Training Log Archive: Bash

Long day of travel but then I got to hang out with Carbon’s Offset and Slice!

Localized pain under left medial malleolus is still there. Damn, I waited four weeks to run after the sprain, and I was congratulating myself on being patient because it felt so good - until I turned it again. I'll wear my ankle brace while running in the next week or two, including Raid The Hammer.

Flat run from Tree Hugger ABC in Collingwood - out to the Georgian Trail and around a big block, then home through the George Christie trail system. My foot loosened up and felt OK but it feels stiff tonight. It was *much* better running in terrain where I could see my footing. I will wear an ankle brace for Raid The Hammer.

Foot still a bit tender - one more day before taking it running again.

In other news, there was blowing snow for a couple of hours but it didn’t stay.

Foot pain is a notch higher today, not surprisingly - definitely not as bad as it was after the sprain last month though.

I had another painful visit with Dr. Thumbs-of-Death this morning and just missed Coach LD, apparently. I asked him if it's OK to run on my gimpy ankle now and he said it's time to "work it hard". So AdventureDog and I went for a short forest run around Palgrave West. The ankle is still creaky - and maybe it always will be - but running felt great. I felt like the queen of the world until 200 meters from home when I turned my ankle. (Everyone saw that coming, right?) I wasn't ready for a trail covered with leaves. Obviously. Fortunately, it's not too bad. I should have run on the road but A-Dog couldn't have joined me.

Hard Core Live with Caron - it's baaack! This year it's in Inglewood.

C3 yoga - It's the first class since the summer break and most of us noticed a few underused muscles and some reduced flexibility. 'Bent said he's been keeping up with his strength and stretching so he didn't moan like the rest of us.

It was a Mom day and half my “to do” list involved technology. She’s really good with electronic devices for an 86-year-old!

Since I'll be doing some cautious running while my ankle recovers, today's workout time was dedicated to treadmill maintenance, which apparently you are supposed to do. I've had the treadmill for 8.5 years and had never opened its manual to that section. I wouldn't have looked there today either if the treadmill hadn't shut itself down a few months ago, demanding that I lube its running deck before it would operate again. Shortly afterward, I did some googling, bought the appropriate product and proceeded to do nothing.

Today I finally cracked the manual and learned that I was supposed to have been lubing the running deck every 6 months. Not only that, there were lists of tasks that I’m supposed to do after each run, once a week and once a month. As if! I decided to be a good citizen and do all of those things today though. Chances are pretty good it will be another 8.5 years before I do any of them again.

So... yesterday I did a 2-hr orienteering event with an ankle brace - my first significant activity on foot in the 25 days since a nasty ankle sprain. It was a mix of trails and bushwhacking over uneven terrain. I walked for the first 90 minutes, then tried a little easy running on smooth trails in the final half hour.

Today I woke up a little sore but it wasn't my ankle; it was my hip flexors! Apparently I haven't needed to lift my feet that high for awhile. :) The same thing happens to me every year after my first long classic ski.

So this was pretty exciting. There is still some pain in my ankle but it doesn't feel much different than it did a couple of days ago. I guess it's safe to try some running on even surfaces. Yay!

Fans of the Barkley Marathons are familiar with Lazarus Lake. One of his other events is Big's Backyard Ultra where participants run a 4.166667 mile loop at 40 minutes after the hour. During the day, it's a trail loop starting in Laz's back yard. At night, it's an out-and-back on the country road Laz lives on. This is not a random distance; it works out to 100 miles in 24 hours.

Runners must return within 60 minutes and they must start their next loop at exactly 40 minutes after the hour. All food, water, sleep, first aid and other breaks need to be squeezed into the minutes or seconds between loops. The winner is the Last Man Standing, which is also the generic name for this race format.

This year the Last Man Standing might be a Woman - the incredible Courtney Dauwalter who won Western States this year. After 57 hours and 237.5 miles, just 3 runners remain of 70+ who started. Defending champion Guillaume Calmettes was hobbled by tendinitis on Loop 55 and had to drop out. Greg Salveson was a finalist but did not finish his 57th loop in time to continue. Johan Steene of Sweden and Gavin Woody of Washington are the two other contenders.

Live results are available here, updated realtime - most interesting if you check at about 35 minutes past each hour. The record for this race format is 245.8 miles and it looks like they're going to pass it soon.
https://my2.raceresult.com/110552/?fbclid=IwAR3mY8...

Dontgetlost Peak-2-Peak

It was a perfect day to explore the Dundas Valley - autumn colours, cool weather and good friends. Because of my injured ankle, I planned to hike most or all of the time, which made it hard to plan a route on a course where controls were so spread out. I'd like to say my navigation was spot on, given my slow pace, but I think I got distracted at times because it took me so long to get anywhere.

After 90 minutes of brisk hiking, my braced ankle didn't feel any worse so I decided to try some easy running on smooth trail sections. After only a few minutes of that, I started a long bushwhack so I probably only got to run 10-15 minutes. We'll see how things feel tomorrow morning; it's too soon to know.

I decided to visit a double black diamond control near the south end of the map, knowing I would arrive late at the finish and lose a big chunk of my points. Since I wasn't in the mix competitively, I figured it would be more fun to visit the control.

Lunch at Grupetto afterward!

'Bent and I rode in Palgrave East today, which is in great shape. We stopped to chat with Tammy, who was out for a run. We met a few hikers and only 3 other riders on a beautiful afternoon.

We kept up a decent pace, considering that neither of us is really training for anything. As soon as my ankle gets unsprained, I need to put something on the calendar for motivation. I'm interested to see how it feels after tomorrow's easy-paced orienteering.







Bike computer distance and time. (Didn't turn my watch on right away.)

Fun, quick toodle around Palgrave East single track before dinner. Trails are in great shape and I can't believe I ever doubted getting a 29er.

On a less fun note, we found our 2nd black legged tick indoors since Monday. The first was dead, probably killed by the dogs' tick prevention medication. The second tick was very much alive, walking across 'Bent's eReader. Yikes. Palgrave isn't known as a hot spot for Lyme infection but we're also not known as a hot spot for black legged ticks.

Dr. Thumbs-of-Death dug into my foot and lower leg today. As always, it took every ounce of willpower I have to keep the conversation "flowing" to take my mind off the excruciating pain. There was no comparison in mobility between my two feet; the left one was "locked" when he tried to move it from side to side. Apparently, he sees a lot of pain on the lateral side of the knee in people who have feet like my left one. He made some progress today but I'll be back for more torture next week. It's been 22 days since the sprain. I signed up for the Peak-2-Peak Adventure Run on Sunday with the plan to hike with a map. I'll have to wear an ankle brace and be *super* careful but I think I'm ready for that.

Snow!!

Ankle still sore in a few specific places. I'm learning more about anatomy as I try to put names to those places.

I stayed up until 1 a.m. to watch our amazing 70-year-old friend, Bob Knuckey, cross the finish line at the Ironman World Championship in 11 hrs 55 mins. He finished ahead of 34 other men to become the new world champion in the 70-74 age group. His time was faster than when he raced at Kona four years ago when he was just a young buck of 66. We've watched him working toward this goal for several years - lots of 6 a.m. workouts, a few training sessions in the Arizona heat and much more. He is also a super nice guy.

A few hundred meters from the finish line, it almost fell apart. Bob started staggering and leaning. He banged into the guard rail and fell on the ground. But he got up and kept going. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for his friends and wife to watch him. In this raw video, you can hear his friends yelling at people not to touch him. (It would have disqualified him within sight of the finish.) I found it very emotional to watch this today even though I know Bob is OK (albeit with 6 stitches over his eye), he won the championship, and he got up early to do the laundry and clean up from last night's celebration. He joked on Facebook that I'll have to teach him how to run long distances without leaning. In recent months, a documentary film maker has been following him around and he certainly made it dramatic for her!

So many races to watch online today!

Timato is racing the Cloudsplitter 100 mile trail race in Virginia and seems to be doing very well around the halfway point. Updates are limited.

Charlotte Vasarhelyi, Benoit Letourneau and Kendra Olsen are running the Moab 240 mile trail race. Charlotte is 4th woman after 116 miles. There is live GPS tracking.
http://www.moab200.com/2017-moab-live.html

Our local friend Bob Knuckey is racing the Ironman World Championship in Kona. He recently turned 70 and for the past couple of years, it has been his goal to attempt to win the world championship for his age group and set a new record. He has just started the marathon in 1st place of 35 men in his age group. He was 3rd after the swim and moved into the lead after 50 km of biking. He has an 8-minute lead over the 2nd place man, who is the defending world champion and current record holder. There is still a lot of racing left to go but he is on track for both his goals right now. I'm going to be up late tonight! :)
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/coverage/athlete-...

Browner came over with Scout and Contour, which made the day perfect for BazingaDog and AdventureDog. After the pooches had enjoyed a good run around the yard, we left them together to race around the house while Browner and I rode around Palgrave East and West. We were originally aiming for Albion Hills but never got there since we managed to fill our time on the local trails. The colours are a little past their peak but it's still gorgeous in the forest. It was a nice, chatty ride. Browner let me go first to keep the pace slower; that's one of my strengths, if I do say so myself. :) So glad I can bike even though my foot still hurts too much to run.



(bike computer distance)

More angst over the building permit approval for our tiny deck. I could probably sue a few people but I just want the $%!!& problem solved.

After a late breakfast date with Goose and VO2Max, who is in town for his sister's wedding, I went for a bike ride around the Palgrave East single track. The autumn leaves are starting to get a little crunchy but they still look lovely.

There were a few places where I caught glimpses of things that didn't look like Mother Nature had put them there. I stopped to check this one out. Next time I'll have to check the others!





It was another crazy, humid day that went up to 28C with a humidex in the 30s. Environment Canada only has historic weather data online from 1949-2015 for our area so I can't confirm that the past two days have been record highs but they probably were - for the past 69 years anyway.

I sprained my ankle two weeks ago today and it's still quite painful when I first stand up. Walking feels almost normal after I get going. I'm grateful that biking is OK.

With the temperature at 28C and the humidex well over 30C, this didn't feel like a typical post-Thanksgiving autumn leaves hike. AdventureDog couldn't believe it! I wouldn't normally log this but since I can't run, at least this is something.









Where the trail enters our back yard

'Bent and I joined Browner and Storm in Albion for a short, chatty ride. It was a damp day but the colours were spectacular so it was great to be out. My sprained ankle was OK with unclipping from the pedal, which was encouraging. AdventureDog and BazingaDog were thrilled when Browner and Storm stopped by our place afterward!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Walked around Thornbury today and my foot eventually decided I'd done enough walking. Clearly, it's too early to try running. I may not be able to put off the push-ups much longer.

It's been a week since I sprained my left ankle so I guess it's time for a report. The first night, I was really worried. The only way I could walk was to stand on the toe of the injured foot as if I was wearing a high-heeled shoe on one side, which gave me quite a limp.

It was so painful that I honestly worried about how I would handle the physical demands of Wilderness Traverse, i.e. walking across a parking lot with my duffel bag or going down a flight of stairs to use the washroom. There was a fair bit of swelling and I used a lot of ibuprofen and ice.

By the next day, I could stand and walk with my foot in a normal position. The improvement in function was huge but there was still lots of pain. It feels like I tore something that hasn't been torn before - and I thought my left ankle was almost 100% scar tissue already!

A week later, I'm still not ready to try running but I would be OK to hike. There's a lot of bruising down the outside of my foot and pain in various places on the top of my foot, up my shin about 8 cm and around the bottom and sides of the medial malleolus. Because I have nearly full function and range of motion, I'm still optimistic it will be one of those injuries that heals in a few weeks. However, most of my ankle sprains have felt better after the first week. :(

Maybe it's time to try the push-up challenge again!

More WT follow-up! At this point, it's almost all fun and definitely less stressful than the work I do before and during the event.

I felt like eating today but my stomach still isn't 100%. Around mid-afternoon, I showered and got out of my jammies for the first time since Sunday night. Thank goodness for a laptop and wifi so I could work in bed when I didn't feel well enough to walk around.

Woke up with a headache and suspected food poisoning. Thank goodness this didn't hit on the weekend! At least I was inspired to catch up on sleep as a result. Then I read and responded to some of the hundreds of Wilderness Traverse Facebook posts and notifications. Our HQ reporters did an amazing job on social media and on our live coverage site. I didn't have time to write a single news article or FB post during the event and it's so much fun to catch up now.

Huge thank you to all our WT volunteers, whether you drove chilly racers back to HQ, unloaded bikes from a truck, watched dots and wrote stories, built a fire to warm racers, handed out cookies at CPs, helped with registration, took photos, texted times to HQ for the leaderboard or did any of a bazillion other tasks! We couldn't do it without every single one of you and we deeply appreciate you giving up your precious weekend to help our racers have the best possible experience.