Training Log Archive: Bash

Our class went for a longer paddle tonight because Susan thought she had seen a bald eagle perched in a tree beside the quarry. And she was right! Cool!

Beautiful warm evening for our largest SUP yoga class ever. Sadly, there's only one more class for the year unless we get a heat wave in late September. It's been great to have Funderstorm here so often.

We finished off the class with headstand attempts. 'Bent achieved his first headstand tonight and, not coincidentally, had his first spectacular splash into the quarry. My headstand is getting pretty solid.

Most of the class went for a yummy Thai dinner afterward.

My parents were married 60 years ago today after dating in university for 4 years. They drove to Algonquin Park for their honeymoon that night. Sadly, Dad missed this milestone anniversary by half a year. We had a good day together with smiles and memories, but our hearts are partly broken.

Richard and Mom paddled a canoe to Joe Lake while I paddled the surfski - sometimes doing circles around the canoe since the boats weren't well matched. Brrr, it is chilly to sit in a puddle of water in (almost) September. We didn't see any moose but we found lots of pitcher plants.

'Bent and I borrowed the lodge SUPs for a quick paddle before lunch. I managed to repeat my headstand briefly!

We're staying at Arowhon Pines lodge in Algonquin Park with Mom. 'Bent and I paddled from Little Joe Lake through Joe Lake (where we were married) then Tepee Lake and Fawn Lake to Little Doe Lake - where we saw a little doe. It was cloudy, breezy and cool. Autumn is on its way.







After lunch, we took my 80-something year-old Mom and her pacemaker around the Hardwood Lookout loop which must have over 100 m of climb including a steep, rooty section. (Oops.) She did really well!

In 2013 and 2014, I spent this week in Chamonix soaking up international trail running culture (along with a little Bordeaux) and preparing to run UTMB - well, most of it anyway. No regrets and I'm still finding it fun to watch the live coverage website this week. There are 6 events now, the first of which (PTL) started on Monday and is still going on. What an amazing adventure it was, DNFs and all.
http://ultratrailmb.com/en/

I met Virginia, Mrs. Gally and Brenda for the first part of their Hockley Loop. My role today was to teach Virginia how to use poles on a run since she will use them occasionally in her Bruce Trail through-run next month.

***Interrupting this log entry for a commercial message! Pacers are still needed for Virginia's run. She's leaving Tobermory Sept. 10, arriving in Niagara Sept. 22-25, and will be running 65-80 km daily at 5-6 kph (stops included). That means most days she will need 3-4 pacers since most people can't go the longer distances. It's best to have at least two pacers at a time so that someone's main job can be to watch for trail markers, which aren't always easy to see, especially in September with all the vegetation growth. She is particularly concerned about finding pacers for the hours of darkness - before 7 a.m. and after 7:30 p.m. - when her chance of injury will be higher in her exhausted state. If you may be interested, please comment here and we'll get you into the loop.***

I wasn't up for a full loop today so when we had followed the main Bruce to the north end of the final side trail in Hockley Provincial Park, I turned back and ran on side trails. It was an interesting run with a couple of conversation stops. I met Dave of Dave's Pinnacle (on the Bruce Trail near 5th Line) and a large volunteer crew rebuilding steps. I felt guilty, like I should stop and help, but I'll just remind everyone who runs on the Bruce to maintain a current membership to share in paying for trail and land costs. It's only $50/year, whether you buy an individual or family membership - a bargain for all the entertainment the trail gives us.
http://brucetrail.org/

Then I ran into Norm Nadon of Running Free Orangeville, a Facebook friend who became a real world friend today.

The bad news is that the point pain on top of my left foot from the Killarney loop is still there. It's weird. It feels like a bruise from too-tight shoelaces but it doesn't seem to be getting better. I can see and feel a soft bump but it only hurts if I push on it, which happens when the shoe presses on it when I run downhill. I think it may be some kind of mini-tendinitis. Not a big deal most of the time but it would make a long, hilly run pretty unpleasant.

It's National Dog Day!
BazingaDog (Brody) and AdventureDog (Logan)

Weights and physio. I've neglected this recently and I'd forgotten how good it feels.

I've added photos for Monday's SUP yoga class, including evidence of that elusive headstand!

Great ride with Dee and Mrs. Gally! On my ride over to meet them, I saw two police cars parked in front of 'Bent's office so I stopped to make sure all was well. Turns out the Palgrave variety store was robbed. :(

We rode an hour in Palgrave then headed to Albion Hills. We had the trails almost to ourselves. There were some adventure racing moments when we went through thick summer vegetation, bushwhacked around a newly fallen tree on the trail and heaved our bikes over the new gate at Reddington. We saw Bob's car in Albion and stopped to chat; he and the crew are setting up the Mud Hero race for this weekend.

In the short time I was out, a 15 cm tree branch fell and blocked the Oak Ridges Trail on the west side of Duffy's Lane. Yikes, it wasn't even that windy today! This is 'Bent's commute route so I stopped to haul it out of the way and break off some of the smaller branches.

'Bent joined us tonight. Caron had us work on doing tight turns around a buoy, then we had a little race from one buoy to another and back again.

The air was chilly so nobody wanted to fall in but we all wanted to try headstands again so Caron included it as the final pose of the class. Last week I got 2/3 of the way up. Tonight I made it up and held the headstand for 5-6 seconds. Fun! I hadn't done one since I was a little kid, and balancing on the SUP added some extra fun.

Short run around Palgrave West with AdventureDog.

Some days I can tell I'm running with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.

Other days, I'm completely unaware of it. ;)

Sorry Goose couldn't join us today on his new arm bike. Wishing him a swift recovery from his bike-tree-body encounter!

To Spirit Tree Cidery in southwest Caledon.

We had a delicious lunch with pear cider at Spirit Tree. I'd made a reservation last night, which inspired us to keep a brisk pace on our ride over and got us a nice table on the patio. Cyclists arrived in droves. I highly recommend it as a destination ride!
http://www.spirittreecider.com/

Our ride home was a little more leisurely with a long, social stop at the Caledon Hills Cycling shop. We always meet one or two customers we know, as well as the owner, Don. And... well, it's always nice to walk past a bunch of new bikes. :)

This ride was mostly rail trail with a few kms of hilly single track and a little road. Rail trail rides from our place are mostly easy but the most strenuous part is the final kilometre of hill climbing on trail before our place. Nice to be forced to finish strong, I guess. :)

Ran around the trails of Palgrave West on a hot, humid day. I was surprised to have the same top-of-foot point pain that hurt with every step for the last few hours of our Killarney trek. I'd assumed it was a small bruise caused by tight shoelaces but that would have been gone by now so there must be a little more to it. I wouldn't want to do anything too long on foot till it's fixed.

There are two huge blockages on the K-Bash trails due to multiple large trees blowing down. That could put a damper on XC ski season since the property guardian doesn't want people to do trail work. Nice to see all the August wildflowers, anyway!

Men's fashion ads from the 1970s. Warning: Um... that's all. Just "warning".
http://www.vintag.es/2015/06/these-mens-fashion-ad...

Here's a creative concept for a race happening in Michigan next June. It's a team trail race where runners on a team all start together but they're running different distances so each one turns around at his or her halfway point until the final runner on the team (doing 50K) is alone. Total team running time is calculated using handicaps for age and gender.
http://www.muttrace.com

Rodney Yee Power Yoga for Flexibility. I had thoughts of doing more today but (a) the heat makes me lazy, and (b) I geeked out working on a new map filing system.

Things got a little crazy tonight...

La Cloche Silhouette Trail
Killarney Provincial Park

Warning: Long report with many photos - but hey, it's supposed to be a 10-day hike! Best to leave now or else pour yourself a drink and settle in. Thanks to Heather and Richard for additional photos.

GPS tracks at the bottom of today's entry
Elapsed time: 28 hrs
Very rough guess at moving time: 26 hrs
Bear count: 1 (running away)

Richard and I have done a bunch of paddling trips in the Killarney area but haven't spent much time exploring trails. As a last-minute idea for my birthday, inspired by Sally, Kristen and Allison, I suggested that we hike the La Cloche Silhouette Trail, about 80 km. Thrilled that I hadn't suggested yet another trail ultra race, Richard was in. ;)

Heather was able to join us while Sean headed off to race in B.C. Angus planned to come until he experienced a close encounter of the bike/body/tree kind last Sunday. :(

We planned to hike briskly and not worry too much about the time, other than meeting a dogsitter deadline on Sunday at 6 p.m. We wanted to swim, enjoy views, take photos and gaze at stars without a strong sense of urgency.

After an early alarm on Saturday, we parked the car near our finish point in George Lake Campground and started hiking at 5:19 a.m.



It's a big campground and it was almost 2 km to the trail entrance with a little confusion since we hadn't brought the campsite map.



We were hiking the loop counterclockwise to hit the most consistently technical parts of the trail while we were fresh and had daylight to enjoy the best views. The first few kms were supposed to be easier so we started before sunrise. There was a heat warning with high humidity so it was going to be a tough day.

One thing we quickly realized: the word "easy" was relative. Although our weekend forecast was perfect, it had rained the day before. The trail crossed different types of rock, and one common type remained wet and slippery all weekend. We learned to recognize and avoid it but not before each of us had a big splat or two!

At first light, we reached Little Sheguiandah Lake and basically went nuts ooohing and aaahing and taking photos. What an amazing spot! It looked like a Group of Seven painting. (Did they paint here, GHOSLO?)





We were impressed by our friends who have run this trail - not to mention Eric Batty, who did it in 9.5 hours! It was slow going at times.







The climb up to and through The Crack is one of the highlights of the route.









We'd been told this would be one of the best views of the day so we took a long break at the top to enjoy it.



We posed for photos.



We took photos of each other taking photos.



We got excited.





We got contemplative.



We did yoga.





We updated Facebook and checked on Sean's race out west.



We practised meaningful gazes into the distance in case we're ever asked to audition for Boundless.



The morning fog burned off and the views got better and better.



With regret, we pulled ourselves away and rejoined the trail, which continued to be challenging in places.





I slipped and scuffed my arm while descending one of these cliffs and would have landed on my head if I hadn't grabbed a tree root. I can only imagine how difficult this would be with a heavy pack on a rainy day. We were all super careful since it would be hard to arrange a rescue in here.

We got beautiful views of Silver Peak.



Then we stopped at Silver Lake - gorgeous!





Most of the campsites were off-trail and downhill, and we needed to refill our water bladders often due to the heat. We'd hoped to swim in Silver Lake but the water didn't look that enticing so we just dipped our heads and shirts to cool off.



All of us had been up Silver Peak before so we'd decided not to include it. It was fun to meet all the excited people near the side trail turn-off. Other than that busy section, we met very few hikers in 28 hours on the trail.

We climbed up onto the wide quartzite ridges of the Hansen Township section of trail - my favourite part of the hike with open, spectacular views interspersed with small areas of forest.









This section wouldn't be fun in bad weather though. A solo backpacker told us about her scary trek up there in rain and hail yesterday.

We were still roasting so we took the portage trail down to David Lake to refill our water (again!) and go for a much-needed swim. Ahhh. We re-lubed our feet and Heather dealt with some unexpected hot spots.





We'd all packed surprise treats for the group so I called a halt when we were overlooking Little Mountain Lake and Great Mountain Lake in early evening light. I served Kahlua shots and orange-chocolate chip biscotti. Heather stared at me wide-eyed and asked in a small, incredulous voice, "Is that... alcohol?" She was rather pleased with my answer! ;)



After relaxing and enjoying Happy Hour, we decided to make the most of the remaining daylight hours since we still had some technical sections ahead. We plunged down a long, steep trail and turned off on the portage to Little Mountain Lake since we didn't know when we would find clean water again. Richard had brought two UV sterilizers, which worked pretty well but it was still quite a production to get all our bladders filled.



We'd been to Little Mountain Lake before on a couple of canoe trips when we were camping on Great Mountain Lake (highly recommended).

Richard and I remembered having Tobler with us on a day hike on the La Cloche Silhouette trail and we'd turned back because it was unsafe for a dog. We couldn't remember which way we'd gone from Little Mountain Lake; both directions looked familiar and both were steep. My AP log from July 2006 confirms that both Tobler and Mocha were with us.



In 2006, we went west from Little Mountain Lake first but hit a very steep climb early on so we turned back and went east instead. So we actually *had* gone both directions, which is why we couldn't remember which one was right!

Heather led the way up the steep climb west of Little Mountain Lake. Although it was mostly dry - thankfully - this was one of the hairiest climbs of the day. No wonder we didn't take the dogs up there!



Once we made it up alive, we had a great view back to Little Mountain Lake.



We pulled out our headlamps soon afterward. Heather surprised us with yummy chocolate chip shortbread - a great idea for a long trek. They are pure calories and taste awesome!

We enjoyed the final evening light along one of our last big open ridges.



This ridge overlooked Threenarrows Lake. As it turned out, it took us all 9 hours of darkness to approach and skirt this huge lake, only part of which is visible in this photo! At first light, we passed the bay at its southernmost tip before heading southeast to George Lake.



Although the trail is much easier on average on its west side, there are still technical moves. I slipped on a slick descent (maybe the "waterfall"?) and bent my right knee all the way back - ouch. Then there was a tall, unexpected cliff to climb as we were "descending" to the lake.

My well-used BashBlaster headlamp turned itself on and off a few times tonight, and it failed completely just after I reached the top of the cliff - phew! Luckily, its manufacturer was hiking nearby and pulled a warranty replacement headlamp from his pack for me to use.

When we finally got down closer to Threenarrows Lake, the trail became much less technical for a long time - and we paid for it as we each zoned out and went through our own period of sleepy staggering. We took a couple of catnap stops during the night. I wasn't sleepy for the first one so I just gazed at the stars but I was the one who had to call the second stop later on.

At 1 a.m., Richard announced a significant bathroom break. I wandered up the trail a bit and returned a few minutes later to find him with Heather; they were squatting together and shining their lights on something dark brown sitting on tin foil. Huh?!?!?

Oh! It was a birthday cake! (Thank God.)




Huge thanks to Coach LD, who baked a special backpacking cake with chocolate icing cleverly placed *inside* the cake. Heather had brought sparklers and Richard gave me a card. What a wonderful surprise party sitting on open rock under the Milky Way!



Heather surprised me with a birthday treat last year too since we were doing the World Rogaining Championships together. It has become a nice tradition. ;)

As we sat on the ground, we heard a loud crack as a huge tree branch slowly broke off and crashed to the ground nearby. Our headlamps were pointed to the sky but we had no idea whether it was coming our way. It would have been sad to be crushed during a birthday party.

One of the reasons I posted our GPS track online was for safety in the highly unlikely situation where none of us was able to go for help in an emergency. If that tree had fallen in our direction, that might have been useful... yikes.

Soon after that, we were very short of water and unfortunately woke up some sleeping hikers as we tried to sneak down a side trail to the lake. Luckily, they were friendly but I hope they got back to sleep right away. :(

There is a frustrating section of trail that skirts a narrow channel at the southwest tip of Threenarrows Lake. It's about 1.8 km west to a bridge, then 1.8 km east along the opposite shore. I could probably throw a baseball across the channel. We half-heartedly contemplated swimming but it was dark and our gear was hard to waterproof fully, so we just stuck to the trail.



Next up was the steepest portage in the park, known as The Pig. It was an old logging road and was not bad compared to what we'd done earlier in the hike - just long and rocky.

The last part of the hike to George Lake seemed to go on a long time but there were some beautiful moments.



Exhausted but happy at George Lake!



We turned the wrong way and added some extra distance looking for our car - our only real nav problem of the trip. But after a short nap, cool swim, clean clothes and a big, greasy breakfast, we were all smiles.

Thanks Heather and Richard for making this such a fun adventure! And thanks to Sian for sending that delicious cake. :)

GPS Track - Part 1
Started at 5:19 a.m.

Time - 6:23
Distance - 0.527 km

Noticed wrong watch mode while still in the campground so I turned it off and restarted.

GPS Track - Part 2
5:26 a.m.

Time - 17:05:11
Distance - 49.22 km
Climb - 2022 m

GPS Track - Part 3

Time - 11:02:36
Distance - 32.449 km
Climb - 801 m

Browner, 'Bent and I are doing the Killarney Loop (La Cloche Silhouette Trail) this weekend as my birthday treat. If anyone wants to play along at home, we'll be carrying a Delorme tracker. Password is Killarney. We're starting early Saturday morning and aiming to finish Sunday morning.
https://share.delorme.com/BarbCampbell

Paddle around the quarry on a windy evening. Worked on my pivot turns a bit.

SUP yoga - full class with only one dunkee. Luckily, it wasn't me!

And then my mild afternoon headache flared into something so nasty that I had to go straight to bed without dinner. Looking at the bright side, I had a long sleep (with an hour of wakefulness at 1am) and probably lost half a pound. But I'd rather have skipped the experience. Blah.

Visiting my Mom for a couple of days. Remembered my Ambit but forgot to pack my running shorts. Maybe I need more sleep...

Groggy this morning after trying unsuccessfully to sleep as trains chugged by my least favourite campground in the world, Oastler Lake Provincial Park. Official Motto: "There's nowhere else to stay around here. Deal with it."

But it was a perfect day, and Parry Sound has a Starbucks so I got sufficiently caffeinated to do a Georgian Bay paddle out of Snug Harbour and around Franklin Island. At times 'Bent and I had a brisk headwind but the water didn't get too wavy even by the afternoon, so paddling conditions were perfect.





We had a long stop right at the beginning when my rudder only went down partway. The cord had shrunk over time. The last person to use this sea kayak was Hermes, and I vaguely remember her saying something about the rudder not working. Hmm, I guess this was it but luckily she won that race (Logs Rocks & Steel) anyway. Sorry, Hermes!

Lots of people were camped on Franklin Island but it still felt wild and rugged as we paddled along its outer shoreline.



I had a marine chart for much of our route but hadn't been able to find my topo map. 'Bent downloaded a free topo map onto his phone. As suspected, it's a great app that is less practical than paper if you want to paddle at the same time as you read the map. Other than that, it worked well.

Beautiful day!













Time deducted for rudder repair and lounging on the rocks eating chocolate croissants for Second Breakfast.

No training but I hit my max heart rate when I realized that nearly all the other women had interpreted today's wedding invitation differently.

Instructions were: "Please dress casually and wear comfortable shoes." The invitation referenced 1.3 km of walking to/from the outdoor wedding site, an afternoon of lawn games, dinner, dancing and an evening campfire. Ladies, before you read further, what would you have worn? Changing during the day would mean changing in your car so you would probably stick with one outfit.

The correct answer is: a dress about 80-100% as fancy as you would wear to a regular wedding, with nice jewellery and low-heeled sandals you can kick off for the lawn games. Oops! I wore dressy capris and short-sleeved shirt, thinking I might be overdressed for the lawn games. Um, nope. I wasn't entirely alone in my choice but I was definitely on the un-dressy end of the continuum and felt a little stressed about it when we first arrived. Too bad, I love dressing up!

When the bride came up the aisle, she really made me smile and my stress melted away. Partly that's because C and C are such a happy, well-matched couple and their entire wedding day was wonderful. We've known her since before she was born.





But also, I felt way, WAY more relaxed after seeing the bride's awesome wedding shoes. :) It was a great reminder that she isn't the type of person to care if her guests were dressed differently from one another. Fun celebration!

Not a planned rest day but ran out of time.

We almost signed up for Muskoka River X since the dates finally work for us this year - but 'Bent (new Attackpoint name: "Wet Blanket") thinks we ought to have trained for it by actually canoeing a few times this year. Sheesh.

@Map lovers: Cool story about the Soviet Union's remarkable maps made during the Cold War.
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/

Ladies' Day in the Beaver Valley! Hermes had planned a terrific canoe paddle on the Beaver River from Epping to Heathcote, followed by a nice run back to our cars. Coach LD and I were excited!



Goose liked our plan except for a slight technicality: he isn't a Lady. So we just decided to wear skirts, which gave him a way to fit in. :)



This section of the Beaver River was serene, surrounded by farmland and forest. There were only a few riffles and rocks. It was deliciously cool compared to the weather we've been having, and it was mostly sunny with a few drops of rain. So relaxing. :)

We flipped the canoes near the put-in in Heathcote and ran back to Epping via a surprisingly hilly mix of trails and roads. It reminded me of the Creemore Vertical Challenge since there were long, spectacular views from the roads. Hermes took us on a side trail that wound along a pretty brook and up another hill.

After returning to Heathcote to pick up the boats, we made our second visit of the day to the Heathcote Bakery. Most of us scarfed down berry scones pre-paddle and buttertarts post-paddle. Excellent choices. :) Then we went to the bakery in Thornbury, which had yummy sandwiches and coffee. We capped off a wonderful day with a tour of Hermes and Bob's new house - and were thrilled to be sent home with freshly made banana bread!

Hockley Loop with Dee on a humid day. Dee arrived early and ran a little extra before I got there, then she added a little more by running up some hills and back to me. I like to find ways to run with faster friends so this worked out well.

Great to catch up. Both of us ran long races 17 days ago, and our legs reminded us about it. I felt like I was going faster than usual because Dee was pulling me out of my comfort zone but our time was the same as I've done a few times, so apparently my comfort zone insists on more comfort than it used to!

'Bent and I paddled around Island Lake in Orangeville. After 10 years of fundraising and construction, the Vicki Barron loop trail around the lake is now open! Part of it runs on big bridges across the water since some of the shore is privately owned and other areas are sensitive wetlands. So now we'll be able to do an 8 km paddle bricked with a relatively flat, partially forested 10 km run. It's probably worth buying a family membership again next year; we haven't done that in awhile.
http://orangeville.ca/news/2015/07/17/trail-at-isl...

We were going to run a little today but... Dairy Queen.

Huge congratulations to BugsinTeeth for successfully completing the 125 km Canadian Death Race this weekend!

For the first time in the event's 15-year history, a woman won the solo race overall. Alissa St. Laurent finished in 13 hrs 53 min, a mere 90 minutes ahead of the guy who came 2nd. (!!!)

Fun holiday weekend excursion to Hardwood Hills with Goose and 'Bent. Trails were quiet in the morning. The only riders to pass me were... Goose and 'Bent. I passed one family whose young boys were repeating a difficult section they had already completed successfully. Otherwise, it felt like I had the trails to myself.

I started with the Serious trail and switched onto Gnarly, an advanced trail. I finished it but it turns out I'm not as gnarly as I used to be - not that the trail is the same as it was. Rather than bump-bump-bumping and dabbing my way around another advanced trail, my second loop was the full Serious trail, which is medium to advanced difficulty and focuses more on sweet flow vs. sweet obstacles. Call me a wimp (go ahead! I deserve it!) but I really enjoyed the feeling of continuous swooping up, down and around over manageable roots and rocks without narrow bridges, rock gardens or big drop-offs.

Our final loop was the Fun trail, also medium difficulty. This time the boys kept the pace down and we rode together. Well, 'Bent was already keeping the pace down because his legs were tired but Goose could have ridden all day.

Fun!! And it was followed by some good burritos and an iced Starbucks latte too. I used the bike computer distance.

Nice social ride with Mr. and Mrs. Veinbuster. We parked at Spirit Tree Cidery and headed for the rail trail. Turns out it's currently closed at Creditview due to construction so we had to go west to Terra Cotta, which made for a shorter ride. Mrs. V. is just getting back to biking after foot surgery so we tried to avoid hills and situations where she would have to unclip. We were only marginally successful in that department since even the flat areas of Caledon have hills!

Lunch at Spirit Tree was really good and we brought home some yummy treats to help make our holiday weekend feel extra festive. :)