Training Log Archive: Bash

Easy farewell trail run/hike in Mill Creek Canyon with Harps, 'Bent, Kona and Trek. This was just a few blocks behind our condo.



We checked out some petroglyphs. Such a shame to see graffiti there.



The dogs had a fantastic time, especially during the creek crossings.





We liked the creek crossings too!



Great way to kick off a long day of driving.











After that, we all jumped in the pool and swam about 5 strokes (not logged!)

Back to Porcupine Rim with four Ontario guys that Harps knows.



We started at Upper Porcupine Singletrack (UPS) again. Conditions were already much drier than last Saturday with no snow anywhere on the trail. After chasing speedy Harps and 'Bent around all week, it was a treat to ride in the midpack today. We rode faster when we rode and rested more during breaks when we got the group back together.



After yesterday's crash, I wasn't riding with as much confidence at first. But it soon became clear that riding tentatively was more likely to lead to falls than riding confidently so I eventually got my nerve back.



After all the abuse earlier in the week, 'Bent stayed farther back from the cliff edge this time - and got off his bike!



The same cannot be said of all the other riders in our group. As a reminder, here is what the cliff along Porcupine Rim looks like.



And here is one of our guys (who shall remain nameless!) moving out to sit on a little piece of rock jutting out from the main precipice. I had to look away.



After spending many hours in my company, Harps has become a natural in front of the camera. Here's his GQ shot.



For the 3rd day in a row, we ran into UltraChar and Chris out for a long trail run.



Ben got a serious gash from his chain ring. Luckily, Dr. 'Bent was there to patch him up since there was no choice but to ride to the finish. Later he got 15 stitches.





After placing a piece of sanitary napkin over the wound and wrapping the leg in gauze, the final layer was an arm warmer, which worked really well to hold everything together for another hour of technical riding above the Colorado River (shown below). The doc at the hospital was impressed.



Another fun day! Porcupine Rim seemed a little easier and shorter than the last time we rode it so I guess we're learning as we go.

(Elapsed time 4 hrs)

'Bent and I did the Slickrock Trail again because it's so much fun! The second time around felt easier since we knew what to expect.

Even so, I managed to have my nastiest fall of the trip. The front wheel hit a small ledge at an off-angle, wrenched to the right and threw me forward in Superman position onto the rock. I hit the ground with left knee, ribs and elbow, and smashed into the upturned handlebar end with the inside of my right thigh. Within a few minutes, there was lots of blood and road rash on my elbow, a weird goose egg on my kneecap, a growing bruise on my thigh (now huge and acutely painful) and pain in my lower ribs when I bent forward on the bike. For the rest of the ride, I kept checking my abdomen for signs of internal bleeding - but enjoyed myself in spite of it! (Typical adventure racer.) The bumps and bruises were bad but they were the only real damage. I should be OK to ride Porcupine Rim again tomorrow.

I've already posted pics of Slickrock but it's such a photogenic place that I can't resist posting a few more from today's ride.

Intrigued by JayXC's adventure race maps, 'Bent and I headed east of Moab into the La Sal mountain range. The road climbed above the town quickly, providing terrific views and taking us through several climate and vegetation zones in a very short time.



We had planned to go farther but were curious when we saw how well maintained Geyser Pass road was. If it was open all the way to the pass, that would be interesting.



The snow plow stopped a few kilometers later at a winter parking area for skiers, snowshoers and snowmobilers. We decided to hike up to Geyser Pass, elevation 10,600'. The parking lot was at 9,600' so the air was thin.



The unplowed road was the main trail. We met one skier coming down, otherwise we had the place to ourselves.



The snow was deeper if we stepped off the road.



'Bent wore capris and arm warmers on his legs. When I suggested that we wear pants or tights, apparently he didn't think I meant full length!



Geyser Pass was just below treeline so we hiked a few minutes more into Moonlight Meadows to get better views.



We had to get back for lunch and an afternoon bike ride so we ran most of the way down in much softer snow. In less than an hour, we were back in the heat. An interesting change of scenery although we didn't get to see what JayXC did in the adventure race!

(Garmin time reduced due to photos and chatting with the skier. Out and back distances are different because we returned to the car briefly.)

The run (mostly) downhill (mostly).

Harps had heard that Sovereign Singletrack was different from most Moab trails - "more like Colorado riding". We weren't sure what that meant but wanted to give it a try. The trail guide recommended riding in a north-to-south direction and suggested that if riders really *had* to do a loop, they could take Salt Wash Singletrack going north - but the loop wasn't particularly recommended.

Salt Wash turned out to be a mix of deep sand, loose rock and ledges - more uphill than downhill. I've become pretty confident about dropping off decent-sized ledges this week but I'm still not good at stepping up onto them. All three of us felt incompetent on this section of trail but Harps kicked our butt. In this pic, he's starting a typical climb on a sandy trail.



With extra time on his hands, Harps became a keen photographer - thank you!





The downhills weren't always easier than the uphills. This pic shows a good one but sometimes there were loose boulders in loose sand as we descended on trails with steep drop-offs beside us.



In this pic, I'm in the background coming down the hill in last place. As usual. :(



It was beautiful desert scenery and good training, even though I got off my bike a lot!







Once we started the return trip on Sovereign, things got much better. It was loads of fun - lots of slick rock, not so much sand, a couple of crazy hills but we were riding most of the time. I can see why the loop isn't recommended but it was worth doing in order to enjoy Sovereign!

UltraChar (Charlotte Vasarhelyi) and Chris are also in Moab this week. They ran in the 24 Hours of Moab trail race on the weekend, and Charlotte was the overall winner after completing over 90 miles in under 24 hours! Since they are both sufficiently tired, 'Bent and I figured it was safe to join them for a trail run in the Devil's Garden in Arches National Park.





Chris and Char are newlyweds - just got married last fall.



This was a relaxed run with lots of conversation and photo stops and occasional tourist avoidance maneuvers. Lots of running in sand, across open rock and around wild-looking formations.



'Bent and Char discussed leg strength training for trail running.



One section was a little sketchy so I suspect we may have deviated onto a side trail. A couple of times, I wondered if my sandy shoes would have enough traction to hold me on a steep rock face that I had to descend. (This wasn't one of them.)



When Trail Runner Magazine writes about the slowest runner in history to attempt UTMB, this is the photo I'll be handing out to the press.



Beautiful!

The Slickrock Trail is one of the most famous bike rides in the world. We were excited to do it but after hearing the stories, I had visions of tipping over backwards on a steep uphill. (Neither of us fell - phew - but there certainly was some hike-a-biking.)



The location just outside of Moab is spectacular.



The trail is mostly rock with terrific traction and a little sand in some of the low areas. Riders follow white paint marks.





This shows the terrain. Note 'Bent at the bottom of the picture.



A few days ago, other people pointed out something we hadn't thought about; 'Bent is almost certainly the first recumbent cyclist to ride Porcupine Rim, Mag 7 and Slickrock. Members of the recumbent biking community are excited about it, and the local bike shop thinks it's cool too. So we thought we should document this ride better than usual with GoPro and still cameras.



'Bent's bike performed well. In fact, because he has a granny gear (which my rental bike doesn't), he was better equipped for the big climbs.



Note the shocked-looking people who were walking their bikes up the hill as 'Bent rode by.



There is always a lot of interest when we meet other mountain bikers but today was extra wild. One British fellow expressed his "congratulations on behalf of the entire British Isles" and even took it for a test ride!



Here's 'Bent's magazine shot. :)



Although I missed having a granny gear, I got into a better flow as the ride went on and completed a few climbs that would have defeated me earlier. Terrific fun - we will have to come back later in the week.

After two tough days of biking (our first technical rides of the season - yikes), 'Bent and I played tourist and went to Dead Horse Point State Park southwest of Moab. To get there, we drove Hwy 313 past the start of Mag 7. Today we had more time to enjoy the amazing scenery along the way.





The view from Dead Horse Point Overlook has the feel of the Grand Canyon on a much smaller scale.



The park's name comes from a sad story (perhaps apocryphal) about cowboys who used to herd wild mustangs onto this point of land surrounded by 2,000' cliffs.



At its narrowest section, the point is only 20 m wide. The cowboys would block it off with deadwood to form a natural corral, then select the horses they wanted to keep. On one occasion, the men did not let the other horses out and they starved to death. :(



'Bent and I did a trail run from the overlook back to the Visitor's Centre, first following the west rim, then the east. The trail was marked with small rock cairns - sometimes hard to spot since the whole area is littered with small rocks anyway.





Nice views along the way.



After all the comments about his overly relaxed attitude toward cliffs, 'Bent tried the much safer Upward Dog yoga pose today.



The blue ponds are potash solar evaporation ponds - funny that an industrial pond can look almost pretty!



This was a fun easy run - more about photography than running. Nice break!





(Garmin adjustment - turned it off/on backwards in one section)

Magnificent 7 ride - wow! Harps has provided a detailed description of the ride in his log. In a nutshell, this is a relatively new route that links newly built and existing trails. It's scenic and incredibly diverse; it gets tougher as you go along. If I could only do one ride around Moab at this time of year, I would give Mag 7 a slight edge over Porcupine Rim - although ideally, I would do both!



We started at the Gemini Bridges Rd. parking lot off Hwy 313 west of Moab. Big thanks to Amy and Sara for dropping us off!





The first section of new single track took us past Bull Canyon.



So fun and rideable!



'Bent crashed on a short rocky climb in this section - the first fall of the weekend for any of us - and banged his bad knee. The first single track was a mix of rock and loose sand that sometimes caused his wheels to slide out in unpredictable ways on slopes. When the trail became rockier after the first hour, he had more control and started blasting ahead like yesterday.



The first stretch of trail is marked with yellow paint at irregular intervals.



Harps put on a clinic in Slickrock-style riding.



We took a break at the Gemini Bridges rock formation. Beautiful shapes and colours!



When I'm added to the photo, you can appreciate the scale a little better.



Another stop at Bride Canyon.



Around this point, we saw a sign that suggested turning back and provided considerable detail about the implications of continuing. The rest of the route was only for "Experts with Endurance". Hmm, well, we have endurance... There were different variations of the sign as the trail continued but when it became too late to bail, the signs stopped appearing.



Just as the route became tougher, it also became more difficult to follow. Markings weren't always easily visible and other jeep trails confused matters.



Luckily, we had two navigators working on the problem.



The route loses over 600 m from start to finish but Garmin says that our elevation gain was almost 800 m. Although one should never trust a Forerunner on altitude, there was a lot of climbing and descending so that doesn't seem far off.







My rental bike is great but it only has two front chain rings so I'm missing the biggest and smallest gears I have at home. I missed the big gear a little coming down from Porcupine Rim but today I missed my beloved granny gear. Normally, I can spin up almost any hill even if I'm reduced to a crawl. With this bike, I had to push so hard that my knees started to hurt and I had to walk some slopes that I could ride with my own bike. This does not bode well for riding the Slickrock Trail.

We eventually reached the top of the cliff where we could look down onto the main highway into Moab.



Note that only one of us had a beet-red face after this climb.



Since we hadn't brought our paragliders, we followed the trail away from the cliff and made our way toward the Poison Spider jeep trail which would eventually take us down the cliff to our car - but not for awhile yet!



'Bent was in his element in the rocky stuff.



We met surprisingly few other bikers - and they were all coming up (maybe because they didn't have Amy and Sara to drop them off at the top!)



We met some jeeps and ATVs. It is insane what they do in those vehicles.



Some of the Jeep/ATV riders looked surprisingly unadventurous - older couples and families out for a nice Sunday drive.

We came across a gravestone with numerous offerings - coins, gels, flowers, Chapstick, etc. It was the grave of Mary Jane Francis, age 7. I looked her up, and legend says that she was killed by a poison spider. The trail was named after this incident. Tradition dictates that passersby should leave an offering to ensure their safe passage. We didn't know but we would have left something for sure!



The scenery changed as we lost elevation.





Toward the end, we had to walk sections of the Poison Spider jeep trail because the sand was so deep and fine. (Note that Harps hopped onto his bike when I mentioned that I was going to take a photo of the guys walking.)



Amazing, tiring, tough ride. A day later, I feel it most in my arms. I should have done more push-ups!

Once again, Harps' log is the best place to read about the trail itself. Thanks for organizing an excellent weekend for us, Harps!

Porcupine Rim trail with 'Bent and Harps. This is a classic - the favourite Moab trail of many riders. It did not disappoint.

Porcupine Rim is mostly a downhill trail that takes you from a high point down to the town of Moab. It's still early in the season so it isn't possible to go to the very top of the route. We drove up Sand Flats Road past the Slickrock Trail and other beautiful trails and campsites. We parked near the Kokapelli Trail which we climbed in sticky mud to get to UPS (Upper Porcupine Singletrack). There was still snow around.



At the junction with UPS, we were at an altitude of 7,800'. Our lungs noticed the oxygen deficiency! Moab, our destination, was at 4,000'





The scenery along this route - and all around Moab - is spectacular.



At first, we were riding rocky singletrack. The riding felt something like the new Logs Rocks and Steel course on the Torrance Barrens.



Like many trails in Moab, much of this section of Porcupine Rim travels along a cliff edge - sometimes really close to it! I'm impressed there aren't more accidents. (Btw, does anyone else think 'Bent was tooooo close to the edge?)





Beautiful riding!







Our first taste of "double black diamond" rated trails was The Notch - a short, steep descent where even the hike-a-bike was tough.



This was the section where we saw the most snow on the trail.





The trail opened up into rocky double track - lots of little ledges to climb and drop off.



Somewhere along the line, I got a flat. Kind of a weird one - the valve stem snapped off the tube. The bike shop put slime in our tubes to make it easier to recover from cactus thorns and the like, but that didn't help me! Thanks to Harps and 'Bent for handling the rather complicated repair.



Two cyclists in this photo.



Harps was in charge of nav. There were other trails in the area, and we had started at 1:20 p.m. so we didn't have time to mess up. (Thanks to Harps, we didn't.)



Eventually, the Colorado River came into sight. Around this time, we started the most technical single track of the day, much of it quite exposed.









Amazing day of riding! My neck and lower back were sore for awhile from being rattled around so much, but it faded away during the evening.

Sadly, my Garmin has totally forgotten about this ride for some reason but Harps posted the route from his Garmin.
http://www.ar.attackpoint.org/sessiondata.jsp?sess...



We had a fast food dinner at Milt's Diner, owned by former pro adventure racer Danelle Ballengee. Last but not least, we headed 35 km north to visit Charlotte Vasarhelyi, who was running the 24 Hours of Moab trail race. Her husband Chris had finished the 12-hour race and was supporting her through the night. We chatted with her briefly between laps, then kept Chris company for awhile. She was hoping to run about 100 miles in the 24 hours!

Usual short night after packing and cleaning for house/dog sitter. Airport in chaos due to striking Air Canada workers. The good news: We're not on Air Canada. The bad news: Our plane is broken and they've unloaded us since the first fix didn't work. I'm not a happy flier, thanks to a grad engineering course that scared me. This doesn't help. Wonder how long it took Harps to drive...?

I love BazingaDog but he's in the doghouse now after trying to give me whiplash. He was sniffing the leaves one moment, then he shot off so fast that my first warning was the hard yank of the leash in my hand, which pulled all the muscles down the right side of my back and jerked my neck backward suddenly. Not nice. That ended our walk since I didn't want to be out in the woods if weird symptoms started to appear. So far there doesn't seem to be much wrong that isn't in my imagination. BZDog is *such* a puppy.

Dee advised me awhile ago to choose an ultrarunning weakness to work on, then plan a structured workout every week to address that weakness. My #1 weakness is handling sustained downhill pounding, and I'm not too great with heat either. So today was a workout to deal with both of those issues.

I'd read on some ultra site about the idea of downhill running intervals where you push hard on the downhill and use the uphill for recovery - even walking if you want, since you will probably do that in a long race. I gave it a try today and ran the uphill "recoveries" slowly without walking. Over time, the goal would be to rest less on the uphills but the emphasis is always on the downhills in this workout. The hill I used on Coolihan's Sideroad is about 1 km long and close to home - not too steep and flattens out briefly in a few places. Elevation delta = 60 m (197').

Warm-up - 2.6K on the Bruce Trail up K2 and north to Coolihan's Sideroad, then a short distance west to the Maple View sign. This route gains the same elevation as the hill interval but does it more slowly.

Downhill interval - to the lowest point, about 1.07 km - focus on not braking, good posture, fast cadence

Uphill recovery - as easy as uphill running can be

Cooldown - 2.6K back on the Bruce

What I learned... My downhill intervals got faster each time (pace 5:16, 4:40, 4:29) so this is something worth practising. Uphills still felt harder than the intervals though - go figure. Overall, the workout didn't feel hard enough so I either need to drive farther to a bigger hill or just do more reps of this one.

It's been two months since the nice folks at Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc raised the bar for entering their trail running events in France in August 2013. This was a positive change since there were lotteries for all their events this year, and this should reduce the number of applicants slightly. Runners now need 2 points to apply for the "shortest" of the 4 events, the 98 km CCC. They need 7 points to apply for the 166 km UTMB. I'm aiming for the latter, and the puzzle pieces are all in place now.

I already have 2 pts from The North Face Endurance Challenge 50-miler Championship in San Francisco and I'm attempting to get 8 more points this year:

June 16, Ohio North Face Mohican 100 50 miles, 2 pts

Aug. 4-5, Alberta Canadian Death Race 125 km, 3 pts

Oct.13, Pennsylvania Oil Creek 100 100 km, 3 pts

I can DNF any one of those races and still get 7 pts. If I have 7 pts before Oil Creek and my body hasn't recovered from the rogaine two weeks earlier, then I won't do it. If I DNF all three races, I will still enter the lottery for the CCC in 2013 with the 2 pts I already have. (Although if I can't finish any of these races, I should seriously question whether ultrarunning is for me!)

P.S. Some of these races are sold out but not all - and I love company on road trips! :)

Next step: make some AR plans. Storm the Trent solo is coming up but there should definitely be more!

As often happens on the last day of winter, I felt overdressed. You know... shorts, sleeveless top, that sort of thing. BazingaDog and I headed to Palgrave East where we ran a lot of twisty, rolling single and double track. Horses have damaged a few trails, and some of the double track is really muddy but almost all of the single track is ready to ride.

It was so hot that we took two intermissions so BazingaDog could learn how to swim. He hasn't had many opportunities yet but compared to our other dogs, he hasn't seemed keen on it. 'Bent tried to convince him to go in the river in yesterday's hot weather with no success. We know he has a little terrier in him but he is mostly a Lab and - darn it - he should love to swim.



All it took was for me to throw a piece of dry grass out into the pond. He took a flying leap after it and became a swimmer in that moment. In fact, it was all I could do to haul him out of the pond after awhile to continue our run. Nice to see a happy dog exploring the world in a brand new way!

Oh fergawd's sake, Republicans! Why aren't more people freaking out about the return to the dark ages for women in the U.S.?

From the Idaho Senate yesterday, where they were discussing the proposed pre-abortion mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds that seem to be sweeping the nation:

"The sponsor of an Idaho mandatory ultrasound bill, state Sen. Chuck Winder, made some highly controversial comments Monday during his closing arguments, suggesting women might falsely use rape as an excuse to obtain an abortion."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/20/chuck-win...

This is clearly insane yet the ultrasound issue is taken totally seriously. When a female politician responded with a bill to regulate men's reproductive health by proposing steps to be taken before a man is given Viagra (e.g. cardiac stress test), it was treated as a joke or received with indignation. Sure, I'm willing to bet she has a sense of humour - but still... can you spell "double standard"?

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/bi...

Oh, and Rush Limbaugh is complaining about Sandra Fluke potentially costing taxpayers money for contraception? Well, it turns out that the bigger cost is likely his own Viagra, for which he was once detained by authorities due to suspected prescription fraud. But people don't use the same vulgar word he used to describe Ms. Fluke when they're talking about men who want to have sex, do they?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/june-carbone/how-wer...

Rant over. Note to self: Must stop reading U.S. news.

A couple of months ago, I posted a link here to a book I'd ordered: "Conquering the Canadian Death Race". I don't recommend it; I learned more by talking to Dee, STORM, M&M, Hansel, Zoolander, Turbo, Slowrunner, Bender and other Death Racers. If you are a fan of spelling and grammar, it will drive you insane. In the bad old days, authors had to work with publishing companies and professional editors - not a bad idea.

A few examples:
"Not to hot and not to cold." (an entire sentence describing weather)
"For all intensive purposes..."
"Focus on quality vs. quantity and you will your improvement will be more noticeable."

Augh!

First time in *ages* that I could run in my fave training shoes - Salomon XA Pros! BulletDog and I just did an easy loop around Palgrave West. There are still some slow, mucky sections but most trails are relatively dry and rutted with deep footprints, hoofprints and bike tire prints from last week's mud. We met up with 'Bent and BazingaDog on their commute home; all of us were panting and sweating in this crazy March summer weather!

A lot of us know Jason "The Hammer" Lane from adventure racing. Here's a 5-minute video about his preparation for the 2012 Race Across America. He's aiming for the solo win.
http://vimeo.com/38619333

(Password is RAAM2012)

Thomass Eliminator at Morrison Forest - the fun finale of this winter's age/gender handicapped, best-4-of-8 orienteering race series. Ironically, it was uncomfortably hot since we haven't acclimatized to this weird summer weather.

The Male and Overall Series winner, Hammer, had already been determined since the only person with enough points to possibly challenge him - Andrei L - wasn't there. Hammer raced hard anyway and finished 2nd.

The Junior Male winner, Teo Mlynczyk, and Junior Female winner, AdventureGirl! also had locks on their series victories.

The only series podium position up for grabs was the Female winner. AdventureGirl! was in contention for that one too and needed to beat me by 7 positions for the win. We enjoyed a lot of pre-race trash talk, as did Hammer/Dad. I wondered what the heck a 14-year-old would do with the bottle of ice wine designated for the female winner. AG!'s parents figured it would make a lovely gift.

The Eliminator is a set of 3 sprint orienteering races. The top 20 people in the first race advance to the second round. Everyone else can do all three races but they no longer have a chance to win. The top 10 people in the second race stay in contention for the third race, which determines the top race rankings.

Because I'd trained on a different map scale yesterday, I reminded myself that things would come up more quickly than expected. I passed a trail - yup, *way* too fast. Oh, and there's another trail faster than expected. (*Too* fast again - hello??) I turned on that trail and headed to the control site - except it wasn't there. Back and forth, totally confused - there was nothing difficult about this, so what was I missing? I knew there was no way I could make the top 20 after wasting this much time so the rest of the day would have to be mental training instead of racing.

I'd like to say I relocated but the truth is, I saw people running into a nearby block of forest and realized that I must be on a trail parallel to the one I'd wanted, even though I didn't figure out my error until after the race. (I'd over-compensated in my mind for the map scale and this was compounded by failing to notice a trail on the map.) I pushed hard on the remaining hills and trails so that my result wouldn't be too embarrassing after all the trash talk. As I came into the finish, Pathetic said, "There's #19." Soooo lucky. AdventureGirl! placed 1st. We both moved on to the next round.

The second sprint went through some nasty vegetation and when I returned, someone pointed out how bloody my right arm was. The nav went well and there were some hard legs of running in the heat. I managed to squeak into 9th place. AG! placed 1st again.

Final round... Lots of running in the heat again - not my strong point. AdventureGirl! won the race and I came 7th 8th [results updated today, leading to edits in this paragraph]... AG! had won the series! But it wasn't over yet... Noticing that he had missed a control, FunRun (who was looking strong out there today) disqualified himself from the top 10. That moved me into 6th 7th so AG! and I shared the overall Female title and she took the Junior Female win. She will be on Canada's national team in a couple of years so there isn't much longer to try to compete with her!



Big thanks to the Gators for organizing this Orienteering Ontario fundraiser event and setting three fun sprints for us with different start/finish locations. Tough logistics but it turned out well!

Nav training at Rocky Ridge with emphasis on careful map and terrain reading, not on finding the flags as quickly as possible. This type of terrain will never be my strength but I'll keep working on it since it makes navigation everywhere else seem easier. I was pleased with my ability to relocate - not so pleased that I had to do it several times! Beautiful, sunny spring day - I was *way* too warm!

Today Tiny and I registered for the Oil Creek 100K ultrarun in Pennsylvania in October. Poor Mrs. Gally tried to sign up just 2.5 hours after registration opened but it was already sold out. Someone less tough would have given up but Mrs. G simply signed up for the 100-mile event instead. She's one of my heroes! :)
http://www.oilcreek100.org/Home

There is still room in the 100-miler if anyone wants 4 UTMB points.

'Bent and I ended up in Caledon East with two vehicles last night so we drove my car home, and today we rode back to pick up his van. The route was mostly rail trail although we went through Palgrave West to get to Duffy's Lane. Parts of it were quite muddy so we had to hike-a-bike to avoid damaging the trails. It's too bad the equestrians don't have a similar option as they are trashing the trails as they always do in springtime - even parts of the rail trail, which is not all dry yet. I guess it's going to be road riding and paved trail riding for the next week.

This gave us a nice excuse to enjoy a yummy Crash-made lunch at the Caledon Hills Coffee Company and a wee shopping expedition to the Caledon Hills Cycling shop. We now have Kahtoola Microspikes. What a relief to finally be one of the "in crowd"!

Hard Core Live with Caron

Lots of balance and hip stretching, plus a few poses in accordance with tonight's special theme: "Do it against the wall". (Apparently, it improves your form. :) )

Recent research suggests that "enhanced recovery" methods such as ice baths and NSAIDs make you feel good but may reduce the training adaptation you would have received from that workout. They suggest saving those enhanced methods for times when feeling good is more important than the training benefit, e.g. before a major race.
<http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/recovery/Stre...>

Standard recovery techniques are still recommended, however:
- A good night's sleep
- Post-workout recovery drink/snack

Another trail run before another late dinner - this time a Hockley Loop. Conditions have changed a huge amount in two weeks. Aside from the dry gravel road sections, the trail today was about 1/3 ice, 1/3 soft mud and 1/3 good traction. It was harder work than usual with some luge runs to contend with on steep hills but overall, it felt more like a run than a slog.

Gotta keep doing this hilly loop till it feels easy again. Today definitely wasn't it.

Good podcasts again - Best of Q, Under the Influence and Laugh Out Loud (all CBC), and This American Life (NPR). Interesting interview on Q with a cookbook author who creates recipes for the parts of the animal that people seldom eat. She argues that we ought to eat them for ethical reasons. She personally doesn't enjoy eyeballs all that much and thinks that tripe may be the most challenging animal part for a lot of people to eat.

Another interesting interview was with an unemployed man who bears a strong resemblance to Barack Obama. In spite of attempts to get a job similar to his old one with a phone company, he has been forced to support his family by accepting Obama impersonation gigs, e.g. movies, appearances at events, etc. In some cases, he gets treated much better than he is accustomed to in his regular life in the Bronx but he has also been physically attacked and verbally abused, and has received many racial insults during his Obama appearances. He would rather not do it but needs the money.

Gotta confess, lately I haven't been diligent about taking along the mandatory whistle in short orienteering races. A whistle may have saved a teenaged orienteer's life on Saturday after an unusual accident at a meet in the U.S.
http://www2.hernandotoday.com/news/news/2012/mar/1...

BulletDog and I did a tour of Palgrave East and met up with 'Bent and BazingaDog on their commute run home. There's still lots of ice on the trails but it's no longer rock-hard or marble-smooth so it was actually my favourite running surface today. Most of the trails were thick, gloppy mud where our feet sank 5-8 cm with each step. Running was awkward at times but on the bright side, it was easy on the joints, great for building strength and the best way to spend Happy Hour before dinner. :)

Post-run, we're now in that time of year when it takes at least 5 minutes to clean the mud off each dog. Yet another reason I love long snowy winters!

I've heard about The Perfect Runner documentary film from at least a dozen different sources so they seem to have a great PR machine. Until now, I didn't know that the film touches on the Canadian Death Race. Cool! You can see it this Thursday at 8 p.m. on CBC's The Nature of Things.

And I thought 'Bent, Revy and I had a lot of XC skis... Kikkan Randall, this year's World Cup sprint champion (first American woman ever to hold that title), has 30 pairs in her quiver!
http://gearjunkie.com/kikkan-randall-world-cup-cro...

Poison Spider Bicycles in Moab is sold out of standard-priced bikes in my size so I'm forced to rent one of their High End bikes, the Pivot Mach 5.7, winner of the 2011 Bicycling Magazine Editor's Choice Award for Best 26" Trail Bike. Tough break. ;)

For those of you who have been to Moab, what specific places would you recommend? Bike rides, trail runs, restaurants, sightseeing, coffee shops, art galleries... whatever!

15C and sunshine! Although I'd love to be skiing on March 10, I guess it's time to embrace spring. 'Bent wanted to test his mountain bike before Moab but the trails here are too icy/muddy to ride without damaging them (or ourselves). He proposed a ride down the trail that runs beside the Humber River in Toronto - a rare urban adventure. I checked the maps quickly but didn't bring them along. I figured we couldn't get too lost, even though there are a few places where the trail spits you out onto the road and you need to find your way back onto it in a different park. I figured we'd be able to navigate visually using the river valley, the location of the sun and (if we got really uncertain) my iPhone.

The northwest terminus of the Humber Trail is on the northeast corner of the Hwy 427 Finch exit, across the highway from Claireville Conservation Area but not connected to it. We couldn't park at the very end so we parked in a nearby subdivision and headed into the valley.

We rode some very mucky trails in the outer reaches of the Humber Arboretum - best avoided by bikes as there is a more direct and better maintained route to the bike trail that we took on our way back. Once we got to the main paved trail, the riding was excellent - a few pedestrians, dogs and other cyclists but plenty of space to ride at a good speed and admire the scenery. We made a wrong turn for a few blocks at a place where the southbound river turns north but otherwise it was straightforward.



South of the 401 and Weston Rd., the trail sent us out onto the road. A few blocks later, we found ourselves at the top of a tall steel staircase that plunged into the valley. We asked a man who had just come up whether the bike trail was at the bottom of the stairs. He was very friendly but English wasn't his first language and I wasn't sure whether the trail at the bottom of the stairs was merely muddy or if it failed to go where we wanted to go. In any case, he urged us to take Weston Rd. for a few blocks until we hit a major cycling trail turn-off.

This section of Weston Road was pretty much the opposite of everything I enjoy about outdoor activity. Two lanes of heavy traffic going in each direction, narrow lanes, no shoulder, buses, noisy, smells of exhaust... We weren't going far so we just stayed on the narrow sidewalk. We could see a police officer and car with flashing lights so we walked our bikes like good citizens. The area was dingy and we passed a few unsavoury-looking characters whose facial expressions did not suggest a love of bikes. I got out my iPhone to make sure we were heading the right direction. Yup, almost there.

I wanted to sneak back onto our bikes on the sidewalk so I looked back where the police officer had been. No sign of him but I did a double take when out of the grit and blowing garbage in the distance emerged The Perfect Runner, looking as out of place here as we felt. Excellent running form, good posture, snappy cadence, no wasted motion, tons of energy... Even his outfit was perfectly matched, including Salomon pack and S-Lab XT Wings. Hmm, that's weird... so this guy on this busy urban road is a trail runner - and obviously a good one. If I ask his name, I bet I'll recognize it. Funny, he kinda looks like STORM. Oh! That's because it *is* STORM. And Heather B on a bike pacing him.

It was about the craziest and most unlikely place for us all to run into one other but it was fun to have good company and conversation as we escorted STORM on the last 10K of his 46K long run. (He is also training for the Death Race - a whole lot better than I am!)



Heather B lives near the south end of the Humber Trail so she led us through a couple of places where trail discontinuities could have led us astray.



The farther south we went, the more crowded the trails got and the smaller the dogs became. We had started in the Lab/German Shepherd part of town and made it down to Pomeranian/Shih Tzu Land. It was a treat to arrive at Lake Ontario where STORM's run ended.





If you look really closely, the CN Tower is sticking out of the top of STORM's hat.



This was only our halfway point so we didn't linger. Our ride back in the warm evening light was great - except when 'Bent's chain broke. Glad we got that out of the way before Moab.



We didn't go directly home. It felt like the first day of spring so we had to stop at the DQ on Weston Rd. (Missed you, Harps.)



We rode to the end of the trail just to map it with GPS. It was getting kinda late - a perfect evening to pick up Caruso's Pizza in Bolton. Fun day of urban exploration! :)

Even though I went a decent distance, this felt like a long run fail. I went south into Albion Hills because when I drove past it this morning, the terrain appeared mostly brown and grassy. Unfortunately, it turned out that most of the trails were glare ice. I moved to a few different parts of the park but things didn't get better. I finally gave up and headed for home, taking a detour through the village of Palgrave, across the Reddington golf course (trespass!) and through the conservation land of Palgrave East and West.

Running on ice has been our primary winter sport over the past couple of months, sadly. If you've done much ice running, you've probably had the experience of losing traction on an icy downhill and suddenly finding yourself hurtling downward at the mercy of gravity, running with your legs spinning like The Roadrunner and praying that the slope will level out before you get flung high into the air and splattered on the ground. That happened to me a few times today (the loss of control, not the splattering on the ground). For those familiar with Albion Hills, you can imagine what it was like when this happened near the top of the Green Monster hill. I was only saved from disaster because years of orienteering have honed my ability to grab and cling to passing saplings, even at high speed.

Because so much of the run involved tap dancing across scary-slippery surfaces, it felt that I never really warmed up nor got into a rhythm, which is sort of the point of a 2.5 hour run. I did enjoy the podcasts though. One was a Spark (CBC) podcast talking about new roles for libraries. Examples included libraries that are offering workshop space, power tools and soldering stations. My favourite was a library where you can check out the librarian's dog for a few hours of companionship.

Smile of the Day:
Blog with hundreds of very short video clips showing animals acting like, um, jerks.

'Bent and I did the Rides: Hill Country DVD - a longer ride through rolling Indiana countryside near the Ohio River. These structured bike workouts really make us sweat! There were lots of climbs but we also had to work on high cadence recovery on the descents (which I noticed the cycling team onscreen did not do!)

The DVD was 1:20 plus I did some extra warmup/cooldown. For the DVD:
Ave Watts: 162
Max Watts: 258
Ave Speed: 25.1 kph
Ave Cadence: 77

Run off the bike while listening to an "Under the Influence" podcast about Steve Jobs.

This is what world class trail ultrarunner Kilian Jornet is doing for training today... a little tour of the Mer de Glace near Chamonix. Wish I could do the same!

Not a good day. Just found out my parents were in a car accident on their 2nd last day of vacation in Florida. Lots of damage to both cars but after 7 hours of testing and observation in hospital, they seem to be OK other than aches and pains. :(

I'm not sure how to categorize this but I guess it's strength training. There has been talk on the Death Race Facebook page about people training for downhills by setting the treadmill incline on max, then walking backwards, so of course I had to try it. For the first minute, I didn't feel it at all, then it seemed like work - especially when I added a couple of inches of squatting to make the quads work harder. All the same, I have enough real hills around here that I will probably not do a lot of this. Interesting idea for people who live in flat areas though.

Hard Core Live with Caron

C3 class

It's official. UTMB has rejected the Sulphur Springs 50-miler as a qualifier because it consists of several loops (which doesn't always bother them) and has "many refreshment points", which was the concern I expected. So those of us looking for spring points will be travelling. :(

OK, I think I'm ready to take the plunge...

New e-mail ID: BarbJCampbell at Gmail dot com

This was going to be a few 500 m Bash&Crash intervals without Crash, but the forest was too windy (lots of debris down from the weekend), the slush was too slushy, the ice was too icy and the mud was too muddy. I tried a few different locations, then finally gave up and did an indirect run home via Duffy's Lane (very icy and muddy south of Finnerty) and Finnerty Sideroad. Great day to be out. First time wearing capris outside since California!

BazingaDog and I went for a trail run in Palgrave East and West. Not to name any names, but one of us needed to focus more on running and less on peeing on stuff to mark territory. It was a great day to be out; no one else was in the forest. We ran on the usual energy-sucking surfaces that we've had here for the past two months - glare ice, crust-covered snow and slush. With the coming of spring, we also enjoyed some sections with soft mud and large pools of water hidden by a thin layer of ice. Fun way to finish off the day!

More Daily Show

As we continue to hover between seasons, as we have been for the past 4 months, here are a couple of summertime dreams in spectacular landscapes.

Hiking in Norwegian fjord country (except let's not do that thumbs-up thing, OK?)

Racing The Planet - Iceland trail running stage race, August 2013 (Maybe a back-up plan if the UTMB lottery doesn't work out?)

A few of us were discussing Canadian adventurer Will Gadd today on T. Rex's log. I mentioned a podcast where he talked about a recent change in his attitude toward risk in mountain sports. It's interesting stuff coming from a Red Bull athlete with several X Games gold medals, the world record in distance paragliding and dozens of kayaking first descents.

Here's an article he wrote for Explore magazine entitled The Grand Delusion where he touches on the same topic. If you'd like to hear him go into more detail on the podcast, it was on CBC's Ontario Today program on Jan. 31 and can be downloaded for free from iTunes.

Technically a day off from ultra training so I didn't want to do any kind of Suffer-orama DVD.

- 15 min easy warmup/cooldown (115-140W)
- 35 min holding steady at 150-160W, throwing in three 1-min intervals of 200-220W for kicks

While watching a couple of Daily Shows.

For those considering Vasaloppet 2014, you may enjoy Boris' report from 2011.

Selections from "Questions to Refocus Your Mind":

1) What can you do today that you were not capable of a year ago?
2) What is the #1 motivator in your life right now?
3) If you had to move 3000 miles away, what one thing would you miss the most?
4) What has fear of failure stopped you from doing?
5) What stands between you and what you want?
6) What do you need to spend more time doing?
7) What memory from the past year makes you smile the most?
8) What's something you said you've never do but have since done?
9) What didn't last forever but was still worth your while?
10) If you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would it be?

Thomass Stars at Sudden Tract - A fun race course where Tiny made excellent use of a small area with intricate terrain. I felt mentally distracted by non-race concerns during the first 10 minutes, then I got with the program. The result was a sloppy route to #1 and cautious travel through the rocky, ankle-twisty woods until I felt more focused.

I had a couple of bobbles later. When I started north from #6 into the Thomass Box, a too-quick glance at the way the control numbers were printed on the 2nd map made me briefly think that #6 and #7 were reversed. I started to run back, thinking I'd punched the wrong one, then looked at Map #1 and realized I was OK. Later, I ran about 50 m past the small depression where #8 was located. I really didn't have a good plan there - just took off from the corner of a trail on a rough bearing, not remembering that I could run close to the depression without seeing the flag, so I ought to be more precise. It looked like AdventureGirl! made the same error. A very good orienteer who shall remain nameless got #8 and A mixed up, so I don't feel too bad. :)

Then it was a fairly straightforward - but physical - route via 4 more controls to the finish with some hill climbing to keep it interesting. Hammer passed me before #12, then it was a trail run to the end. We ran past Leanimal, Weeanimal and I-Fo. I-Fo (age 3) called out, "Go Barb! Go Barb!" (as instructed by Leanimal). Then he pointed behind me and said, "There's my Daddy!" Rats! If Hansel was behind me, then I was going to be passed by at least one more person. I wasn't going to make it easy for him though, so I pushed harder. I still couldn't hear footsteps behind me on the frozen trail - very strange. I pushed more, seeing the final bend in the trail up ahead. Was there really a chance I could hold off Hansel? Meanwhile, Hammer turned around and saw me gaining on him. He gave me a "WTF?" look and accelerated on his sore knee. I wasn't even thinking about him - just trying to see how long I could stay ahead of Hansel. As it turned out... a fair amount of time, given that I-Fo apparently said, "There's my Daddy" *every* time he saw an approaching runner. :)

Young Teo Mlynczyk was 1st, Hammer was 2nd and I was 3rd - just ahead of AdventureGirl! who sealed her Female Thomass Series victory today. Great job! :)

(Note: forgot to turn off GPS so ignore the final walkabout!)

Thanks to the Stars for a fun day in the woods. Harps organized a group lunch at Moose Winooski's afterward which was a nice chance to catch up with folks. In the photo below, see if you can pick out: Phatty, I-Fo, Weeanimal, Hansel, Moose.



Some day when I-Fo and Weeanimal are at the World AR Champs together, we're going to haul out this photo and embarrass them!

RIDES: Southern California DVD + warm-up/cooldown. Lots of climbing. Both 'Bent and I were dripping with sweat by the end. Nice to be back on the bike after running more often last month.

Ave Watts before cooldown: 160
Ave Cadence: 72 - Much of this ride was hill climbing where we were supposed to stay in the 60-80 rpm range.
Ave Speed: 25 kph

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...

Wise words to plan your training and more
From The Lorax Oh, the Places You'll Go

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

One of the challenges of preparing for a mountain ultrarun is doing downhill-specific training. I think I've found the solution: Cheese Rolling as cross training. Thanks to Cookie Monster's log for the idea. I'm sure FB could get us all set up with dairy products for practice.

One reason Facebook is fun... I sometimes forget what it was like to be in public school. A young friend posted this status today. :)

I HAD MY FIRST CONCUSSION!!!!!!!!!!! and i got my fish :)

I love Internet translators. Here's what top adventure racer Tuomas Sovijärvi had to say about the new, cool-looking Patagonia International Marathon. (Original was in Finnish and undoubtedly a little different!)

"After all, thou there is, first, a more maratoninsa Patagoniassa NIGSA Torres Del Paine with others at the end of September. It should then be baked in the same activity, etc. can easily be trekkailua reissuun. Just spoke with were that it would be reasonable that Mikon fine, the route of the run to display the engine but it is a little longer than the marathon, and then koitos."

I especially like the idea of something being "baked in the same activity". I may start using that expression.

Even though I'm feeling totally ready for a break, I didn't want to miss our weekly class with C3. Just my luck, this week was a tough one - higher intensity than usual for both Core and Yoga sessions. I couldn't believe it when she said we were going to do Tabata core!! There were just 4 different exercises that addressed different aspects of core strength. For each one, we did about 10 sets of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. People who have done Tabata running will empathize. The reps were quick, e.g. we did crunches with legs straight up in the air at a rate of one crunch per second to the "Tabata music". It was awesome - when it was all over.

Yoga was also a step up in intensity. Most of the class was based around Downward Dog - making our way into all kinds of different poses that we normally enter another way, then making our way back to Downward Dog. It was cool to see Jeff and Leesa Wright and Adam Price there tonight!

When BazingaPuppy joined our family in August, nobody knew for sure how old he was since he came from a rescue organization. Based on the development of his teeth and other features, the veterinarian guessed his approximate age. Since everyone needs to have a birthday, we did the math and picked March 1. In honour of his big day, on Attackpoint I am officially promoting him from BazingaPuppy to BazingaDog. (Real life name: Brody) Happy Birthday, little guy!

Thanks to the February Challenge, this was my 32nd day in a row without a rest day - I am soooo ready. My body has felt pleasantly fatigued for the past 7-10 days, including at the start line of last weekend's ski marathon - not exactly the feeling I wanted to have!

But I had promised Mrs. Gally ages ago that I'd do a Hockley Loop today, and Harps came up to join us.



It was a wintry run, starting at the parking lot and going counterclockwise for a change. Because 10-15 cm of snow fell up here yesterday followed by freezing rain, we broke a fair bit of trail and missed a few turns where the trail couldn't be seen in the snow. To be fair, we mostly did that in order to leave tracks to confuse Tiny and M&M, who are doing the loop on Saturday. ;)



In spite of the fresh snow, ice-coated branches and grey skies, it was a warm winter day - nice for running. I tried to convince Mrs. G and Harps to just stay the first hour with me, then go faster on their own but they graciously kept the team together and humoured me when I hiked uphill sections. Good company and conversation, great workout in the snow (30 minutes slower than last year's PB in dry weather), only one crash on snow-covered ice (me for the 2nd day in a row - sigh...) Lots of fun - thanks! :)