Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: OCIN A-meet (Night, Relay, Ultra-long)
 

U. S. Night-O Champs
Mt. Airy Park
Cincinnati, Ohio

The Canadians only have 3 national orienteering championships but the Americans have a whole bunch including some really cool ones like Night-O and UltraLong. Even though it meant a 9-hour drive just a day after returning from B.C. and its different time zone, I wanted to make the trip.

The pain was eased somewhat by picking up my new Outback during my 24 hours in Ontario. After a weekend of driving it, the reviews are mostly positive:
- Fuel economy is considerably better than my old car.
- Feels good to drive - smooth, quiet, good handling, comfortable driver's seat, etc.
- Bluetooth for podcasting and phone calls is awesome.
- Love the colour - I smile every time I see it. :)

Negatives:
- I really, really don't like driving an automatic.
- Cupholders were designed by people who have never used a cup in a vehicle in their lives.

Obviously, the positives outweigh the negatives!

Back to the Night-O... I'd hoped for a nap before the race since my alarm had gone off at 2 a.m. B.C. time before the long drive so I was exhausted. However, I ended up in a long tech support phone call with the hotel's wi-fi provider. In the end, they were unable to get the wi-fi to work during the weekend, which was tough for a hotel full of Attackpointers.

So... I was already tired when Tundra/Desert and I headed for Mt. Airy. It would have been better to do a longer warm-up since I went out overdressed, and that took some time to fix during the race. At the last minute, I remembered that for night nav (which I obviously don't do often enough), I use a tiny map light attached to my big headlamp. I can't use the big headlamp to look at the map because when I point it down, I'm no longer looking through the magnifier portion of my eye protection glasses so I can't read the map.

I quickly dug out my back-up headlamp from my pack and put it on pointed downward - a much larger light than I would normally use for map reading. Now it felt like I had a refrigerator on my forehead! Between wearing the wrong layers and the awkward light set-up, the percentage of my attention focused on the map was not as high as it should have been. I didn't always feel precise in my navigation nor did I make the best route choices but I didn't have any major trouble other than one place where the vegetation pushed me off my bearing - but I knew what had happened and was able to relocate after wasting some time.

There was a good amount of climbing on and off-trail, and some patches of difficult vegetation. Overall, it was loads of fun running around in the dark with lots of other headlamps bobbing around going in different directions. I'd chosen the elite women's course so the only goal was to have a fun, challenging workout. I had a respectable result under the circumstances, about 2 minutes behind the U.S. bronze medalist.

Forgot to turn my GPS on right away so I'm missing the first part of the route, and I've updated the time/distance. [Edit: The awesome Cedarcreek has modified my GPX so that the controls after I turned on the Garmin now appear in the right place on the GPS track - yahoo!] Other than the first bit, I'm able to compare my routes to Alex and Ali in a race for the first time. All I can say is "Yikes!"

US_Night_2012_Red - Splits

Here's 'Bent's action movie trailer for our ski trip. We didn't get the GoPro out with our friends around because it can be intrusive, but it would have been nice to see them in the movie. Next time!

Successful Christmas shopping trip to Toronto. Got a South St. Burger, a latte and a Subaru. :)

Birthday Boy spent his special day in transit, poor guy! We're back in Palgrave with a fire burning, two Labs cuddled in our laps, and a dusting of snow on the ground. Silverstar was great but home is the best.

Last day of 'Bent's birthday trip. We did a relaxed classic tour of the lower Silverstar trails with some GoPro filming. I accidentally left the Garmin off for awhile after one of our photo shoots so had to update the distance using previous GPS tracks. This is the 5th sunny day in a row, so some of the trails had rough patches or debris. Still, any day spent playing in the snow is a good one.



I may not be able to ski with good technique but I am getting better at seeing our flaws when I look at photos. I hope that can lead to some improvement because the photos of me have already given me a *long* list of things to work on.





Charm and AZ are here for this week's ski clinic so we stopped by the Bulldog Cafe to say hello and catch up quickly. Their coach is none other than Marie-Cat; it had been so long since I'd seen her that I got chatty and totally forgot to take her photo.



Then we had a terrific lunch at The Den - one of the few restaurants open here when the downhill skiers aren't around. As 'Bent says, their logo is "a bear with a footprint problem".

We finished off with a short skate ski before packing up. Mostly we toured the same trails as this morning but right at the end, just as we were approaching our condo, 'Bent wanted to try the Silver Streak trail. "It's only 500 meters long!" Sure, I can do that. It turned out to be a big climb. Halfway up, we met Tarno and Almageddon who told us the trails to take when we reached the top. Those trails climbed too. Hmm. When we finally popped out at a place we recognized, we were near the top of a ski lift - and our condo was at the bottom! Luckily, they'd groomed the hill in preparation for the downhill ski opening on Thursday. The last 10 minutes provided the toughest challenge of the day but it made a great finish to a fun holiday.



On our way to Kelowna, we checked out the Stussi Sport cross-country ski shop in Vernon where we had a 10% discount. Let's just say that we saved a *lot* of money there. :) 'Bent has been spared some trouble since he was able to buy me a few great Christmas gifts in advance, including new Salomon classic boots. :)

With the ski clinic over and our friends mostly back at home, 'Bent and I bravely headed out on our own.



I know it sounds lame but our bodies were kinda tired after the sudden leap into ski season so we had a lazy start to the day. The muscles we use for other sports feel fine but apparently skiing uses a few muscles that don't get such a good workout in summer, and they're a little surprised at all the action. On the bright side, I'm not feeling the altitude as much as the last time we were here. That has nothing to do with fitness - just good luck.

It might have helped if we'd eaten the Breakfast of Champions we had on Saturday. 2011 world mountain bike champion Catharine Pendrel was here for last week's ski clinic, and we ended up in line together at the bakery where she helped us by listing healthy ingredients in a muffin she likes. Naturally, that's what we bought since it seems to be working for her. I noticed on her Twitter that she met retired cyclist Axel Merckx skiing here a few days ago. Apparently it's good cross training.

We drove over to Sovereign Lake and did a big loop starting up Aberdeen. The trail had been rolled two days ago but hadn't been track set. It had been well used and was a little slick and rutted in places, so it wasn't the easiest place to practise proper classic technique. However, it was incredibly beautiful as we climbed up (and up and up).





As we climbed higher, the views got better and better.



This picture is cross-country skier porn!



Our destination was Silverstar summit - the top of the ski chairs that come up from the other side of the mountain. First we stopped at a lookout near the top.



Then we got to the summit. The resort opens for downhill skiing in three days so things are just about ready to go.





'Bent was shooting video.



And of course, I was hugging trees.



While 'Bent was leading the way with the GoPro on our descent, he missed our turn back to Sovereign and nearly took us down the wrong side of the mountain. Fortunately, we figured out our error before we lost *too* much elevation. Adding to our nervousness was the fact that we needed a more expensive ski pass to go on both sides of the mountain, so we weren't just lost - we were breaking the rules!

We came down via Lars Taylor and got chilled with the wind on the descent. After a break to warm up at the Black Prince Cabin, we continued around the Carl Wylie trail to the stadium, then went back out to do Woodland Bell and some other "green" skiing near the parking lot.

While we were having snacks in the ski lodge, Munny Duncan of Salomon came up to introduce himself and compliment us on our choice of clothing. We had a great chat and discovered a whole bunch of mutual friends and Salomon colleagues. Such a small world.



Speaking of which, the Tarnopolsky family just got here, and we had a nice evening of dinner and conversation with them. I'd also hoped to entice Urthbuoy up here for a nice, relaxing skate ski but he didn't take the bait. :)

Skate ski clinic with Coach Sandy. 'Bent and I rarely skate ski so we had been anticipating today's morning and afternoon skate ski sessions with less than total enthusiasm. We could have opted for classic lessons only this weekend but we knew some skate skiing would be good for us. Most of the skate skiers did the same thing in reverse and were similarly dubious as they approached yesterday's classic skiing sessions!

Later we plan to write down some key ideas from our sessions but one big take-away is that most of the concepts are transferable between skate and classic. Although we are longtime classic skiers, these were our first formal classic lessons (not counting a terrific informal session with VO2Max), so I hadn't ever thought about it. More surprising was the transfer of skills between skiing and the Chi running style I've been trying to adopt. Very cool.

Sandy walked us through various fundamentals - committing to balance over one ski, proper body position at different points, poling, 1-skate, 2-skate, offset - and we practised transitions between our "gears" as we skied some rolling trails. Lots of drills - no poles, long glide on one ski, Barbie doll arms (locked elbows - forces you to use abs), etc. Good stuff and not as stressful as I'd feared. The hills were short and we had lots of instructional time so the effort wasn't crazy. (Skate skiing almost always makes me go anaerobic.)

Sandy's suggestion is that we work to get to the point where we know how to skate ski 20 km (say) with proper technique without getting out of breath. Then if we want to, we can always add muscle to go faster and harder - but with correct technique.

One of my big problems, it turns out, is that I am so self-conscious about my technique that I constantly look down at my skis and poles to check what I'm doing. I'm supposed to work at lifting my chin from my chest and looking ahead on the trail while putting my shoulders back, avoiding hunching my spine, and opening up my chest and lungs.

(Elapsed 2 hrs 38 min - time deducted for coaching stops, distance added for section where Garmin was off.)

After lunch at the Bulldog Cafe, we had to say farewell to most of the group we've been hanging out with - Revy, C-Bass, Rich C, Sara, Sean & Juliann, Myra & Danny. The Carbons stayed for the afternoon classic clinic. The 5 skate groups from the morning were collapsed into one since most attendees were leaving. I'd slotted myself into the middle level but in the afternoon, I was with Coach Dave and the fast boyz. (Two of us were given the option of an intermediate session just for us but decided to tough it out).

On the plus side, we did an absolutely beautiful ski up to Alder Point and back. It was sunny and cool with heavy snow coating the trees. Perfect ski conditions, spectacular views, great company.

On the negative side, there was a lot of climb. According to AP (which rarely lies), I'd done 67 minutes of skate skiing in 2012 before today. So... it was a shock to some muscles and my cardiovascular system to ski for 3.5 hours today, especially after the season's first two days of classic skiing. Although I tried to cling to some remnants of good technique, I'm afraid some of this morning's improvements were set aside in favour of just getting my sorry arse up the mountain. I was one of the two slowpokes in our group but it didn't really bug me, and it didn't seem to bother the others either. Now that I've survived, I'm really glad I did it. It was a huge confidence booster.

Here are George, Eric, 'Bent and Coach Dave Harbocian.





Here are the views from Alder Point. Important: You should stop skiing when you arrive at this spot.





We shared a condo with the Carbons but our schedule was so busy that we didn't get a lot of time to relax and catch up. Next time! Their skiing skills have become quite good - and they both bought new skis here to add to their quiver. We all warned them this would happen. :)



Night view from the condo.

We went to Sovereign Lake today - one of my favourite XC ski centres in fantastic snowy conditions. This pic is from Silverstar before we left in the morning.



We worked with Coaches Sandy and Denis this morning. First up, a drill! Weight transfer and arm movement while classic skiing with no poles - for quite awhile, including a trail loop with small hills to negotiate. Then add poles - close to chest in front and flung way out behind during glide. Then some skiing along the trails and practising these concepts. Then double poling and finally kick double pole. This final skill was today's big lesson for me. I'm a self-taught classic skier who started in my mid-teens, but for some reason, I never taught myself the kick double pole. As a result, there were some awkward, fish-out-of-water moments today! But I can see how it will be helpful so I kept plugging away at it.

Rich, C-Bass, Carbon's Offset, Carbon.



Elapsed time 2 hrs 11 min. Some time deducted for instruction stops.

They've set up two Norco spin bikes at Silverstar for ski clinic attendees. Naturally, the Carbons had to give it a whirl.

We skied around the beautiful Sovereign Lake trails with Denis and stopped occasionally to reinforce particular concepts. He is the 3rd coach I've worked with since yesterday, and it's great to get the same ideas explained or visualized in several different ways, some of which resonate with me more than others. We were all starting to get tired but wanted to keep practising until the last possible moment when the bus was getting ready to leave. It's just so fun to be on snow again.

Elapsed 1.5 hrs. Time deducted for stops - like this one.







Carbon's Offset snapped this pic from the bus window. We had spectacular mountain vistas in our 10-minute bus ride.

First time on snow in the 2012/13 season - 'Bent's birthday ski trip. :)) 'Bent and I went out for a short tour on the trails around Silverstar to test our skis and shake out a few cobwebs before our XC ski clinic. Awesome. I've missed XC skiing so much! What an amazing treat to be teleported from unseasonably warm weather into the heart of winter. It feels like magic.

First coaching session (time deducted for instruction). We took the intermediate classic clinic today with Coach Dave, who used to ski at Highlands and knows Goose, Coach LD and VO2Max. There was also a woman in our small group who moved from Yellowknife a few years ago. Marie-Claude looked familiar, and it turned out that she'd lived on the same block as 'Bent's brother so she knew the names of our little niece and nephew. But that wasn't why she looked familiar; she had also volunteered at one of our camps at the Rock and Ice Ultra, along with her big black dog. Such a small world!



Dave made us all work on full weight shift, pole planting close to our bodies with elbows quite bent, and avoiding ski slap by landing on the ball of each foot with hip up, never weighting the heel. We were explicitly prohibited from skiing hard since that makes people revert to their old technique. The idea was to try to do one thing right. I think I eventually got the poles right. Weight shift is sometimes good, sometimes not so good!

It was so nice to hang out with Carbon, Carbon's Offset, Revy and C-Bass, and to meet their great friends. 'Bent and Revy kept dashing ahead of our group, then returning to find us. I think they both signed up for the advanced group tomorrow. Good riddance. :)

Revy and 'Bent.



Carbon and Carbon's Offset.



'Bent and me.



'Bent and I finished off the day with a relaxing hot tub soak with the Carbons as light snow sprinkled down. Perfect.

Snow! Lots of it!

Just a reminder to myself to look for Blues Boy Dan Owen on iTunes in future; he's not there yet. How does that voice come out of that kid?!



Bio: http://bluesboydan.co.uk/bio/

Enough agonizing over the decision; nothing will ever be perfect. I have a long drive next week (U.S. Night and UltraLong O Champs in Cincinnati) and may need a car that will start in the rain. All done. Pouring a glass of wine now.

Crew My Run - ultrarun shuttle/crew service by trail runners for trail runners. They can support runs with a group of friends or you can hire them to support you at an event. This could be useful!

I'm a lousy skate skier but I've been a lousy skate skier for almost a decade so I signed up for the intermediate group for this weekend's skate ski clinic rather than the beginner one. I'll find out soon enough whether I regret that decision.

In the meantime, feeling a little nervous about it, I took my rollerskis to the Palgrave rail trail for a short sunset "ski". I've got off-road rollerskis but they still require a fairly hard, flat surface. This part of the rail trail is usually OK but today it was soft - like rollerskiing through a few centimetres of sand. It was hard work but it was kinda funny. It took *forever* to catch up with the friendly senior walking his dog. It was probably all he could do not to laugh at me.

I considered turning into a subdivision with paved roads but that's when I remembered that I should have worn a helmet - oops. Fortunately, my progress on the rail trail was so painfully slow that I couldn't have given myself a head injury if I tried. So I stuck to the "beach" and hit a few sections that were better and a few sections where tufts of grass forced me to double pole slowly along the outside track. It started to get dark so it was a fight to get back to the car while I could still see the surprise ruts in the trail. Good workout - maybe a little *too* good!

Power Yoga for Flexibility with Rodney Yee. Yahoo, I'm feeling stronger and my gimpy foot is steadily improving as I keep forcing it to do stuff that requires strength and stretching.

If you're planning your calendar for next year, check out the Ontario Ultra Series; they've just posted their 2013 trail race schedule.

Coach LD led the Monday Night Bounding Babes around downtown Bolton once again. It's hard to categorize these evenings of fun and general mayhem so I'm using three categories. There's some running including hill intervals, some functional strength (e.g. dips from a park bench), some ski bounding, some core strength and lots more.

I'm not counting the time we spent working on coordination with rubber balls, although that was the activity that led to my latest injury. The idea was to throw the ball into the air, touch the ground, then stand up and catch the ball again. I threw the ball way up in the air straight above me to make things easier. When I leapt to my feet and turned my face toward the sky, the ball clocked me right on the nose. OUCH!! No blood (although I expected some) but it hurt like crazy and I'm still not breathing quite right. This incident reminded me of how un-devastated the phys-ed tachers were when I dropped their class after age 12. I am *so* not a natural athlete! :)

Looking for ideas for navigation training? Here's a long list from O-Training.net.

'Bent and BazingaDog went for a long run in Glen Haffy while BulletDog and I did a hill workout in Palgrave West. Thumbs-of-Death has been treating my gimpy foot while I've been working to strengthen it. My plan is to take a few weeks off long runs to help it recover.

We did a 3 km trail warm-up then three intervals up the main Raspberry Hill trail followed by three intervals up the Hawk Hill trail. Recovery was the run back to the bottom of the hill, using different trails for the Raspberry Hill intervals. BulletDog has never understood the concept of intervals but she played along without complaint. The cool down run inevitably had to include a hill to get us back home, so we lightly jog-walked up Big Hill. Gorgeous day and I felt good - although it wouldn't hurt to get rid of 3-4 lb by the end of the year, which will consist of a ski vacation followed by Christmas party season. Yeah, that's going to happen.

Garmin accidentally got turned off for the 2nd Hawk Hill interval but I added it back into the time/distance. [Edit: Interesting that the Garmin picked up the elevation change for smaller hills along my warm-up/cooldown routes but didn't see the larger elevation changes for the hill intervals. Too short? (About 1 minute of climbing.) Too fast? Ha!]

While watching the Colbert Report with Newt Gingrich.

The weather was spectacular for late November - sunny and 10C - so 'Bent and I rode through the Palgrave West trails and down Duffy's Lane to Albion Hills. The trails are in great shape although there were occasional surprise rocks and roots lurking under the leaves so we had to stay focused. We met several groups of hikers and bikers, which is unusual this late in the season. Great to see people of all ages out enjoying the sun.

My luck ran out late in the ride as I made a left turn onto a double track trail that had a slick layer of mud on top of some harder ground. Conditions had been dry so I was going too fast when my wheels slid out and my bike flew into the air. I had some time to think about the impending crash and managed to detach myself from my bike before we made our re-entry into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, my left knee landed hard on the handlebar, and I spent the next 90 seconds lying in the mud, gingerly checking it for damage. Ski season starts on Friday so I kinda need my knees. It felt like something that a little ice should cure - phew! Other than that, awesome ride - so nice to be out there!

Good conditions for the Leonid meteor shower this weekend!

Hard Core Live with Caron

Verrry stretchhhy power yoga class tonight and lots of balance stuff. Good for my gimpy foot. Caron is heading to Arizona in the morning to cheer for her husband Barrie Shepley who will be doing his first Ironman. He was head coach for Simon Whitfield when he won the first Olympic gold in triathlon.

The 100-mile Western States Endurance Run is one of the most prestigious ultras in North America and can only accept 369 runners due to parkland restrictions. On Day 6 of the 2-week lottery, there are 1880 names on the list. Runners applying in consecutive years receive an additional lottery ticket for each year they have qualified, applied and failed to win an entry. First year lottery applicants like Ang, Carbon's Offset and myself have a 10% chance of getting in. Just as well, since I'm really just doing this to get an extra lottery ticket for future years when it might fit better in my schedule. :)

VIP Day at the Salomon Store so I'd planned to hang around and help out for a few hours. It was great to see so many friends while I was there. They have runs from the store each Wednesday at 6 p.m. so I went with the "slow, friendly" group consisting of Simpy, BugsinTeeth, WandAR and Jen (whom we met tonight). BugsinTeeth and Jen navigated us through some leafy, rooty trails in the dark. Lots of conversation and laughs, then we went to Aroma for snacks and hot drinks before heading back to the store. According to reports from store staff, my friends who came to this year's VIP Day were all *very* enthusiastic shoppers!

This may be the best argument in favour of gay marriage yet. ;)
We will marry your girlfriends
*** Language alert. ***

Attackpointers have been so helpful with my car troubles that I now feel obliged to keep you in the loop! :)

Subaru called. I definitely need my front catalytic converter replaced for the 3rd time since August. This time, however, they're thinking the same way I'm thinking... There must be some other problem that is messing up the catalytic converter. They mentioned some possibilities that were suggested by APers in the earlier comment thread. I'll need to pay to fix those problems once they are diagnosed, then Subaru will give me another catalytic converter under warranty. This is what I wanted to do in June rather than getting obsessed with the check engine light. They'll need the car for three more days in Toronto, not all at the same time. In the meantime, 'Bent and I are sharing his van most of the time rather than risk stalling my car while turning left in front of a Mack truck.

So it's official; I'm buying myself a new car for Christmas.

Sherpa and I took BulletDog and Arleau (her black Lab) for a hilly trail run near the Grand River behind her beautiful new home in Kitchener while Gooder took the kids out in the stroller. Excellent weather and company, and we even carried an orienteering map of the area. Nice chance to catch up!

It was my first time meeting Micro (6 months); he has a great smile and was fascinated by my hair. Mini (age 2) is at a fun age where she understands a great deal and is always busy with something. The first word I heard her say was "Ironman" so we already know how she is going to turn out! :)

Sherpa's older Lab Ciara used to hang out with Tobler when they were younger, and we have always commented on how similar they looked. I knew I would cry when I saw her, and I did - but it was also nice to get cuddles from a friendly pooch who reminded me of our dearly missed ThunderDog.

Mrs. Tiny and Teeny Tiny joined us for a lunch date. She danced and serenaded us enthusiastically (Teeny, not Mrs.) Fun day!

Short spin on the trainer to keep my legs moving while listening to Sean Cullen on the Laugh Out Loud podcast. Other than the little flare-up in my gimpy foot, I feel good after yesterday's race. There's also a goose bump and gash beside my knee cap from banging into the sharp end of a log but it isn't affecting the joint so "it's only a flesh wound", as the Black Knight would say.

Rodney Yee Power Yoga for Flexibility plus a few minutes extra on ankle and hips.

Salomon Raid The Hammer

This was an anniversary race for Hingo, 'Bent and me. Ten years ago, we raced our first Raid The Hammer together - the first nav race we ever finished. We had a great time, didn't run very much, wrote bearings and distance on the map for every single control, finished 44th of 82 teams and were absolutely thrilled with our debut performance.

Since then the Tree Huggers have attended most of the Raids over the years, racing with our original 3-member line-up whenever circumstances allow.

We have our routine standardized after all these years. We each work on our maps independently, and unless there is a particularly complex route choice, it's my responsibility to understand the instructions and plan our routes. I don't plan many legs in detail, and I rarely mark anything on the map other than control descriptions and route details that aren't obvious from the map. Hingo plans our Matrix strategy and assigns us our control(s). We may briefly discuss things like the sequence of scrambles (score-O sections). As we're running, all three of us follow the map and watch for controls and key features. We constantly remind each other about the instructions and our routes. 'Bent wields the SI card and carries the tow rope.

Today we started in Mount Nemo in warm weather. First we had a scramble where I messed up a little by starting to lead the team toward one of the Matrix controls by mistake. Then we spit up for the Matrix, and I ended up running to B with BugsinTeeth. This gave me a nice rest at CP1 as I waited for 'Bent and Hingo to return from their tougher assignments.Then we headed off to the controls at the south end of the map and out to the road toward the Brant Hills map. 'Bent towed me for much of the road section.

There was potential to get mixed up on the Brant Hills map so I was very cautious - counting creeks, aiming off, watching contours more than trails. We spent much of our time on this map with Topo Girlz and Boy (Ang, Arthurd and Matt). Our route choices weren't always the same but we kept ending up together. More surprising was the fact that we were passed by Team Salomon in this section - twice! We didn't expect to see them until the Meatball Truck.

Finally we snuck past Topo Girlz and Boy on the trail run to the final map. It was somewhere around this time (the 15K mark) that the top of my left foot started to hurt badly - the same thing that happened near the end of Oil Creek. I think it's a repetitive strain thing and hope it just needs some time away from long runs. After this weekend, I'm officially declaring it ski season, and I plan to stop running if this pain ever pops up. Today, however, I pushed through it and was gritting my teeth sometimes toward the end. I'm wondering if it may be related to the ankle bracing and taping I do for long events. In restricting the movement of my foot, I may be aggravating parts of it.

We were efficient on the final scramble, and when we went up to the aid station, we learned we were 2nd Coed which was unexpected and motivating. The rest of the forest controls went well, then we had another Bruce Trail run into Waterdown. After CP8 we lost some time when I was freaking out because I couldn't see the little park we were supposed to run through to get to Main St., and the map didn't have that much detail. In the end, we followed the other teams who took Union St. across. (Every GPS track I have seen, including for top teams, did the same thing.) Unfortunately, my obsession over detail meant that we just missed a slow light change that the teams around us made so in the end, we finished about a minute behind two other teams (luckily not in our category).

It was an incredible, sunny day - perfect for a run in the woods. It was great to see so many friends and to race with longtime teammates. This year's course had more trail and road sections that favoured speedy runners so on paper, I would have expected us to get crushed. We had a respectable result though - 2nd of 19 Coed teams (although the preliminary results show us in Masters). This was a great year for Female teams with Team Giggles (including two U.S. national team members) just a few minutes off the overall podium, and Dee, M&M and Morgan beating us nicely. Frankenjack's team took the overall win - congrats!

Thanks to all the people involved in putting on these major events for us. It's a huge job performed almost entirely by volunteers, and we are incredibly lucky to have people doing this for us.

Trav took this finish line photo. I'd forgotten to bring a brimmed hat and it was too hot for my Buff, so instead I went with the "fright wig" look! :) Thanks to Funderstorm who set me up with a much-needed ponytail elastic.

In case you haven't seen it on 'Bent's log yet, he is still working on the Festival Fall 50 movie but the trailer is now ready. :)

Final test run before Salomon Raid The Hammer. For the past month, I've been taking it easy on my gimpy foot - getting treatment from Thumbs-of-Death, doing strength exercises and limiting my running. It meant losing a little fitness before the Raid but I think the break was needed. Everything felt good today, and I would have been happy to run a lot longer - but I'll save that for Sunday.

Starting Monday, 'tis the season for XC ski training!

Want to orienteer for a living? GHO has openings for a Program Manager for the Adventure Running Kids Expansion 2013, and for a Mapper in Residence. The two job openings may be combined into a full time position. The Program Manager of our ARK Expansion would join Patrick Saile (aka Pat-hectic), our Adventure Running manager, and over 75 other coaches in the Hamilton, KW, and Niagara regions that are currently involved in the delivery of the Adventure Running Kids and Adventure Running X programs.
http://dontgetlost.ca/index.php?option=com_content...

Just finished Day 5 with my friends at the Subaru Service dept. The check engine code says I need my 3rd replacement catalytic converter in 3 months. Seriously?!

This was all the time I had left after taking care of a few snafus. First I realized that I'd forgotten to wire up the monitor and cadence sensor when I set up the trainer. No *wonder* it seemed so easy. Then when I tried to do the brake calibration, which you do by pedalling over 30 kph, the trainer refused to measure me going that fast even though I pedalled my heart out again and again. Then, as I was gasping for oxygen, I noticed a funny smell and checked the roller. It was burning hot. The tire also was hot - and soft. Oh... Yup, my painstaking tire change that took 25 minutes left me with a flat tire. For today I just pumped it up again but there may be another road bike tire change in my future. Oh joy.

In the midst of all this, I listened to part of an Endurance Planet podcast. They were talking about strength training for ultrarunners - always useful.

When I finally got to ride:
- Watts ave 151
- Cadence ave 79

This just in: Apple Maps projects Obama to win in Chile.
[ via George Takei ]

While getting increasingly nervous about the U.S. election. Canada's feds are going to be messed up for the next few years so we can only hope for good things to happen south of the border. After all the rhetoric, I'm afraid that anti-science, anti-woman, anti-gay politicians may gain power. I feel physically sick. :(

Photos are now posted in the entry for Sunday's Festival Fall Fifty.

Wishing all the best to our American friends today.

Hard to categorize tonight's training session with Coach LD's Bounding Babes. It's a mix of running and strength so that's how I'll log it. Crash, TP, Liz and I were treated to a Tour de Bolton with various stations along the way:
- Run to Dick's Dam Park in the dark
- Dynamic stretching on the bridge (different leg swings)
- Sidesteps, grapevine, 1 and 2-footed hops in the sand. Surprisingly tiring by the 3rd or 4th time across the volleyball court. I think this is where it would help to have a few fast-twitch fibres.
- Skate and classic ski bounding repeats on Deer Valley hill, then run up
- Dips from benches in Foundry Park
- Playground equipment race where I came last - *but* other than Coach LD (the overall winner, of course), I was the only one who did the monkey bars so it's OK.
- Run over Sackville hill to the Anglican church where Coach LD had a meeting at 7. Coordination exercises with balls, balance exercises (including teapots! At last I know what they are!), core strength and stretching.
- Run back over Sackville hill to our cars, leaving Coach LD at her meeting. As we said goodbye, we sang "Happy Birthday" to her in loud voices. We were pretty sure that would make her meeting more interesting. :)

Fun times - thanks, Coach LD!

In many parts of southern Ontario, today is the opening day of gun hunting season for deer. This includes areas around Collingwood, Milton, Barrie/Orillia, Waterloo and Ancaster where many of our friends play regularly. Many more areas have deer bow hunting seasons for most of Oct-Dec, including the areas that have one or two gun hunting weeks. Having had some bad experiences, my compromise is to dress brightly around bow hunters but try to steer clear of areas while gun hunting is going on. (Unless a good race or important course test is involved!) If you choose to venture into areas with gun hunters, it is safest to stay on major trails. Note that the Bruce Trail and other "public" trails pass through private land so there can be gunfire across the trail in places.

To find out hunting seasons in your area:

1) Find your 'Wildlife Management Unit' number on a map.

2) Go to the list of hunting seasons and search for your WMU#. Note that there are three separate lists for Deer:
- Deer Hunting
- Deer Bows Only
- Deer Controlled Hunts

A lot of southern Ontario areas are "controlled" hunts, i.e. tags must be purchased. Your WMU# may be on multiple lists so check them all to make sure you've got all the info.

Once you know whether it is hunting season, you need to find out whether specific landowners permit hunting on their land. It's not always what you might think. Simcoe County Forest usually *does* permit hunting on their land but the Toronto & Region Conservation Authority does not. Some of our neighbours allow deer hunters on their land while others do not. And we also have the neighbour who has hunted on the TRCA land between our houses - sigh...

Several locals have met hunters walking along the edges of their property or trespassing, sometimes because they honestly didn't know the property boundaries of the landowner who gave them permission.

There are hunters who break the rules, and you may find someone trespassing, hunting out of season or using weapons that are not permitted. However, most hunters follow the regulations so the best we can do is get familiar with them. Don't forget to put a bright T-shirt or hunting vest on your dogs too, if you're in an area where you could encounter hunters.

Festival Fall Fifty multi-discipline Tour de Caledon in honour of Coach LD's birthday. Time has been deducted for group photos, feats of strength and cookie breaks. I've included extra pics for Phatty and Leanimal who were with us in spirit. Some are mine and some were taken by Mr. Biker - thank you!

Not everyone could make it for the Full 50 but the hard core partiers included:

Goose and Coach LD



Hansel and Gretel



Mr. and Mrs. Biker



'Bent and me.



It was below freezing when we got up so the initial paddling leg was a terrific test of our cold weather paddling gear. Yay, fuzzy rubber! I almost got it right but my fingertips were still cold. We started at the Goose Nest and drove our canoes up to the Duffy's Lane Bridge.



Hansel broke out the Pringles at 9:30 a.m. before we'd burned a single calorie.



'Bent and Hansel were our GoPro guys. A video will follow when the editor has had time to reduce it from a few hours to a few minutes.



We paddled about 8 km on the Humber River back to the Goose Nest. Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, there was plenty of water for a November paddle. Goose said the water had been almost a meter higher early in the week. This is a technical little paddle - not because the rapids or current are challenging but because you're almost always steering to avoid rocks, fallen trees and branches at face height.









The number of portages on this stretch of river changes over time. Today there was only one.





Now that the leaves are down, it's almost time to start thinking about skiing on the river!



Coach had packed along her famous LD cookies so we stopped for a snack break halfway down the river.



I can't explain it but the subject of wife carrying contests came up. And this being a physically active, competitive group of people consisting of four wives and their husbands, it was only a matter of time until a couple of couples had to try it. The thing is, they couldn't remember the technique and perhaps they were over-thinking it a little. Some of the attempts were unintentionally worthy of "Penthouse for Outdoorsmen" magazine.

Hansel and Gretel gave it a try - but they *are* newlyweds, after all.



Goose and Coach LD attempted a few different techniques, taking advantage of Coach's background in gymnastics.

Hansel and Gretel finally figured out a method that is actually *used* in wife carrying contests. This is the "Estonian" technique, according to Wikipedia.

The 2nd leg of our tour started with a hilly bike ride mostly on roads up to Palgrave Estates. Before we left, Coach LD got out the "big foot" candies for Phatty (in absentia).



Coach Huet and Hubby Huet joined us for the biking.











Then we went west on the rail trail to Albion Hills to ride a little trail.





I did not get the memo that we were supposed to walk down this hill.



Group shot at the Chalet.



Gretel is an experienced road rider but a relative newbie to single track. She seemed to enjoy herself!



She had borrowed my old bike and she returned it *dirty*. Tsk.



Then we hit the road back to Bolton (net downhill from the dizzying heights of Palgrave).

The final leg of our tour was a trek/run from the Goose Nest to the old Bolton Camp for some exploring, then west to the Humber Valley Trail until we reached our cars at the start of the canoe leg. Yay, Crash was able to join us for this one.





Throughout the day, we'd been finding mysterious little balls hanging along our route, marked by pink flagging tape. Coach LD had gone out and placed them the day before. Each one had a little phrase written on it with a blank that we needed to fill in with one of our nicknames. Here's Crash after she found a ball beside the trail. She is puzzling over the clue which included the phrase "______ Test Dummies". :) To be fair, this was the first ball she'd seen, and the rest of us had had a lot more practice by this point!



We found some bars in the middle of the abandoned camp. Obviously, some feats of strength were performed, first by Goose and Hansel.



Then Coach LD.



And 'Bent.



Goose also did well in the Chippendale Contest.



OK, that's really just an awkward photo of a jumping jack.

Our last big find was a thermos of squash soup with more cookies that Coach LD had stashed along the Humber Trail.



We finished the day with potluck dinner, birthday poetry and cake!

I woke up teetering on the edge of a cold, and with the all-important Festival Fall Fifty coming up tomorrow, I opted to sleep in, take ColdFX and sit by the fireplace to work on the poem that is one of the few pieces of mandatory gear for tomorrow's event. The siding contractor asked if he could work all weekend to make up for the hurricane so our day was punctuated with whining saws and hammer thumps. But our old siding was decaying and the new stuff looks nice, so the construction noise made me very happy.

By late afternoon, I felt better and was inspired to do some leg/hip strength training that had to be cut short due to dinner.

Phew! OK, the road bike is on the trainer. I am terrible at changing tight road tires. I need a crew driving in a car behind me.

Snow!!!

Hard Core Live with Caron. She's ramping it up now that the program is up to Week 6. Too bad I missed 3 of the weeks so far!

Lots of quad and shoulder strength and stretching tonight. We did a really good hip/IT stretch, and it felt quite different on one side (harder on the right), which is always a red flag. It's a *good* red flag though since it tells me what to work on.

Not sure what it's called but you lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Lift your right foot and lay your right ankle on top of your left knee. Your right knee sticks out to the right side as if you've crossed your legs while sitting down. First do some slow reps where you lift your left foot off the floor and pull your left knee up toward your chest. Then with your left foot on the floor, tip your left knee to the left toward the ground until your right foot (still on the knee) sits flat on the floor. Hold. And hold some more. We'd done the first part before but I don't remember ever doing the second.

Is it OK if I log 6 hours of *thinking* about converting my road bike to the trainer over the past 10 days? Tomorrow! Really! Hold me to it, Attackpoint people.