Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: Flying Pig XII
 

Road trip to Flying Pig.

Flying Pig Middle Distance - It's been a long time since I've done a competitive traditional O race, and it's one of those things that goes more smoothly with practice. Not so much the navigation practice, which I've been doing lately - but racing practice. Mental skills like staying calm enough to read the map more carefully, taking a couple of seconds longer to come up with a strategy that could save me more than a couple of seconds in the execution. Given my lack of recent O racing practice, things actually went fine overall, but I felt like I did "pretty well" on most controls, and seldom did "really well". And of course, there were a couple of sloppy controls, which is to be expected in a 19-control race when I'm out of practice. It wasn't until the end of the race that I remembered to try to go fast - not that I'll ever be one of the speediest runners, but I can go faster if I'm feeling more confident about my route.

Anyway, it was a fun race. I enjoy the excellent Flying Pig maps and the interesting terrain. Lots of mud is guaranteed here, and we had heavy rain for 18 hrs before the race. I was tempted to use snowshoes, since it's been so long since I've orienteered any other way!

Sid and I started close together, and ended up running from #3 to #4 together. In one of my sillier moves, I decided on principle to leave #4 in a different direction from Sid, since I knew we are close enough in ability that we could spend the whole race together, which wouldn't be interesting for either of us. This is one of the times when if I'd looked at my map more closely, I would have seen the nice trails and clearings leading to the next control - instead of bashing through tangled bush and a slick gully just because I wanted to be independent. Oh well... Sid and I had a good chuckle about it afterward.

I won my age category by 10 minutes (with Peggy, Barb and Kissy not here, amongst others), but only won 11 of 20 splits, which backs up my theory that I could use more racing practice! In most cases, I was within a few seconds, but there were two controls where my time was 50% higher than the best split. Oops. There wasn't any mystery - I knew I'd flubbed those ones! Oh well, it's all a great learning experience.

Sudden was the top GHO racer, finishing an impressive 4th in the WRE while suffering from a cold.



I think it's because he had the biggest cheering section. (And that doesn't even count his brother Per, visiting from Sweden.)



My travel companions were smiling at the finish line too. Bender looks happier about his race than he actually was. What do you think, folks - should he keep the beard for his wedding?



Meanwhile, Tiny got into the spirit by dressing up as Captain America.

We played a challenging game today called, "Find the Hampton Inn". The way you do it is by getting Bender to make hotel reservations, but leave the hotel info and confirmation number at home. Then, once you get to Ohio and it's only 1 hour till you need to go to the race starting line, you start phoning Hampton Inns at random (there's one at every freeway interchange, I think) until you are lucky enough to find one who has heard of Bender. Then you drive there as fast as you can, change clothes in 8 minutes and dash back to the race site. Adds some spice to your day!

Green- Short Pig - Splits

Because I totally ignored my 2007 New Year's training resolutions, I'm going to give myself a quarterly report card this year. I was sick for about 10 days in January, which might mess things up a bit, but here goes...

1) Strength training - min. 1 hr/week. Leg, core, upper body.
*** 11.25 hrs for 13 weeks. Not bad, given the sick time.
2) Improve training quality, including speed work.
*** Could do more of this, but am making progress. Leanimal and I have started hill intervals, and I've been doing some speed intervals on treadmill and bike trainer.
3) Improve technical orienteering skills.
*** I've done a lot of orienteering this winter, but not many races. I did some coaching, which is a good way to improve. Tomorrow I'm off to the Flying Pig, which will be my first major traditional orienteering competition since the 2006 North Am Champs.
4) 500 hrs total annual training
*** A little behind on this - down to 474 hrs for the past 12 months, largely because of the reduced number of adventure racing hrs. My sick time in January didn't help either. I need to get out for some long runs and bike rides when the snow melts.
5) Get weight down to target - and stay there.
*** I've lost about half the weight that I was trying to lose. Need to work harder to get rid of the rest of it.
6) Continue to schedule training at specific times - C3, arranging to meet other people, etc. This is the most reliable way to ensure that I get out on busy days.
*** This is going pretty well, and I'm always looking for new ideas here.

Yes, I skied in April. From our back door, even! This was actually two ski outings. I went out for 20 minutes in the morning with the pooches, and it was really tough because the snow was crusty and hard as a rock. Where there were footprints or melted bits, it was bumpy. But hey, it was skiing in April! I'd incorrectly assumed that it would be better early in the day when the temperature was lower, but I went out for another short loop in the afternoon when the snow was softer in above-freezing temperatures, and it was much better. In fact, I've left my skis leaning against the house in hopes of another short ski tomorrow morning before the Flying Pig.

I didn't feel like driving to Bolton today, but I'd left my shoes in the Wellness Centre changeroom yesterday during our evacuation due to a power outage. (My bad luck with electricity continued, as 'Bent and I had no power from dinnertime to bedtime. Earth Hour was easy for us because it happens in the country all the time!)

Anyway... I decided to do a Wellness Centre workout, since that would allow me to look for my shoes. That meant 15 minutes of preparation and half an hour of driving for the return trip. Unbelievably, there was yellow tape across the door, and it was still closed 26 hrs after the original power failure! Argggh.

So I came home and watched the Colbert Report on the trainer - picked up the pace during the commercials. (Boy, I never noticed how many there are!)

Warming up on the recumbent bike. I could see Slowrunner in the corner training a fit-looking young woman who was doing what looked like an "explosive power" workout.

I'm trying out the different things offered at the Wellness Centre, so I headed into a Pilates class today. I know a couple of people fitter than I am who have said that Pilates is a tough workout, so I can only assume that this was a beginner class that wasn't marked as such. Compared to our Thursday Hard Core and Yoga classes, it was a cakewalk - the only challenges were choreography-related, not fitness-related. Maybe it would have become tougher later in the class, but the power went out after 25 minutes, and we were asked to evacuate the Wellness Centre. I'm not sure I'll give it another try, unless I get a recommendation from someone for a particular class.

I ran into Luscious who was evacuating the Centre with Molly. We agreed that we should meet for some strength training before my 1-month membership is over.

Back at home, while watching The Daily Show. I meant to go longer, but I turned the speed up too high and accidentally pulled out the safety cord clipped to my shirt, which cancelled my program. It wasn't a good day for me and electricity! My show was just ending, and I was too bored to start the treadmill up again... I'd intended to go skiing today, but the wind is so strong and gusty that I wouldn't want to go into the forest, which means I would just ski back and forth in our yard. I'm hoping for one final ski tomorrow morning though!

Fantastic research news indicating that I've been been right on track all along:

Women who run regularly should make sure they eat enough fat to avoid injury.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM...

Woo hooooo!!! I can't wait for the follow-up study, "Women who skimp on chocolate lose strength quickly".

I don't usually log it when I walk the dogs, but today was a tough slog. It was foggy and rainy, and we have some bare ground. But still, it's mostly wet, soft, heavy snow. I went in knee-deep several times, and even thigh-deep once. (That's not an April Fool's joke!) BulletDog did some hill intervals while I post-holed along behind her. She's making a great recovery from her knee surgery. At this point, you'd really have to know what you were looking for to see anything out of the ordinary with her bionic leg.

I'm the proud owner of a 1-month membership at the Caledon Wellness Centre following a silent auction at Friday's semi-formal. This works out perfectly since it looks like the trails are going to be in rough shape over the next month - and even the roads in our area are mud pits right now. I'm normally not big on indoor aerobics, but it might be tough to prepare for an adventure race on May 3 without biting the bullet. Since it's usually not possible to buy a 1-month membership to the Wellness Centre - and that's all I think I would ever want - I feel like I've won the lottery!

Today I tried the recumbent bike for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes on the spin bike. I can see the appeal of aerobic exercise that allows you to read, although I'm a little suspicious of it for the same reason. Oh, and if you're out there Peggy, I was reading Psychology Today and Runner's World. (I probably should have written her for advice first!)

Various blasting machines.

I needed some good orienteering training to get ready for the Flying Pig and Salomon Giant's Rib Raid, so I rounded up Goose and 'Bent for a session in my personal navigational vortex - the Rocky Ridge/Hilton Falls area. We used snowshoes the whole time, but the snow didn't get soft until high noon, about halfway through our session. Conditions must have been reasonable for today's Thomass Eliminator, since the morning was cold.

It's a nice area, and it was a gorgeous day to be out in the snowy forest with friends. We tried different methods of navigating and different people leading. Without flags to help us in such a tough area, we had to spend a percentage of the time verifying our location at each control. We all learned a few things that should be useful in our upcoming races. Goose is navigating for another team this time, and they're going to be tough competition!

I'm wondering what conditions will be like on April 12 for the GRR. There is a LOT of snow in there right now. It's starting to melt, and we're going to have some warm weather and rain this week - but I think the slush and rock will make for slow going compared to snowshoeing over this nice, smooth snow that covers all the rough stuff.

Not much sleep, but it was a gorgeous winter day, so 'Bent, Coach LD and I headed up to Highlands Nordic for what will probably be the final skate ski of the season. Conditions were still pretty good, although in some places we had to watch for ruts on the trail. There was almost no bare ground showing.




The best parts were when we left the trails and started crust cruising around the fields. Snow conditions were absolutely perfect for that! At some points it was wide open, and at other times we had to thread our way through gaps between thorny bushes. It felt like we were a bunch of kids just playing and being crazy. We slalom-skied through a Christmas tree farm, bumped over snowdrifts, and held a contest to see who could reach a distant point with the fewest skate strokes. Fun morning!!

Rodney Yee Power Yoga for Flexibility DVD. Mmm, I needed that. I'll be nice and relaxed for Earth Hour now.

Eked out a narrow victory over 'Bent in our Earth Hour Scrabble by kerosene lamplight. (When we got low on kerosene, we cheated with headlamps.) We turned off pretty much everything - had to turn a breaker back on when some smoke detector started beeping and scaring ThunderDog. When we went out to see if the stars looked better than usual, we noted that the house of our arsonist neighbours - the ones who burned 70 acres of land around here last fall - was lit up like a Christmas tree inside and out. It was so bright that they *had* to be making a statement. Or maybe they were holding another one of their big parties - perhaps an Earth Hour bash for people who don't get it. Our *nice* neighbours to the east were dark - good for them.