Training Log Archive: Bash

2nd Annual Tree Huggers Invitational Adventure Run.

Great turnout this year - 35 racers and 60 total at the party. Other than forgetting to draw one of the 31 controls on the final version of the map (which only Hammer noticed), things went well and everyone was back safely before dark. Nobody returned with any injuries or traumatic stories of adversity, other than some serious burrs on Griz and Storm. Great performance by the boys and girls from Mac.

Today was my final vetting of the Tree Huggers Adventure Run race course. Bent will be doing it tomorrow, and hopefully the flags will all stay up until Saturday!. It was a beautiful, cold day with heavy snow flurries at times. Yahoo, it's almost time to get our XC skis out!

I'm predicting a winning time just under 90 minutes, using my usual rule of thumb that anyone who has ever lived in Scandinavia can do anything athletic twice as fast as I can do it. The course is longer than last year, but the higher quality map makes it go faster. The race will probably come down to success on the bonus questions, as it did last year.

I did the entire course in 3 hours, mostly running at medium speed, and making occasional stops to beef up the visiblity of some flags and word clues. I spent 5 minutes wandering around, unable to find one of my own controls when I came at it from a different direction - oops! The biggest diversion was 10 minutes of looking for ThunderDog when she suddenly dashed off into 40 acres of farmland where some aggressive guard dogs live, and disappeared from view. It wasn't pretty - I was running around in thigh-deep weeds, calling her name, blowing my whistle, and eventually crying when there was no sign of her. Just as I was about to phone Bent to tell him that he had to cancel his patients for the afternoon and come search for her, she appeared around the side of the farmhouse, looking very pleased with herself. Phew!!!

Hanging the final flags in Palgrave West for the Tree Hugger race. There was an impressive wind making all the trees look like the Whomping Willow, so I just ran in and ran out. I'm hoping to test run the course tomorrow morning, if I can get map and control descriptions finished tonight.

Hanging flags for the Tree Hugger race, counting only half of the time I was out. ThunderDog came with me for the first 90 minutes, but this cold rainy November weather was not fit for Man nor Beast. So I (Woman) took the Beast home, and went out alone for the next few hours. I got totally chilled and lost dexterity, which made it hard to hang flags. It was a good reminder of why most hypothermia happens in this type of weather, rather than in winter. If I'd been in a survival situation, I would have been incapable of doing fine tasks with my fingers, as one might need to do to start a fire on a rainy day. But luckily, I never got more than 2.5 km from home!

There are lots of controls in this score-format race, and it will be interesting to see if anyone can get them all within 2 hours. I'll test the course later this week, and if I can do it, then it will need to be made longer! :-)

Hanging flags in Palgrave West for Saturday's Tree Hugger race. We have a stronger field this year, so I'm making the course longer. BulletDog and I were out for 2.5 hrs, and I'll count half the time. I think I deserve a gold star for going bushwhacking with my blistered feet and sore quads on the day after Raid The Hammer! :-)