Training Log Archive: Bash

Robbie Burns Dinner at Coach LD and Goose's place - a highlight of our winter! :)

1-footed balance, focusing mostly on my problematic right foot - which used to be my good foot until I sprained it at Nipika Lodge a couple of summers ago. It was feeling a lot better after a week without running but my heel got bashed in a furniture moving incident when we were clearing junk out of our basement today.

On a happier note, welcome home from Costa Rica, ‘Bent! :)

A little foothab after a week of neglecting strength and mobility.

Skate ski with Dee at Scenic Caves. Time includes a bunch of chat stops.

That's the 2nd time in three days that I've skate skied with someone else, which is major progress. Also, most of my skate skis are intensity level 4 now instead of level 5. So those 30-minute mandatory ski sessions are doing some good.

Afterward, I did housework and packed up at Tree Hugger ABC. It's been a wonderful 8-day winter vacation but rain started falling at sunset so it was time to go home. Also, 'Bent gets back from Costa Rica this weekend and it would be poor form to be away when he gets back. :)

Easy snowshoe at Wasaga Beach Provincial Park. I followed the orienteering map in detail to get a feel for it before Stars W.A.R. The terrain is so interesting and intricate, and I've gotten messed up in there before.

Things to remember (since some of you are racing there too):
- It can be hard to figure out which contours are down and which are up. Read *very* carefully. Some tick marks for depressions are hidden under trails on the map.
- Summer trails may be almost invisible. I did a lot of trail breaking today. A skier had been out on some of the summer trails, which looked like fun.
- Some of the climbs are quite steep and slippery in winter. Those 5 m contours add up. If you can follow a ridge or valley for a while, that's probably a good route.
- Compass, compass, compass. Parallel errors are easy to make here.

Conditions in the forest were totally different from the places I've been recently. There was barely any snow on the trees, and the snow wasn't particularly deep on the ground. It was like a normal winter.

Time deducted for O-vangelism. I got questions from locals who saw my map and also got questions about my snowshoes.

Skate ski at Highlands with Dee and Mrs. Gally. I was nervous. I never skate ski with anyone else due to my poor abilities but we had fun and I didn't get left behind. I wouldn't have wanted to go too much longer though! Great conditions and beautiful late afternoon light. Time includes stops for conversation and photos, including a chat with Goose who was working on a trail crew cleaning up from the storm.

Short classic ski after the ladies went home. I was staying for the Highlands spaghetti dinner so I had a little more time. The sun set shortly after I started but there was enough light that I didn't need to turn on my headlamp. It was lovely to look down and see lights around Georgian Bay.

Hoo boy, my whole body is so fatigued from the past few days! But I couldn't waste such glorious weather and snow conditions so I went to Scenic Caves for an early afternoon ski after a lazy vacation morning.

Unfortunately, according to our Scenic Caves Rule, I was required to skate ski for 30 minutes before I could go out on classic skis. So I fatigued myself a little more.

I had good glide, dubious grip and fantastic scenery.

Then I dashed home to take BazingaDog and AdventureDog to the dog park - something we rarely do. At home we have a large, fenced country yard with lots of trees and interesting smells but Tree Hugger ABC isn't as much fun for pooches.

I got them out of the van with a leash in each hand. A-Dog jumped out in a way that wrapped the leash across my back. No biggie, the dog park gate was only 20 meters away. A woman was standing near her car with a large dog on leash. My dogs took off like rockets in his direction to say hello. I went down hard in the slippery parking lot but clung to the leashes as I lay there so the dogs didn't actually reach her or her dog.

I leapt back up and apologized. She said coldly, "You *have* to be able to control them, you know."

In hindsight, I wish I'd said, "Why, thanks for asking. Yes, I'm OK."

So glad we don't have to go to dog parks at home!

I let Bob know that if there were any Snowshoe Raid controls left on the course today, I could go out to pick them up. A couple of volunteers worked on it over the weekend. As of today, there were 8 controls remaining in the northwest quadrant of the map.

Snow kept falling for 24+ hours after the race so I knew it was going to be an adventure. Even the drive up to the north end of Pretty River was magical.



I planned a large counterclockwise loop starting with 52. Here's the map again - click to make it bigger.



It was an absolutely spectacular day.



The trees look so amazing because they are coated with ice beneath all the new snow. There will be a lot of damage from these storms.



The forest was beautiful.







The view toward the sky was like a work of art.



Although the forest was lovely to look at, it wasn't conducive to bushwhacking - and I needed to do a lot of that. There was so much snow that it sometimes felt like I was swimming through the white stuff. In many places, visibility was nil.







Just like Saturday, my gloves got soaked from all the snow. Next time I would bring a 3rd pair of gloves in my pack. I had a 2nd pair but wanted to keep them in reserve until they were absolutely necessary - which they never were. But my fingers got chilly because I had to untie the knots on the flags with bare hands then shove them back into frozen gloves.

Bushwhacking wasn't just wet. Because the branches and shrubs were bent low and often frozen together or to the ground, moving foward sometimes felt like breaking out of a jail cell. Many times I had to change course to find a way through.







But it all worked out eventually. This is 54. My route was 52-54-53-51-56-35-43-57.



I have one confession. Between deep snow and thick vegetation, I got pushed west on my way to 53 then I headed for a hilltop that seemed to be in the wrong direction - but damn, it was definitely a hilltop and that's exactly what I was looking for. Of course I was in the wrong place. Worried about my cold hands, I was tempted to bail to the snowmobile trail and continue to the next control but I didn't want to leave Bob with one control to pick up. So I pulled out the Avenza app and relocated the electronic way. (I'm so ashamed.) That was the only time I cheated!

I had only visited one of the 8 controls during the race so today's route had a completely different feel from Saturday. I was breaking trail most of the time since the racers' tracks were seldom visible.

Once I started climbing the escarpment, my hands warmed up so it was a nice finish in the sunshine. What a beautiful and totally exhausting outing!