Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent and I carpooled to Highlands Nordic with Coach LD and crew. Although we drove by a lot of brownish fields, conditions were excellent up there.




Since it's probably one of our last long skis before the Rock & Ice Ultra, 'Bent and I decided to split up and go our own pace. We'd agreed upon a 2 p.m. meeting time with Coach LD. We ran into each other once, and he was looking strong. Unfortunately, 'Bent went down to the chalet after this and waited for me to arrive for lunch - not realizing that I didn't plan to take a lunch break. So I got in more training time than he did! :-)





It was my first time skiing with my Forerunner, and it was interesting to see the huge range of speeds - up to a maximum of 39 kph! But on average, it was approximately the pace I needed to run for Boston (but didn't).

We mostly had sunshine, but there were periods of snow flurries with big snowflakes, and that helped provide better grip. I should have rewaxed about an hour before I finished, but decided that I'll probably postpone rewaxing my skis at the Rock & Ice Ultra due to the cold, so I might as well get some double poling practice! Conditions were, in VO2Max's words, "rocket fast" out there. Speaking of VO2Max, he's home for the Canadian Champs next week - great to see him!

The pooches and I took down the 10 controls from Thursday's Caledon Navigators night sprint. It was fun to see the frozen footprints in the snow showing which way everyone went. There are some depressingly large patches of non-snow, especially on south-facing hills.

While watching the Colbert Report

Forecast is for heavy rain and +8C during the day and a windchill of -27C tonight. WTF? I'm wondering if our local ski season might be over for good. :-( On the other hand, it sounds like the skating might be excellent.

'Bent and I watched the first part of the 1993 World Road Cycling Champs in Norway. Cycling afficionados will know why this was a milestone. There was pouring rain and wind, and more than half the field had been lost to crashes at the point in the race where we paused the DVD. It was nice to see a place that had worse weather than we've been having! (Although not much.)

We were whizzed through 5.5 hrs of their race in just an hour of DVD time, but it looks like we'll move through the rest of the race closer to real time - and will undoubtedly get many opportunities for those "pedal hard to beat the competition" moments on the trainer.

It's interesting to notice 21-year-old Lance Armstrong's face appearing in the peleton occasionally with little mention of his name (so far, that is) by commentator Phil Liggett.

When the forecast rain got postponed, I thought I could ski one more time today - but I thought wrong. In fact, I even felt pretty silly on snowshoes in some places, since there were patches of bare ground. I sure missed having Hammer to tow me up the hills!

This was fun, actually. ThunderDog and I went out and hung 10 flags for tonight's Caledon Navigators indoor/outdoor training session. We're going to do some route choice exercises indoors, then do a night sprint, then eat cookies by the fire. It makes me feel quite cheerful to look out the window and see CN's shiny new flags poking out from various nooks and crannies. :-)

I was feeling oogie today but couldn't pass up a chance to ski in the sun before the forecast rain. Only 3 weeks till the Rock & Ice Ultra! It was +1C, so I took out the waxless skis for the first time in awhile. It was like skiing on maple syrup in some parts of the forest, but it made for a better workout, I guess. I found another place in the snow where a squirrel had become a hawk's lunch. I didn't realize it was so dangerous to be a squirrel around here. Maybe I won't get quite so grumpy when they try to get into our bird feeder.

We finally looked at the calendar and realized that 'Bent and I cannot attend the Thomass Stars race to challenge for the overall series victory - boo, hiss! 'Bent is a little disappointed, since he's had two Thomass wins this season and was well-positioned going into the final race of the series. I'll get the women's title, but this was my first chance at the overall win. Oh well, at least we have a good excuse... we have a podium position to defend at the CNYO Snowgaine in New York that weekend! At last count, three vehicle-loads of Canadians were planning to go down and challenge the Murkins for the medals. Last year, Canadian teams took 4 of the top 5 positions, but we're going back without overall champions Bob and Dee, so we have our work cut out for us.

Skied to Palgrave to meet someone, then took the long way home around Palgrave East. Speedy conditions, lots of sunshine, great wax = fun! The only downer was the growing realization that my throat was sore - just a few hours after 'Bent had noticed the same thing. Argghh, I've already had a 3-week respiratory infection this winter - I'm supposed to be done for the year! :-( We leave for the Rock & Ice Ultra in just 22 days.

I passed by the scene of yesterday's "crime" and noted that the hawk (I assume) had returned to devour the squirrel.

While watching the Daily Show

While watching the Colbert Report

Eight years ago today, police knocked on the door to tell us that a close family member had been killed by a drunk driver. A senseless loss like this doesn't end with the funeral and mourning period. It doesn't end with the painful legal process, the trial, the victim impact statements and the sentencing of the impaired driver. The impact is felt every single day - forever - as spouses live alone and siblings feel the void, and as children grow older without their parents and never get to introduce their own children to their grandparents. 'Bent and I will be spending time with family this week.

Be a good friend - let's keep an eye out for each other. Here's a Blood Alcohol Calculator.

It's based on averages - it doesn't account for individual differences in response to alcohol. Note also that the "standard" drink sizes may be smaller than what you actually get served, so your glass of wine might actually be closer to two glasses of wine. And finally, note that the legal limit in Ontario is 0.08, but it's 0.05 in some jurisdictions that want to prevent driving at a level where judgement starts being impaired in a significant percentage of the population. So you might want to consider 0.05 to be your personal limit, just to be on the safe side.

Skied around Palgrave West on a bluebird day. Lots of new snow - the forest was beautiful. It was moderately breezy, and the trees were cracking a *lot*. More than once, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a huge tree above me made that gunshot sound like it was about to split in two.

It was a great day for seeing wildlife - unless you prefer your wildlife to be alive. I skied over a thick stick and decided to go back and remove it from the trail. It turned out to be the bottom 30 cm of a deer's leg. Later I startled a large raptor that was unsuccessful in taking flight with its prey. I skied off-trail to investigate - it looked like the black spikes of a porcupine, which would be surprising. I was still surprised when I discovered that it was a black squirrel. I'm sure the bird planned to come back, since he still had lots of lunch left. I skied away feeling a little sad about the squirrel, since we have a nice group of them that hang around our place. My thoughts were interrupted by another black squirrel that leapt across the trail just in front of me - another "jump out of my skin" moment!

Hope the skiing stays good this week, but Wednesday might be rainy - yuck.