Training Log Archive: Bash

I'd expected today to be a write-off since I was going to be held hostage in Toronto during a major car service but it turned out to be a good day of training! I packed my running clothes at the last minute but wasn't sure where to go. As a country bumpkin, my mental map of Toronto is plastered with places like Mugger Meadows, Jack The Ripper Alley and Rapist Ravine. With 20/20 hindsight, I should have called Bender and requested a personal tour of his local trails.

I ended up at the Waterfront where there would be people around - and nice scenery too!



I parked at Ashbridge's Bay and ran east to the end of the boardwalk, then west to Cherry Beach and back. It was a mix of pavement, boardwalk, loose beach sand, dirt trail and grass. I paused the Garmin a few times for photos, map checks (I'm learning!) and conversations with friendly dog owners. Nice! I focused on posture which remains troublesome for me.

Subaru's service department phoned while I was running. If you were a fly on the wall in their office, this is what you would have heard (approximately!):

"Hello, Ms. Campbell. We're calling about your 2006 Subaru - our car model with all wheel drive and extra clearance to make it look tough and outdoorsy - the one we advertise by showing it bouncing around Moab rocks or over a rugged mountain pass. So um... did you ever take that baby off the pavement? Oh, you *did*, tsk tsk. You live on a gravel road? Oh dear, I see. Well, we *wondered* about that when you brought it in with (gasp!) dirt on it. Anyhoo... your suspension is cracked and broken in several places and the car is really quite dangerous to drive - but it will be over $600 so I don't know... would you like us to fix it? You would? A wise decision." Argghh. And there are other troubles too. Aren't there any good fuel injection engineers out there? ;)

The rest of my Toronto time was not bad. Predictably, I went to MEC (passing Elvira Kurt on the sidewalk enroute) and the Salomon Store. The coolest thing I bought at MEC was a Lonely Planet trekking guide to the Patagonian Andes. The coolest thing I resisted at the Salomon Store was the new lighter (slightly) XA Sky 30 + 10 pack with a huge new back pocket. Looks useful!

Only a few busy minutes at home with no dinner, then it was time for 'Bent and me to dash over to Green Lake to meet The Shed Man for a paddle. Such a relaxing contrast to the big city! I've deducted time for our stop to get yelled at by a lady who didn't believe that The Shed Man had permission from another cottager to be on the lake. She stomped away to phone that cottager and never returned, so we assume all was well... :) Really nice evening and fun to catch up with The Shed Man.

Radek, an old friend who lives Down Undah, is visiting Canada so I took him out for a run/chat around Palgrave East with BulletDog. We accompanied 'Bent and BazingaDog on the first part of their commute to work, then veered off toward the Humber River for a canine swim. Once again, we had no luck finding the local bears.

Radek was one of a dozen of us 20-somethings who went to Sydney a number of years ago to staff a new Australian office of a Canadian software company. What an incredible adventure that was! Only half of us came home; the other half (including Radek) stayed there permanently, most of them marrying Aussies who had no desire to live in chilly Canada. (The exact opposite of Pat-hectic!) So great to catch up and see pics of his outdoor trips in beautiful Oz.

BulletDog and I went into Palgrave East in search of the visiting bear and her cub. No success. It was encouraging how fresh I felt in my first run since Saturday's 50K. I attribute it to a full set of new running clothes including electric purple Salomon Speedcross shoes. :) I'm just breaking them in but wish I'd had the nerve to wear them on Saturday to complete my overall purpleness. I'm liking them a lot; they may be going to the Mohican 50-miler.

Bear and cub spotted in Palgrave less than 1 km from 'Bent's dental office. This should make my training runs a little faster! :)
http://www.caledonenterprise.com/news/bear-cub-spo...

For some reason, this week has me thinking about heat acclimation so here are a couple of good articles on the subject. In going back to read about it again, a few things stood out:

- Just like altitude, you don't want to do *all* your training in heat because it's harder to do a quality workout. You should plan easy workouts as your heat acclimation workouts.

- The benefits decline within 1-3 weeks if you stop exercising in heat so you have to balance your heat acclimation with your taper. (In southern Ontario, we will be exercising in heat for the next few months so I figure we may as well start now.)

- Interestingly (and unfortunately for Ontario Death Racers), it is less valuable to train in humid conditions for a dry race than the other way around. You can't lose heat by sweating as easily in a humid climate so perhaps your body doesn't improve its ability to do so?

- Heat acclimation improves performance in both cool and hot temperatures.

http://www.irunfar.com/2010/04/heat-acclimation-fo...

http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/11/news/heat-a...

Woke up with a sore throat from a cold that started brewing on Friday. Fighting it with all available weapons. So far, so good but I skipped today's "active recovery" session.

I wore pink today in honour of you-know-who! :)

Recovery loop with 'Bent in Palgrave East. I suspect a lot of Canadians were inspired to go "ryding" today. ;)



There's a lot to be said for running slowly; I feel a lot better than 'Bent today and could barely feel it in my quads. I kept showing off to purposely annoy him, e.g. doing my best Riverdance impression. :)

Event: Sulphur Springs
 

I had a couple of goals for today's 50K. It was supposed to be a long training run in preparation for the Death Race. The reason to not "race" shorter preparation events is that the training program for the longer event shouldn't lose momentum due to taper/recovery. It's important to feel good the day after these races.

The other goal was to practise running in heat and test appropriate hydration, nutrition, electrolytes, clothing, etc.

I think for a new ultra runner, Sulphur would also be a great way to practise "racing your own race", as you are surrounded by 10K, 25K, 50K, 50-mile, 100-mile and 100-mile relay racers (doing 20K laps), all running at a different level of effort. I'm used to being passed so this isn't an issue for me!

I'd guessed at a 6 hour finish but that only mattered because it's useful to be able to make realistic time estimates.

I achieved my goals for the run - didn't push the pace, didn't feel too sore or tired afterward, learned a few details that I'll document in private notes since they're boring, and finished in 5:52.

However, I continued an annoying trend of course errors in my 2012 trail races. I'd planned to study the race course map in advance but my PC hung when I tried to print it right before we left and yada, yada, I ended up relying on the markings and the volunteers (both of which were excellent).

Because I left it to chance, I'll be listed as a DNF. I was coming up to an off-road aid station that I didn't need. There was an intersection with traffic cones going in several directions (for cars, not us, as I learned later) and a few cars and volunteers moving around the intersection. I asked a volunteer where I should go, and he said, "Cross the road and run back the way you came." Which I did. Except that I should have entered the aid station area and run a 5 km loop that started on the other side. My fault - if I'd spent a minute or two reviewing the course, I wouldn't have needed to bother a busy volunteer who obviously thought I had done the loop already.

I was blissfully unaware of my error but became increasingly worried about 'Bent, who should have passed me on his relay lap. If he had taken a wrong turn and blown the relay for 7 other guys, he would be devastated. Or maybe he was running much more slowly than he'd hoped... Or maybe he'd collapsed in the heat and was lying on the trail... Eeek, as I approached a familiar aid station that I knew was a certain distance from the end of the lap, I looked at my Garmin and did the calculation in reverse, counting backward from the time I knew he was expected to reach the finish line. I realized then that I was going to reach the end of my current lap much too soon after not enough distance. A map was posted at the aid station and I was overjoyed to see that instead of "My husband is in trouble", the real story was "I'm a doofus". I can live with that.

This also explained the overly solicitous way passing runners (of which there were many!) kept looking over their shoulders and saying, "Good job!" in sympathetic voices that suggested I was falling apart. They were right; if I were *really* qualified to be in their part of the pack (i.e. 5 km farther along the course than I should have been), it would be a total disaster to run like me.

This had little effect on the rest of my day, other than making it easier to treat it as a training run since I planned to DQ before I'd reached the 20K mark of a 50K race. The race course is designed in loops so I returned to the same point awhile later. This time I ran the loop I'd missed, came out of the aid station to the middle of the road where I'd talked with the volunteer, then went back in and ran the loop a second time. So I got to do the whole 50K course and my time is meaningful to me (would have been 2nd in age group by almost an hour) but I didn't cross the finish mat - just stepped aside and went into the tent to withdraw from the race. They offered me a finisher's medal after asking my reason but I didn't take it.



Honestly, the only negative emotion was annoyance at myself for not making the map review part of my pre-race routine when I know better. I got what I wanted out of the day; I didn't care about an official result. This will *not* be true of the Mohican 50-miler next month, as it is a UTMB qualifier and I need an official result. I'm going to run with a frickin' National Geographic Atlas, a race course map, a compass, a GPS, an iPad with Google Earth loaded, and an electronic buzzer that gives me a shock if I do anything stupid.

The exciting story was the success of the Dontgetlost 100-mile Relay Team. They burned up the course, taking over 20 minutes off the course record with a time of 11:48, finishing 1st of 19 teams. 'Bent was mid-pack in a terrific group of runners; after all his knee problems, I was really happy for him.

Here's 'Bent, Frankenjack and Coach Trav.



Frankenjack did 20K in a blistering 79:38 - about 7 minutes faster than any other team member. Freak. ;)



It's not easy coaching a top relay team! Trav ran up the final hill with every runner while taking photos on his iPad; he got pics of the exchanges too. (Note Bender in the background.) As everyone knows, if you didn't tweet about something or mention it in your Facebook status, it didn't happen.



If any runners weren't going fast enough up the final hill, we got BazingaDog to chase them.



The team (minus Almageddon and Frankenjack): Hansel, 'Bent, Super, Tarno, Bender, Pat-hectic and Trav in the front row with BazingaDog. It was a wonderful treat to hang out with these good friends in real life - a nice reminder that cyberspace is not enough.



Additional pics on Flickr (thanks, Bender!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30145888@N00/sets/721...

And more pics sent as tweets during the race.
https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23sulphurs...

Sulphur Springs 50K tomorrow. It'll be a long training run in warm, humid weather but I'm not planning to "race" this one.

The Dontgetlost relay team is another matter. They're setting out to break their own 12:08 record in the 100-mile relay. 'Bent and the other boys are aiming to do eight 20K trail laps in about 90 minutes each. Updates will be posted on Attackpoint and Twitter. (You don't need to be on Twitter to read the tweets.)

My training program today is "hydrate"!

Ryder, Ryder, Ryder! :)

Just when you thought it was safe to go... Yup, this happened in Ontario.
http://www.outsideonline.com/news-from-the-field/B...

Hot, humid run around Palgrave West, although the breeze and the shade improved matters.

I took a break to use a big stick to clear several large patches of horse feces from the Bruce Trail. I entertained myself by writing a letter in my head to the local newspaper editor, imploring local equestrians to show consideration for other trail users and anticipating their usual response that (a) horses are good for Caledon's economy and the Pan Am Games are coming, and (b) horses are vegetarian so I should be OK with their sh*t in my lungs and on my living room carpet, just as I'm sure they would be OK with my vegetarian friends defecating in their home. In my imaginary letter, I demanded evidence of the lack of health impacts and refused to accept anything other than peer-reviewed studies published in respected scientific journals. I am soooo pushy in my imagination.

Tomorrow we are taking BazingaDog for a private session with a dog trainer. He needs to come when called and be trustworthy off-leash, and we're ready for some professional help.

Although he will be an adventure race training companion, we are going to focus on running and paddling. But I suppose we might look at other disciplines in future. ;)

BazingaDog and I ran around Palgrave East on a humid day, stopping for three good dog swims. *Six* stops in the bushes for the pooch - it was like doing a 50-miler with CO! ;)) I'll do a short run tomorrow at high noon for heat acclimatization then it'll be all pasta, chocolate milk and magazines till Saturday's 50K.

BulletDog and I went for an easy pre-dinner run around Palgrave East. Lots of doggie start/stops and three swims. This is one of the rare weeks when I'm actually going to do the training specified in the program I'm theoretically following for the Death Race. I've become really good at making substitutions, e.g. Storm The Trent = a Long Run.

Sulphur Springs 50K is on Saturday. 'Bent and the Dontgetlost Fast Boyz are aiming for the 100-mile relay record!

Mrs. Gally, it's not just cougars and bears you need to watch out for in our area...
http://www.caledonenterprise.com/news/two-months-a...

Most serious mountaineers have lost interest in Everest and this recent photo shows why. Wow.



Here's the sad story of the fatalities in the past few days, attributed mainly to traffic jams and slow travel on the route.

Riviere La Peche, P17 Gatineau Park. More Ottawa O Fest - a fun, *hot* day in the woods - high 32C. I navigated much better today than in yesterday`s middle distance and really enjoyed myself scrambling up and down hills while following the excellent new map. It was so hot and the ground was so rugged that I did a lot of speed hiking off-trail; after turning my ankle yesterday, I didn`t want to do any more damage before next weekend`s 50K. I made a 4-minute error at #5 but other bobbles were relatively minor.

There was certainly room to be faster and more precise but I often make a big error somewhere on an orienteering long course, so I was happy to have kept my focus all the way through. I won F35 for this race and for the weekend overall - not a huge accomplishment in such a small category but Val Duca is worthy competition!

The amazing news is that `Bent (who ran the same Middle and Long courses that I did) won his age category against a tough field today! This is only his 2nd Canada Cup orienteering event (A event); he seems to benefit from the individual start since he is not distracted by other runners. Congrats!!

Kudos also go to my Eco-Endurance Challenge teammate Pamtastic who won the Female Elite category for the weekend overall. Well done! Trudy D. also won her age category and several other GHO members were on the podium. The Ottawa club organizes excellent events - glad we came.

(Turned GPS on and off a little late. Course straight line distance = 5.9 km.)

Event: Ottawa O-Fest 2012
 

March Highlands - Kanata Lakes. It's been almost two years since my last Canada Cup orienteering race (aka A event) and I sure felt rusty! It didn't bother me since I just wanted some tough nav practice. I'd entered a lower age group with the plan of doing longer courses and avoiding the feeling of being in a competition. It worked. I had a ton of fun in spite of a few bobbles and a slow, cautious approach to this difficult terrain. Congrats to `Bent on beating me!

(Turned GPS on/off quite late. Course straight line distance = 4.0 km.)

Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa. Fun sprint through a campus of government buildings. There were a number of tricky spots - uncrossable concrete walls, passageways, staircases, etc. Mostly it went well but I lost time on a few controls. When I compared notes with others afterward, I realized that I wasn't alone! Loads of fun - I love running on the edge, trying to stay in contact with the map while pushing the pace in easy terrain.

The Ottawa club did a terrific job on everything today. Great arenas for both events. The sprint was spectator friendly; James announced us all as we came up the chute. It was great to see so many friends including Pamtastic, my Eco-Endurance Challenge teammate!

(GPS started early, turned off late. Course straight line distance = 2.5 km.)

F35+ - Splits

Sprint F35+ - Splits

Interesting and nervewracking story for event organizers... A racer in a mud run used a friend's bib, thus never signing a waiver nor establishing any other official relationship with event organizers (not that waivers carry much weight in the U.S.) He "jammed" his hands and arms in a mud pit that he was supposed to crawl through and ended up paralyzed. He's suing for $30M + legal costs. Wow. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2012/may/17/tdm...

Rode around Palgrave West single track on my old Gary Fisher Sugar 2. It is such a nimble bike - wish they still made that model. I felt like Spiderwoman climbing hills!

Good article on the current status of Lyme Disease in Ontario. Stoopid ticks!!
http://www.thewhig.com/2012/05/16/ticked-off

You can do the Storm The Trent Trek Elite course in 1:40 through the magic of time lapse photography - cool!

Has anyone ever used a "cooling headband" in hot conditions? Is it a gimmick? Is there a down side? If it works, can you recommend one?

If you're planning to do the Wilderness Traverse 24-30 hr adventure race on Aug. 18-19 but haven't registered yet, the earlybird deadline is tonight. If you'll be racing in Scotland or moving to France - or both - please disregard. ;)

Hockley Loop with Mrs. Gally and Dee. Since they are faster runners, I proposed taking a head start, then we could meet along the way. They were in the parking lot when I left so I'm not sure how much time I had but we met at the 10K mark at the entrance to Anderson Tract, which was perfect. The route is a little tricky through there and there are some super-steep hills that all three of us would be speed hiking anyway.

On the first hilltop on the south side of the loop, I had a brief feeling of nausea. That's unusual for me and I'm not sure what caused it but it was my first hot long run of the season, so I popped a couple of Salt Stick capsules and took a big gulp of water. The feeling didn't return but I'm not confident I figured it out. As much as I don't enjoy heat, I'll need to acclimatize before the Death Race so I'll need to get out on a lot of other days like this.

Other than that, I felt pretty good - especially considering all the racing I've been doing. It blows my mind that I did the loop 20 minutes faster last spring, which seems totally out of reach now.

Great conversation with friends, beautiful spring greenery and a delicious lunch at the Black Birch afterward made this an A+ training session.



This is my last long run before the Sulphur Springs 50K in 11 days. Since the start of May, I've felt like I've been swept into the current of my ultra plans, and the water is moving faster and approaching a steep-sided canyon full of rapids! (That analogy is for you, Urthbuoy.) But it's all good. I viewed the Eco-Endurance Challenge as ultra training (70+ km) and that was three weeks before Sulphur Springs. After the 50K, I have three weeks until the Mohican 50-miler, then six weeks until the Canadian Death Race. It's all going to happen so quickly!

FunRun came over for a running video session with 'Bent and me. We filmed from different angles using cameras on bikes as well as from a single point of view. The boys have some fine tuning to do but I really need to throw my shoulders back and feel that imaginary "string" pulling my head up toward the sky. I'm not leaning forward from the waist as much as I used to but I still tend to hunch forward just from the shoulders up. On the bright side, apparently I don't heel strike as much as I thought I did. Interesting exercise!

Event: Storm the Trent
 

From the volunteers at CP4 late in the race: 'Bent and me in the heat of our domestic battle for STORM bragging rights. He may have won but I was clearly having more fun. :)

Beautiful day for a race! Right off the top I have to say that it's always great to take part in one of STORM's events. He plans the heck out of everything and runs a well-oiled machine on race weekend. When the rare thing goes wrong, he does his best to make it right and works on ways to avoid that problem in future. STORM events always manage to attract new people which is awesome for all of us in the Ontario adventure sports community. This weekend's race, which offers three different courses for increasing levels of experience, has been the largest adventure racing event in Canada for several years. Kudos!

'Bent and I came up last night and camped onsite at Trudeau Park which is named, of course, after Oakley Trudeau. There were lots of boats piled at the waterfront - probably a paddle start.



At 6:30 a.m., we checked in and got our maps. On the Trek Elite course, we would paddle to several points around the edge of the lake then drop our boats at the municipal beach in Tweed. We'd run back on a combination of rail trail and road, picking up several CPs enroute. Then we'd get on our bikes and do a long ride (about 65 km) on roads and ATV trails. We would get off the bikes a few times to pick up additional CPs, including one longer trekking section.

In addition to map work, 'Bent and I had to get our kayaks and paddling gear down to the waterfront and drop our empty paddle bags by the gear truck. Then we needed to set up our bikes on the racks and get to the race briefing by 8 a.m.

It's been 11 months since I've done a sprint adventure race and my rusty skills showed. The first hour of racing was a gong show. After the race briefing, we had 15 minutes until the start. That should have been plenty of time but from reading other race reports, I see I wasn't the only person to screw this up. Adjust, repack, fuss... "Two minutes to start." What?! In a rush, I tried to stuff my pack behind my Eclipse kayak seat - which had worked just fine at Logs Rocks and Steel last fall when I didn't have 2L of eLoad in the bladder. Not a chance it was going to fit. "One minute to start." Crap, crap, crap.

I launched the boat quickly and jammed the pack between my knees in the narrow cockpit. To operate the rudder, which cannot be raised, I use foot pedals - but because of the pack, I couldn't reach them. "15 seconds." I made one sad attempt to get the skirt on but I was too frazzled. "Go!!!" I started paddling without the ability to steer. This lasted a few meters before I got stuck - physically stuck - behind a couple of novice canoeists. I used the break to stuff my pack into a different position and - yay! - my feet just reached the pedals. Granted, they were at an awkward angle that made my knees hurt for the next 40 minutes but it would do. And forget the skirt; it was a beautiful day.

So it was an abysmal start to the 6 km paddle and I had to work my way up from the back. It was fun to be on the water anyway and I was able to make up some time as we visited the three CPs. We just had to remember a word written on a sign at each CP - no need to get out of the kayak and punch a control. One tricky team brought binoculars and saved themselves some padding! When we hit the beach at Tweed, I was with the pack of top solos. 'Bent led me into the transition by 1 minute.

We ran northeast on a rail trail along the shore of Stoco Lake. Mr. Logie passed me here on his way to a landslide victory. The CPs in this section were all on easy features near the trail or road so I hadn't spent any precious planning time on it. After getting the first CP, I settled in for a 3 km rail trail run to a major road. No need to look at the map. After 1 km of running, I noticed people scurrying on and off the trail, and an experienced navigator looked at me and appeared to point back over his shoulder into the trees. Huh? I stared at the map and realized that I had been covering a hilltop CP with my thumb - yikes! I didn't know exactly where I was so I followed the crowd off the trail - and they were wrong. (Although to their credit, at least they *knew* there was a CP to look for!) I found the CP 600 meters further northeast after some more muddling. 5 minutes lost. The rest of this 8 km section was uneventful. I got passed by a bunch of slower paddlers who are faster road runners - no surprise there!

We headed out for 65 km on bikes - first on pavement, then gravel, then really loose gravel, then rocky ATV trails with occasional big mud puddles. There were a few off-trail CPs enroute. It was fun riding but between wind and gravel, the road sections were harder work than expected.

According to the rules, teams would be DQ'ed if they didn't stay within sight of one another at all times but - ahem - I often saw racers waiting on the trail who could not possibly have seen their teammates at the CP flags.

3 km before CP3, I saw Los Dobos weaving as he climbed a hill. He's a strong athlete so something had to be wrong. I wondered if he had given up after a bad nav error and was just taking it easy. I caught up and asked, "Why aren't you racing anymore?" "I AM racing. But I feel like crap." We talked in more detail and it worried me. He didn't want me to stay with him so I said I'd ride ahead to CP3 and alert them that he should talk with a medic. 1L was volunteering and she kept him there for awhile. He continued a little further before wisely abandoning the race. It was a warm day and he wasn't the only racer feeling the effects.

There were two CPs along the ATV trail between CP3 and CP4, one of them 500 m off the trail through forest in full foliage and sprinkled with prickly ash. I met 'Bent at both CPs and we exchanged "husband beats wife/wife beats husband" greetings. :)

From CP4 in Vanderwater Conservation Area, we did a 4 km circuit to find three controls. I liked my route but wasted a few minutes and some extra climb when I didn't see one of them tucked farther off-trail than I'd expected. I saw 'Bent running toward me with another couple of racers. He called out, "Good job!" He told me later that one of the other guys said, "Nice that you're encouraging the other solos." "Well, she IS my wife."

After that, it was about 15 km of riding on good roads with a couple of CPs hidden near bridges to keep us on track. I finished in 6:11 and 'Bent had arrived 5 minutes earlier. Drat! I lost the husband-wife challenge.



We had a yummy post-race meal on the verandah with AR friends before heading home via Dairy Queen.

Big congrats to Mr. Logie for winning the race by 37 minutes!



Kudos to Team Bugs in Teeth for winning the 4-person Coed category.



And to Dee and M&M for their Female team win. These strong racers are working on their nav skills and doing a great job.



'Bent was 2nd solo. He's posing here with the indispensable Mom-of-STORM, who spends every Mother's Day working hard for her son!



I was 3rd solo and 1st female - and also wanted to pose with Mom-of-STORM.



Amber was 2nd female solo.



Here are the newlyweds. When I finished, Mr. Logie had been done for 45 minutes and he was standing at the finish line with a furrowed brow. "You saw Dee and M&M out there? Good. I had the scale wrong so I wrote the wrong distances on their map for the bike section. They're not going to be happy with me..."



A better and more complete set of photos that actually show the race course will be coming from Mike VDB soon!



Thanks to STORM and all the amazing volunteers for a fun day of racing!

Husband beats wife. :(
But only by 5 minutes over 6 hours. :)

Man, it is *brutal* when husband and wife are packing to race solo in the same event. The nicest kayak throw rope has vanished from the gear room, and he didn't even show remorse when he took our last tube of antibiotic ointment! ;)

STORM The Trent is coming up on Saturday and I haven't paddled my JKK Eclipse since Logs Rocks and Steel last September. It seemed like a good idea to brush off the cobwebs - both from the boat and myself - so I headed to Ken Whillans Conservation Area. Not a big lake but Island Lake isn't open yet. The test paddle reminded me of one thing I'd forgotten: always wear full shoes and/or socks so my heels don't get abraded from the grit in the bottom of the boat when I use the foot pedals to steer the kayak.

Each time I reached the far end of the small lake, I did an interval set:

3 X (remove skirt that's really tight) + (put it back on)

I think I can do it at race pace now. Since I have no shortage of smart a$$ friends, I must emphasize that it was a kayak skirt!!

My Specialized bike has been into the shop twice over the past month for a a major overhaul so I took it for a short ride to see if it's in a happy place. It's a little noisy and I have some ideas about adjustments to make - but it's working OK so I think I'll wait until after the race. I'd planned to stick to the Palgrave single track but when the wind gusts got too scary, I headed out and finished with some gravel road hills.

For those who appreciate the meaning of "n + 1", I stopped into Caledon Hills Cycling today to check out their lower cost 2011 cyclocross bikes...

*** For those interested in our E2C route, I've added the control numbers at the bottom of the race report. Please don't laugh at our last 5 hours! :) ***

Race report is up for last weekend's Eco-Endurance Challenge 24-hour rogaine. (Click or just scroll back.)

I'm happy that my legs, joints and feet have felt so good since the race. I didn't even turn my ankle, which was lightly taped. Glad I didn't mess myself up for the ultras I'm doing over the next while.

Good news, I guess - I was bitten by a dog tick, not a deer tick. Less likely to pass on Lyme although they can be infected with other fun diseases like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I'll be watching for symptoms over the next couple of weeks.

http://www.lymenet.org/picture2.shtml

A big shout out to Mr. and Mrs. GHOSLO who finished right in the middle of the 61 teams who did the 24-hour version of the Eco-Endurance Challenge rogaine in Halifax on the weekend. (Another 70 teams did the 8-hour.) Team GHO SLO members were singled out at the awards ceremony as strong competitors - and possibly the only members of the non-existent "team with combined age of 140+" category. Well deserved indeed - they earned a lot of points with a smart and well-executed route through very difficult terrain.

The Eco-Endurance Challenge, a fundraiser for Halifax Search and Rescue, is the only annual 24-hour rogaine in Canada. I was keen to go back after having a great time last year but it proved challenging to find an experienced teammate who could get to Nova Scotia. I'd pretty much given up until two weeks ago when GHOSLO mentioned that Pam James had moved home to Halifax. She wasn't on the registration list so I wrote her and crossed my fingers and - yay! - she was in. Pam, aka Pamtastic, has one of the best track records of any rogainer in Canada, including a world championship (female category) and a North American championship (overall). She also spent years competing on Canada's national orienteering team. So she's way out of my league as a navigator, although I figured that my adventure racing experience with less detailed 1:50,000 maps would be useful. She warned me that she hadn't been training for long events lately but I knew she'd be fine.

Pam's Mom kindly cooked up a wonderful Nova Scotia style pre-race dinner for several of us who were staying at their place.



I had a great pre-race sleep - an unexpected treat since I usually lie awake staring at the ceiling with my mind in high gear. Pam and I got to registration at 7:45 a.m., picked up coffee and snacks, then headed to the race site to work on our maps in the car. There were 60 controls but only 43 were marked on the main map. We knew 6 controls worth 70 points each would be on a larger scale aerial photo map that we would receive after the mandatory gear check, and we knew where that map fit on our main map. There were some controls where we were just given grid references with no control descriptions and we had to plot their locations. Some other controls were described in terms of their distance/bearing from a marked control, again without control descriptions. So there was a fair bit of work to get the map ready before we could plan our course. Luckily, we had a couple of hours before the race briefing.

We used a 60 km piece of string to measure straight line distance between controls. By the time we got the aerial map, I think we were optimistically planning a little more than 60 km. We should have known better in this terrain. The density of points was high on the east side of the map so we planned to head there first. The start/finish was in the south/centre part of the map and we planned a counterclockwise loop.



A few other Ontarians had traveled east this year. Mr. and Mrs. GHOSLO were at the starting line.



So were Bender and Relentless.



Some east coast Attackpoint AR friends were there too - O9Man, Lori and NSAR.



Here's Jim Blanchard, the course designer. We saw him a couple of times on the race course.



My Attackpoint report from last year's race had been posted on the event website, and it was fun to meet a few people who said hello when they recognized me from the photos. As always, lots of people said hi to Pam; that girl knows everyone!

The sun was warm and black flies had just emerged. Luckily, they were only swarming, not biting.



At the start, my pack was almost 10 lb heavier than Pam's - yikes! With 2L of water, food for 24 hours, all the team gear (1st aid, spare compass, etc.), bright bike lights, spare batteries and extra layers, it was close to 19 lb. The temperature was forecast to drop from 15C down to 5C, which wasn't bad but I couldn't shake memories of last year when Crash and I wore virtually everything in our packs during the coldest, wettest hours of the night. It turns out Pam has a built-in heat generator. By the middle of the night, I needed several warm layers and a toque but she was fine wearing - and eating - much less. I'm used to wearing a pack though, so it wasn't an issue.



We used the first few controls to get used to the map and get a feeling for our rate of travel. Roads and trails are almost always faster than bushwhacking, but in this terrain, the difference is magnified. In places, the forest was thick with rootstocks and thigh-high fallen logs, and there were often small cliffs to slide down. In a few places, it was relatively open and beautifully mossy - a fairytale forest.





The older clearcuts weren't too bad to walk though but the newer ones could be a tangled mess of pointy branches and stumps. On the plus side, we had better visibility across the newer clearcuts if they weren't too hilly. Older clearcuts sometimes had trees growing in them and it could take some effort to distinguish them from forested land.





The easiest terrain of the day was this big water pipe we ran on.



When we reached the southeast part of the map, we hit a flooded, fast-moving river right before a road. We had to do a wide detour to reach a bridge.



From there, we headed up to 240, which was the first of a group of distance/bearing controls. Attached to the flag for 240 was a card with a distance and bearing to 241, then when we found that flag, there was a card with distance/bearing to 237. The three controls were worth a lot of points but were hard to account for in our planning, since we didn't know the distances until we got there. They weren't difficult though.

Pam and I had planned that we would navigate together so we talked aloud about what we were seeing and thinking. We have some different skills because of our backgrounds. As one of Canada's best orienteers, Pam reads features easily and can seemingly follow a bearing by magic. My engineer-ish habit of tracking distances using time or pace count was useful in this terrain, as was my experience with the quirks of 1:50,000 maps. With practice, we could do a better job of working together and taking advantage of our respective strengths but for our first time as a team, things worked pretty well and we found all the controls we looked for.



We worked our way north to Annapolis Trail Safety Camp - our first stop to replenish water. There were several safety camps distributed across the map where groups of volunteers camped for the night, enjoyed a bonfire, sometimes shared treats like hot chocolate, and recorded the teams that passed through. They always asked which control we had come from and which one we were going to. One fellow said this was a check on whether teams knew what they were doing. In addition to the safety camps, there were people in trucks and ATVs patrolling some of the roads on a regular basis, and these patrolled road sections were marked on our map. So the volunteers took very good care of us!





Pam was brave to charge across this trail bridge near 218 - and stop in the middle for a photo!



We stumbled upon some beautiful places.



As the sun set and the temperature fell, we were wading through a chilly river. I remembered doing this crossing with Crash in last year's race.



We finally had to pull our lights out around 214. When it got really dark, the "supermoon" came out - a full moon happening at the time when the moon and earth are closest together, causing the moon to appear larger and brighter than usual. It really was incredibly beautiful. It was so bright that we kept thinking another team was coming up behind us with big headlamps. We were able to use this spectacular moonlight to see outlines of hills, glimmers of lakes and other navigational clues. It was an absolutely wonderful night to be outside.



I had been eating ravenously - a race habit I've been working on. I'd brought two 12-hour bags of food and finished the first bag before the 12 hour mark, so I took a short break from eating just in case! My appetite waned overnight and I still finished with plenty of food as I always do. After getting light-headed in my 50-miler, I've been trying to take in more calories.

Other than the moon, this was our view during the hours of darkness. My Night Lightning medium battery lasted most of the night.



The sky started to brighten shortly after 210. Sunday was going to be a gorgeous day. We headed toward Burntwoods Brook Safety Camp shortly after sunrise.





I'm not a morning person, and when I'm not doing these crazy races, I don't see dawn very often. Here's one of my luxuries in overnight races - canned double espresso with cream. Goes down so well!





Until 7 a.m., we had visited every control in our plan but now it was time to figure out a reasonable route to the finish, which meant dropping some controls we'd pencilled into the most optimistic version of our route. This is where we messed up by heading down toward the aerial photo map. Considering our combined rogaining experience, we should have known better; this was a huge mistake. The controls in that area looked relatively easy and close together, plus they were reasonably valuable at 70 points each. But the bushwhacking was as slow as any we'd seen.



Heading to 136, we'd planned to take a trail from the main road but were unable to find it at the right curve in the road. With the clock ticking, we should have abandoned the control and headed for a different one, but instead we began a laborious 400 m bushwhack (and bog-whack). It was no trouble to find the flag but it was hard work. Since we were in there, we also picked up 163, then had a slow slog through a clearcut to the road.

We had promised ourselves that we wouldn't get rushed at the end - but now it was too late. We had to push hard for more than two hours, ignoring nearby controls as we made our dash for the finish. There was a significant, tough bushwhack to reach the road to the finish, and that made it tough to guess whether we would make it. When we finally hit the road, we had to run for 50 minutes with some speed hiking on the uphills. The only good thing about this part of the day was realizing that I felt OK running after 23 hours on my feet; I guess the Canadian Death Race will feel similar.

We finished with about 8 minutes to spare - phew! We'd messed up in the last 5 hours, getting a grand total of just 3 controls, but we had a great 19-hour rogaine. :)



We were 7th overall of 61 teams in different divisions of the 24-hour event with 2900 points of 4500 available, and 34 of 60 controls. (Official results say 33 controls but it was 34.) The big excitement was that Bender and Relentless took the win, including this great trophy and a $1,000 cheque! Unfortunately, Relentless slept through the awards ceremony but Bender's big smile made up for it.



Mrs. and Mrs. GHOSLO got an honourable mention for finishing solidly in the mid-pack. Great job! The post-race meal was a nice barbecue with fish chowder and corn chowder - yum! There were also some excellent cookies from a local baker. Once again, it was a very well-organized event with an interesting and challenging race course. So glad I was able to take part again! Interestingly, it wasn't as hard on my body as rogaines usually are. I think the combination of ultrarun training and course testing with Getawaystix has been good preparation. I just wish there were more 24-hour rogaines to do.

The only negative was that a number of us found a tick or three crawling on our bodies or - in my case - embedded in my back after the race. I've never had a tick before nor even seen one on a human until Pam pulled one off her neck during the race. It's an experience I've both been dreading and wanting to get over with. I managed not to freak out and Pam was a hero with my tick removal tweezers. Here's the offender - a brown dog tick, if Google is right. It's more likely to carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever than Lyme - not really a huge plus. Hopefully, the tick population in Nova Scotia doesn't have a high rate of infection.



We corrected a mistake we made last year by going to Dairy Queen *immediately* after leaving the race site.



Thanks to the organizers and volunteers for a terrific race, and thanks to Pam for being an awesome teammate!

For those interested in our route:
126 243 248 232 240 241 237 250 262 235 229 230 218 217 216 222 215 214 - DARK - 221 228 213 212 211 197 223 207 208 209 210 - LIGHT - 205 224 131 136 163

Event: Eco-Endurance Challenge 2012
 

Off to Halifax for lobster and a 24-hour race! :)

Feeling improved today but still not energetic. Figured I should get my legs moving a little - although 24 hours of walking/ running/ bushwhacking at the Eco-Endurance Challenge should be enough movement to get them limber again.

Bender and Relentless, you're going down this weekend! (Just checking to see if you're reading. ;) )

I want to go to Yosemite! This is a stunningly beautiful 5-minute HD video made from 7,000 pics taken using time lapse photography. For some time, I've been sitting on the fence between my familiar PC and my new-ish MacBook Pro. This video could sell 17" Mac displays by the truckload!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/yosemite-...

Note to Hockley Loopers: bear sightings around Orangeville! (They knew Mrs. Gally was coming today.)

http://www.orangeville.com/news/local/article/1346...

I've felt like crap the past two days - headache, unhappy stomach, teetering on the brink of a cold. C'mon, I need to be healthy for the Eco-Endurance Challenge this weekend!

Good idea from Coach Spaff's article, "Ultra Running tips". He's talking about how people tend to think in terms of counting hours or kilometers in 7-day training cycles but there are other ways to approach it:

"To keep the benefits of the seven-day cycle, while adding more variability, I often find mini cycles or training blocks within a longer period of training is sometimes a more effective approach. For instance, a 14-day period can work quite well for ultra runners. Training can be split up featuring two slightly faster paced workouts during one week, plus a long run on the weekend, then the following week, could be reduced to only a single quality session, but could include back to back longer runs on the weekend. This two-week cycle would include a good dose of necessary longer runs, and allow you to rotate through a series of quality work including possible tempo runs, hill workouts and interval training."

http://www.MountainRunning.com/community/training/...

Opening paragraphs of the story in yesterday's Brantford Expositor:

"Long-time Rotarian Bill Campbell crossed an item off his bucket list last year when he participated in his first Classic Run.

On Sunday, the 78-year-old, who has been a Rotarian for 43 years, shaved a couple of minutes off of his time in the five-kilometre race.

He also raised more than $3,000 in pledges.

'Some of my best supporters used to be in Rotary and know the great things the club does,” said Campbell, just after finishing his run in about 38 minutes.'"

Btw there was a 90-year-old woman called to the stage who had participated in nearly all of the runs over the past 30 years. She entered the 5K walk this year and looked pretty good doing it!