Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Extra pond hill intervals on the way to work- made it past the ruts.

After a tough day at work I was thinking about taking the short route home, but it was so nice out that Bulletdog and I did a tour of the Palgrave swimming holes & trails. Felt much better when I got home, but met Bash coming out to look for us since we were late. oops.

Island lake with Bash. Nice cool windy fall day. Oh yeah, it's August.

Glen Haffy & Dingle with Bash, Bulletdog and K/O's Saturday gang.
Fairly easy pace but did tempo on a few of the hills.

Weather couldn't make up its mind, so we rode the trainer and watched a movie.

Part of workout #3

Off to Albion with Bash despite the threatening skies.
The rain and mud cut our ride short a bit.

Mmm, cool this morning.

Down to Albion and all around, except where I followed some HAN tracks but somehow missed the Sugarshack area. The 'bent ate up the technical stuff today.

I know I'm more of a runner this year, but I *love* a good MTB outing.
Bashed a shin, got plastered in dirt, ate some, got some in my contacts- love it!

Running a little late, so Bulletdog and I had to move it to get to work on time.

Moonlight jog home with Bulletdog.

Hammered some intervals on the way to work in the cool morning including an extra pond hill- forecast sucks for this PM.

much easier run home in the afternoon heat.

Extra Pond Hill intervals on the way to work. Man, it's rutted out!

Bulletdog and I took the long way home. In the most mosquito-infested section possible my chain broke.

Wait, I have an emergency quick link. Got it fixed in 30 seconds!
Oh oh, didn't route it right around one of the derailleur posts.:(
No problem, back apart in seconds, ready to connect then Sproing- the tensioner whips the chain back and throws half the quick link into the weeds. Somewhere. It's got to be in here. Maybe down there. @#%&@ bugs.
Ah, forget it, time to get the chain tool out after all.

C • I thought... 2

Workout #2. Still a little light on some of the pulldowns etc.

After watching Phatty Jr. come 2nd solo in the HAN 24 and Relentless and Harper win the tag team (Woo-hoo, these guys are machines!), Bash and I finally got out for a ride to Caledon East for groceries and fro-yo. Nice to be back on the bike- the legs have forgotten how to climb.

Note- met a dude on a single-speed, a nice old steel roadie frame from the 80s. He might be interested in giving my beloved Guerciotti road bike a home.

Why Just Run Seaton Park

Yet another interesting format- mandatory route to a central "mall" control, then you have $300 to spend among all the controls, with the farthest from the "mall" being the cheapest, and 90 minutes before the penalties start.

The idea would be to get the CPs at the extremes, but there are "sales" at the mall where a bonus CP is very cheap.

I did the North controls first, skipped ones close to the mall, did the South, had some time to come back and get a couple near the finish, but still had 8 minutes and $4 to spare, which gave me 24- good enough for second overall behind Eugenius. Bash had 23. Phatty had tons of controls, but wa-a-y overspent and got knocked down to a still respectable 22.

In hindsight, I could have sprinted back to the Mall one last time during the last "sale" and won the whole thing, but it would have been close on time.

Good link workout + some of the dreaded core work & hamstrings.

All right, so I can't do this on my recumbent:

C • WHAT???!!!!! 11

First workout in a while- let's see how the forearms feel tomorrow.

Nice to be running my commute again.

BAMM day 2
We had a pretty decent time in camp with lots of hot drinks and food, and more space in our 1kg tent than the top racers in their blue coffin tents. Intermittent showers and fairly cool. My cheapo 1kg sleeping bag wasn't great though, even with 3 layers of clothes on. The hotshots had 500g, $400 down bags.

Today the team that was over an hour behind us started to run early on. Bash wasn't going to let them catch up today, so we did a lot more running. We'd lead our group up the steep hills, but they'd run more on the descent when they could see us, so on a final steep climb we put on the tow rope, cranked on the trekking poles and passed them all, then ran down hard to leave them behind. I'd kinda hoped that we might do better on day 2 than the younger teams as we're used to longer events.

There was more route choice today, and we didn't know if the other teams took a more direct "over and down" route than our "round the mountain" plan, but we ended up finishing well ahead of 5th, and the former 3rd came in a long way after with some shin problems. 1st and 2nd were within seconds of each other, and 40 min ahead of us.

We were a little surprised but pleased to be on the podium. All in all, a great event, and we really enjoyed racing it together. The other teams were very friendly and sociable, saving us spots at the banquet and demonstrating excellent English.

C • Congrats! 6

Bjorkladen Arctic Mountain Marathon day 1: See Bash's log for extensive write-up and photos.

A very scenic day. My pack was 7.6kg without water, which I thought was very good for a 1 night backpacking trip, but monstrous by Swedish standards. It looked even worse as it's my ultralight 6Moon full sized backpack cinched down. At least Bash used her Salomon racing pack. Part of the secret is in the specialized Mountain Marathon 600g down sleeping bags, as opposed to my $35 synthetic summer bag.

Some good solid climbs, lots of tricky footing, some snow to cross, some minor cliffs to negotiate, but generally fairly decent terrain and weather. Other teams ran by us but we were mostly in hiking mode this day. We ended up 4th in our category, and 2 teams DNF'ed.

Orienteering on the permanent o-course near Abisko.
Bash and I alternated controls with Bash sorting out a couple of my errors.

Hike out from Keb station to Nikolotkua with the boat shuttle .

Climbed Mt. Kebnekaiese. Long hike to the base, across the river, up a 1700m peak, back down a 300m valley, then part way up the main peak to 1750m before getting turned around by heavy fog and rain about 1 hr from the summit.

Longish day from our campsite to Keb station, but very rugged scenery. Also saw about 200 reindeer keeping cool on a snowpatch.

Hike from Tjälkjä to a campsite a few km past Sälka hut. We stopped at the high point of the Kungsladen to watch the leaders of the fjallraven classic run past. They were on track to do the whole 100+kms in around 13 hours. Over the rest of the trip we'd meet many of the 2000 hikers doing it in times ranging up to 5 days.

Hike to Tjäktja. Fairly easy hike.

Lots of daylight left so we decided to climb a mountain nearby via a ridge Bash had spotted. Tricky in spots but well worth it with fantasric 360 views all the way into Norway.

Hike from our campsite- to Alesjaurelesaure. Fairly long but easy hike. We camped near the cabin and cooked in their kitchen, avoiding bugs.

Abisko to 2K past Abiskojaure on the Kungsläden trail. My pack was18kg, good for backpacking with several day's food but still more than I'd hoped. We got to the cabin in lots of time so after a beer we headed on to camp by a river a few km on. Nice spot but very buggy around dinner time.

Marathon tourist session in Stockholm. Great city for walking!
Vasamuseum was amazing for a historical sailing buff like myself- a 330 year old warship they salvaged in the late 50s and completely put together over decades. The whole ship's on a cradle in the museum! See Bash's log for details of more touristing.