Training Log Archive: Timato

Stage #2 of the CARA race. We finished the maps the night before, and I'll be honest I was sacred stiff about this race. The trek was 42K+ and consisted of a checkpoint in the middle of the course, followed by another one really close by and then no other checkpoints until you came to the TA. The river paddle was longer then anything we'd done before as well, I knew if we could get out of the paddle then we could do this race (little did I know we'd never get to the paddle).

The race start was pretty crazy we're out in the middle of this open area and the sun is beating down already. There's a few film crews there including CBC interviewing all the fast teams and I'm just staring at the maps to make sure we don't make any mistakes.

Race starts, we jog down the road followed by the trail and head into the bush to CP1. The bush is crazy tough really thick everywhere and no breaks at all. We move slow as we'd come to learn we would be after the sprint, but we progress. Thunderstorm hits, but we keep going. We hit the trail we were looking for, speed walk and run the down hills. We're not fast, but we're progressing. Jump into the bush again, and we're off to the trail for CP 1. We get there around 10 pm and then have hook up the 3 person tow line and we climb to Ontarios highest peak. We arrived there some time around midnight to meet up with the Endurance Junkies. Apparently we just missed Adidas Canada and Subaru Canada.

Down the side of the hill and off to CP 2. We find this with only a bit of confusion at a huge swamp right before the river. We come into CP 2 and Adidas is sleeping there. Nigel is having problems so they're bedding down for the night before they decide what to do. Mistake #1, we should have caught some sleep here instead we push on. Day 2 comes and we're moving slower. I'm exhausted from leading the whole way because the bush is so tough. I ask Tyson to lead and this really helps me get some energy back because he's breaking trail. Then the wheels fall off the bus. First Sophia starts feeling light headed. We give her some salt and food and sit for a bit to make her rest. After a few minutes she feels better and has calmed down, so we continue on. We slowing down though because we're tired.

A few hours later Tyson tells us we'd better watch him because he doesn't feel well. Sophia also tells us she's over heating and isn't feeling good. We really slow down and have to talk to Tyson constantly to keep him moving (Sophia was awesome here to make sure Tyson just kept walking and didn't fall off). We probably covered the final 4 k in 8 hours. My feet were chewed up just aweful, Tyson was really out of it and Sophia had lost her bug net. I hand her my bug net because she's bleeding from all the bug bites. Finally we're out of the woods after 32 hours.

So what happens next.....

Well they're pretty sure Tyson has an infection of some kind and needs to go to the hospital in the morning. My face swelled up so much that the term elephant man was used more then once. Sophia spends some time in the ambulance getting various things taken care of. We sleep for 5 hours, and then are told that Tyson can't go on. After talking about it a bit more I have to admit I also can't handle walking any of the portages (next stage had 6 k of portages) so we make the decision as a team that we're going to drop out here.

After the race it turns out that only 5 teams still continued from here as a ranked team. 2 others continued on unranked.

C • Toughness of the trek 1

Event: Canadian National Adventure Racing Champs
 

Day 1 of CARA. A pretty interesting sprint race. It basically consisted of a bike start down some fire roads to the canoe put-in. Then a canoe that involved crossing a rail road track, a class I rapid, portaging around a crazy rapid and another class I. This was followed by a 7km trek that consisted of climbing to one peak, then treking 7k to another fire tower. The race finished with a bike back to the start.

We started out pretty well. Not sure what place we were in during the bike but we were battling during the whole ride with Adidas Canada and SRS, so I was pretty pleased with this. Canoe also went pretty well. We made one mistake running to the canoe putin, but otherwise no major problems. The trek was really were we lost it. No mistakes and I'd take the same route again without questioning it, but we were just slow moving through the woods. We worked as well as we could as a team to speed up the slower team mates, and ran out to the TA to hammer home. Overall ended up in 8th place in the sprint. A good finish for us, but we knew we could have been higher if we'd had a better trek.

Ride into work.

C • cara champs 2

Ride home from work.

Light run along the waterfront.

Leg stretches for the knee.

Food is mostly taken care of for next week. I've decided to try yogurht rollups and tofu jerky as part of my race food for the expedition. The yogurht worked out pretty well. We'll have to see how the tofu does. Also dehydrating some veggie slices as well.

C • Jerky? 6

Went for a ride one nut, Pixie and my sister at Guelph Lake. Never ridden there before. One nut took my for a good ride in the mud and slop. Pretty fun place to ride although they don't have any hills. :(

Physio strength and stretches for my knee.

Went out for a run before dinner. It was really nice by the lake. Awesome sunshine and a nice cool wind. Kept a good pace to remind my legs what it feels like.

Leg stretches for the knee.

Out with the Noshnoj riding in Kelso. A little wet, after all the rain, but not that bad in most areas.

A little wet this morning, but still enjoyable.

Physio stretches for my legs.

Physio strengthing and stretches before work.

Ocup #2

Warmup before the OCUP race.

Showed up a bit late for the start so I basically started from the back row. This made for not the best races as I had to spend a lot of time catching people in the double track. A good training ride with 2 weeks to go for CARA, but not the best race I've had.

C • speedy 2

Light ride up and down the Humber.

I think I found a hill that will work somewhat for hill training without having to drive down to Milton everytime. At least it's not too busy so I can sit on the bike and just ride up and down it without worrying about traffic. Did 12 hill climbs today.

A small part of this was a warmup as it only took me 10 minutes to get to my destination before I started my hill cliimbs. After that went for a short ride on the waterfront trail because it was such a nice morning to be out on a bike.

My feet were still pretty sore from the blisters I gained in last weekends adventure race. I can only assume this is what caused the total lack of focus. I spent too much time following trails I thought were on the map, but were not.

3 min on, 1:30 off, 2 min on, 1 min off, 1 min on, 1 min off. Times 4. I'm calling these Pink Guard Intervals since this is what makes Tyson so damn fast on the run.

C • Intervals 6

Ride to and from high park, and the rest of the warm up.

5 minutes on, 2:15 recovery. Would have liked to have done 6, but could only do 4 because I had to be home for the cable guy.

Wanted to get out for a ride today, but just too many other things I haven't been doing around the apartement (like buying food) that had to get done.

I was recruited into the Pink Guard of Nero for the first adventure race of the season. This involved racing with Tyson, who is our fourth for the CARA champs and a friend of his who runs track/cross country for Dalhousie. I was a little worried when Janice (the friend) showed up and we say her mighty bike with no shocks and a pair of plastic pedals. Knowing they were really strong runners I could only hope there was a lot of running in this race or else we'd be screwed.

Well, I was wrong... There wasn't a lot of running and we weren't screwed after all. Kudos to Tyson who pulled Janice a lot on the roads and then both of them hooked me up to the tow for the trail/road run. Let's just say I now I will never be Canadian champion in anything running related after being towed by these two former champs.

We pulled came off of the first bike leg sitting in 7/8 position, but right with a few teams. We just tried to move as fast as possible during the trek, and by the end of it we were sitting in 3rd position 10-20 minutes down of SRS and LSN. The paddle went fine and then we were off on the bikes again. You can imagine our surprise when on the way from 5A to 5B we passed LSN going the other way. So we just tried to keep moving as fast as possible taking turned towing Janice.

Ended up 2nd overall, 1st co-ed. I'm ecstatic with this result for a few reasons.
1. We beat LSN, something I figured I could never pull off, and probably never will again.
2. We nailed the nav with is definitely a confidence boost going into CARA.
3. Tyson is damn strong with is really going to be helpful for CARA.

Bob put a really great course together for this race. It definitely changed my few of SAC races and I'm looking forward to the season champs race now.

C • Awesome!! 7

My legs are pretty sore rigth now, so seeing as the Pink Guard of Nero is now doing the FAR race this weekend I really needed a rest day today.

C • Pink Guard 5

TOC part night.

Noshnoj and I ran the blue loop in Hilton falls (22k I think) with full packs on. Other then some blisters this was a lot of fun, well it did hurt, but it was still fun after the fact.

C • Train on 1

Light spin.