Training Log Archive: Bash

Browner and I met at Scotsdale Farm on a day when the roads were surprisingly bad, given the uneventful forecast. It was sunny and chilly with a bitterly cold wind and 10-20 cm of fluffy snow on the trails. It would have been a perfect day for snowshoeing - finally! I'd planned to bring AdventureDog but decided that might be cruelty to animals.

We were actually quite comfortable in the forest, and it was beautiful with the fresh snow. Running was more about strength than speed today, given the difficulty of getting a foothold in the soft snow, which had ice underneath in the few places where we hit bottom. A couple of trails are rocky and technical so the obstacles were hidden under the snow, which resulted in a few surprises when my feet disappeared in odd directions. Lots of fun, a good workout and great to catch up - so grateful to have friends who aren't fazed by crazy winter conditions!

Long run through Palgrave East to the village, along the rail trail to Duffy's Lane, on park roads through Albion Hills CA, then back up Duffy's Lane and home through Palgrave West.



This was my longest run in 4 months, thanks to the impressively thorough job I did of spraining my ankle in September. There is still some pain after a run because the posterior tibial tendon is tight. It almost always hurts on the inside of the left heel and sometimes there's a sore spot on the bottom of the heel too. Maybe if I did five minutes of heel stretching after a run, it would help.

No time for that today, though! 'Bent and I went for our Last Supper at The Church Pub in Palgrave. With live music and local food and drink, it has been the only place to go out for dinner within 10 km of our place. It’s being forced out of business after 4.5 years and a long, expensive battle with the Town of Caledon. Given our own long battle, we empathize. It's really, really unfortunate.

Rotten sleep last night after a malfunctioning CO detector freaked out at 4:30 a.m. It did the same yesterday morning and I thought I'd solved the problem with a new battery but it was just toying with me. We have a small collection of CO detectors so we know the problem isn't CO. My fight-or-flight response kicked in for a few hours and I finally fell back asleep, only to be awakened by a phone call from the security company telling me that our CO detector had been beeping. Um, thanks. Guess I'll try to sleep some other night.

The wind gusts really came up in the afternoon so rather than going into the forest, I ran a hilly 600 meter loop around our yard with some extra repeats on our main toboggan hill. The snow was soft, about 5-15 cm deep, with ice underneath in many places. It felt like molasses going uphill. It was nice to be out but it sure annoyed the dogs, who barked every time I came into sight. My loop passed close to the road so I couldn't bring them along. This wasn't the most exciting run but it was hard work and got me warmed up for strength training.

Mostly lower body + some rowing and triceps.

I looked at my training data for the 6 months leading up to and including the 120 km Lavaredo Ultra Trail in 2016, a race where my legs performed well even though I battled sleep monsters and took a long indoor break during a thunderstorm. That's the last time I did a race comparable to UTMB-CCC and for lack of a better plan, I'll aim to train in a similar manner since it worked.

Luckily, I'm 7 months out from CCC so I have some time to ramp up - and I'll need that since I was knocked out of the ultrarunning game last year by the B.C. forest fires and a major ankle sprain.

One thing that strikes me about these numbers is that my kilometres across all sports over 6 months were fairly low (1619 km) but my elevation gain sounds crazy high (42,415 m). It's a mountain race so that's good. It sounds hard to do in southern Ontario but I just realized that's actually only 26 m climb per km, and I exceeded that in our back yard today! So as long as I keep doing hilly trails, it should all be good.

FIRST 6 MONTHS OF 2016

Running 154:56:24 1012.75 (9:11) 30,628 m
Strength & Mobility 39:48:00
Orienteering 24:59:58 146.14 (10:16) 3780 m
XC Skiing - Classic 18:51:30 141.74 (7.5/h) 2574 m
Power Yoga 10:38:00
Adventure Racing 10:29:43 108.99 (5:47) 949 m
Snowshoeing 9:10:03 34.58 (15:54) 1657 m
Mountain Biking 8:44:42 125.28 (14.3/h) 1201 m (Not nearly enough!)
Trekking 5:04:21 15.32 (19:52) 794 m
Snowshoe Orienteering 2:56:14 16.04 (10:59) 488 m
Snowshoe Running 1:58:57 13.79 (8:38) 299 m
Paddling 50:00
XC Skiing - Skate 20:18 3.98 (11.8/h) 45 m (So I actually *did* skate ski once in the five years before this season!)
Other 20:00

TOTAL 289:08:10 1618.6 42,415 m

Oh deer!
https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/news/tuscon-cy...

Outside, the slushy footprints on the trails have frozen rock hard so it's an ankle twister's paradise. I fired up the treadmill and watched the mini-film festival I put together yesterday - mostly trail running-related with a dash of ski-mo and John Cleese. My favourite moment was Kilian Jornet holding his skis with a big smile, saying something like, "Running is fine in the summer but when there's snow, I'm not going to run." It seems to work just fine for him.

It's not official yet but for those who have been asking, there is a strong chance that Wilderness Traverse will be on the Aug. 24 weekend.

Foothab and balance, aka unplanned rest day.

I hoped to get out snowshoeing after the dishwasher repairman came during his generous 5-hour window. He arrived toward the end of that time, shortly after his company texted me a photo of him and his truck so I’d know who was coming to the door. (Nice.) He stayed longer to get things working, which I can hardly complain about. By that time, it was dark with cold drizzle and the wind was howling so I put together a 1-hour set of short videos for the treadmill. And then the power went out. So I didn't get to run, and I had to eat freeze-dried spaghetti for dinner. The End.

P.S. It could have been worse. I could have been 'Bent in the middle of doing a filling on a patient when the power went out tonight. Now *that* was an adventure!

More from the scientists who brought us the One Minute Workout: McMaster researchers have found that aerobic fitness improves after an intense 20-second workout. Well obviously, it's not that simple. You need to do it three times a week for six weeks. Yes, you'll need to exercise six whole minutes in a month and a half. Better start drawing up a training schedule.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fi...

AdventureDog and I went for a run around Palgrave West in 5-10 cm of snow. The forest was beautiful although it felt like running in sand. That's OK - I need the extra workout. 'Bent skied to work today but said it wasn't quite enough snow to qualify as a *good* ski.

The sun set partway through our run and we arrived home just as it was getting dark. AdventureDog kept stopping with one paw raised, looking into the woods with concern. I guess some animals were watching us.

Mountain Legs, balance, calf stretch, plank

Foothab balance after another painful session with Dr. Thumbs-of-Death, who is now working on both feet. The right sides of both lower legs are tight so I guess I’m at risk of tipping over, lol.

Then instead of strength training, I attempted to repair our dishwasher. Then ‘Bent tried. Unfortunately, I think this problem may be more than YouTube can handle.