Training Log Archive: Bash

Stars O Cup #6 Season Finale

Last O Cup of the year and Tiny wanted to give us an extra challenge. Instead of the usual O Cup Box where we can drop controls based on age/gender handicap, he put "dog bones" in the Box. Dog bones are pairs of controls that must be executed one after the other but can be done in either sequence.

Today's O Cup Box had 8 dog bones and except for the elite males, we could drop some dog bones based on handicap. For me, this meant 4 dog bones and there was no obvious best solution that I could see. David Baldock and I chose the same 4 dog bones (ABEC) but AdventureGirl! did very well with a completely different route. Combined with the relatively complex map, this made for a fun and tricky race where we really had to concentrate. Some very experienced racers inadvertently omitted controls.

I didn't omit controls as much as I sailed right past them because I never got a gut feel for the 1:7500 scale of the map. It's not that I didn't know about it or that I didn't appreciate how careful I needed to be; I just made a few bad estimates. Ironically, my biggest error of the day happened near the end when I was overcompensating and turned off on a trail to look for a control way too soon.

Thanks to sleep deprivation (I think), my focus went in and out during the race, resulting in a few small, silly flubs and the one major error on the last control in the Box. I can't remember the last time I veered toward a control on the wrong feature to read the control number and relocate - at least, I can't remember the last time before today. :)

It was a gorgeous, sunny late winter day - for those of us who like that sort of thing. (Not mentioning any names in order to protect the guilty...) That made us feel better about how tough it was physically - breaking through thick crust into fairly deep snow. What a workout! A lot of other people also had a tough time out there so I finished 10th, which is considerably better than I deserved. I can probably thank the crusty snow for slowing us all down, even the people who navigated properly!

Speaking of navigation, 'Bent *really* got his money's worth. Pat-hectic did the elite course (no handicap) in about 11.5 km. 'Bent, who had to go back and re-do the Box after discovering that he'd understood the handicap system incorrectly, ran over 16 km with a 2 handicap! He came in under the 2-hour time limit with seconds to spare.

Big thanks to Tiny and the Stars crew for an excellent O Cup finale event. Kudos to everyone - organizers and participants - for making this O Cup season particularly vibrant, varied and relevant.

'Bent and I went up to Highlands to enjoy our little-used ski membership for one of the last times this year. So glad we did... what a fantastic day!



No heat, no ticks, no snakes, no lightning, no FDFs, no broken derailleurs, no dust... Harps would have hated it. But it sounds like he got a head start on "patio" season this weekend so I'm sure he enjoyed himself.



It was spring skiing conditions, meaning that we started off on hard, crusty tracks. Even on waxless racing skis, I had to be sure to commit my weight fully to each ski before kicking or else I'd do a crazy Highland Fling. I avoided the steepest downhills today since it's only two weeks till Argentina, and I'm going to need my knees there.



'Bent bravely used wax and had some luck with it at the beginning. But when the temperature rose and the snow softened, he had to bail to the car and switch to skate skiing. I stayed up high where the conditions were nicest.



We ran into Goose and his crew a few times. The kids were making a music video on skis in between drills. I'm sure it will go viral and they'll all get rich. Just remember you saw it here first.

Here's the cool intro.



And then they leap up and dance!



Yes, you can do the moon walk on skis.



As a bonus, I found a pair of rental skate skis they were selling for the price of the Pilot bindings, and they worked perfectly for my weight. At last, I have rock skate skis and can play around in the woods on them! I've always thought I'd wait until my own skate skis turned into my rock skis but I don't use them enough to justify buying nicer new ones. So this is perfect. Shockingly, I can't even think of an (n+1) pair of skis after this - at least not until things start to get scratched up.

Congrats to Frankenjack on being named to the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

"Jack Van Dorp, a cross country runner at Redeemer from 2003-2006, is one of Redeemer's most decorated athletes ever." Sounds like he's been kicking butt for a long time now!

Sunny snowshoe run/slog around Palgrave West. About half of it was trailbreaking in heavy, shin-deep snow and the other half was packed trail that was getting softer by the minute.

I haven't been doing much running lately so I wanted to try some of what the Carbons have been learning from their coach. One thing I realized is that if you "run low" as they are instructed to do, i.e. bend the knees and keep the lower body short, it's much easier to do a decent butt kick. And if you're wearing snowshoes, it's even easier!

I foolishly wore summer tights, socks and shoes to avoid getting my winter stuff wet on a short run in relatively warm weather. I'd underestimated how wet that snow was - I got soaked. My lower legs haven't felt that cold all winter!

6 X 1 min of 200-210 W after warm-up.
Endurance zone otherwise.
Ave 148 W

Today's podcast was "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". Amongst other things, Martha Stewart explained how she would prepare Spam and confessed that she loved Velveeta. Forearms *still* feel fatigued. I guess it's from the tricky Snowgaine skiing but strange that I didn't notice it until two days after the event.

Attack The Trax, Sunday March 17
Ski-O at Highlands Nordic, 15K or 7.5K

Tarno is organizing this so you don't need to worry about being beaten by him. His young daughter Milla entered the 7.5K so if you do the longer distance, you don't have to worry about being beaten by her either. Also, the homemade cookies at Highlands are *really* yummy.

This was a super fun event last time and it's a fundraiser for Highlands' kids' programs so you'll be having fun for a good cause. It's suitable for XC skiers who don't do navigation sports since they only need to be able to read a trail map. Skate or classic are both fine. Please tell your non-AP friends and I hope to see you there!

Hard Core Live with Caron.

My balance stunk tonight. I hate to even say this but I seem to be teetering on the edge of a cold - again. At last month's physical, I had low white blood cells - either the cause or effect of all these colds. I sure hope my wimpy immune system is dealing with the travel vaccines properly.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield can do it all!

GREAT NEWS! I received a phone call tonight from John Hiller, caretaker of Camp Zerbe where the Snowgaine was held. He was the man who agreed to care for Buddy and try to find his owners.

Like us, John fell in love with this sweet dog. Like us, he wouldn't have been disappointed if he had to keep Buddy for good. When Monday morning rolled around, he didn't call the dog warden since he didn't want such a nice dog sent to the pound. His father came out today (I don't think John has a vehicle) and the two of them went house to house until they found Buddy's owner. It was Double_Downon11's clue that solved the mystery; the owner lived on Stone Hill Rd. in the first house south of Garcia Rd.

It turns out that Buddy's real name is Duke. His owner said the pooch is inclined to wander so he wasn't particularly surprised by this episode. I was impressed to learn that Buddy/Duke is 12 years old! For a Lab, that's 70+ in human years. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how far he hiked in the snow since some of the best rogainers in the world are retirees.

Big sigh of relief. Many, many thanks to John for caring so much.

Getawaystix and I were up north today for some Wilderness Traverse planning. The Canadian Shield is still snowy but spring is in the air.



We celebrated a successful day with a short skate ski at Georgian Nordic. I sent GStix off on his own, which turned out to be a good thing since (to quote Ang) someone had put peanut butter on my skis. It was +3C and the trails were soft. It was a great workout though, and I didn't see any other skiers after the first two minutes. This was possibly the last skate ski of the season.

Rest in peace, Stompin' Tom.
1936-2013

The Mad Trapper race series has a new Python-esque style of marketing. Maybe adventure racing should try this...?

Stellar winter day - sunshine, plenty of snow, and warm enough that I seemed to be removing another article of clothing every 5 minutes or so. Luckily, I came indoors before it got indecent.

BulletDog and I toured the forest and climbed some hills. I sometimes follow animal tracks for awhile when I'm snowshoeing from home since it doesn't matter where I go. I love going back out to see that animals have followed my tracks too. Although we seldom see each other, we're connected.

Couldn't stop smiling.

While listening to a Fresh Air podcast - an interview with physician Sam Parnia, who works in resuscitation medicine. He has written a book, Erasing Death, about what he calls "after death" experiences, as opposed to "near death". Science has reached the point where in some cases, resuscitation can take place hours after someone has died, particularly if they have been kept cool. This is because not all the cells in the body die at the same time; it takes a number of hours to die completely. Interesting stuff.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-parnia-md-phd/re...

I was surprised that my arms felt fatigued but I used poles for almost 16 hours on the weekend, and when I was skiing, I used them a *lot*. I guess it shouldn't surprise me.

Good news - I got my 2nd hepatitis shot more than 24 hours ago and didn't experience any bad reaction this time. I hope the first one was just a coincidence. It sure shook up the travel doctor though. He made me sign a detailed waiver and insisted that I make my own decision about whether to continue with the series. Can't say that I blame him. One more shot to go and I'll be (mostly) immune to Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, Cholera and e. Coli. I could probably drink water from a ditch now and I'd be perfectly OK. ;)