Training Log Archive: Bash

Hockley Loop with 'Bent at what I think might be a 50-miler pace, i.e. walking briskly up most of the hills - and there are a *lot* of hills. It was interesting how much easier on the body the run felt this way, and it only took about 10% longer than my PB on this version of the Loop.

I tried running with light poles for the first time, and as long as there weren't any hikers around to avoid skewering, it was fine. I've used them a lot for trekking and I'm thinking they might be useful for the steep hills in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, I felt sick today and the 27C temperature made things considerably worse. Regardless, it was a gorgeous autumn day and I was lucky to be out. Fingers crossed that 'Bent's knee will feel OK tomorrow.

Andrew (of no fixed AP nickname) and Funderstorm took Bugsinteeth and me for a full tour of the Hydrocut mountain bike trails in Kitchener. What an incredibly fun place to ride!! We were lucky to have a beautiful day for it. Andrew was laughing at Funderstorm and me because we kept chatting most of the time regardless of whether we were riding uphill or downhill or negotiating an obstacle. Funderstorm and Bugsinteeth noted that today's ride was 15 minutes faster than their last tour of the same trails, and they agreed it was because Simpy wimped out on the ride this time. ;)

Charlotte and Chris are married!



Among the guests were some familiar faces to Attackpointers. Baloney and Trav were my table neighbours.



And on the other side were ThreePinJim and Fiona.



Also at our table, LoTox.



And Los Dobos.



'Bent was away for Yom Kippur so Baloney posed in the photo as my date. She even chicken-danced with me too.



Lots of ultrarunners in the crowd. Congrats, C&C!

How much should we worry about heel strike?

Check out pics of the fastest runners at Boston in this article on variability in running form.

There are other interesting links in this article about Chris McDougall's (Born to Run author) criticism of Lance Armstrong's running form. I thought it was interesting that that 75% of elite half-marathoners observed in a study were heel strikers. Elite runners at shorter distances tend to be forefoot strikers.

So take heart, Bender! :) Btw, this "trading card" from last year is still available to be ordered in poster size.



He's not alone, of course...

Nicely done.


By Jonathan Mak, age 19, a student at Hong Kong's Polytechnic University School of Design. Guess what? He's already had a job offer.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/06/us-apple...

Tired body, busy week!

Ang was in town for a business trip and brought her cyclocross bike along so she wouldn't miss out on a beautiful day. We met in Terra Cotta and rode the rail trail east at a good clip. The late afternoon light made the autumn colours even more vivid. We took a couple of tourist breaks on roads - one to ride up the looooong hill to the Cheltenham Badlands and another to check out the Caledon Hills Cycling shop.



Outside the shop, Ang pointed out a cyclocross bike that could be all mine for the low, low cost of $1,100. I managed to resist.

I pointed out the little offshoot trail that winds into the north end of Albion Hills and it proved irresistible. We went in and rode the Tea Cup before heading to the Duffy's Lane bridge where 'Bent was waiting with the van to shuttle us back to Terra Cotta. I tried out Ang's fancy cyclocross bike before we put it in the van - soooo light!

We all had a great dinner at the Terra Cotta Inn before sending Ang on her way back to Rochester (and a 5:45 a.m. swim training session - yikes!)

Ran an initial loop in Palgrave West with BazingaDog. His Sniff:Run ratio was higher without BulletDog as his pace bunny so we did not approach his 5K PB. After I dropped him off, I ran via Bruce Side Trail to Gore Road and back.

Over the past 6 days, I've run 75 km, biked/rollerskied for a couple hours and eaten less than I wanted to. Did I lose a single gram? Nope. Arggh.

Phone line is working again after a road construction crew cut it yesterday morning - yahoo! Bell promised it would be fixed by 10 p.m. but the crew refused to do it when they came last night because "it was dark". They probably could have looked that up on some web site and saved themselves a lot of driving.

iAdmire
:(

Fun, chatty Albion Hills ride on a beautiful day with Mrs. Gally, WandAR, SistaP and seven of Mrs. G's gang from Georgetown. This is the riding time - our elapsed time was considerably longer due to the range of abilities. We would ride a section of single track at our own pace then wait at a trail junction and continue our conversation from the previous trail junction. Nice to spin out my post-race legs - they're feeling pretty good today.

Bricked the bike ride with a Palgrave West run with BazingaDog and BulletDog. The training plan called for 1.5 km longer today but I think I made up for it.

First real attempt at rollerskiing. I parked by the Palgrave Equestrian Park and headed east on the rail trail. It's hard-packed sand covered with finely crushed gravel in this section and it was pretty good "skiing". There was one area with grass in the middle of the rail trail so that was the stretch where I practised double poling. My first skate ski of the season always reminds me of a few muscles I don't use as much for anything else. One is the tibialis anterior and the other is the same muscle on the outside of my hips/legs where I felt discomfort during the 50K. Awesome, this is why I wanted rollerskis now!

I kept it short today to avoid overdoing it. Also, I really need to get the ferrules and brakes set up before I do too much. (I did quite a bit of legs-only to save my pole tips.) I don't think I could call this fun but it's definitely a great workout. Caledon skiers are welcome to try them out. You need boots with Salomon pilot skate bindings. Mine are size 39 1/3 and the bindings were set up for them. I'm not sure how much difference it will make for people with larger or smaller feet.

Only two months till my mountain 50-miler. It's easier to follow the training plan these days due to the sheer terror. The Toad was a good reminder of how much it's going to hurt!

This is a rest week with "only" about 60 km to run, i.e. more than I usually do. Today I took the Bruce Side Trail heading west from our place and ran into Crash. She's keen to meet for some trail runs - awesome.

For the past 24 hours, I've been fighting off Dad's cold and seem to be winning - so far. I don't have time to be sick!

2011 Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Raid The Hammer in a Nutshell:
(for those who didn't see Hammer's comment on Nevmonster's log)

Road run, hilly bits, hillier bits, lots of woods running, hilly bits, trail run, tough nav and really hilly bits, trail run, easy nav, get muddy, road run, track run.

So now we know how to train.

Rainy, rainy day so I finally gave up and dug out the trainer from the corner of the basement. Felt nice to get the legs moving!