hallowe'en event, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Beautiful fall weather has arrived, and it's great to have a fire burning in the fireplace at last. (It's always nicer when the fires aren't burning in our forest.) Unfortunately, the cool weather has taken us into an unprecedented, major war with the local mice. As country residents, we've often had to dispense with a few stragglers in the depths of the basement each fall, but it's usually over in a few days. This year, they're a lot healthier for some reason. I think I'll blame it on the high Canadian dollar. 'Bent is getting used to hearing me shriek at the top of my lungs as I find yet another dead mouse in an odd place. (Is it merely coincidence that he never finds them, or am I being set up? Hmmm...) The most recent critter was found inside our airtight fireplace, which is what made me think of it today. I was cleaning out some ash and reached my hand in to pull out a big piece of charcoal - which turned out to be furry... yyyeeeeeEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!! We love our dogs, but frankly, they're just for decoration when it comes to "guarding" our house. Maybe we need some cats too. (And I *don't* mean cougars.) (Or Bobkittens, although they're always welcome.)

Looking out the window, this was one of those days when the great outdoors just wasn't that appealing - 10C and lashing rain. But luckily, our phone line was cut by a construction crew yesterday, so I missed Leanimal's phone calls and thus avoided the risk that one of us would say, "Hey, this weather is ridiculous. Let's skip it." Because I know we were both thinking it.

It was so nasty just walking from the house to the car that I hurriedly shut the car door on the last few inches of BulletDog's tail by accident and felt like a real cad when she yelped. Fortunately, no damage was done, but she stared at me with a mournful expression during the entire ride. Oooh, it's like a knife to the heart.

I met Leanimal in her office, and we agreed that today was the perfect example of why it's a good idea to plan to run with another person. Neither one of us would have gone out by ourselves, but we didn't want to let the other person down. And as always happens, the weather seemed horrible until we got into a rhythm on the trail, and then... well, no, it actually seemed horrible the whole time. Let's not romanticize this too much! But we were warm enough and had fun and the usual good chat, and BulletDog was in 7th heaven. The trail was coated with slimy mud, so there were some places where we slid around like novice skaters, and we had to be really careful of the slippery wooden bridges. Alas, I wasn't careful enough on one of them, but fortunately it only bridged a tiny ditch, so I just got a bit muddier, which made me look like a real trail runner.

I'm coveting Leanimal's new Salomon XT Wing shoes! (Although they don't look new anymore after today.)

Incredible "summer" day out there, 24C and sunny. A little strange to realize that the autumn leaves are past their peak, and we're still running around in shorts. Today's plan was indoor exercise - a return to Hard Core Monday - followed by a trail run tomorrow with Leanimal. But tomorrow's forecast is rain and 13C, so how could I stay inside all day? So I postponed a deadline and took my bike down the road to Albion Hills for a spin around the northeast trails. I kept getting big colourful maple leafs caught in my tires, and finally I gave up and just worked a little harder while listening to rasping sounds. Fantastic day to be out.

It's been 2-3 years since I've worn my HRM for biking very often, and the HR numbers today were lower on the same trails going at what I think was about the same speed as always. I don't know if that means that my max HR for biking has decreased a lot, or whether I was taking it easier than I thought today, or whether I'm more fit, or whether I'm less strong for biking now and can't push the HR up as high. Gotta experiment some more, I guess. Nice to *not* see any 220 HRs today.

Hansel and 'Bent are local celebrities this week.