Training Log Archive: Bash

As of 3 a.m., PhattyJR was sitting in 3rd in the Men's 24-hr Solo division of the Hot August Nights mountain bike relay at Albion Hills! Harper and Relentless were in 1st place in the Tag Team category, almost 2 laps ahead of their nearest rivals. We were over there last night to cheer them on, and - in 'Bent's case - help with the bikes. Nice to meet 2Min, and also nice to see Dr. Wells after a long time.

Go, riders! Woo hoo!

Yay!! Harper and Relentless crushed the Tag Team category, and PhattyJR shot up the ranks to take 2nd in the Male Under-40 Solo division. Well done!!

Must be more jet lagged than I thought, as I fell asleep for 2 hrs in the afternoon and felt sleepy again by bedtime. This is progress - I must be catching up! After I regained consciousness, 'Bent and I rode to Caledon East for a frozen yoghurt in the sunshine, then carried home some groceries in our packs.

"Why Just Run?" navigation race at E.T. Seton Park

After our 50K event last weekend, 'Bent and I weren't planning to do this, but our bodies felt pretty good by yesterday morning, so we decided to give it a go. The Toronto Orienteering Club has been putting on some very fun, creative events these past few months, and we hated to miss one!

There were Beginner and Sport courses for people who preferred sticking with tradition, and the rules for the longer Adventure Course were as complex as always (even though course designer MJ denied this)! We were given $300 of virtual money to spend on "buying" controls that we visited. There were three mandatory controls at the beginning ("Parking Lot", "Bank Machine" and "Mall") that cost $1, $2, and $3 respectively. After that, we could spend the rest of the 90-minute time limit visiting any of the remaining 30 controls we wanted in any order we liked. Depending on their "crow's flight" distance from the mall, the price of a control ranged from $1 to $30, and we didn't find out the exact value until we arrived. No two controls had the same value. The objective was to punch the highest number of controls without exceeding our $300 budget. If someone cleaned the course, they would far exceed the $300. Every time someone attempted to buy a control that exceeded their budget (i.e. punched a control worth more dollars than remained in their budget), that control was not counted. They could, however, continue looking for lower value controls that fit within their budget.

Phew - got all that? Good, because there's more. For three limited time periods during the race, there was a "sale" at the "mall" where you could buy a control for a greatly reduced price, even if you'd visited the "mall" before.

If you arrived late at the end of the race, your budget was decreased by $2 for every minute you were overtime.

So... since the mall was near the middle of the map, the strategy was to collect controls clustered at the north and south ends of the map, while avoiding some or all of the controls in the middle, which were too expensive. This was tough, mentally, since it sometimes meant running past controls that would be easy to pick up.

I didn't start out with a detailed plan beyond that, but it worked out OK. Mostly, it just felt good to be out running in a nice park on a new map. I even did some O marketing to runners who asked me what the race was all about - and had to veer backwards when I realized that I'd missed a control while chatting! There were some steep climbs where I was glad to have the traction of my new, lightweight Icebugs from Sweden. :-) Most of the running was on trails or across grass, with occasional climbs, some open forest and a bit of very nasty dark green. Lots of variety.

I arrived at the finish area with 14 minutes to go, and briefly contemplated making a dash to the mall for one more control at the $1 sale. I was already at $297. It was about a 1.5 km return trip, and I was worried about arriving late, so I decided that it might be better to finish a little early in case I was tied with another woman on the number of controls, and it came down to our time. In the end, that's exactly what happened, although the woman who came in 7 minutes after me was in the Open category, so she won that, and I won Masters. 'Bent had a great run, beating me by one control, spending $296 and placing 2nd to Eugenius in the men's division. Phatty used a different strategy - punching almost every control on the course with an attempted value of $440! Had he gone in a different sequence, he might have been the overall champion, but by punching the expensive ones before the cheap ones, he frittered away his budget too soon and was denied credit for 8 controls he punched. Regardless, he won the Men's Open category handily. After winning our medals, all three of us won draw prizes as well, so it was a very rewarding outing!

Great job once again by TOC. The event was impeccably organized with an interesting course, fantastic new map, and great swag, snacks and prizes. Congrats to everyone involved in the Why Just Run series!

Caron's Power Yoga DVD #1. I was embarrassingly weak on the yoga push-ups and side planks. Time to get back to some upper body work!

Baby steps... First running training in a few weeks, and I felt sloooow! I'd thought we might do the 32-km Iroquoia Trail Test this weekend, but I'm really glad we didn't register for it. If the heat was anything like today, I would have faded fast. Anyway, it can only get better from here!

While watching The Daily Show.

Stockholm to London Heathrow to home with our pooches! :-)