Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: FAR SAC Champs
 

Salomon Adventure Challenge Champs - Bark Lake

'Bent, ThreePinJim and I raced together. The boys have done a couple of events together before, but it's the first time I've been in the mix. They're definitely a lot faster than I am, but they're reasonably good at hiding their frustration. I did the nav, and it ended up being a race where some fast teams went a long way in the wrong direction, so I felt less guilty about my poor fitness level.

Breakfast was served at 2 a.m., and we were supposed to load into school buses at 2:30 a.m. for a 4 a.m. race start. Much to our horror, no coffee was available to fuel our addiction. How can you serve breakfast at 2 a.m. with no coffee???!!??? The only drinks provided were juice cups that were mostly frozen. There was only one school bus for 150 people, and around 3:20 a.m., we were advised to go back to bed and reconvene at 4:30 a.m. Turns out 2 of the 3 bus drivers thought "Saturday at 2:30 a.m." meant "Sunday".

The race finally started 2 hrs 40 min later than scheduled. This meant that the initial trek was relatively straightforward, since the course designer had assumed that racers would be travelling in darkness for 3 hrs after the 4 a.m. start.

The temperature was -1C, and it was hard to know what to wear. We began with a couple of km of trail running, then bushwhacked to a lakeshore CP. Then we went south along the lake, assuming that we'd find a place to cross its outlet creek to get on a big ridge that would keep us out of the swampy stuff. The creek never became well-defined, and by 7:30 a.m., with frost still on the trees, we were marching across a bog that occasionally gave way underneath us, plunging us into knee- or waist-deep water. The highlight was a 5 m swim across open swampwater. I've heard that some people only got their feet wet, but some of the top teams swam farther than we did, so I'm considering it to be more a case of bad luck than bad route choice. Once we got on the ridge, we hustled along it to a road network that led to the TA, passing Dave Zietsma's team going the wrong way. (Not sure if he was navigating though.)

Someone told us we were in 35th place of over 50 teams, which I find hard to believe now, but it really took the wind out of my sails. We didn't have a particularly bad trek, but I'm guessing that a lot of faster teams were able to stay close together from the start, and our time for the section probably wasn't that much slower. The eventual race winner (to no one's surprise), Simon River Sports, was in 36th place at the first CP, so there's no shame in a slow start! Normally, if we're going to have a good race, it's due to a good trek, since that's where nav skills often matter more than speed. There isn't a huge differential in paddling speeds in these races, and the bike nav instructions were very specific - mostly snowmobile trail numbers that were posted on signs, and we had UTM coordinates for the intersections, so I didn't expect we could make up any places there. Oh well...

We moved into canoes next, doing the Buzzard Lake canoe route, which has short paddling sections with lots of portages, including a couple almost 1 km long. We arrived too late to get a canoe with a yoke, so 'Bent and ThreePinJim took turns suffering. 'Bent, who was moaning about being sick the day before, had a Lazarus-like recovery, jogging long portages with the canoe bouncing on his upper back, which swelled up into a huge, painful goose egg by the end of the race. The first time ThreePinJim threw on the canoe, he forgot the sunglasses perched on top of his head and managed to slice his scalp. Blood ran down all over his face, giving him a Hallowe'en-like look that he chose to keep for most of the race, rather than rinsing off.

We gained on teams as we paddled, and we passed a couple of them on the portages. As the middle paddler in a 3-person canoe propelled by kayak paddles, I had gallons of water flung at me over a few hours, and felt hypothermic for the last 90 minutes - losing dexterity, etc. I warned the guys that if I didn't feel OK within the first few km of biking, we'd have to drop out. I had enough spare layers in the transition bag to be completely dry on top, then borrowed ThreePinJim's windproof pants to wear over my wet tights. Luckily, it didn't take long on the bike before I wanted to shed a layer - phew.

We had about 5 km of road riding, then headed into a network of snowmobile trails. The first couple of km had been hit hard by a tornado, and there were lots of big trees and branches we had to heave our bikes over or skirt around in the woods - especially hard with 'Bent's recumbent bike. After that, we were on well-maintained - if occasionally very mucky - snowmobile trails, and there were signs at the relevant intersections. I was tracking distance and direction as we rode, so I was anticipating when we'd hit the intersections we'd been told about, and everything went like clockwork. We saw a couple of other teams, but it was pretty quiet out there. When we got to the first bike CP, I was chatting happily to the volunteers and munching on an energy bar when they mentioned that we were in 9th place. Impossible! We left the last CP in 25th. "Everyone is taking wrong turns today", the volunteer said. Eeek - time to stop eating and get on that bike. We're actually IN this race!!

We took rolling gravel roads to the next CP, which was the decision point for the advanced section. We carried on, but we know some good teams stuck to the regular course because they were worried about hypothermia and approaching darkness.

The instruction for the first advanced trekking CP was "follow trail to CP", and we wasted about 20-25 minutes with a wrong guess at an intersection. For the next CP, about 2 km away in flat terrain with few landmarks, I relied heavily on orienteering principles, with lots of pace counting and careful bearings. Just as well, since we'd been given a trail map of the area, which turned out to be nearly useless, as some of the trails were virtually invisible, so I was glad I'd aimed for a lake instead.

We picked up the final advanced CPs, then learned that we were in 5th Coed, just 5 minutes behind STORM Racing. They're a fast team, so we were proud to be close to them, and when we came out at the trail, they were strolling 50 m ahead, with less than 1.5 km to the finish line. Well, we couldn't let them take it THAT easily, so we started to run to give them a scare. They started running too, then I stopped running and called out (quite sincerely), "It's OK, guys. We're not going to race you." To which my teammates said, "Are you NUTS?" They put me on tow, and dragged me along the trail at my top slow-twitch speed. STORM kept running too. We hit the road and were still less than 100 m behind them. They overshot the turn-off for the beach finish line, and turned a bit further up. We high-tailed it down the beach road as fast as we could, passing through the finish line in the opposite direction from them, about 20 seconds later! Good fun, even though it HURT!! We finished 9th overall out of 50+ teams, 5th Coed. With such a good field, we hadn't expected to be in the prizes, so it was a happy way to end the season.

I compared notes later with a fast team that has won one of these races before. Their bike odometer read 110 km, while ours was 42.5 km - which explains why we were lucky enough to pass so many teams in the bike section. I guess if you missed one of the turns in the snowmobile trail system, you could go a long way before the problem became obvious, and then it was really hard to retrace your steps.

The best/worst story of the day involved our friend, Dr. LeAnimal and her awesome all-female team, the Adidas Divas. During the advanced trek, she wandered into a Blair Witch wooded area, where bear baiting was taking place - meat hanging from trees, etc. Her foot was caught in a bear trap, but the worst injury was inflicted on her teammate, who pried open the trap to release LeAnimal, and required stitches to her hands at the hospital afterward. The impressive Divas finished the race in 6th overall anyway - they are tough cookies!

Fun way to finish the season, although it was a serious reminder not to pack too light for shoulder season races, e.g. I should have brought extra tights for the post-canoe transition bag, but I had no idea my teeth would be chattering so hard.

Next AR - FAR Mansfield winter race in January!

Around Palgrave West with BulletDog. I was short of time, so I tried to go Sprint race pace to make the most of a brief workout. The keen orienteers out there (and is there any other kind?) may say, "Don't you mean Middle Distance pace? You were out there for 30 whole minutes, after all." To which I say: yeah... well... I'm afraid that's how fast I sprint.

I had every intention of doing some leg strength, but there's too much going on. Gotta pack for this weekend's AR and clean up for the house/dog sitter.

Wasn't planning on two rest days, but I've literally been busy from morning until the wee hours for much of the past 10 days. Sometimes I wonder if the laptop is going to melt my quads. Our 14-hr race starts at 4 a.m. on Saturday, and it's not great to be entering it in a sleep-deprived state. The good news is that I'm on track to make my deadlines for the week, which means that I can finally start packing for the race. Training? That might be asking too much at this point.

Biked to the north end of Glen Haffy via the hilly off-trail route through Glen Haffy South, then home via country roads. I made it up the rocky, rooty hills, but I was definitely feeling the effort. It doesn't help that I've gained 1 kg during this lazy September, which means that I'm now heavier than MrPither, and probably even a bit slower.

I realized that I enjoy biking more when I'm going somewhere, or when I'm exploring a different place that I don't always go. I get bored going out for a quick ride from home, just to get in my training time, even though I don't get bored with trail running short loops close to home.

Tested options for the sprint course I'm designing for the Indian Summer O Fest next month. We're expecting elite triathletes, little kids, and regular orienteers, and everyone is doing a 90-minute Score-O first. So I'm aiming for something short (2.5 km), fast, technically easy, very spectator-friendly, and not too rough on the ankles. Some of it worked well, but it needs reworking to avoid a big, rough, weedy, foot-grabbing field. I think I'm dehydrated today - it felt like I had no gas in the tank.

I was pretty chuffed with myself for pulling off 2 hrs of training on a day that was otherwise insanely busy. Then 'Bent came home and reminded me that it was Hard Core Monday - arggghh!

My plan had been to bike to Glen Haffy, hide my bike in the woods, then test-run the sprint course that I've designed for the Indian Summer O Fest. But the sunny morning skies turned dark before I had a chance to get out the door, so I scrapped that idea. However, I've only biked once in September, and next weekend is the Salomon Adventure Challenge Champs. So... I headed out to ride on country roads and the rail trail, and it ended up being a very authentic adventure race training session, complete with pelting rain, mud puddles and gusty wind. The rail trail had a surprising amount of traffic for such a nasty day. If I didn't have a race next weekend, I would have been curled up at home with hot apple cider and a good book. (Actually, I'd probably be mucking around in the North Am Champs registration database or writing the Caledon club's next press release, but it's nice to have fantasies.)

ThunderDog, BulletDog and I went to Bronte Creek for a fun, muddy trek with Sherpa and her two pooches, Ciara and Arleau the puppy. Great to catch up with Sherpa, and wonderful to return home with two very tired dogs. The highlight was seeing our Labs and other people's dogs splashing around happily in the river together. The low point was watching the dogs scratch themselves against a thick log onshore, then discovering that the log was actually a huge, deceased salmon. Yecch. Baths all 'round when we got home.

While watching the Simpsons. (No Daily Show on the weekends.)

Hilton Falls West with Coach Hammer, who helped me to interpret the many kinds of mapped rock features in that terrain. I now have a much better understanding of the types of rock that are intended to be portrayed by various symbols, and of the amount of subjectivity that goes into mapping this terrain. I've been relying on the rock features way too much, it turns out, and the same with the marshes. It's best to depend on cliffs, trails, or hills with at least two contour lines - preferably close together. Large boulders are sometimes useful, but aren't as reliable as some other features. The existence of a rock feature on the map can be helpful, but the absence of a rock feature on the map is not always useful information, i.e. you shouldn't say, "I see a boulder, so I can't possibly be here because there are no boulders marked here."

I'm thankful that Hammer managed not to giggle - and even shared some helpful pointers - as I navigated to different points. I usually got close enough, but sometimes lost confidence within a short distance of the control. (I didn't always have flags to find.) A few things that will help in this terrain:
- Stop and take more real bearings, instead of doing so much rough compass.
- Choose routes that are safer than what I've been choosing, even if they are longer. Relocating takes longer in this terrain, so avoid situations where you have to do it.
- Hold compass flat in the palm of my hand.
- Run around small hills, since they are often covered with slippery, lumpy rocks with big cracks in between them.
- Look up AND look down AND look at the map. Simultaneously. Oh boy...

Hammer is clearly in pain, so I insisted on very little running. I'm still logging the whole thing because I like to keep track of all my orienteering time, since there is more to it than just the physical training.

GHO Adventure Nite Sprint at Hidden Valley in Burlington. Wonderful, cool evening temperature! I didn't do any warm-up, which was a bad idea for a Sprint, since I'm a really slow warmer-upper. In any case, I had fun in the varied terrain and didn't make any really bad nav errors. It was exciting to use GHO's new, improved SI system!

On the long drive home, when I really should have been thinking up an outline for the magazine article that is due next week, I suddenly came to the realization that I do want to adventure race next year.

When I started four years ago, I had a sense that this year would be the last one - or at least the last one when I would consider myself to be training for AR, and then I'd move on to something else. Training for multi-sport can be quite consuming, even for a non-elite racer. I think I still am in the process of moving on, but next year can continue to be a transition to whatever that something else might be. I did a wider variety of event formats this year than before, and I'll try to do the same next year.

What brought me to this conclusion? Nothing too profound. I guess I just realized that AR is still lots of fun - it makes me happy. Plus I really enjoy my friends in the sport. Yesterday's night run with AR friends reminded me that we crazy folks need to stick together. Another factor is that 'Bent is definitely not ready to quit.

Our regular teammates have moved on to new pursuits, so that poses some challenges. But it's usually fun to race with someone new, so maybe that won't be a big deal.

So now I can start to think about making real plans about base training, etc.

Night trail run in Palgrave East and West with Phatty and Dr. LeAnimal (Team Adidas Canada), Gazelle & Gazette (Team Hunger), and 'Bent (Tree Huggers). Lots of fun to head into the dark woods with a great group of people, but these adventure racers DO keep the pace up. Plenty of laughs and interesting conversation, then we spent another couple of hours back at our place eating pizza and catching up. I guess this is exactly the sort of thing I should be doing in my rest and recovery phase.

This is the last time we'll see Gazelle and Gazette for a very long time. :-(( They are moving to Tajikistan next week on a 3-year contract to operate an outdoor adventure company. They're wonderful friends and awesome teammates - we're going to miss them very much.

Hard Core Monday - first time through the entire DVD in 3 weeks, and I was definitely feeling it!

I'm sliding into a recovery period that will probably extend until late November, when we get back from a 3-week trip to New Zealand. Then it will be time to ramp up for XC ski season, when we usually do our best training of the year. There's only one more adventure race in 2006 - the SAC Champs 12 days from now - and I should still be in decent shape for that. The North American Orienteering Champs are the following weekend, but I don't think my success (or lack thereof) there will have much to do with physical fitness, since the terrain is flat and the navigation is tough, so a slow pace is not a bad idea.

Looking for ideas... what do other people do during their base training phase?

Terry Fox Run, Palgrave - Caledon Rail Trail

Fun community event with runners, hikers, dog walkers, cyclists, parents pushing strollers, and toddlers toddling. The kilometer markers were definitely wonky - unless I really did a 3-minute kilometer, which I sincerely doubt. It seemed long for 10K, and one of the C3 runners estimated that it was about 500-600 meters too long. It felt good to be out running after a quiet week. I didn't go all out, and I doubt that I could have after our 24-hour trek last weekend.

Results don't matter in a TF run, but I was happy to be the 4th woman behind some super-fit people. I had Caron Shepley in sight until the 7th kilometer, then she demonstrated the value of actually training properly for running, and disappeared to finish in 3rd. She said she's planning to produce a second Hard Core Conditioning DVD, so we'll be able to alternate our forms of torture every week starting next year.

BulletDog placed 3rd overall, and Bent (holding her leash) was 4th. BulletDog raised around $640 for cancer research and may have been the highest-sponsored runner. Over the years, 'Bent has learned that he can get a lot more sponsorship for a dog than for himself!

Fun to chat to lots of different people, and managed to drum up some enthusiasm for our C3-Caledon Navigators orienteering event on Oct. 22.

Training at Hilton Falls West. From conversations at the national team training camp in January, I know that top orienteers enjoyed this terrain and didn't find it overly difficult, so it'll be great for a North American Championship. As for me, well... I just can't seem to master it after several practice sessions in this area. I feel that just by stepping on the map, half my IQ gets sucked out of my brain. It seems that whatever unconscious techniques I usually use to simplify the map are totally wrong for this terrain. Perhaps I'm being too defeatist - there were only a couple of controls that gave me problems, but the errors were time-consuming and frustrating because of my poor ability to relocate on this map. Unless there are multiple 2.5 m contour lines or big cliffs, I have a heck of a time seeing the lay of the land, especially with the leaves on the trees, so I tried to use some of the many rock features instead. However, they weren't all mapped on the older part of the map we were using, and even when they were mapped, I have a hard time distinguishing between different rock features. I'm sure there is a lot of judgement required when mapping something like this, and my boulder might be someone else's cliff.

Speaking of rock features, it was my first time back at Hilton Falls since twisting my ankle so badly there in mid-May, and it is a scary place for someone with a gimpy ankle! I didn't go too hard today, which was good for my heavily bandaged, blistered feet. After tomorrow morning's Terry Fox Run, I should be able to take the bandages off and stick to bare feet or backless sandals until Tuesday night - yahoo.

Most times when I drive home from Hilton Falls West, I contemplate taking up a new, easier sport like lawn darts, and today was one of those days.

Around Palgrave West with 'Bent, BulletDog and ThunderDog. It was my first time putting on real shoes since the rogaine five days ago. With considerable blister taping beforehand and some soft-backed running shoes, things went fine. I'm sure that it'll be more painful orienteering tomorrow on uneven ground in stiffer shoes, but I'm going to give it a shot. I forgot my ankle brace, but managed to avoid hitting any rocks or tree roots at the wrong angle. It's actually good to do some exercise without it to help regain my proprioception, but I'm not supposed to be running on trails without it just yet!

Leg strength routine while watching the Daily Show.

I haven't worn regular shoes since the rogaine - only backless sandals. The worst blister is still pretty bad, but the others are looking manageable with a bit of taping. I'd better try putting on some shoes tomorrow, since I've signed up to go orienteering at Hilton Falls on Saturday, and there is no sense driving all that way to find out that I can't do it.

Other than the feet, I had a 2-day headache this week, which was another reason not to feel like training - and I totally haven't felt like it! I think my body is telling me that it wasn't pleased that I did a 24-hr endurance event when I was just recovering from an upper respiratory infection.

I was supposed to do leg strength exercises yesterday, but the best I could do for my legs was an epsom salts bath and some stretching. The muscles are much less stiff today, but the blisters on my feet are still pretty bad. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with all the roads we travelled on.

I did my exercises while watching the Daily Show. Best George Bush quote from today's show: "I can't imagine Osama Bin Laden understanding the joys of Hanukkah."

Uh no, me either.

I did part of the Hard Core Conditioning DVD with 'Bent, knowing that I didn't have it in me to do it all today. 'Bent made it almost to the end, but was saved by yet another long power failure.

Laurentian Rogaine, midnight till Sun. 9 a.m.

Around 1 a.m., we found ourselves in another cemetery. The control was by a marsh, which involved walking through the forest from the back of the unlit cemetery. It's spooky enough walking through a dark cemetery into a dark forest, but it was a bit more spooky to find a couple of lit glow sticks hanging in the woods. They didn't lead to the control - it seemed that they were there to lead you back to the cemetery, perhaps to avoid private property issues.

Then we walked through St. Sauveur, which is full of trendy restaurants, art galleries, and bars with booming music. 'Bent was ready to stroll into a pub at 1:30 a.m. to order a cup of coffee, but I wasn't sure I was ready for the stares and comments of bar customers at that hour. We liked the village so much that we returned later in the day (after the race), hoping for a nice lunch at an Italian, Moroccan, Szechuan or Japanese restaurant - but we discovered that the locals are so worn out from Saturday night partying that there are only a couple of places open at mid-day Sunday, and they are serving breakfast at that hour. Oh well.

From midnight on, we had started adding unplanned controls to our route, realizing that our night nav was going well, and we were running out of ways to boost our points total as we approached the finish line. In the southeast quadrant, we climbed the Olympia ski hill for a few controls, then we were on the home stretch.

Around 4:30 a.m., we hit the one control that gave me trouble in the entire event - #56, a junction of two streams, where the attackpoint was a stream/trail junction on the edge of the control circle. It wasn't one I'd expected to be difficult, but Francis Falardeau has a complicated rating systems for his controls, so I should have guessed. Unlike most rogaines, the point value of a control equals the control number. So 56 is worth more than 52. The second digit indicates the degree of difficulty, and digits 5 and 6 are used for the most difficult controls. All of the "zero" controls, like 40, 50, 60, were located at buildings where you could obtain water. So I should have expected 56 to be difficult, I guess. The problem was that the streams mostly flowed underground. Eventually, with the help of another team wandering around the area, we stumbled on the control. although we never saw a stream junction, and we all agreed that it was farther from the trail than we'd expected. Probably 15 minutes lost there.

I've never visited a hash house during a rogaine, and it was quite a treat to stop in for a double espresso at 6:30 a.m. Other teams were there eating pasta with tomato sauce, but we decided to go out and do the controls we had skipped in the northeast quadrant, where we had started the race. This was truly inefficient, as we could have greatly reduced our distance travelled by including these controls in our first loop. Oh well, at this point, there wasn't anything else to do with our remaining time. The other controls we'd left off our original route were much too far away, and my feet felt like I was walking on broken glass, so there was no question of running.

So we took our time, finishing about 40 minutes early, and enjoying wonderful crepes with Quebec maple syrup. We ended up with 1779 of the 2025 available points. Bender and Billy were the winners, getting all the points before sunrise. Benoit L & Tanya M were second, finishing a couple of hours later. In all, I think four teams got all the controls. I'm not sure if we could have quite done it, but I certainly wish we had planned a route to include all controls, because it would have been really close. As it was, I think we finished 3rd Coed, and aside from our conservative route plan, things went as well as one could hope. We both felt good - until the end, when we both started coughing. The nav went well, and we worked well as a team. My feet are so blistered that I can barely walk now, but they'll be OK.

This was a well-organized rogaine in a beautiful area with a lot of character - definitely one that I would recommend. It's very much an orienteers' event, i.e. low cost, not fancy, no hype, good map. With Merrell as a sponsor, there were decent prizes, and most of them were given as draw prizes. Only the top team in each category was recognized, plus the top three overall, which is why I don't yet know how we did exactly.

Members of the GHO Rogaining e-mail list did very well, and I look forward to checking out the final results.

Laurentian Rogaine, Sat. 10 a.m. till midnight.

Well, the Bash Rogaine Partner Curse continues, but it took a different form in this event. I came down with a bad cold on Monday, passing it to 'Bent during the week. By this morning, I felt 85% recovered, but 'Bent was still coughing, plus he felt shaky and nauseated. So we reduced our planned "as the crow flies" distance to a 41 km main loop, with an optional 6-7 km extra loop near the end. Our planned points total was quite conservative.

We started off from the old Ste. Adele train station in cool, rainy weather, and 'Bent felt good enough to run a bit. An ultrarunner friend recently told me that she used to pace herself carefully in the early part of races, but now she has started going out hard. She has found that she gets tired and sore over time no matter how hard (or not hard) she goes at the beginning, so she'd rather push when she can. So with that in mind, we decided to push reasonably hard in the first 9.5 hours before the sun set - no resting, and some jogging on roads and good trails. It was nothing compared with the speed of Bender and Billy, whom we saw a couple of times on the course, but we did a lot more running than I've ever done in a rogaine. 'Bent's illness was not a factor at all, once we got going. Unfortunately, because it affected our route planning so much, it did affect our results - but I'm not sure what we could have done differently, since we didn't know how much the adrenaline was going to help him.

The area was quite different from the relatively uninhabited places I usually race in. The map was quite good by rogaining standards, with most trails accurately marked. The 10 meter contour interval meant that you had to stick to reading big features, as in an adventure race, but otherwise, it felt more like orienteering. Some controls were on cliffy mountain tops with fabulous views over the Laurentians. Others were attached to the porches of houses in town, with the hose left out for racers to refill water bottles. We passed by hundreds of gorgeous vacation homes, and came upon many locations where it would have been nice to just sit down with lunch and take a few photos - wooden bridges over rushing rivers, charming villages, a stunning waterfall at a control simply described as "End of trail".

One of the weird things about being in this area was that it was nearly impossible to avoid private property, and the map didn't have anything marked out of bounds, so you would sometimes end up in a situation where you had to emerge from the forest onto a road, and you had to pass through someone's back yard at 3 a.m. to do so. We did our best to take long detours around anything that looked like a problem spot, but even so, we were chastised by someone as we walked down a gravel road that looked like a major country road, but apparently was a very long driveway. We explained our confusion by telling her that we had just come onto it from a ski trail, which didn't help matters, because she said that all the ski trails in her village were supposed to be closed in the summer. Most people we encountered were very friendly, but I can't blame any locals who might have been disturbed by weird-looking, muddy strangers wandering around their area clutching maps.

In late afternoon, we met Earle and NevMom, accompanied by a friendly young retriever who had followed them for a couple of hours, far from his home. The pooch attached himself to us, and we started to worry. He had a tag with his name, Buster, and his phone number, so we tried to figure out how we could get him home. In a moment of pure serendipity, a woman walked up with three dogs off-leash, including a chocolate Lab like our two. In spite of a language barrier, we immediately bonded with this fellow dog lover, who understood the predicament and put Buster on a leash, taking him back to her house down the street so she could call his family.

In rogaines, we always push on the first day until the light is nearly gone, then stop to put on warmer clothes, get out our lights, and have a snack. This time, the light failed just as we reached a small cemetery outside of town. I'd hoped to pick up the control quickly, then go somewhere else to do our night preparations, but we couldn't see the control without our lights, so we had to take our evening break in the dark cemetery. It certainly made it easy not to get too relaxed and comfortable - I was ready to go again ASAP!

By this point, we were well ahead of schedule, and we debated the merits of adding a control or two from the southwest quadrant, which we had eliminated from our original, conservative plan. Unfortunately, adding a loop at this point would mean an inefficient route compared to what we would have done if we had included it in the first place. Looking ahead, we still had lots planned for the night - which doesn't always go smoothly - and we had two big ski hills to climb and descend. So we decided to save our energy to be sure that we didn't run out of time at the end.

By this point, we weren't running anymore. I often get one blister in a long race, but it's rarely a big deal. For unknown reasons, my feet started to disintegrate early in this race. I was wearing the same shoes I wore in the NA Rogaine Champs, and I'm accustomed to racing with wet feet. Argggh, I wish I knew why.

We ran into Bender and Billy around midnight, looking great and estimating that they would finish before sunrise (which they did). Meanwhile, we plodded up to the top of another ski lift.

Well, we're both still feeling like crap as we get ready to head out the door to Quebec. On the bright side, we're staying at a nice little inn tonight with the hope of a hearty Quebecois pre-race dinner. I'm not sure about racing though, let alone for 24 hours. At last the Bash Rogaine Partner Curse has turned around and struck me as well!

I think I may have hit bottom last night, and hopefully I'm on my way back toward good health. Not quite yet though, sniffle, sniffle. With 'Bent sick too, we may have to approach this weekend's rogaine in a non-competitive manner - returning to the campground at night to sleep, etc. We'll see.

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary, and for a romantic evening out, we are going to... "Spamalot". It was the only night we could get tickets before the show closed. I suppose that a shared appreciation of Monty Python is not a bad thing in a marriage. I've seen a lot of couples where only one partner likes MP, and that can be brutal!

Feeling worse today, so no training, but I do have a wildlife report. While I was driving to a meeting at 70 kph and accelerating, a young deer leapt in front of me, and I managed to slam on the brakes and miss her by about 2 meters. Phew! It's been less than a year since 'Bent brushed a deer with his van. (That deer apparently ran away, but left us $6000 of damage to remember him by.) Living in Caledon is great, as long as you stay alert.

Came home from Algonquin Park with a nasty upper respiratory infection. Not the best way to taper for a 24-hr rogaine this weekend.

Kayak paddling in a canoe with 'Bent. Went to the end of Little Joe Lake and up the river as far as we could.

Ran half of the Mizzy Lake Trail (Algonquin Park), then realized we were short of time, so ran back to our car on the Arowhon Pines lodge access road. The trail was a real challenge in the pouring rain. It was tough to choose a safe place to put your foot down in the tangle of wet rocks, tree roots and mud puddles. Leafy branches kept hitting us in the face like a car wash, so we were soaked to the skin from the outset on a relatively cool day. Because the trail was so wet and technical, I couldn't spend much time looking at the amazing forest and ponds around us. My ankle is still too fragile for that. Once we got onto the dirt road, we were able to push the pace more. In fact, I needed to do that, because it didn't take much to get hypothermic in the rain. Even though it was a beautiful place, this wasn't my favourite run of the year.

Algonquin Park - As a warm-up, we rode from the Minnesing Trail parking lot into Canisbay Campground to visit the Hingorani family. After reading so much about cadence on Attackpoint lately, I manually counted what felt like a high cadence on a road section, and now I have a sense of what 80 rpm feels like (not really super-high). Normally, I don't have hummingbird cadence like Lance - I'm a big gear grinder like Jan. But I have a bad knee, so I figure it's worth trying to change my technique.

Minnesing Trail, Algonquin Park.

This is an annual tradition - always lots of fun. This year, the whiteboard at the trailhead was plastered with warnings: "Very Rough Conditions!", "Many Sections Unrideable!", "Not for Inexperienced Riders", etc. So it wasn't a year to break records. They've apparently had a wetter year than usual - we don't remember seeing so much mud in September. However, that made for good AR practice. Especially on the first half of the trail, we did a lot of weaving to choose the best line through deep muck between rocks, then we would do a dry, rocky climb with a nice ride along a hill before descending into the next mud pit. The second half of the trail is an old carriage road, and parts of it provided a fun, blazing fast ride. I haven't done as much technical riding this year as in other years, but things went pretty well, and it didn't feel like a big aerobic challenge, so I guess that part of my training is working. Luckily, the rain held off for us!

Kayak paddling, since we had an odd number of family members to go in canoes. We returned to the canoe campsite where 'Bent and I were married ten years ago and asked the occupants if we could come ashore for five minutes with our parents. They were very nice and thought this was really cool. One of them was a justice of the peace, and offered to renew our vows! Nice to return there with the family.

Kayaking on Little Joe Lake in Algonquin Park. I'm not super-keen on sit-on-top kayaks, since you get pretty wet, plus you sit in a pool of water all the time. I bravely (foolishly?) took my non-waterproof camera and got a couple of nice shots.