Training Log Archive: Bash

In the past two days, 'Bent and I have spent more than 8 hours out on the trails in deep snow. Given my limited training this year, that's more than my body was expecting. For breakfast this morning, I had a big bowl of oatmeal with fruit. Also, I had a banana. Also, I had a big slice of turkey with cranberry sauce. Also, I had a small piece of homemade chocolate cheesecake. I think my body has caught up on calories now.

I convinced 'Bent to drive around to the southeast corner of Kolapore so we could ski the novice trails in County Forest that we didn't reach yesterday. It was like a different world. The terrain was rolling but not hilly. There aren't many rocks on the trails so less snow is needed for skiing. We met about 25 other skiers and tracks had been set on all trails but one. Since we take our volunteer trail breaking responsibilities very seriously, of course we had to set those tracks in the deep, fluffy snow. We turned back when we started hitting wet patches on Southern Crossing. I had to stop twice to clear ice off my skis.

Nice day! I didn't take any photos because it would have looked the same as yesterday. Same snowy forest, same skiers, same big smiles.

Our neighbours, Marla and Barry, snowshoed over with their daughter Darcie, her son Sam, their dog Teddy and their granddog Lulu. We had offered to break a trail from their house to our trail so they could follow it to the Bruce Trail, and we'd also offered to lead a tour to show them the way. It was lovely to converse with other humans after a few quiet days.

More snow squalls! We were supposed to run a Boxing Day 10-mile Strava segment on gravel roads in our neighbourhood but our driveway hadn't been plowed so there was no way to get to the start. Anyway, it would just be wrong if we didn't ski out our back door in Kolapore on a spectacular day like this so we resolved to go at least 16.1 km in honour of the event. That turned out to be easier said than done in heavy snow with lots of trailbreaking.

Here was the scene around the chalet as we started.







I foolishly tried to step over our back fence without removing my skis.



We broke trail a lot in the first part of our ski, then we started finding sections that had already been skied. We met three other groups with a total of six skiers - a busy day by Kolapore standards.





We'll be working on the trails here so when we found a couple of large fallen branches across the trail, 'Bent got out his hand saw and I cleared debris that I could move by hand.







This was also Day 3 of the CMTR Christmas Run Streak challenge - not a run but that's OK.

Merry Christmas!

After a relaxing start to the day, 'Bent and I took the dogs on an epic snowshoe adventure from our back yard into Duncan Escarpment Provincial Park. As snow fell, we did a big loop on the Bruce Trail and a side trail starting near Metcalfe Rock.

In most places, the snow was unbroken or barely broken. It was fun, beautiful and hard work to scramble over boulders and up steep hills. The dogs were thrilled. I managed to turn my right ankle in a moment of inattention but otherwise it was fantastic.

For the entire day - not just this outing - we didn't see another person or even a moving car. Apparently, social distancing comes naturally to us. We Zoomed with my brother and his partner this evening, which gave us some much-needed human interaction. Hope you had a great day!





There was so much snow that in places, we wandered off the Bruce Trail.























BazingaDog: "WTF, humans?"

It has turned out to be a surprising amount of work to prepare for a 2-person Christmas. After some discussion about the lockdown, we decided to go to the Kolapore chalet, partly because we're in the middle of renovations and we want to see how things are going. Also, we figured that would give us the best odds for cross-country skiing over the holidays.

Given the current situation, we wanted to reduce our interactions up north so I raced around in Peel Region (aka Plague Central) buying dog food, groceries, hardware and Christmas gifts. Then I packed, did laundry and stayed up late baking croissants and chocolate cheesecake before we got up early and went to Gourmandissimo to pick up our meals for Christmas Eve and Day. At the chalet, there was drywall dust and mouse poop to clean up before we could settle in.

And then the most important task of all: going for a hike with 'Bent and the dogs to select a Christmas tree from our property. We've had a tree at home since late November but I wanted one here too. I inherited Mom's decorations so it's no problem to trim two trees.

The CMTR Winter Scavenger Hunt requires a 30+ minute run/hike on each of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and this fit in nicely.



AdventureDog didn't know what to think. He hates change and it is certainly a significant change to remove a tree from the forest.



'Bent doesn't have a lot of Christmas experience so he dropped the tree on me!









Bonus photo of 'Bent communing with BazingaDog by our new, still-to-be-finished fireplace. At least we have flames now, which is a huge improvement.

It was a long day of running errands and I got home at sunset but the CMTR "Decorate Yourself" challenge really needed to happen before Christmas, and there is a different 3-day challenge that can only be done on Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day. So I decorated myself for Christmas and set out backwards on 'Bent's commute route. I don't normally go into the woods alone at night but I figured if there was a Christmas axe murderer on the loose, this would improve the chances of my body being found. ;)

So now we know what happens when 'Bent meets a strange woman in tights in the forest at night. He says a perfunctory "Hi" and just keeps on riding his bike! I had to call after him to get him to come back and take a photo of me.(He didn't recognize me with my headlamp in his eyes.)

I tweaked something in my heel last Thursday during a fairly short run. Too bad - my foot had finally seemed to be improving after months of pain. I walked tonight to give it a break. It felt good enough to tempt me to try running again soon.

The "Pay It Forward" CMTR Winter Scavenger Hunt challenge stumped me. The idea was to donate time to a person or organization, e.g. volunteer at a food bank or shovel your neighbour's driveway. There have been some nice stories in the Facebook group. The run/hike part of the challenge was optional since you might not have time for that.

It would be easy to donate money - not so easy to find a way to donate time. Few organizations in our area are looking for volunteers at the moment, and we live in the country so it would be creepy if I snuck up a long driveway to shovel someone's front porch.

A couple of people in the FB group talked about organized programs where they wrote letters to random seniors who are alone. I realized that I actually *know* some seniors who are alone this holiday season - two 90-something women who were close friends of my late mother, and her cousin, who recently moved to a retirement home that is about to be locked down. So I spent 2 hours on the phone this afternoon, wishing them "Merry Christmas" and listening to their tales of broken elevators, plexiglass separating them from their dining partners, Zoom church services and out-of-order telephones. And I knew Mom would have been smiling. :)

If any of you in the CMTR Winter Scavenger Hunt have not done your Relay badge, a bunch of us are planning an international all-Attackpointer (or orienteer) relay streak on Tuesday, Jan. 5. We're signing up on the regular WSH Google sheet. Two people can run in the same 1-hour time slot but we are aiming to fill in some blanks. We've decided that our "baton" in the photos will be a rolled up O map with the map on the outside. The Google Sheet is in the Pacific time zone so I've signed up for 12 noon, which is 3 pm here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D9wvWLECVP...

A different Covid response framework.