Training Log Archive: Bash

It was a rather spooky Hallowe’en but it’s all good now.

Back to Dr. Thumbs-of-Death for more foot torture. My calf was still sore from Thursday but he inflicted pain on some other areas today. It feels like there's been a lot of progress after two treatments. The newly sprained ankle on my other foot prevents me from having any delusions of running fitness and good health.

Ontario Orienteering Championship Long course
Tyandaga/Sassafras Woods

Yes, I know. I'm supposed to be taking a break from running to deal with my foot injury but I'd already paid for this one race and it was pretty short so I told myself I would hike most of the course. Naturally, I didn't. That's why I dropped out of Raid The Hammer; my will power in such matters is feeble.

It was a cool, late fall day with some vibrant autumn colours, especially in the undergrowth. It was perfect for orienteering, once I'd warmed up.

I looked back at my training log and noticed that all but 23 minutes of my orienteering this year took place on snow! My last race was the Eliminator in early March. So I felt rusty today.

I often mess up the first control on a course and I did it again. I totally forgot that the start triangle was up the trail from where we started so my route to #1 was not what I'd planned - probably less distance but I spent more time in slow terrain. It was a 30-60 second error. After that, things went pretty well. I was running at a decent pace and making reasonable route choices.

That all changed as I was running from #4 to #5. I was on a flat, wide trail, focusing on stable weight shifting of my injured right foot: heel, big toe, heel, big toe - just like Dr. Bell taught me. Then CRUNCH, I cranked my left ankle hard because I wasn't thinking about it at all. A brief but enthusiastic stream of profanity ensued as I hobbled down the trail in pain. A grandfatherly-looking man with a map came around a bend toward me and I couldn't tell from his expression whether he'd heard me. Whoops.

I left the trail early and veered too far east between #5 and #6, losing 2 minutes due to the extra distance in rough terrain.

It was a pretty good run for me and enough to defend my Ontario championship. Goose and 'Bent ran Peak-2-Peak together in the same area and finished tied as the top Masters! Great to see so many friends out.

Long Course 3 - Splits

Hermes, Hank and I enjoyed a beautiful, chatty autumn hike around the Loree Forest loop. Actually, Hank isn't that chatty but he's adorable. We topped it off with buttertarts and lattes in Ravenna. Fun to catch up! My foot was pain-free although there were some small twinges later at home - nothing like last weekend, fortunately.

I didn't wear my Ambit today but here's the route.
https://ar.attackpoint.org/sessiondata.jsp?session...

I saw Dr. Thumbs-of-Death today about the pain on the medial side of my right calcaneus (heel bone). He says what I'm feeling is bone pain at the location where the Achilles tendon is attached. The medial side of my soleus muscle is really tight, which pulls on the Achilles, which pulls on the bone. This has pulled the foot over to one side, and the bones in the foot are mashed together. The difference in flexibility between my feet is easy to see and feel. I remember it being the other way around four years ago.

He agrees that I should take a short break from running, do physio exercises, manually work on the tight areas (and let him do some of that) and ice any inflammation. He doesn't think it will take long to get things working properly. Phew.

The treatment was excruciating so I guess I got my money's worth.

Hard Core Live with Caron

Class built around foam rollers and tennis balls - good stuff!

Boot camp - only had to modify one exercise to make it low impact.

As much as I've hoped it would fade away, it's official - I'm injured. It feels very much like the problem I had 4 years ago - a burning pain on the side of the heel bone when I step up onto my forefoot. In 2013, it was either an Achilles insertion problem or retrocalcaneal bursitis. The name of the problem wasn't as important to Dr. Bell as improving my running mechanics - which worked but it started with not running for awhile. :(

Last time the pain was on the outside of my left heel, which has traditionally been my gimpy foot due to a bunch of ankle sprains over the past 20 years. This time it's the inside of my right heel and there is a hard bump at the painful spot. It's bigger than the bump I remember on the left heel, which seems to be gone. That's encouraging because I thought it was permanent bone so maybe there's hope for this bump too.

Ugh. But I'm optimistic that if I can avoid running for awhile, do my physio exercises and see a sports chiro, it will improve. Last time I was loathe to stop running, which undoubtedly delayed my recovery.

Up early to get ready for more tradesmen to make a mess in our living room. The good news is that the inside work is done now. We're now ready to offer BASE jumping out our new patio door.

It was a beautiful summer day in late October. If we had glaciers in Caledon, I'm afraid they would be melting but it sure was lovely in the forest.

I ran the Bruce Trail from Innis Lake north to Hwy 9, through all of Glen Haffy.



Then I did a couple of side loops through the fields and past the fishing ponds.



I returned on the Bruce and went a little farther south on Innis Lake Rd. since I'd been aiming for 2 hours.



It was my longest run since UTMR and after an initial burst of energy ("Awesome, I haven't lost any fitness at all!"), I felt exhausted ("I suck at this sport!").

I felt much better after a buttertart and chocolate milk from Rock Garden Farms - a lunch that covered the most important food groups.

'Bent joined me for a wonderful volunteer job on a glorious autumn day - a ride to Albion Hills to pay the admission fees for our Star Tracks racers. On the way back, we rode a bunch of single track and 'Bent was flying.

Our new fire pit works! Our meteor watching was not particularly successful though. Score was 1-0 in my favour.

Hard Core Live with Caron - it was obvious that I'm out of practice.

C3 yoga - nice to be back

Someone just arrived to knock a hole in the side of our living room. Gulp.

Beautiful day so I squeezed in a short, late afternoon ride in Palgrave East. As Canadians know, there was late breaking news on the CBC today. Canadian Running Magazine created a Tragically Hip running playlist in Gord Downie's honour and it worked just fine for biking. It's the first time I've ridden with Spotify blaring out of my jersey pocket.

I've posted this before but it's worth another listen. This song was written for Gord's young nephew who died of a heart ailment.



And this is one I'd forgotten - his version of "Hallelujah" from the film "St. Ralph". (That's a lot of Canadiana in one sentence.)

It's Boot Camp time again! Caron always has creative ideas to make us work.

Trying to nip the Achilles twinge in the bud

It's been awhile since I've braved a run with BazingaDog by myself. With his strength and impulsiveness, he's pulled me off my feet a bunch of times and caused a few minor injuries.

But he's six and a half years old now - a middle-aged pooch with a gentle demeanour and a little grey creeping into his muzzle. I knew it wasn't totally safe but I hitched us together with the skijoring harness on him and a belt around my waist, and we went for a run through Palgrave East and West.

I'd call it a success. We had many breaks so he could mark territory or sniff. I saw a few deer that he did not - phew. There was some frenzied sniffing and dashing around the places where the deer had crossed the trail but I managed to keep him from leaping into the forest. There was just one scary moment when an animal was scrabbling in the woods a meter off the trail and B-Dog lunged perpendicular to our path. I screamed his name (literally screamed - like in a horror movie), he stopped and stared at me with concern, and we avoided smashing my head into a tree trunk. It was a win.

Running feels fine. I'd hoped to start back up in early October but even now, it still feels like hill climbing is easier than usual so I guess I haven't lost all my fitness from UTMR. My right Achilles is niggling a bit though, and that's not the usual problem foot.

Event: Star Tracks Mountain Bike Adventure
 

Additional Star Tracks photos are available on the Stars Orienteering public Facebook group. I think you might need to be a member to be tagged in the photos.

The 4th annual Star Tracks Mountain Bike Adventure was a lot of fun. We have a great team of volunteers and an amazing group of racers who don't have any problem with mud.

Over the past month, my involvement with the racing scene has looked like these photos.



Actually, a more accurate photo would show me with a computer on my lap.

For some reason, I seem to have confused "race directing" with "conducting an orchestra".



Thanks, everyone! There's a lot of preparation for Star Tracks but you make race day pretty easy for us. Special congrats to some high achieving Attackpointers: Wokitoki (aka Chad, 2nd overall) 'Bent (3rd overall), Browner (4th overall and 1st woman), Coach LD (1st Female Masters), Team Gally (1st Family) and Leek/St. Louis (2nd Family). FB won our Muddiest Male Racer Award.

Results

Photos by the talented Ilona Dobos

Goose and I arrived at Albion Hills just as the rain began. We split up the Star Tracks controls and headed into the woods on separate routes just before sunset. Luckily, we enjoyed a huge downpour, which meant that no random park visitor was likely to tamper with our flags.

Afterward, Funderstorm hosted a small gathering in her van, Earl. Several Star Tracks racers camped at Albion Hills and "soaked" up the atmosphere tonight. The forecast is wild enough for tomorrow that I wrote the racers and invited them to arrive half an hour earlier than advertised. The craziest weather is forecast to arrive in the afternoon.

Given the trouble we have finding reliable tradespeople out here in the boonies, I can't really complain that the JC Landscaping guys who have been here for the past two weeks are some of the hardest workers I've ever seen. Like most days, their machinery woke me this morning while it was dark out and they were still here at 5 p.m.

Almost done though. Who's coming over for a beer? At the moment, it's BYO chair.

This is cool. Pick a year and find out what words were first used in print that year. Richard and I were married in 1996 - the year that saw the first appearance of: fist bump, big data, smartphone, kiteboarding, cloud computing and senior moment.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-by-first-kno...

Note to self: If I don't run for a month, then even a 9 km run makes my Achilles feel tight the next day. I must never do that again.

This was my first run since Ultra Tour Monte Rosa ended one month ago today. Unbelievable! It wasn't really a normal run since I was doing work at Albion Hills for Star Tracks so there were stops (not logged) and starts. What a spectacular, warm autumn day!

That's all I can say since my activities were Top Secret.

Danny MacAskill was asked to test a carbon wheel to destruction.

After hanging new Star Tracks posters around Albion Hills to replace a few that got ruined in heavy rain, I went out on the race course to do some additional work. Beautiful day for riding once again! Moving time logged only.

Wilderness Traverse post-race tasks are slowing down so I had time to ride over to Albion Hills to mark the boundaries of a big construction site on the Star Tracks Mountain Bike Adventure map. We'd hoped some of the area might be reopened before the race but that's not going to happen.

I didn't bother updating the Open course since those racers can just navigate around the construction site as an extra challenge. :) But I had to adjust the Novice course to steer them away - I hope - from trails that aren't suited to novices.

Mountain bikers are so nice. Two different riders came over and offered to help me find my way when they saw me stopped, staring at a map and making notes. They both received some MTB-O-vangelism!

A stranger yelled out, "Nice bike!", which never happened with my Specialized. :) I felt like an impostor. I can't possibly live up to my bike!

It felt great to be out on such a gorgeous October day. It's been almost four weeks since UTMR and I feel a strong need to be active again.