Training Log Archive: Bash

They're done! Dee and Aud ran 166 km (with 9,400 m of elevation gain!) around Mont Blanc in 37 hrs 40 min, finishing tied for 19th out of 179 women, and tied for 13th in their age category (23 to 39). Awesome job, ladies!

'Bent and I paddled around Island Lake as the clouds got darker. Stiff wind with waves in the open areas. Threw in some 40-stroke intervals at full effort. Now off to a funeral for a wonderful neighbour. :-(

Yay, Dee and Aud are doing great in their circuit of Mont Blanc! They're well ahead of the cut-off times and moving up the rankings. They're currently sitting around 30th place out of nearly 200 women. If you're following them online, this map will help.
http://www.ultratrailmb.com/page.php?page=parcours...

Darn that Slowrunner! She scheduled her Saturday morning run for the entirely reasonable hour of 8 a.m., taking away my usual excuse for not making it. And darn the weather forecasters! They said it would be pouring rain this morning, which would have given me another excuse. Although it was misty and grey after a long night of heavy rain, by this morning, we just had occasional light drizzle.

So... I was out of excuses - and actually (now that the early alarm clock is a distant memory), I'm glad. Great to spend time with Slowrunner, Hingo, Vents, Rocky and Fatima during different parts of our run. We started at Coolihan's and ran the Bruce Trail through the Dingle and back, then crossed Coolihan's and went to Hwy 9 and back. 'Bent, Slowrunner and BulletDog were looking very speedy as always. In spite of my lack of running training over the past month, I felt pretty good and was attacking the smaller hills with a moderate level of enthusiasm. If the hills kept going too long (and let's face it - at Glen Haffy, some of them go on WAY too long), I slowed to a snail's pace, but at least I didn't walk. Good thing running felt OK today, since this was pretty much my entire training for the LR&S run!

Now Dee and Aud are 23rd out of 200 women with about 30 km left to Chamonix!

The weather forecast for this afternoon was nastier than this morning - which was no great shakes - so we planned to ride our trainers in front of the first hour of a movie, "Bruce Almighty". The rest of you in southern Ontario can thank us for the brilliant sunshine and perfect weather that arrived as a result of our decision. Sigh... Oh well, at least the movie is kind of funny in that Jim Carrey sort of way.

Gotta work harder and get me some muscles!

OK, September is all figured out now. Why do so many good things happen in the same month?
- Logs, Rocks & Steel with 'Bent
- U.S. Orienteering Champs - Sprint & Ultra-Long, plus a non-championship Middle ('Bent is not attending)
- Anniversary weekend at Arowhon Pines in Algonquin Park where 'Bent and I were married ('Bent is attending)

Something - actually a lot of somethings - had to give, and this year the casualties were STORM The Ten, the C3 10-miler and the FAC Champs, all of which we've done in other years and would be fun to do again. Too bad, but we owe it to our pooches to hang around home sometimes.

And they're off! Denise Rispolie and Audrey Kelly started running the 166 km Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in Chamonix, France earlier today. You can follow them live (in French) here:
http://www.ultratrailmb.com/accueil.php

Click "Follow the Races in Live Here", then choose "Fiches Coureurs" and enter one of their surnames, then press "Afficher". It appears that this page will show the times they pass the different CPs, although there is no data yet.

For more event info in English and great photos of the trail, go here:
http://ultratrail.thenorthface.com/en/

Go Dee and Aud!

'Bent and I had planned to do a longer ride to The Shed coffee shop in Belfountain, but the clouds got dark earlier than expected, so we decided to stick close to home rather than get stranded by a thunderstorm. As it turned out, the only rain of the afternoon was during our ride. We rode the northern trails in Albion Hills where the rain made the sand settle nicely. When it got wet enough that the mud started flinging itself into our faces, we rode the rail trail to Palgrave, then headed for home. No sense making our bikes look like PhattyJR's bike last weekend!

Rodney Yee's Yoga for Flexibility. Needed to stretch after Dr. Leanimal brutally inflicted her Thumbs of Death on my body earlier today. Feeling more mobile now, so she must have hit some of the trouble spots!

While watching Daily Show / Colbert Report.

I read an article yesterday about protein requirements and muscle, and I'm starting to count up the protein in my diet. The article suggested 0.8 g protein/day per kg of body weight for people who don't work out - more if they do, and more if they're "masters athletes". Since 'Bent is our cook and a vegetarian, and I'm not a fan of his soy milk and fake meat strips, I'm wondering if I'm, er, getting enough. Today has been a fairly normal day of eating, and there's no way I'd get up to what the article recommends. Hmm... could this be why my push-ups are so girlie?

P.S. Good news... there is protein in chocolate!

We're joining the party at Logs, Rocks & Steel on Labour Day weekend! 'Bent and I were on the fence for a few reasons other than dog care. It's not really the type of event we do (or have trained for recently), although it would be a great day of training with good organization by BobTheNavigator and a nice chance to hang out with friends in a beautiful place on a long weekend. On the other hand, we'd both be aiming to finish near the middle of our categories, which isn't super-motivating, and we had major qualms about taking our Kevlar kayaks on a race with portages.

Then I realized... we'd always thought about doing it solo, but a couple of those issues disappeared if we raced as a team. It's not as if either of us were going to win the entry to the World Multi-Sport Champs. So... we're racing together, which means we can portage our trusty canoe and leave the fragile kayaks at home - and who knows, we might even have a chance at the podium this way. Looking forward to it! (Sign up soon - fee increase is this Saturday.)

The plan was a short "barefoot" run as a warm-up for a strength workout, but the weather keeps on turning out nicer than the forecast, so I ended up staying out longer, heading to Palgrave East and running part of Salty Stephen backwards. There were a couple of bikers going the correct direction, but I got off the trail well before we met - although they looked startled. I ran up to a big fallen tree, and it wasn't clear where the trail went after that. It's not that I couldn't see bits of trail - it's just that the trail is so twisty that I wasn't sure which trail to take and which way to go. I ended up guessing wrong and, after a couple of minutes, realized that I was now running trail that I'd done before, but in the opposite direction. So I bailed and bushwhacked to the gravel road, then ran past Crash's house to Palgrave West. Fun outing, although I need to get myself in to see Leanimal for a tune-up.

The weather wasn't as insanely hot as forecast, so I put aside my indoor training plans and rode over to Albion Hills to try to follow the Hot August Nights course. It's not marked anymore, but it's not hard to follow the tire tracks. For the most part, I was impressed at how well the trails fared in the rainy weather. It seemed like a nice flowy course with maybe a higher percentage of technical single track than the June race. As suspected, the stretch of trail behind the Sugar Shack was awkward to ride in reverse - although maybe that's because I'm used to it going the other direction.

A short distance after that, logs had been laid across the HAN trail to close it, so I went back to the double track to see if I could intercept the route further on. Just then, I felt fire on my neck - an insect sting! Then another one on my shoulder and possibly a third one too. Yeowww!!! I had just passed a family out for a leisurely ride, and I was sure they were going to come around the bend to find me groping inside my shirt looking for the perpetrator(s)! After watching 'Bent's full body swell up from multiple insect stings last year in spite of having no known allergy, I decided to head home early to get some Benadryl just in case. I really should train with a little first aid kit.

We're lucky (mostly) to live 4.5 km by cross-country trails from the nearest mailbox, which occasionally offers an excuse to get some training in while completing a necessary errand. With a detour here and there, it's easy to make the run longer and largely different in both directions, and there is never much pavement involved. So that's what I did today, but *man* am I a princess in warm weather! It was only 23C, but it was very humid. I was not "glowing", as women are supposed to do in lieu of perspiring. When I went into the post office, it was embarrassing how much sweat was pouring down my bright red face. The run exacerbated the mild headache I'd had all day, so all in all, it wasn't the highlight of my day.

The highlight was sitting outside on a grassy hill with ThunderDog in a shady place after the run, feeling virtuous for having trained when I didn't feel great, and opening the mail to discover a $3,500 grant cheque from the provincial government for our geothermal system. That's almost all of the grants now. There were 5 different grants to apply for, and I'm in the final stages of completing the administrivia to get the last $525. In the end, about 40% of our costs will be covered by grants - not bad at all!