Training Log Archive: Bash

Dances With Dirt Results

Our team (Canadian Chicklets) placed 4th of 31 female teams, which surprised me - in a good way! We were only 23 minutes behind the 2nd place team, who were 1 hr 23 mins behind the winners.

Our rank only improved to 3rd of 31 teams when our handicap was incorporated, which surprised me too since I thought that was our strong suit. All women are given a 12.5% handicap. All runners get 1% for every year over 40 and 1.5% for every year over 50. The handicaps for the five team members are added together and divided by five to get an average handicap for the team. Our team handicap was 20% and I'm proud to say I made a significant contribution! :)

'Bent and I went to the Dances With Dirt 100 km trail running relay in Michigan. He raced with Tarno, Almageddon, Gus and Ed. I raced with Jackie, Milla and Alanna Tarno, and Kay Kay Magi. We both had fantastic teammates.

The race course runs in and around Pinckney State Recreational Area, where I did the Trail Marathon 50K a few years ago. The relay has 15 legs that start/finish in 5 different places, sometimes more than once, so it's a busy day of running and driving.

There are close to 300 teams of five runners, many of them in costume. The atmosphere is super fun and friendly.



I think our female team did reasonably well but results take a while to come out. In addition to the regular ranking, teams are assigned age/gender handicaps so I was very valuable to our team in spite of being the slowest runner. :)

I ran Leg 6 from Hell Creek to Nielsen's Rating. The first part is nice trail - rolling and sometimes sandy and slow. It was super hot, and shorter distances aren't my specialty so I got passed regularly. Although this leg was rated "Poison Ivy: Extreme", it was fairly easy to avoid it.

Around the 5 km mark, we left the trail and bushwhacked over to a waist-deep creek at the edge of a mucky, swampy, treed area. I had no idea that my mud/swamp running skills are *that* much better than the average person but apparently it's one of my (not very useful) strengths.

Alas, we popped out onto a rail trail for a couple of kms to finish the leg so some of the swamp people passed me on the way in. A high school track team was there with buckets, tubs and hoses so we could get cleaned off in exchange for a donation. Nice!

I beat my estimate by 5 minutes. Jackie started running Leg 7 shortly before I came in - a legal practice called "cheating" that you can start at this point of the race. Teams just keep track of their overlap times so it can be added on to their finish time.

Legs 12 and 13 from Half Moon to The Farm had to be run together since organizers hadn't been able to arrange parking at the transition point. This was the hottest part of the day so I didn't feel too perky.

As with Leg 7, we started out with sensible trail and a bit of gravel road, then it turned into an off-trail adventure where we hopped over fallen logs as we wove our way through the beautiful forest. This time the poison ivy was unavoidable so we'll see how that turns out later in the week! I scrubbed with Tecnu afterward.

There were more hills on this leg, including a couple of steep, slippery descents. That was the one type of terrain where I felt my recent Alpine experience helped me out. Just before the Farm finish line, we were directed to follow a rope through a pond. It felt great!

My 2nd run since CCC, led out by AdventureDog. The Ambit says I need 18 hours of recovery after less than 40 minutes of running, which is its way of being sarcastic about my recent training volume. I'm filling in for someone at the Dances With Dirt trail relay in Michigan this weekend, which will be a very different kind of running from what I've been doing.

It's now the second half of September so I've spent enough time being lazy! It's time to get back to AP logging and a bit of training.

I've decided to stop tracking my sleep on a regular basis. I started doing that after sleep deprivation wreaked havoc on my 2014 UTMB race. I think my habits have improved over the past 5 years even though they'll never be perfect. I failed nap time in kindergarten so this is not new! I sometimes worry too much about the sleep numbers so I think I'll just try to stay well rested.

I've added some log entries for the first week of September - the week after CCC. Lots of photos, lots of scenery, not much text. Guest appearances in Chamonix by the Cameron/Mueller family and Benoit Letourneau. I still need to write the race report.
https://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/p...