Training Log Archive: Bash

Boo, weather not looking good for driving to and (especially) from Toronto so no orienteering O Cup for me today. We are at a point on the map where different regional forecasts can be relevant. Best guess is that we have a snowfall warning or a freezing rain warning plus a snow squall watch.

With about 10 cm of new snow on the ground so far, we went skiing in Palgrave West. Under the thin layer of snow, there is rock hard ice sprinkled with pointy ice chunks that fell from the trees after the ice storm. This meant we couldn't push off with our poles effectively, and a fall would have really hurt. 'Bent and BazingaDog were skijoring while I skied behind them, ready to provide wilderness first aid as needed. My favourite part was seeing 'Bent in his skis, standing precariously balanced as he crossed an icy fallen log with BazingaDog tied to his waist. If B-Dog had spotted a squirrel at that moment, it would not have been pretty. Luckily, the wildlife were all hunkered down to hide from the snowstorm so this story has a happy ending.

BulletDog and I went out for a snowshoe run/walk as the snow continued to fall. It's all recorded in the same GPS track, and I've tried to separate the running and walking. Almost all of this was trail breaking, and there was some bushwhacking to get around fallen trees. It's beautiful out there but still a little dangerous with lots of damaged trees to clean up. Given that we don't have a chainsaw, it could be a long time until some of our regular routes are passable. BulletDog will be celebrating her 11th birthday on Tuesday but she hasn't slowed down much at all - a terrific snowshoeing buddy.

P.S. My hair froze.

One of my geekier Christmas hints to 'Bent was to get me more RIDES DVDs for the trainer. In honour of Super's plan to do the Bear Mountain 50-miler, I started with RIDES New York - Assault on Bear Mountain. It turned out to be one of my favourites in the series thus far. Nice to see the scenery of Harriman State Park and "ride up" Bear Mountain at the end. Unfortunately, I kicked the power cord by accident and lost all the statistics for the session. Just to put a number on it, I'd guess an average wattage around 350W...

This was supposed to be an XC ski day up north but 'Bent's van's radiator started gurgling and belching clouds of steam last night, around the same time that the van reduced its power, emitted odours and turned on the Check Engine light. We left it in Bolton so a fair bit of today was dedicated to van rescue.

Visitors from France were welcomed at Goose and Coach LD's place tonight - Leanimal, Phatty and Weeanimal!



Somebody likes to wear a tutu, sparkles, a crown and coloured toenail polish. Phatty and Leanimal have no idea where *this* came from!



Somebody else is happy in Salomon apparel.



We all got a little silly at times.



Weeanimal is already better at dancing and yoga than any of the rest of us.

As much as I dislike treadmill running, it's easier on my heel than running on uneven ground so it'll have to be part of my recovery. Thanks to Urthbuoy's brilliant thinking outside the box and beyond the instruction manual, today I was able to enter a programming mode to switch the treadmill units to kilometers. The mandatory miles and mph have been bugging me for 3 years. Crazy that a product both made and sold in a metric country would not offer consumers the option. All fixed now. :)

This was a run/walk, as per doctor's orders. About 25 of 45 minutes was walking, mostly at a brisk 6.5 kph. Figured I might as well get *something* out of the walking part. The remaining 20 minutes was running, mostly at 8 kph but I bumped it up to 8.5 and then 9 toward the end. The cardio feels fine so I hope I haven't lost *too* much fitness.

I hope to keep building up slowly. I felt some heel pain after the trail run on New Year's Day because it wasn't possible to maintain good form and alignment on the rough ice. I should do my trail running in snowshoes over the next while since that won't twist my feet around as much. Baby steps.

BulletDog and I braved the -20C afternoon temperature (warmed up from -30C) to check out the trail system between here and the Bruce Trail. Awesome work by VO2Max to clear all those big fallen trees. We still have lots of work to clean up debris and clip smaller branches that are blocking the trail. There is a lot of potential firewood out there if our neighbours don't want it.

Latest UTMB lottery news. Entries close on Monday afternoon.

To date, 11 600 runners, representing 75 different nationalities are candidates.

- The UTMB®, is today, 200% full: there will less than 1/2 chance of being successful in the draw.
- The CCC®, is today, 150% full; there will be a 1 in 2 chance in the draw.
- The PTL™ is full
- The TDS™, with more than 1100 runners already registered... probably won’t need to have a draw.
- The OCC, is today, 120% full; there will be about 7 in 10 chance in the draw.

On the same date last year, only 8,000 people had entered the lottery. At that time, UTMB was only 160% full, and CCC was 115% full. So it's probably tougher to get in this year.

Year End Review, Part 2 of 3 - Report Card on 2013 Goals
Overall Grade: C-

--PASS--

Compete in two or more 24-hr to multi-day races with navigation --- Tierra Viva expedition adventure race, CNYO Rogaine

50 hrs of strength training --- This was helped by (a) all the physio, and (b) including power yoga in the total since it involves so much strength work.

550 hrs of total training --- Yup, 557.

Continue multi-sport training for long adventure races, also as cross-training for the 100-miler. --- Yup.

--CONDITIONAL PASS--

Morning training 2 days/week --- This usually required extra inspiration from an event or a meeting with friends. I rarely train in the morning by choice so there are no new good habits to report.

Improve running form --- Only partial marks since this mostly happened in physio after a running injury.

--FAIL--

Finish my first 100-mile trail ultrarun --- Nope.

Lose 6 lb by March 31 --- Oh, I lost it, all right. But then I found 8 lb in the fall.

200 hrs of running --- On track until derailed by injury in late September.

Complete bike "power builder" DVD set on the trainer --- Nope.

Average 7 hrs sleep --- I believe this is the #1 reason I DNFed at UTMB so it's a big priority to fix this.

In honour of Revy attending his first yoga class, I did Rodney Yee's Power Yoga for Flexibility. My injured foot likes yoga; I must keep this up.

I'm lousy at walking on the balance beam with my eyes closed.

Creative use of social media... 338 Australian sharks are now on Twitter after being fitted with acoustic transmitters. They will tweet whenever they are within half a mile of a beach.
http://www.outsideonline.com/news-from-the-field/T...

Year End Review, Part 1 of 3: Training
2013 Training Hours by Activity

Top activities (with 2012, 2011 totals in brackets):

1) Running + Snowshoe Running - 153 hrs (190, 138.5)
2) Adventure Racing - 112 hrs (26, 163)
3) Mountain Biking + Road Biking - 60 hrs (77.5, 89)
4) Orienteering + Snowshoe Orienteering - 55 hrs (66.5, 73.5)
5) Strength + Yoga 52 hrs (36, 30)
6) Paddling - 48 hrs (31, 74)
7) XC Skiing (Classic, Skate, Roller) - 45.5 hrs (55, 28)

Total Annual Training Hours = 557 (505, 612)

Observations:

- Annual training hours haven't varied as much as it appears. Multi-day adventure races in 2011 and 2013 skewed the numbers.

- Not many mysteries or new trends here... Skiing is down a little, only because we didn't do the Silverstar Supercamp. Strength is up a lot, mostly because I did so much physio. Biking is down because we did 320 km of skeleton-rattling mountain biking at Tierra Viva, which was logged as adventure racing and reduced my usual enthusiasm for spring riding.

- Running is down a *lot* because my year effectively ended with UTMB on Labour Day weekend. I did 8 hours of recovery runs over the next month, then an injury flared up so I only logged 8 hours of running in the last 3 months of 2013. More on this later.

Up next: Report card on 2013 goals, then plans for 2014!

I wasn't planning to run today since I want to give my foot a day off between runs as it recovers. But our dogs went crazy, and I noticed a young golden retriever at our side door with two fuzzy puppies. They belong to neighbours half a kilometer away on the other side of the road - people who aren't familiar with dogs and definitely should not own one. They didn't get their golden spayed because they thought it might be fun to breed her. They also didn't fence her in, and they didn't understand the concept of "in heat". She escaped for 4 days last summer, and we only heard about it on the 4th day. I'd seen her during that time on a different road but hadn't realized it was her or that she was missing. She was with a male friend at the time - and now she has puppies, some of whom have been found wandering alone on our road since there still isn't a fence, and they are allowed outside without supervision. Grrrr.

Anyway... the 3 dogs were frightened by our dogs' barking through the window, and they ran up the hill toward the conservation area. It is -31C with wind chill today, which is why 'Bent didn't take a dog with him to work. Crap, no puppy should be wandering in the woods in that weather. I went after them wearing Sorels, skidding around since I'd forgotten how slippery it still is. I called them in my friendliest voice but they scampered farther away. As I was coming down Thinker's Hill, I saw them come back to F&M's property from the conservation area, heading toward our house or F&M's house. I initiated a neighbourhood alert and have been watching outside. I hope they made it back to the road and got home safely. Ugh.

Waterfalls of Hamilton, 5th Edition
Run/Walk

Thank you Trav and Baloney for hosting 60 hungry runners for this incredible kick-off to 2014!

First we ran on icy trails to visit some number of waterfalls on the orienteering map provided by Hammer. The minimum requirement was 2 waterfalls in order to qualify for the delicious post-run lunch.



Michelle Elliott asked if she could join me. I was leery of planning to go with anyone because I needed to run/walk, and I'd have to turn back if my foot got too sore. But she was totally fine with that level of uncertainty, and luckily my foot felt fine. We chatted non-stop - lots of fun to get to know someone new.



It was great to get out on a cold morning and enjoy trails again. This is the first day of 8 months of UTMB training. Fingers are tightly crossed that my foot will let me do that.



Our run was followed by yummy waffles, Dutch soup, bagels, desserts and real Domestique coffee. Excellent company, interesting conversation, friends I hadn't seen in a long time, friendly dogs - an awesome way to celebrate New Year's Day. Much appreciated, Traveloney! :)

(Forgot to turn on Ambit until we climbed escarpment for the first time so I've adjusted the numbers.)

We got another wonderful gift on New Year's day... When 'Bent took the dogs out for a short hike, he discovered that the trails along his commute had been cleared of fallen trees and branches from the ice storm. He ran into VO2Max, who had taken it upon himself to go out with a chainsaw and open up the trails leading from our place to Palgrave East. What a super nice thing to do, especially since it's his last day of holidays. Tomorrow he flies back to Kamloops for school. Thank you, VO2Max!

Wishing all the best to you and your family for a happy, healthy, fun-filled 2014!

Myka and Amik came up to Palgrave to play in the snow. It was Amik's first time on snowshoes, and he is a natural! We were out for much longer than this and also did some trail clearing, tobogganing, hill climbing, dog chasing, kid hauling and snowboard-less snowboarding. Myka also learned how to split wood and haul a log-filled sled so she may be logging some logging today.

While 'Bent, VO2Max, Coach LD and Goose played hockey in the dark on the Wheelies' big pond, I stayed at the far end of the ice and tried to remember figure skating moves from my childhood. It's been years since I've skated so it took awhile just to get the skates to stop hurting my feet. Then I did a bunch of spins and crossovers, which worked well, plus some unimpressive Figure 8s, spirals, half-rotation jumps and pathetic shoot-the-duck attempts. Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that Goose was the best at Shoot the Duck. Great to hang out with everyone on a crisp, cold night - and especially to catch up on VO2Max's latest adventures beyond the world of competitive skiing. (Logged @50%.)

'Bent, BazingaDog and I went snowshoeing in open areas (mostly) at Albion Hills on a beautiful, cold day.



Most of the ice has fallen down but there are still some large deciduous trees that will drop heavy ice chunks over the next few days.





It's also a good idea to stay away from sloped roofs, including the one on our house. Ice avalanche zone!

(Btw this is not our house...)



We're looking forward to getting back on the trails but that means trail work, not trail use. It's going to be messy.

Getting back at it - about 50 minutes worth but I don't log it all. I lost interest in physio when we were dealing with all the power failure stuff but it's time to start training for UTMB.