Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: Stars W.A.R. (Winter Adventure Race)
 

Stars W.A.R. photos from Nick - thanks!

Stars W.A.R. - winter adventure race
'Bent's GPS track
http://ar.attackpoint.org/sessiondata.jsp?sessioni...

Nick must spend all year thinking up clever twists for this fun ski and snowshoe navigation event. Seriously! He's probably staying up late tonight to jot down a few ideas for the next one.

'Bent and I were racing together and spent awhile yesterday planning gear options. We knew we were getting separate ski-O and snowshoe-O maps, both of them score-O style. Nick confirmed that racers could pick up controls from either map using skis or snowshoes. We had some extra gear with us depending on how the race course turned out, but our default plan was to ski with snowshoes in our backpacks so we wouldn't need to come down the escarpment to transition. We hoped to start with the ski-O map and ski to as many controls as possible, even off-trail where we could, and we'd drop our skis so we could snowshoe to controls when necessary. We wanted to front-load our race with skiing since there would be nicely broken snowshoe trails to most of the controls later on, and the snow was deep!

The race course design fit well with our tentative plan. There were several combinations of controls where the point values were doubled if we hit them in a particular sequence without hitting any other controls in between. This was a neat idea that motivated competitive teams to go back and forth on the map since they couldn't pick up all the controls in a particular section at once. Teams with less energy didn't need to bother doing that.

Only a few teams started on skis, including Mick and winter-loving Harps. 'Bent and I decided to go for some bonus points, which meant a lot of skiing early on until we'd visited 4 controls in sequence. We hooked up 'Bent for towing when we had long, flattish stretches but my skis were faster than his so I had to be careful not to crash into him! We broke trail on some marked shortcuts between main ski trails but the snow was so deep that it wasn't always faster.

Leaving from the northwest corner of the black skate trail, we were able to ski to one of the snowshoe controls, then we dropped the skis and snowshoed to two more controls before returning for our skis. (So technically, I should be logging 1 km of snowshoeing that took us 20 minutes but it doesn't seem worth it!) We decided to take another long ski to get 239 on the east side - a 50-pointer - but we probably should have descended the hill and picked up controls on the flats instead. At most, we could have scored 30 more points (less than 5% of our total) so it wasn't a big deal.

We arrived at the finish 16 seconds late, incurring a 10 point penalty in exchange for our final dash to pick up a 20-pointer.

What a fun day! So many different strategies, teams spread out all over the course, perfect winter conditions, lots of controls in different terrain. Thank you, Nick and FunRun for all your work! Great to chat with friends afterward too.

We'd missed seeing an SI punch that was hanging away from a flag, so we'd hand-punched a box on our map instead. Thus our results weren't fully automated, and we benefited from an adjustment after the awards ceremony. Final tally - 670 points, 2nd Masters, 6/22 overall. Congrats to Frankenjack and Getwaystix on blowing the field away with another win!
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B74L7H_66ec-TzBkZ0...

P.S. After telling DD11 how to lock his Ambit so the button wouldn't get bumped during races with bushwhacking, guess who forgot to do it this time. So I've got 2/3 of the race logged but I had to use 'Bent's numbers.

Caledon's Brittany Webster competed in her first Olympic event today: the 15K Skiathlon. She was 2nd of 3 Canadians, 51st of 61 skiers. I'm hoping we can see her cross the finish line at the next race. The cameras left the finish line for awhile to follow the leaders and returned in time to show the arrival of 53rd place. So close! Oh well...

Road run that felt like a trail run on a snow-covered gravel road with only 3 cars in 35 minutes.

Manisa invited 'Bent and me to go snowshoeing behind her place on the same big block of private land where we skied with GYaneff a few weeks ago. It was a perfect winter outing - sunshine, deep snow, trail breaking, hill climbing, views, running downhill in powder, bushwhacking, open fields, wind chill and conversation.

First Ascent of Mount Driveway.

UTMB Race Reconnaissance and Ultra Preparation with Kilian Jornet and Seb Chaigneau.
http://www.overstims.com/Race-reconnaissance-part-...

I've been taking part in the February Challenge group on Facebook. The founder of the Challenge, Ken N., suggests that people set a minimum distance of 5K to run each day but participants modify the challenge to suit their circumstances. The non-negotiable part is that you have to do some minimum distance every day. My version of the challenge is to do at least 5K on foot outdoors every day - running, skiing or snowshoeing.

Time was tight so I snuck in a ski around Palgrave West at sunset, mostly breaking trail through dense snow over my boots (oops, forgot the gaiters) and enjoying 2K broken by 'Bent on his commute this morning. I met 'Bent and BulletDog skiing home from work. At 11 years old, BulletDog doesn't get to go to work as often as BazingaDog but she looked very proud and energetic coming home after her day as Official Dental Dog.

Hard Core Live with Caron

Lots of hip and shoulder stretching and strength. Given that I yanked my torn rotator cuff in an unfortunate ski pole incident today, I had to back off on a few things but it was a great class otherwise.

10 Reasons Not to Run an Ultramarathon :)
http://trailrunnermag.com/training/ultrarunning/ar...

#7 It’s unhealthy.
It is absolutely impossible and preposterous for someone to run 100 miles in a day without stopping. It has NEVER been done before. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You will be crippled. Ask your doctor. Your knees will lock up forever. The last step you ever take will be across the finish line and then you are DONE. People don’t even like driving 100 miles! Don’t do it. You’ll probably die.

Another day, another blizzard. The first order of business was to excavate the pile of snow by our front door to find my rugged MSR Denali Ascent snowshoes. When we bought them a long time ago, we bought the add-on flotation tails to make them 20 cm longer in deep snow. Although I've carried the tails around as emergency gear, I've never installed them before. Today seemed like a good opportunity. It took some fussing and forcing to get them to click into place, even indoors with warm hands, but finally I headed out.

Maybe they work better in the mountains but I lasted a grand total of 6 minutes before returning to ditch them. The tails have no teeth so they slide easily, like skis. Not surprisingly, the snowshoes tilted forward because my feet were attached near the front so I felt like I was going to pitch onto my face. I also kicked myself hard in the ankle a few times but I can't blame MSR for that! :) If I'm going to snowshoe in deep snow very often, I'll need to dig out my big old wooden snowshoes.

Naturally, I couldn't get the stoopid tails off so I had to excavate deeper into the pile of snow by our front door to find 'Bent's snowshoes. Success.

Travel was extremely slow and absolutely wonderful. Snow was still falling, and it was so deep that it was like walking with anvils on my feet at times, even with the help of snowshoes.



Mostly I explored off-trail in Palgrave West. Even though I'm there most days and would usually be able to pinpoint myself exactly on the orienteering map, there were a couple of times when I was wandering in areas that are difficult to travel through in summer, and I didn't recognize where I was. I wasn't concerned, just followed random routes and animal tracks until I hit a familiar place. In both cases, I was a little surprised by where I ended up. Cool.



I spent a bit of time creating a snowshoe track beside 'Bent's ski tracks, hoping to attract people on foot to walk on my trail instead of his.



Note to GHOSLO: I think I may have found Lawren Harris' "Winter Woods". ;)





The snow stopped shortly before I finished.

Bellxercises - to borrow a phrase from FB.

Treadmill 1% incline myth has been debunked again. Unless you run faster than 7:09 miles (a little over 4 mins/km). And some of you do.
http://www.runnersworld.com/treadmills/biomechanic...

Snowshoe tour of Palgrave East and West. I included a 5K snowshoe run in the middle but what I really love to do on snowshoes is random bushwhacking, sometimes following animal tracks. With the snow this deep, it's not possible (for me) to do that while running. So I compromised by doing long forest bushwhacks for my warm-up and cool down. More snow on the way - wow.

From the Globe and Mail: Childless Couple gets Grief for Posting too many Vacation Photos on Facebook

They received an anonymous letter from a "friend": "It’s a little upsetting seeing, hearing and reading about someone’s vacations all year while we all can’t afford one,” the letter read. “Go have some kids and don’t be so selfish as to only think of yourselves all the time."

Uh oh! I post most of my photos here, not Facebook, so I hope I'm not offending any AP friends. I guess the people who don't like that stuff don't read this log anyway.

On Facebook, it is also fair to say that some people post too many photos of their kids. In case you're wondering if it's you, it's not - at least not if you're one of my Facebook friends. The APers I know exercise restraint on FB and often leave me wanting to see more photos. (Especially Leanimal!) However, I've had to hide the status updates of some FB friends who share every single kiddie detail on a near-daily basis. I usually reinstate them after toilet training is complete. By that time the novelty of parenting has worn off a bit, and the details they share aren't as gross. :)

News for people collecting UTMB points... In the past, if you saw a race on the qualifier list for last year, you could write the organizers and get it added to this year's list without too much trouble. But now they are re-evaluating the point values of qualifying races so if you don't see your event on the 2014 list, you need to contact the folks at UTMB to get the ball rolling.

I had been looking at the Bel Monte Endurance Run, where several Ontarians have earned UTMB points in the past. In 2013, the 50-miler was worth 2 points and the 50K was worth 1 point. Although the race course hasn't changed, the UTMB folks have changed their opinion on its level of "semi-autonomy" (course layout and frequency of aid stations). It turns out that in 2014, the 50K isn't worth anything, and the 50-miler is worth only 1 point.

You can write UTMB directly with race details to try to get it added to the list of qualifiers. You may need to involve the RD if info is missing from the website, but RDs don't always care whether their event is a UTMB qualifier so if it matters to you, it's easier to take the lead on it. More info is here.
http://www.ultratrailmb.com/page/17/Qualifying_rac...

Mid-day ski around Palgrave West on one of the most beautiful days all winter. (I've probably said that a dozen times this year so far!) I stopped in a few places to look at the scenery. Our tracks from yesterday were reasonably quick but it was just barely possible to see dimples in the fluffy snow where we'd made tracks on Saturday. So today was a mix of trail breaking and track skiing. Some snowshoers had trampled three abreast and ruined our ski tracks on the Bruce Side Trail but 'Bent reported that they had cleaned up some big fallen trees so they are officially forgiven!















There's a big widowmaker on Thinker's Hill so we'll have to steer clear on windy days.

Foothab. Just in the past week, I've felt a change in my injured foot. Less pain, duller pain when I get any, more arch strength. Maybe I'll be fixed some day...?