Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent and I had some trail work planned at the chalet so we invited two top athletes to join us for "a hike".





Then we immediately put them to work. Bob and Hank did a great job. 5 stars. I'd hire them again.

Dee and Amber joined me for my first trail run in Kolapore. I'm still learning the area and needed to keep looking at the map. This turned out to be a nice loop and we had the whole place to ourselves. It was actually just a hike-run. I taped both feet beforehand and moved very cautiously to avoid twisting an ankle. My foot is a little less happy than it was after my run in Palgrave last week but it's not too bad. We ran on a thin layer of snow most of the time, sometimes on wet leaves. I'm glad 'Bent and I went biking yesterday because it feels like bike season is over here. That's OK - I'm ready to ski.

'Bent and I headed out after 3 p.m. for a "race against sunset" mountain bike ride in Kolapore. Google said the sun would disappear at 4:48.

We decided to ride the trail to the back of our property at Tree Hugger ABC for the first time. It could use some raking but it was fine. Then we had to lift our bikes over a fence with barbed wire on top to get onto Crown Land. (There's a hole in the fence just big enough for a person to squeeze through.)

After that, we expected a fair amount of hike-a-biking on our 600 meter flagged route to the Bruce Trail. We've pruned and cleaned up the biggest obstacles but it's still basically bushwhacking. We weren't really thinking of using it for biking. Turns out it's surprisingly rideable already! It still needs more work to earn the designation of "trail" vs. "route" but we were quite chuffed by this discovery.



We can't ride on the Bruce Trail so the next step was a 2-minute unimproved bushwhack to the Kolapore Church Trail on the bike trail network. Except for the low sections, the trails were dry and the riding was excellent, if rocky. I'm getting braver about all the off-angle rocks. On the Oak Ridges Moraine where we live, we get lots of practice riding over roots but there aren't so many rocks. P.S. I love my Pivot 29er - yes, the same bike I was ambivalent about when I first got it. And I was soooo grateful to be clipped in.







There were some decision points where we looked at our watches, the map and the setting sun. This may be our last ride here this year so I was keen to get as far as we could, even if it meant bailing out to a road later. We detoured around some technical trails by taking 10th Line and climbing a very impressive hill then we headed back into the trail network.





The sun disappeared but we decided to take a chance and ride into the middle of the forest so we could return home by our new forest route.



Our gamble paid off. All went well and we arrived home in the warm glow of twilight.

Ontario's Conservation Authorities Act was legislated 74 years ago by a Progressive Conservative majority government. It responded to concerns of a wide range of forward thinking citizens - naturalists, hunters, farmers, politicians and more. They were way ahead of their time.

"Leading conservation organizations and many practitioners within the provincial government believed that we could not protect Ontario’s important natural resources from contamination, degradation or depletion unless a more integrated watershed management approach was adopted using natural watershed boundaries."

In its early decades, the conservation authorities program became internationally renowned and was considered so innovative that people came from around the world to study it.

I've volunteered on several initiatives with our local Conservation Authorities and I appreciate how important it is to have an organization that takes a watershed perspective rather than a municipal or provincial view. My Dad's longtime business partner, Art Latornell, was influential in the early years of the conservation authority movement so I also feel a personal connection.

The original reasons for the CA Act haven't gone away. The concerns have become more pressing over the years as the population has grown. However, the ability of Conservation Authorities to fulfill their role in watershed planning and management is severely curtailed in the government's planned omnibus Budget Bill 229.

The Canadian Environmental Law Association has done a preliminary analysis of the impact of the proposed legislation at this link. If you agree with their concerns, there is also a tool to help you send a quick email to the appropriate representatives.
https://ontarionature.good.do/conservationauthorit...

My gimpy right foot doesn't feel any worse after yesterday's super-cautious-tree-root-avoidance trail run. Rare good news in 2020. :)

I've been missing trail running sooooo much. My foot pain hasn't been cured by taking long breaks from running and it hasn't been exacerbated by 5-8K runs on smooth surfaces. I should have tried to get some diagnostic imaging between Covid waves but I wasn't watching my crystal ball closely enough to get the timing right. As we hurtle toward another lockdown and a Christmas season in my tiny bubble with 'Bent, who doesn't celebrate it, I'm looking for ways to cheer myself up.

So today I barged ahead with a trail run - damn the torpedoes. I ran gravel road to Palgrave Forest to warm up on a smooth surface, then I ran mostly on double track that was reasonably bare so I could see the roots and rocks. In places where leaves and pine needles obscured the ground, I slowed down to a fast hiking pace. I kept my eyes on the ground - no swivelling my head to see the dramatic snow squall skies. It wasn't a relaxed forest run but at least it was a forest run. And now I'll see how much I'll have to pay for it.

It's clear why, after 25 years of living by a forest, we don't use the trails on windy days.