Training Log Archive: Bash

I'm getting toward the end of "Fatal Tide", and here is another quote: "Adventure only occurs where there is the risk of death."

This isn't from the author, it's supposedly from a fellow who founded an adventure programs department at a B.C. university, led a climbing expedition to Everest and started a heli-skiing company.

He didn't say that the reverse was true, i.e. that having a risk of death is sufficient to make things adventurous. That's good, because otherwise we'd have to extend our definition of "adventure" to driving a car, having knee surgery or eating my cooking.

But he is saying that outdoor sports without the risk of death aren't adventures. That's a silly definition, because people have died while swimming in pools, using playground equipment or playing baseball. People have also died on guided outdoor trips, which is probably the kind of thing he is denouncing as unadventurous.

So maybe he's saying that we must truly *perceive* the risk of death in order to get enough of a rush from an activity to make it an adventure. Hmmm. This guy has some credentials, so I'm trying to give him a chance, but I'm not making much sense of this idea.

Leanimal, Goose, 'Bent and I met for the Wednesday morning ride, feeling a wee bit smug that the weather was supposed to turn to crap at 11 a.m., and we would already have completed our workout for the day.

Great plan, except the weather turned to crap about 20 minutes into our ride. At first we did the adventure athlete stiff upper lip thing. "The rain feels good after all that hot weather." "I love the challenge when those wet tree roots turn the trails into a skating rink." "It's been at least 3 minutes since we've seen any lightning. I say we go on."

That lasted until the second round of thunder and lightning when the rain started to get heavy again. Nobody argued about pulling the plug - it was just a bad day for damaging bikes, bodies and trails. Naturally, the weather turned sunny later, and I'm sure that lots of *other* people - the ones who didn't bother getting up early - had a great workout today!

I'm in the early chapters of "Fatal Tide", a book about the first fatality in North American adventure racing. As many of you know, it happened during a kayak section on the Bay of Fundy.

The author makes a comment about adventure racing attracting Type T personalities, which psychologists describe as a twist on the usual Type A personality. The result is a goal-oriented thrill seeker.

No argument that some - if not most - of the adventure racers I know are goal-oriented and competitive. But thrill-seeking? Not so much. Fun-loving? Absolutely. When I see a photo of Urthbuoy paddling big water or watch Crash ripping up the single track, I see people who seem to be having fun because they have developed the skills and confidence to *remove* many (although never all) of the elements of risk from what they are doing. (Maybe I'm wrong, and please jump in here if so.)

Maybe it's just semantics, but I think of "thrill-seeking" as looking for a jolt of fear or danger. It seems to me that most adventure racers want to master the skills so that the fear and danger component of their activities is made as small as possible. Not because they're wimps - they can deal with fear and danger when it arises - but because they're focused on being fast and efficient, and generally speaking, thrills take too much time!

"Thrill-seeking" also makes me think of artificial stuff like bungy jumping. When 'Bent and I were in the Queenstown area - the adventure sports capital of New Zealand - we avoided all the jet boats and zip lines in favour of plain old hiking and mountain biking in the spectacular scenery. The rest of that stuff seemed so contrived. You want a good scare? Try doing an overnight adventure race in grizzly bear country - especially if you're a bad navigator. It costs about the same, but the thrill lasts much, much longer.

Thoughts? Any thrill-seekers out there, or is the "Fatal Tide" author out to lunch?

To and from the post office to pay my corporate GST. Hot, hot, hot - and the poison ivy is *very* healthy this year. But it was great to get out.

My knee continues to bug me. It started around the time of a bad bike fall three weeks ago, which was also around the time that I began riding a new bike with different geometry. Let's hope it's the former and not the latter. Or it could be something else entirely, but it's feeling a little stiff and unstable. Time to get back to the stabilizing leg exercises. Coast Raid is only 3 weeks away!

I've been wondering who would be in a yellow jersey today - and to my surprise, it turned out to be Slowrunner.

Recovery ride around Palgrave with 'Bent. The recent trail closures have left us with a nice single track bike trail - not super-long, but good to have close to home. The biggest impact is going to be on the XC skiing - the reason we bought our house here. Rats.

At one point, I heard a light thump behind me and looked back to see 'Bent's bike lying on its side on the trail. Squinting a little harder, I could see a disembodied leg with the bike shoe still clipped into the pedal, but the rest of 'Bent was nowhere to be seen in the tall weeds, and he wasn't moving. It turned out that he'd been surprised by a sudden fall after being clipped by a log, and he landed hard with his wrist bent backward. He didn't start moving immediately because it was so unexpected, and he didn't know how badly he'd hurt himself. I rode back, and fortunately, he scrambled up around the same time. No permanent damage, it seems.

Finished the afternoon with a nice shopping trip to Running Free!

In case anyone has been wondering, my current training program is: nothing, nothing, nothing, great big long workout, nothing, nothing, bit o' yoga, nothing, nothing, great big long thing, etc. I'm not sure that it's working.

Today was the day for a great big long thing, and 'Bent and I were lucky to hook up with a fun group - Slowrunner, Rocky, Hingo, Goose and Vents - to run on a beautiful section of Bruce Trail west of Terra Cotta. Slowrunner and Rocky are just a few weeks away from the Trans Rockies Challenge in Colorado, and boy do they seem ready as they tear up those hills!

There was some tricky footing on slippery rocks, especially after the cloudburst that cooled us down nicely. Although Slowrunner had described the run as "not hilly", well frankly, she lied. That's OK though, because we got her back when 'Bent, Hingo and I headed off for iced lattes at The Shed Coffee Bar after the first 19 km of the run. She and Rocky had another 14 km loop to do, and I thought sympathetically of them out in the rain as I munched on my chocolate pecan tart on the comfy couch at the coffee bar. :-)

Rodney Yee's yoga for flexibility. On one hand, I was proud of myself for squeezing in some yoga when I only had 45 minutes left before going to a 3-hr meeting. On the other hand, I was mad at myself for letting my yoga lapse this summer, as I can feel that things are a *lot* tighter all over my body. There is still a niggling lower back thing that I may need to take to Leanimal.

I met up with Coach LD and VO2Max (home for a brief visit from Whistler) for a chatty ride at Albion Hills.



In spite of his nickname, he only had his VO2Max tested recently, and it was over 80 - wow! Coach LD and I kept offering to slow down in case we were tiring him out, but he managed to keep on pushing valiantly. It sounds like Whistler might be the most fun place on earth if your job is to train for outdoor sports with your friends. Glad VO2Max's coaching change is going well so far.

Our red Specialized Epic bikes looked great together!



On the way home, I stopped in to visit 2-time XTerra winner Crash and her very friendly menagerie.

Vacation over... All of us hiked / portaged out to the river today, since the wind was blowing pretty hard on the lake.

Paddled north from the cottage along the shore of The Pinery Park on a beautiful day. The beach was busy! I used a sit-upon kayak that was designed to turn very easily, which made this a better workout than I'd anticipated.

But mostly, it was a day for hard core cottaging...

'Bent, ThunderDog, BulletDog and I paddled out from the Ausable River and along the shore of Lake Huron to reach Goose and Coach LD's cottage. The dogs were as helpful on the water as they usually are.

(Elapsed time > 2 hrs) Led competently by two intrepid pre-teen girls with compasses and map, Goose, 'Bent, BulletDog and I ventured into The Pinery park. Beautiful Carolinian forest, huge sand dunes and some tough scrambling through blowdown areas. (I shouldn't have worn shorts - ouch!) Totally different from our forest around here, and it's a great workout to climb up steep hills made of sand!

Sunset over Lake Huron.

Still hot, but Rocky and I talked yesterday about athletes who inspire us by carrying on in spite of disabilities - paraplegic skiers, blind runners and even a paddler with one arm. After that, it seemed ridiculously wimpy to avoid training because of the humidity.

I rode around Palgrave East and West to survey the carnage, i.e. the many trail closures over the past 10 days. Arggghh.

Slowrunner and Rocky had shared their training plan for the week, and we were invited to join them for any of it. My motivation is so pathetic in the hot weather that the only day I chose was the one where the planned activity was "shop at MEC". The long drive to and from Toronto went by quickly with Rocky's excellent company, and we were both able to cross some important items off our list as we prepare for upcoming races.

The Coast Raid requires "drysuit or wetsuit with dry top" due to the 4C ocean around Labrador, which apparently has the highest whale population in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Maybe the whales will be curious about why we're using (sigh) inflatable kayaks. 'Bent and I had a whale pass right under our double kayak once, and he touched it with his paddle - boy, does *that* wake you up!!

So, out of curiosity, I spent 40 minutes trying on different types of clothing from the watersports department. If you buy a drysuit, you can cut down the latex neck gasket to make it wider, but you can't do that when you're trying one on. At one point, I nearly blacked out from the neck squeeze, and when it was tough to get the suit off, I imagined myself running out of the changeroom into MEC looking for Rocky in a panic - help, get me out of this thing!!!! Not sure that could work for me on Day 3 of a long race. It was several hours before I felt totally normal again.

Watch out for caterpillars. Who knew??
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM...

And further scary news... climate change can hit you down THERE.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM...

Today's training consisted of eating chocolate gelato while watching Le Tour.

RockstAR Adventure Race

When two companies known for top quality events come together to present a new race and tell us that it will be a cut above the norm, it's worth checking out. Sean, Mark and Heather did not disappoint! It's too bad that more people didn't try this fun new race format - I hope it will continue in future years. Even though entries were lower than hoped for, the organizers didn't cut corners, and everyone I talked to had a fantastic time.

The RockstAR event theme meant that great tunes were playing around the Bark Lake dining hall most of the weekend and, as advertised, the racers were treated like rock stars. There was a red carpet leading to the race check-in and to the awards table. The transition area - a central hub - was stocked with juice, pop, sports drink, sandwiches, chips, chocolate bars, cookies, and so on. Each racer was assigned a plastic chair in the transition area with their name on the back (laminated card). Even the rental canoes were pretty nice - although Richard and I brought our own. So the whole event was fun and different and put a big smile on everyone's face.

The race concept was interesting and creative. For the first section, we were bussed to a remote start location with our bikes, then we rode back to Bark Lake on a marked course. The first part was on mucky, rocky ATV trails - classic adventure racing terrain. I was really happy with the way my new bike handled, and Richard's recumbent bike worked well too. My disc brakes seem fussy about getting wet and muddy - they continue to work just fine, but they make scratchy, rubbing noises to indicate that they're not pleased. Princesses! Most of the time, I did pretty well at riding along the thin strips of mud beside the mucky slop, but I miscalculated at one point and tipped over sideways. With my new running shoe-style AR bike shoes and cleats, things are *very* tight, and I didn't unclip before the entire right side of my body had been submerged in the muck, including my head. I cringed and waited to crash into a rock or log, but fortunately it was a soft landing.

I realized that I've been racing too long when the first thing I said was not "&%$@!!", but rather "Quick! Get the camera out!!"



We did about 10K of technical riding, then a longer section on gravel and paved roads to get back to the beach at Bark Lake. After the first 15-20 minutes, we didn't see anyone ahead or behind. We reached the transition in 4th place (out of 26) behind Team Hunger, a couple of 24-hr solo mountain bikers doing their first adventure race, and Beowulf. We left the TA about 1.5 hrs into the race.

For the remainder of the 8-hr time period, we were given a well-designed rogaine-style race course where we could visit up to 20 checkpoints worth different point values in any order, using any combination of paddling and trekking. A very nice way to explore the terrain on a warm July day, and it was awesome that there was no obvious route choice. A nice touch was that both of us received copies of the detailed navigation maps, one of which had been updated with considerable field work by the race organizers - and all the CPs were pre-printed to avoid any confusion.

When I was planning the course, I didn't think that Richard and I could sweep the course - and I would have been surprised if anyone could. This turned out to be true. I figured that we were relatively strong on paddling and portaging compared to most teams, so I planned a paddle-heavy route. About 40% of the rogaine points were accessed from Koshlong Lake to the north, so our first priority was to get up there and pick all of them up. On our way out of Bark Lake, we pulled ashore to run half a km inland to pick up #41 (the hardest control to find of all the ones we looked for), and we punched the floating control on Bark Lake - which was floating along a bit *too* well. I noticed the rescue boat picking it up at one point to bring it back to the right location! But it was big and orange, and nobody was going to miss seeing it on the lake.

Richard insisted on running the hilly 1 km portage from Bark Lake to Koshlong Lake, and since I only had 2 packs and 2 kayak paddles to carry, I couldn't complain (too much). He attracted some stares, but since we did 38 portages on our honeymoon alone, if we had to pick our best discipline, portaging is probably it. Unfortunately, it doesn't win us many races!



It was windy on Bark Lake, but our paddle on Koshlong Lake (about 8-9 km return) was beautiful. We picked up a checkpoint on an island, then arrived at Camp Wanakita on the north shore, punched the control at the staffed checkpoint (where they watched our boats) and headed out for a 1-hr trail and road run to pick up three high-value checkpoints.



We paddled/portaged back to Bark Lake and parked in a bay just west of the portage to pick up two more checkpoints on an out-and-back trail run. (Managed to lose the trail on the way back when diverting around a fallen tree, but eventually found it again as we bushwhacked along.) From this point on, our race plan depended on the clock. I'd analyzed different clusters of checkpoints to prioritize them based on the number of points we could get for a particular investment of kilometers - where not all kilometers are created equal, since trail runs are faster than bushwhacking. All of these clusters were reasonably close to the finish and would take different lengths of time, so my job at this point was to maximize our points in whatever time we had left.

One monkeywrench... All teams were required to pass through the central hub at least once before 7 p.m. (the race finished at 8 p.m.) and after visiting at least one checkpoint. In retrospect, we should have started by visiting the checkpoint in the swamp behind the transition area, then we would have been free to stay out the full time. But since we didn't, this rule meant a 10-minute paddling diversion late in the race which affected our options in the final couple of hours. Several of us were talking about other ways to achieve the same end (punctuality, thus avoiding having teams wander around in the dark) and wondered if it might reduce the impact on race strategy if the central hub became a mandatory checkpoint that had some point value, but only between certain hours. Anyway, it didn't end up being a biggie.

We headed down to the southwest corner of the lake to get 31, 23 and 52 (nasty bushwhack on the way in, much better on the way out). Then we came back through the hub and ran across the road with our canoe to pick up 32 - the swamp checkpoint. We could paddle fairly close to it, then it was my job as bow paddler to hop out, clutching to and bobbing on the unsteady sphagnum moss, and stumbling the last few meters to punch the control hanging from a dead tree. I ended up waist-deep in swamp water and just missed bringing home a huge leech the diameter of my little finger. The things we do for glory in our sport!



We dashed back across the road to drop off the canoe, then headed out on the trails to pick up one final checkpoint - #21. We screwed this one up, running way past the correct trail junction and just about giving up on it due to the 8 p.m. time limit. But we found it, then Richard towed me back at top speed. As we emerged from the woods, Pete was standing at the road looking our direction with a concerned expression on his face. Very nice to have someone looking out for us! He ran with us to the finish line where the tunes were playing, excellent snacks and drinks were being served, and most people headed to the waterfront for a swim to clean up.

Dinner was delicious and included a salad bar in a canoe. Dessert was chocolate cake with icing, ice cream and chocolate sauce - YUM. There was a cash bar, and a projected rock and roll video game which required various groups of racers to perform on guitar, drums and vocals. My star turn was doing the lead vocals for Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" along with my girl band, Heather on guitar and Cathy G. on drums.



The race medals were heavy "golden" stars, and category winners also got free shoes from Saucony. We edged out our friendly rivals Beowulf to win the Coed Team of Two category, finishing 2nd overall of 26 teams with 960 pts. They were 3rd overall with 930 pts. Our buddies on Team Hunger (Wayne, Andre and John) came 1st with their male team of three, earning 1020 pts, only missing three CPs - great job!

Thanks to our friends at Storm Events and Hark Events - and to all the terrific volunteers - for a race that was a class act and loads of fun.

I'm a princess in hot weather, and let's not even *talk* about smog. I just noticed that I've only logged 7.5 hrs of training in the first 11 days of July - and that trend will continue today because, um, I'm tapering. Yup - big race tomorrow that will more than double my training hours for the month.

Just before 'Bent and I turned into the access road for Bark Lake Centre, a large black bear shot across the road in front of us. I've seen a few bears in my life - but they were never galloping. Anyone who believes the rumour that you can outrun a bear - no, you can't. He was coming from the area where we will be racing tomorrow. What I'm wondering is... what was chasing him???

Wed. morning ride with Coach LD, Gazelle, Padre and 'Bent. It wasn't as hot as it was going to become later in the day, but it felt like 100% humidity. I enjoyed my new bike, although I'm noticing that the weight falls onto the back wheel much more than I'm used to on the steep climbs. I'm trying to adapt my riding style to sit further forward. On the flip side, I feel like it encourages me to be a little more aggressive on singletrack, and today I ended up having a spectacular tree hugging incident when I leaned too far on a hairpin turn and then overcompensated. I'm not quite sure what happened, but suddenly my face was heading for a 15 cm tree trunk. I know I fended off the tree with one arm, banged my other arm in two places, fell, and somehow ended up with my bike seat turned at 45 degrees. No serious damage to me or the bike, but I rode a little more cautiously after that.

But that was nothing compared to ex-BMX racer Padre's purposeful leap off a drop followed by an unintended bounce and extra flight, followed by a hard, face-first landing while still attached to the bike. Gazelle was fighting chain issues with his borrowed bike, and I managed to rear-end him at one point when his bike stopped moving suddenly on single track. Minor damage to my little finger - lucky it wasn't worse. I deserved that.

And last but not least, Gazelle was attacked by a wild turkey on a short, steep climb. Never a dull moment in the Caledon hills!

(Oh, except maybe for 'Bent and Coach LD. Everything seemed to go smoothly for them today.)

Stoopid smog. I've had a headache ever since the levels shot up a few days ago. Grrr.

While watching Le Tour. It was harder work than I'd expected, but 'Bent tells me that the tension can be adjusted down from the Moose Wrestling setting that he uses. Phew! For an indoor machine, it's not that boring. Yet.

Hot Yoga for Endurance Athletes. I'm not a fan of the hot yoga concept, but that was the only kind of yoga available in our un-airconditioned house today.

I'd agreed to take some photos of different sites for the upcoming online Caledon Community Map, so 'Bent and I approached it as a bicycle scavenger hunt. Nice to combine volunteer work with training - and finish it off with frozen yoghurt in Caledon East - yum.

It's just 3 months until the big day when Leanimal will become Phatty's ex-fiancee, so it was high time for a wedding shower in beautiful Orillia!



Guests included a couple of the lovely Salomon Bobkittens. Here's Slice...



And here's Dog Runner.



As is traditional, we gave Leanimal some silly stuff to wear.



The back of the shirt was especially nice.



She didn't wear this outfit at the party, but I'm sure we'll see her in it at an adventure race sometime soon. It's sooo lightweight!



There was a crafts table to make gifts for Phatty & Leanimal. Although I had been stressed about this before the party due to my lack of artistic talent, it went just fine. Slice and Dog Runner painted some very cool-looking ceramic mugs with adventure racing scenes, including a commemoration of the famous moment when Leanimal stepped into a bear trap during a wilderness trek.

Here's my first-ever quilt square, which I made to remind Leanimal of our hilly runs on the Humber Trail - and the way she kicks my butt out there!



There were wedding bells at the party, and even balloons - but *definitely* not for kids!

I've been allowing myself a hot fudge milkshake every time something outrageous happens related to the growth issue in our small town - something that is taking up a lot of my activist time and energy lately. Looks like I'm going to get fat.
http://www.thestar.com/article/453259

Wed. morning ride at Albion with 'Bent and Goose. This was my first time tackling these very familiar trails with my new Specialized Epic, so I was able to compare its handling of specific sections to my old Fisher Sugar. For the most part, it did well. The trails were in perfect condition, so I don't know how it would have behaved if things were slippery like at the 24-hr race. Today the bike felt very sure and precise on the rocky, rooty single track, and 'Bent claims that I was faster than usual. One worry about the medium frame was that it might feel like navigating a tank, but it felt agile enough.

I'd been told that my old Sugar was designed to be a climbing bike, so in switching to just about any other bike, I might notice a difference in both climbing (not as good) and descending (better). That was not great news, since I didn't really want to descend any faster, and I do enjoy easier climbing. So far, this seems to be true. When I'm ascending switchbacks on single track, I don't notice it, but when there's a steep, direct uphill, particularly on loose gravel, I need to work harder at it and shift my weight farther forward than I did with the Sugar. However, the descending does feel better, and it's not scary - maybe a little more controlled. Hard to describe. Anyway, there are still things to fiddle with - suspension rebound setting, etc. Maybe I can get the climbing to feel a little easier.

Fun ride! We pushed hard when we rode, but took breaks (unlogged) for chat time. Great way to start the day.

Happy Canada Day! 'Bent and I headed out in Palgrave East and West before I'd even had my coffee (gasp!) It was still stinking humid, but at least the air was cooler than it's going to be for the rest of the day, and that meant that BulletDog could join us. She did about 20% more distance than we did, and turned it into a duathlon with several swims along the way.

BulletDog is a miracle of modern veterinary medicine! The doc had said it was unlikely that she would regain her full abilities after TPLO knee surgery (involving metal plates and screws and changed joint anatomy), but we can't see any difference from before. Still, we try to rein her in a bit when she dashes around doing the quick, twisty basketball player turns that probably tore her ACL in the first place. She has a 30% chance of tearing the other one some day, and we're not eager to go through that long recovery with her another time.

Lots of hills on this run - and dense poison ivy in a few places. 'Bent found and ate the last strawberry of the season; I found and ate the first raspberry. Tough luck, birdies! ;-)

A significant percentage of the trail distance in Palgrave East will be closed in 2009, and at that point, we will probably have to leave this area to the equestrians. Even now, there is so much serious trail damage and horse poop that it's a lot less fun than it used to be. I like horses, and am happy to have them there on a separate trail system, but anyone who thinks that horses can share the sensitive, wet trails in Palgrave without seriously diminishing everyone else's experience is living on another planet. Mountain bikes have caused a little damage in Palgrave, but it's less than 10% of the damage that a few horses have caused. The TRCA is talking about building boardwalks (slippery!) but the only solution for the really bad areas will be bypasses for non-equestrian users.

Now it's time to go to the Canada Day Strawberry Festival for some strawberry pancakes - yum!!!