Training Log Archive: Bash

Easy bike ride in Palgrave and Albion just to make sure everything is working OK. 'Bent is disassembling his bike this afternoon to put it into the bike box he built, so that's it for him until we get to Blanc-Sablon. It's another couple of days until I get The Minister's box for my bike.

After doing "unclip repeats" with my new shoes with the new cleats on the new pedals last week, things went more smoothly today. I still don't get out of the pedals quite as easily as I did with my old set-up, but I think that's partly due to the running-shoe-style bike shoes that I'm testing for adventure racing. They'll be better for hike-a-bike sections, but they aren't as snug-fitting as I'm used to, so it takes a bigger foot movement to get the shoe to move. I'll have heavier socks in the race, which should help.

Being conscientious, when we arrived at our property, I advised 'Bent to follow the route I was taking because of some doggie landmines near the driveway. It would be nasty to pack up the bike right after an untoward incident. Being a guy, he smiled indulgently, rode in the exact direction I'd warned him about, and sailed on through, commenting that he'd seen and avoided the obstacles. As a loving wife who can, when necessary, accept the heavy burden of being right, I sidled over and discovered a recumbent-bike-tire-shaped track in exactly the place where he wouldn't want one. 'Bent took it like a man (i.e. whimpering slightly) and headed off to the bike wash.

5K rolling trail loop after our bike ride. I'd planned an easy run, but 'Bent and BulletDog joined me, and I ended up taking 1:45 off my time from a couple of days ago. Still 17 seconds short of my record on this loop - and loads of room for improvement, of course.

Last night was the social event of the season - Crash's send-off party for Rocky and Slowrunner as they start to taper for the 6-day TransRockies Run in Colorado. Go Team Achilles Heals! Woo hoo!



Crash's mountainous trail running cake was a true work of art. Wow, she must have a great dentist. ;-)

Power Yoga for Endurance Athletes #1. I'm not sure if my arms have gotten weaker or if I've just gotten heavier, but my yoga push-ups were a disaster.

Yet another party tonight! This one was an Olympic opening ceremonies bash at the Shepleys' place. They're heading to Beijing in a few days where Barrie will commentate on triathlon for CBC, and Caron will be one of the testers of the Olympic triathlon course.

We were asked to dress with an Olympic theme, and Crash generously offered her genuine Canadian Olympic team parade wear from Barcelona in 1992. Let's just say that the fashion designer responsible for *that* outfit has undoubtedly moved on to a different, more suitable career, such as auto mechanics. Regardless of how, um, unusual I looked in it, people were quite impressed to see the real deal instead of the usual Hudson's Bay imitation.

You often hear bad stuff about teenagers in the media. But Rocky's son Jeff is a local hero after helping out in an emergency last week!
http://www.caledonenterprise.com/news/article/5389...

Ran our 5K trail loop, and it felt pretty good, but my time was 2:17 slower than when I pushed hard on the same loop in May. Maybe there's something to this business of running regularly...? Also, I'm a princess when the temperature goes over 25C. I don't know how Boojums manages to stay so fit in Tucson!

'Bent and I rode the rail trail to Inglewood to pick up Knobless and Gorgeous, then climbed the big hill out of town to ride the trails to Belfountain. I was wearing my new, looser bike shoes with the new, tighter cleats on my new pedals. I ended up falling 3 times because I couldn't get unclipped in time - argghh. It's been years since I've had that problem, but I guess my old cleats had worn down so much that I barely had to do anything to get unclipped.

We got to The Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain, and I washed the blood and mud off my leg because I was afraid that I would gross out the normal people. A nice iced cafe mocha with chocolate zucchini bread replenished my carbs and protein - yummmm. And then we did the same thing in reverse, skipping some of the trail back to Inglewood so that Gorgeous could be on her horse by 6 p.m.

I worked on keeping my cadence higher and using my hamstrings more. I wanted to see if that would help my knee, but it was kinda hard to tell, given that I smashed myself onto rocks when I fell...