Training Log Archive: Bash

O Cup #1 - The Kickoff at Glen Haffy Conservation Area. Last night's blizzard was scary when I was driving to the airport but this morning, it gave us perfect winter orienteering conditions to start the O Cup season. Deep, fluffy snow and brilliant sunshine - my favourite.

I didn't run, as per doctor's orders, so this was the first O Cup course in a decade that I've done as a fast hike. I was worried about finishing within the 90 minute time limit but it wasn't bad at all. With all the snow, it was a ton of work even to speed-hike up and down Glen Haffy's hills. It turned out to be lots of fun to bash around in the woods without running, even though I'd worried it wouldn't be.

Great to see lots of AR and O friends, and a group of us enjoyed a nice brunch at the Market Hill Cafe afterward. 'Bent probably had the coolest choices - lobster omelette followed by chocolate potato pie!

Yahooooooo!!!! After hiking around the snowy woods with a map this morning, we got out our rock skis for a tour of Palgrave West. 'Bent and I did a loop with BulletDog and GuestRottweiler, the two dogs who can be trusted off leash. Then I headed over to K-Bash and Wheelie Woods to explore while 'Bent and BazingaDog went skijoring. The pace was slow because I removed a lot of branches from the trail as I went along.

It was spectacular - amazing conditions for the first ski of the year. It's hard to find words to explain how incredibly happy and free this ski made me feel. I've done a lot of compromising lately, doing "second choice" activities and wishing I could run. But today was as good as it gets. :)

This was supposed to be a recovery ride to loosen up my legs after yesterday's strength workout. I'm feeling upper hammies and lower glutes today so apparently there was some exercise that hit muscles I usually miss. I ended up doing a pyramid while listening to a podcast so it wasn't quite as easy as it probably should have been. Muscles are still stiff.

Ave cadence - 81
Ave watts - 157

Today's training is all indoors while the guest Rottweiler gets used to being here. No accidents yet today but last night after I'd gone to bed, I had to get up and clean up a spectacular mess. Poor doggie - she's confused about where she is and where her family has gone.

While listening to CBC's Rewind on "Teen Idols" from Elvis Presley to Justin Bieber. I briefly perked up during the David Cassidy and Donnie Osmond interviews. :)

Physio + some core and triceps. It's snowing out so I will need to use ski poles soon!

[Photos fixed now.]
If you follow 'Bent's log, then you've seen photos of his recent adventures working at a volunteer dental mission in Belize. If not, here are a few of my faves. In 4 days, 4 dentists each worked 40 hours, collectively saw 50-60 patients a day, treated over 2,000 teeth and extracted 90 teeth in a temporary clinic set up in a village church with very basic equipment and full sterilization.

Patients - including solo children - would ride the bus for hours to get there, then wait for hours more. 'Bent says they were all grateful and cooperative. He has always wanted to go on a volunteer mission but most dental missions do a lot of extractions, which 'Bent doesn't enjoy and feels bad about since that is seldom the best thing for the patient. From seeing his smile in the photos, I suspect this is going to become a regular thing! :)

P.S. Yes, he uses a BentBlaster for dentistry. Even in Canada.

A mash-up of Carbon's Offset's ski conditioning session and my physio exercises. I like the ski workout! The two-footed jumps felt like I was disobeying doctor's orders though, so I stopped after a few. Burpees didn't work well with 3 dogs in the room including our young guest Rottweiler, who got confused and peed on two different carpets. Not surprisingly, dinner was late.

In 'Bent's absence, I took over logging duties and moved a bunch of the wood from our big ex-tree. It was like working in the Khumbu Ice Fall since some pieces of the trunk weigh more than I do, and every time I moved a log, other pieces of wood tumbled and rearranged themselves. When I started, some of the largest wood chunks were waist-high in the pile so I cautiously instigated "controlled explosions" to knock things down. After all the careful work to rehabilitate my gimpy foot, it would suck for it to get crushed so I did a little tap dancing to get out of harm's way. If one of the big pieces had landed on me, it could have been awhile before anyone came along to lift the darned thing off. So this was a wild, reckless adventure - by homeowner standards.



I started the day with a 1-hour dog hike on a big fenced property with an extra Retriever so the pooches are fast asleep. They'd better rest up because a guest Rottweiler is arriving shortly.

Physio - One thing that's new to me (and would drive Coach LD nuts!) is the idea of doing certain exercises only on one side. The kinesiologist says that we aim to achieve balance and symmetry first, then we aim to strengthen both sides. So if my right side gets a passing grade, then I only work on the left side until it catches up.

Since I couldn't run on "Hug a Runner Day", I did an easy trainer ride and re-watched The Perfect Runner. Dr. Bell is one of the experts on the show; he said virtually every runner he treats has weak feet. Any urge to feel sorry for myself for not being able to run vanished instantly upon receiving a phone call from a friend newly diagnosed with cancer. :(

Cadence - 77
Watts - 120 (max 238)

Added the new exercises. Trying to fix my weak feet!

Looking for a chance to see Mr. and Mrs. GHOSLO's presentation on their new book, "In the Footsteps of the Group of Seven"? The public is invited to their presentation tomorrow evening in Caledon. Bender gave it 5 stars. I'm planning to arrive during the "light refreshments" after the general business portion of the meeting.
http://www.caledonheritagefoundation.com/blog---vi...

This one hits home.

Physio with some extras.

Today was my 3rd of 7 scheduled weekly appointments at the clinic in Orillia. At each visit, Dr. Bell spends 15 minutes doing chiropractic work on my legs and hips, and the kinesiologist spends a little longer reviewing my exercises, making changes based on what she sees, and giving me the next exercises in the program.

I'm starting to get a sense of how it's all going to come together. The reason I'm not supposed to run has little to do with the status of my injury, which is rarely discussed (and isn't bad). They simply don't want me to run until my biomechanics, strength and mobility have been changed sufficiently. The cool thing is that I can see changes happening, e.g. when the kinesiologist measures the distance of my knee from the wall for a particular stretch, and it's getting closer every week.

Interesting fact learned today: 85% of the patients at this clinic come from outside Orillia - usually people like me who show up with "interesting" problems.

Turns out I broke the rules again yesterday, albeit inadvertently. I'm allowed to hike so I assumed a fast treadmill walk at 15 degrees would be OK but apparently not. (Doh!) I'm only allowed 10 degrees because my current level of mobility will force me to go out of proper alignment to accommodate the slope. Darn. So I went for a plain old hike around the Charlevoix trail with the dogs as the sun set. Not loggable training but wonderful for the soul.

With high winds forecast for last night, I'd made preparations for a power outage - filled drinking water containers (we lose our running water), charged my phone, etc.

The storm lived up to predictions but we started with a brown-out instead of a blackout. I like blackouts better! I had to run around at 1:30 a.m. unplugging electronics since I wasn't sure what the weird partial power might do to them. They certainly weren't working. Through the night, we alternated between brown-out and blackout. During the brown-outs, a beeping smoke detector outside our bedroom kept me informed of the current status.

Bottom line... another "excellent" sleep!

'Bent and I had to say a sad farewell last week. If you've been to our home, you've probably seen the beautiful white pine in our back yard. If you look hard, you can see a Tree Hugger in the first photo. :) That's exactly how we felt about this grand old tree.





The tree was elderly when we moved here 15 years ago but we worked with our arborist to extend its life by securing branches to the trunk with cables, installing a lightning rod and balancing its weight after branches fell off. It developed a vertical crack down the length of its trunk so you could see right through it at the right angle but we knew it provided habitat for animals so we kept maintaining it.



At the ripe old age of 150 (or so) this year, it dropped 3 huge branches in six weeks, all on days with no wind. Each branch weighed considerably more than an average tree.



We couldn't risk killing someone in our yard. It broke our hearts but the tree had to come down. Last week it happened.





We'll be burning its firewood for the next few years and hopefully making a table from some of the wood. But I'll really miss seeing it outside our bedroom window every morning, looking different in every season. Sunrise, sunset. :(

RIDES DVD #1: Rockies - a little trainer tour into the mountains near Boulder, Colorado. Big climb with low cadence then lots of higher cadence and endurance work. Finished with 1-legged drills - just what I felt like by then! Much sweat was sweated.

Ave speed 22.5
Ave cadence 79
Ave watts 131, Max 233

(It felt harder than that but we spent a lot of time in big gears with lower cadences.)

Just a little test to see how it feels to walk quickly on the treadmill with the elevation set at 15 degrees. This is how Charlotte Vasarhelyi learned her very fast uphill ultrarun-walk technique. As boring as it is, it is something I am allowed to do, and it felt relatively transferable to running - awesome.

Foothab and hiphab followed by planks and Supermans in honour of Hard Core Monday.