Training Log Archive: Bash

It took me awhile to get on Facebook, but that's old school now. Look at all the communication options there are! ;-)
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM...>

'Bent and I rode to scenic downtown Palgrave where we picked up Leanimal and Goose, who had been dropped off by Coach LD. We then took a brisk rail trail ride over to Inglewood, meeting Coach LD and KD a short distance from town (they'd parked there). Our pace was higher than expected for the first long ride of the season (why the heck isn't Leanimal tired after her 82-hr race?!? puff! gasp!), and unfortunately LD/KD didn't get much of a ride. So we continued on a little farther, then stopped in to see Knobless and pooches.

Next stop was Caledon Hills Cycling, where we dropped off our Atlas Race snowshoes to send them back to Atlas to install the 2009 bindings that will hopefully not break in the middle of a race! Then back to the Trailside Cafe in Caledon East for some goodies, then home. 'Bent and I have decided that Duffy's Lane leading to Crash's house will henceforth be called "The Four Hills of Newton" (a scary-sounding name for Boston hills that aren't that big!), which means that the final climb south of Crash's place is Heartbreak Hill. We crushed it. Great ride, and we managed to squeeze it in between a couple of heavy rainstorms.

While watching the first half of "The Last King of Scotland", which of course is about a doctor in Uganda. Good movie so far. We'd been planning to bike outdoors, but the combo of stifling heat wave and impending nasty weather (thunderstorm, hail, highest wind gusts since 1978) drove us downstairs with the doggies, who were relaxed after a good swim in Palgrave Pond.

Took a road trip into Toronto to check out the new Salomon store with Phatty, Leanimal, Goose and 'Bent. I did my part to help the economy! We made a brief visit to the Tilley Store, which has high quality stuff mostly aimed at better-dressed travellers than us. It's worth going there just to try out the features of their fancy Japanese toilets. (If you dare.) (They *are* a little scary.)

My AR teammate Hurtn gets new tents each season from his sponsor Eureka, and he has some new and lightly used tents available from previous seasons, in case you're looking to gear up for your next adventure. Tent details in the comment on this note.

Indoor intervals while watching the news. (I wimped out when the rain came.) This was harder than expected because you risk getting flung off the treadmill if you let up for even a second during an interval. And apparently, I occasionally cheat during my intervals!

My teammate Hurtn has put together a great 9-minute video of his first adventure race - ESAR 2008 with his brother Damuhl (also a first-timer) and me.
http://harkevents.com/home.html/?p=208

This video is a tiny piece of his multi-year Into The Arctic project.
http://www.intothearctic.com

I had a great taper for Boston, then did some serious carb-loading followed by some nice recovery time. The only thing I didn't do was actually run the Boston Marathon. Thus I am a little overweight and undertrained right now, and I headed out onto the trails with BulletDog. There are a lot of days when my body doesn't feel like running, but that's OK because I feel so good once I get out there. This was not one of those days. I was happy to be outdoors as I always am, but the running never felt easy, and there was a serious twinge in my bad knee. Maybe tomorrow will be better...? The woods were full of white-tailed deer, which was entertaining.

Happy Earth Day, everyone! I'm celebrating by heating our house with geothermal energy tonight. Details available from Urthbuoy.

Heading home!

'Bent just posted his Boston marathon report including photos he took while racing.
http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_921/pe...

Boston Marathon - awake at 5 a.m., then a busy day of running around Boston with J-Ro, trying to be good spectators. My throat is sore from cheering. There were all kinds of runners - some had written their names in big letters on their shirts, some were covered in Canadian flags, some were grandparents, some were raising money for charity, some had disabilities, some were in costume, some were filming us as we cheered for them... it was never boring and often inspiring. (Not that it made me any more interested in doing another marathon on pavement!)







At 16 miles, the leading men were going faster than I could run a 100 meter sprint. J-Ro and I arrived just in time to see the lead women go by, but not fast enough to get a photo.



J-Ro's Dad kept us informed of our husbands' location via text messaging. We were happy to hear they had been together at the halfway point because we figured they would talk sense into one another regarding the pace. They ran with Harper Forbes for awhile too (photo taken by 'Bent on the run).



By 16 miles, Superwes wasn't feeling as good, so it was 'Bent who came by first. My camera had gone into power saver mode, so I scrambled to restart it, and unfortunately (from a photographer's perspective) he came running over to say hi - and thus he is blurry. Sad to say, this is the best photo I got of 'Bent, but I got lots of great photos of people I don't know - and of Superwes, fortunately. Thank heavens for Marathonfoto.com!





After the boys went by, we jumped back on the subway and made our way to Kenmore station where we found a great spot below the Citgo sign at the "1 mile to go" point. This is what the runners would see there.



Some passing runners were ecstatic, high-fiving the spectators. Others were in horrible pain, walking with straight legs and tortured faces. Everyone we saw was near the front of the pack, so I can only imagine what it must have been like further back, but I expect there were even more people who were hysterically happy - and even more people in pain.

J-Ro's Dad texted us when 'Bent passed the 40K point. His fastest pace was in the 5K after Heartbreak Hill. (BTW, none of our first-time runners even recognized the hill until they were over it - it's just a small bump to an adventure runner.) Although we both looked hard for 'Bent, we didn't see him - and we didn't think we could have missed him. So when Superwes ran by looking OK (albeit not zippy) and tapped his abdomen, we wondered if he was trying to tell us that 'Bent was having stomach trouble. For a couple of moments I worried, wondering what could have been so bad that 'Bent would stop within 2K of the finish. But then J-Ro's Dad told us that 'Bent had already finished with a time of 3:17:58. He didn't achieve his goal of a Personal Worst Marathon, and he took about 20 photos too! (I'm leaving most of them for his log entry.) Woo hoo!!!!

It isn't easy to walk around downtown Boston near the finish line. There are almost 30,000 racers and their families and friends. And lots and lots of barricades.



It wasn't the race Superwes had wanted, but he was happy to have one of the beautiful finisher's medals.



'Bent and Crash were pleased with their results. Crash set a PB for Boston with a smokin' 3:42. 'Bent was aiming for 3:20 and did a little better. Looking at the results, his pace was consistent throughout the race - which can be partly attributed to Superwes keeping them steady in the first half of the race. I'm wondering if 'Bent's long layoff from running actually helped - maybe his body arrived at this race less battered than it usually is during running season, but still in good shape from skiing.



Rocky was dwarfed by her husband's coat - it was chilly! At 4:02, she had a good race - and took a bunch of photos too.



Back at our hotel, the boys went through their post-race rituals.





And then, of course, more seafood!! I think this will be our one and only trip to the Boston Marathon, but I'm sure we'll be back to Boston. I'm not much of a city person, but I like this city.