Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Morning run with Rocky, Hingo and Vents. Hingo figures he'd better start training for the Navstock Raid next week- and he's doing fine.
Vents was short on ventillation, so he and Rocky headed back at Centreville. I pushed it hard up from the Dingle road up K2 and to the Bruce trail, then back down to catch Hingo who turned back a bit earlier. Nice steady pace home, but I think my legs still feel it a bit from last week!

Workout #3 and some extra shoulder fly work. Elbows a bit sore from paddling yesterday. Whazzup with that?

I took Mike Fekete's "tub" carbon/kevlar sea kayak down to the MCC and paddled there for a bit. It seemed fast to me until the K1s started passing me.
I did a 1km stretch in 6.5 minutes, at a fairly good clip while one of the K1s finished in just over 5min.

Nice boat. Now if I could only decide whether I want a sea kayak I can lift easily with 1 hand, or his faster and lighter Open Water racing boat which I have yet to try...


Note- ran into Hansel biking home. Not literally.

Ride to work with the Bulletdog. We were surprised to meet Hurtin and Hurtin jr (Syd) portaging across the highway over to Palgrave pond, and stopped for a brief chat.

Hurtin's bro-in-law moved into the house opposite the pond- Hmmm, could be handy for commuting purposes if Reddington continues to be difficult.

C • Commuting Purposes 5

Scoot home

Last class with the evil Caron this year. Ouch!

Easier than the core today.

Wed AM Albion Hills ride with the gang- Bash, Dunc, Rocky,Ross and LeAnimal.

My big 'bent is still in the hospital, so I rode the little Omega. It's fine on the doubletrack and straight uphills, but it's like riding a bronco on the bumpy bits, and tends to buck the front wheel in the air or try to endo me off. The others were nice enough to wait up for me after the slightly technical bits, but we headed home a bit early rather than push it. Met VO2max on the way home, who had been in pursuit.

C • Pursuit 1

Ride to work and back, with extra hill intervals both ways. Bulletdog can't figure them out.

Spin to work and back. The legs are fine for riding.

Active recovery- hike with the hounds. (45 min)
Legs are a bit sore in odd spots, like the top of my right foot. My scrawny calves were tight today too.

Caron's yoga DVD playing on my laptop while I did yoga under the trees.
Dogs watched with amusement.

C • Yoga Under The Trees 2

Sulphur Springs 25k.
My knee held out fine other than a bit touchy on the downhills. Flats and uphills went well, but 2 guys got me just before the line.

I saw the recovering Tarno just in front a fair bit and ended up 3 minutes behind him. I was hoping to break 2 hrs, so I'm happy.

Mr Pither came in second! I was 12th overall, 7th in my geezer category, which Almageddon won 9 minutes ahead of me.

C • holy crap ! 7

Caledon Navigators night. I had to use the Omega as the big bike's still in hospital, and with the map board on the bars either I can see the board in front of me or the trail, but never both. Took me a while to get the hang of the map and how fast things come up, and I planted the little front wheel a couple of times while trying to read the map. Still, eventually settled down and all went fine other than wasting too much time at the misplaced control #8. I tried to take my time and read the map well, not just go on local knowledge, and it went better than expected.

I still wish I had some way of having the map in my lap rather than on the bars in front of my face.

Good turn out! Goose, Scooby, VO2max, Bash, Hurtin, Rocky, Crash, LeAnimal et al.

Ride to and from MTBO with Bash and Hurtin, who we need to hook up with a better ride.

Fast paced run down to the Bruce trail, over to Gore road and back, and the Charlevoix loop. I tried to keep the cadence up, the posture straight and the arms moving well fore-and-aft, not across the body or elbows out.

I wish I'd borrowed Bash's GPS, but it felt quick, maybe 45-48 min. 10K pace?

Ugh- hard to do after a run.
Also did a lot of leg stretching, not logged.

Bike to work with Bulletdog, + some additional hill intervals.

Bike home, via Red Dog Backwards, part of Salty Steven and up and over the big hill and back.

Workout #2 + extra shoulder and leg work.

Hard Core DVD with Bash. Been a couple of weeks and I feel it.

Run and hike with Bash and Bulletdog in Beaver Valley area. See Bash's log for pics, especially the sea of trilliums.

Watching the final bits of the 00 TDF, pushing hard on every hill and sprint.

Run down the humber trail with Bash, Slowrunner, Rocky and Bulletdog.
Rainy morning but a nice run.

We took the hounds and went for a paddle on the Nottawasaga South of the Minessing Swamp. They had a great time at the breaks, tearing around in and out of the water. T-dog was chasing Bulletdog, just like old times.
The paddle down was scenic and relaxing, but the way back up was good hard work against the current, up the small rapids.

Biked down to Albion to meet V02max and the Gazelle, while MsGazelle went for an easy jog (She's due next week!!). Had a really nice ride with the boys, until there was a ka-poing and my bike went all wobbly at the far end of Albion. #$%@!- broke the frame, right behind the lower lug near the brake disk.



VO2max pushed the bike home to his place, and I ran from there to work. Luckily I had my Cannondale Roam shoes, which are like a walking shoe, not a full-on biking shoe. Also lucky it wasn't during either of our recent races. Off to see if Gandalf the bike wizard will come out of retirement for this.

Ran from mid-Albion pushing the 'Bent (Now broken and bent) and then to work in my biking shoes.

Ran home from work in my old shoes I keep there just in case.

Biked to work with a poorly behaved Bulletdog and a crapload of laundry and gear for the ritual post-race exchange with LeAnimal, including some lethal-looking rollerblades, and back with my race pack- Thanks, Lee.

Easy commute with Bulletdog. Still in recovery mode.

C • Palgrave 7

Nice hike with the hounds.

Very easy workout with some stretching to work out kinks from yesterday.

Storm the Trent Trek Elite MXR with Bash and VO2-max.
We started with a 3-cp run for one teammate, and sent out VO2-max with instructions to follow Bob Miller. By the second CP he was leading the race, and flew in ahead of the zippy Hotshot Lawyer!
Next we paddled to Warsaw Caves, passed 2 teams and came in behind Urban Athlete and Running Free.
A fairly smooth run, with VO2-max handling the tow rope, then paddle back to the start/CP to bikes.
Biking started out fine as we picked off the advanced CPs, with V-max handling the bike tow. We saw XTWings (Slice, Bender &Andycam) walking in the road around the half way mark, but they claimed they were "fine".
Scooting back to 43 we waved at Beowulf and MBR (Tiny was looking intently at the left side of the road), and we missed a critical roadsign. We ended up overshooting through slow trails, backtracking, finding a ribbon but no CP, then finding the CP misplaced a bit, right where Tiny was looking. This set us back maybe 20-30 minutes.

VO2-max had done stalwart tow duty up to now while I was relatively fresh, so I towed where I could. Some fun snowmobile trails, nice bouncy rock sections that the 'bent handled well, some bikewhacking and we made it to the final paddle, a bit tight on time. We saw XTW there again, and I assumed they were back from the paddle and on the way to France, but found out that Slice had probably broken her wrist! Bash smartly decided to skip the paddle and get the rest of the optional CPs on the bike, which we did with XTW and RF (who had paddled across and got 20 extra points on us). On the road XTW lost us, we towed past RF and all came in to the finish within a few minutes of each other, just behind Beowulf, with 620 pts. UA came in late with no chain on Dr.W's bike, lots of points but time penalties so the results were *very* close. A lot of teams were quite late and got big-time penalties.

RF won the day with 640, and UA had better brush up on their French.
We ended up 4th overall in the MXR series.

I always said Slice could beat us with one hand tied behind her back, and she proved it over some very rough riding indeed. Wow!

It was great racing with VO2-max. He's not used to such a long event, but had a blast all around. He was especially thrilled when we won nice packs. Thanks, Phatty!

No technical issues or injuries for us this time, just a great fun race.

Easy ride with Bulletdog.

Workout 3 + some leg stuff.
Fiddled with some padding systems for paddling between sets, for my combination seatback/ leg bar and Bash's mid seat.

Quick jaunt on the Rollercoaster trail to work, hard on the hills.

Another fast run home on the shorter route with Bulletdog. Speed's coming back.

On the Omega with Bulletdog.

Out around Palgrave E with Bulletdog. The Omega's workable on singletrack, but not ideal. Still, it doesn't pound my bashed tailbone as much.

An easy trot to work with Bulletdog, but actually reasonably quick on the clock.

Note - Knee's a little sore, but mainly my tailbone is so bashed I can't ride my 'bent. Maybe the Omega's a little more laid back.

(50 minutes)

Easy hike home at T-dog's pace. Some at a light jog, lots slower.

FAC Deerhurst with Bash and Goose. See Bash's log for pics.

We started on bikes, with Goose doing his Jan Ulrich impression towing Bash and me gasping along beside. Some mucky snowmobile trails, but nav went well and we were with the leaders until 6, where some map imprecision left us hunting for over an hour on the opposite side of a marsh. We were in 11th after that.
Back to Deerhurst and TA to boats. Goose found us a boat that tracked well under his masterful control, but I pounded the hell out of my tailbone on the wooden seat. Pouring rain but a good paddle.
Back to the TA we saw FB already done! We started the trek, and Bash was great on the nav. I took the passport, which got progressively soggier as we went on, and came apart at the folds. I had a heck of a time finding the right bits to punch, and the ink washed out.

Even with our nasty error at 6, we finished up 4th,1st co-ed, just behind the mighty Bobkittens...

Until I handed in the passport, and we were missing one of the $#@!% segments.:( I ran back to the last CP to look, but no-go.

Oh well, a fun day out with my team.

Note- saw the splits. We were 3rd on the paddle- 3 min slower than Phatty's boyz, and second on the trek- 6 min behind the FB Brigade.

Back up to the sugar shack looking for the friggn passport piece. No luck.

Bah, got a flat and had to hike the bike part way to work.
Ironically, my good rear wheel on this bike is in the shop getting Stan's Notubes to prevent flats, and my spare 26" tube's in the other 'bent's rear tire.

Quick zip to work on the Omega, until I blew out the rear tire. I had a spare 20" tube, but not a 26". I had organized things so I'd bike to my environmental meeting from work, and back in the dark with all my lights, meeting stuff, food etc. Not going to happen.

Took apart the tire at lunch- the entire valve separated cleanly from the tube. Pretty new tube too- weird. Not going to patch that one. Hmm, 3 flats, 2 weeks, 2 bikes, all non-puncture issues. Divine retribution for something I'm unaware of?

C • mystery flats 4

Abandoned the bike at work and had an easy run home in a pair of old beater shoes I'd left there just in case. Drove to my environmental meeting. Sigh.