Training Log Archive: Bash

The final Thomass Caledon is in the books. We had perfect winter weather - sunshine and a good amount of snow. Last night's gusty winds died down at breakfast time, thankfully.

We had a couple of big glitches and a lot of small ones that hopefully stayed behind the scenes but kept the volunteers hopping. The big glitches were that two SI unit batteries apparently failed between yesterday (when they were all tested) and today. Unfortunately, one was the Finish unit so it's going to take some detective work to get a set of results. We know the sequence of arrival of the competitors and we have some of their times. We know the time of the last control before the finish, of course, and it wasn't that far away.



I see that many racers set a stopwatch to time their race. If you did, please e-mail me the time you measured for yourself. We'll take that info into account along with the other info we have.



That's the sort of thing you wish wouldn't happen but it's not in our control. The glitch I'm more bummed about is that control #2 was hung at a control location from the first version of the course (where a ribbon had been hung awhile ago). Luckily, it was in a fairly visible location and not too far from the new location but it was wrong and caused confusion. What's amazing is that Keith and I visited it several times in recent days - and so did an independent course vetter from another club. By that stage, the organizers aren't looking closely at the map anymore so it's easy to fool us. Major lesson learned. Apologies to people affected. (Naturally, this was one of the controls whose battery died - just to add insult to injury once people got there.)



Congrats to Hammer on taking the win, closely pursued by Getawaystix. It was an exciting finish, with or without a finish control.

It was great having Pat-hetic here to provide a half-day of his Adventure Running Kids program. Parents and kids were full of enthusiasm about ARK Snow Day. They seemed to have an excellent time.

It was great to see so many friends although I didn't have much time to chat this time around. Looking forward to racing in the next Thomass! And hoping that winter will stick around awhile.

(Elapsed Time 1 hr)

Keith and I divided up the remaining controls and put out all but a couple near the start/finish. It's been snowing lightly all day and shortly after I came home, a blustery wind blew up. It's going to be nice tomorrow - a true winter orienteering race!

The day before a volunteer-operated event, I can almost hear the hum of activity around town. Before Keith and I met, he got the maps and waivers printed up. While we were finishing up in the woods, Raymond was vetting the course and Pat-hetic was heading out to set up the Adventure Running Kids course. Goose was working on the SI software and assigning rental cards. I was answering last-minute e-mails from the course. (A new record was set last night when someone missed the midnight registration deadline and e-mailed me 2 minutes later to ask me to enter them into the system manually!)

Crash has been making chili and brownies since yesterday and had to return to the grocery store today after yesterday's surge in registrations. 'Bent went shopping for last-minute items including a new portable power supply since I just learned last night that ours no longer works. And various other volunteers were collecting their gear and setting their alarms early. Phew!

Thanks to all the volunteers and to all the participants for your support. Should be a great send-off for the former Caledon Navigators club! :)

(Elapsed time 2.5 hrs)

Went back out to Glen Haffy with a bag of parachute cord so I could hang controls and flags from tree branches (for the newer BSF8 controls that can go out now) and set up control stands and tie them to saplings (for the older BSF6 controls that aren't going out yet). A much better feeling of accomplishment today!



We had rain, then snow overnight and it is really quite wintry here now. I'm glad it's snowy because Thomass and ARK Snow Day registrations have gone through the roof today, and it's not over yet!



There isn't enough snow for snowshoes but shoes with good traction (e.g. Spikecross) are recommended. It is now less icy than it was, thanks to the layer of snow/slush that came down over the past 24 hours. While I was out today, an ice pellet storm blew in for 10 minutes which felt quite adventurous. We're supposed to get another 5 cm of snow tomorrow.

The one control stand I managed to put up yesterday was looking *very* wintry after 24 hours in the forest.



I stayed out until it was almost too dark to see - such a nice time of day to be in the woods. Meanwhile, 'Bent drove into the Heart of Darkness (downtown Toronto on a Friday afternoon) to pick up a friend from the hospital after his wife fell ill and couldn't go. Busy afternoon at the Campbehrlich household!

Today is the last call to register for Sunday's Thomass Caledon. Hope you can make it!

So... Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich - who is on his 3rd wife after fooling around on the first two while they were ill and asking one of them for an open marriage so he could continue an affair - has now equated gay marriage with paganism. "The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization."

!!! How the eff do these guys get away with this hypocrisy?!?! Why isn't Newt simply an object of ridicule? I can accept that some people believe that a politician's morality - or lack thereof - in private life has nothing to do with his or her ability to do a good job. But how can even *they* sit back and listen with a straight face while he says this crap? His actions have made it clear how he *really* views the sanctity of marriage "between one man and one woman". It's not even my country's election and it's making me sick.

Hard Core Live with Caron

C3 class. I needed this.

BazingaPuppy and I went to Glen Haffy with the plan of putting up 8 control stands for Sunday's Thomass Caledon. Registration closes Friday night, btw, and our professional chef is busy preparing yummy treats for our racers!

This outing was useless from the perspective of getting important work done in a very busy week. There is snow - but not enough to support a control stand. The earth beneath is frozen hard from all the rain, temperature fluctuations and minimal snow cover. After repeated attempts, I managed to get exactly one control stand installed on a rock pile where there was enough dense snow between boulders to support it.

Naturally, having BazingaPuppy with me on leash (as he currently must be) increased the degree of difficulty. We visited most of the control locations and kept trying to pound stands into the ground until I felt that the dog had had enough exercise and I'd had enough failure.

The End. :(

Elapsed time 90 minutes.

This has *not* been a typical cold... it's like I was hit by a train on Sunday evening and on Monday, I could barely move due to a foggy brain and zero energy. Three days later, I'm feeling about 80% healthy. I decided not to push my luck too much today. No cardio - just some leg work and The Daily Show. Tomorrow I'll test my lungs.

Many of you have already seen this - Pathetic's GoPro view of Sunday's Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Snowshoe Raid condensed into a 2.5 minute film. I miss winter - sniff!



Another thing many people have seen but is so cool that I'll put it here anyway... a GPS replay of the Snowshoe Raid showing routes on the map of Foreigners (1st overall, 1st Male), Tree Huggers (1st Female), Two and a Half Meniscuses (1st Masters) and Sweet As Canyonero (4th Overall). Note that Norton Anti-Virus thinks it's a threat because it's a .exe file that it's never seen before.

Still feeling under the weather so I didn't get to enjoy National Peanut Butter Day celebrations. The tide has turned though and I think I'll feel mostly human by tomorrow.

Zoolander has started to blog about ultras for Canadian Running Magazine. Great job!

Sh&* Cyclists say