Training Log Archive: Bash

Thomass Starkey Hills winter orienteering

So... here is how my Thomass race went. Heavy, wet snow started falling yesterday afternoon, with occasional ice pellets. Our power went out during the night and is still out 14 hours later, which also means no running water out here in the boonies. This morning we had 25 cm of the white stuff and it was still coming down lightly, but I wanted to go orienteering. Bent, however, did not! But he heroically melted snow to make coffee on our propane stovetop for me, then managed to get the automatic garage door open without electricity.

A tree in our front yard, about 25 cm in diameter, had split vertically all the way down its trunk, and its branches were blocking part of the driveway. I had to bushwhack through it in my car as I shot out of the garage into the deep snow, trying to keep up some momentum. Our driveway is 125 m long, and I got stuck for the first time ever in a Subaru Outback as I did my turn-around. Got out and kicked down the heavy snow around all the wheels until I was able to move again, then when I made it to the end of the driveway, the snowplow had blocked it with a 1 m high snowdrift, heavy as concrete. Ran back to the house to grab a snow shovel, then dug out the minimum necessary opening in the drift, then took a run at it to get to the road. Made it. Phew.

Only one side of the road was driveable, so I stayed in the tire tracks, approaching hilltops carefully in case another car was approaching in the same tire tracks. Just before I reached the main road, a huge fallen tree blocked my way, and I had to backtrack and take a longer route around on deep snow-covered country roads. Finally got to an intersection where the road had improved to half-snow, half-pavement - still not great, and the snow was still falling.

At this point, I realized that I would be annoyed if Bent chose to drive more than an hour to an athletic event in this sort of weather, so it was rather hypocritical of me to keep going. I checked the clock and realized that given how long it had taken me to get to this point, I was going to be cutting it close to reach the race on time. And then I glanced below the clock into the passenger footwell where my running shoes SHOULD have been - and, well... the decision was easy after that. It was totally clear that I was not meant to do this race!! I turned around and slipped and slid all the way back home. I hear it was a fun event. :-(

Skiing with Bent and the pooches around Palgrave West. Between fallen trees and sagging bushes in the deep snow, it was like bushwhacking on skis, even though we stuck to very wide trails. Beautiful scenery, but hard to get any speed up. ThunderDog and BulletDog had a fantastic time, which made it all worth it.

The winter storm warning kept us away from our planned Duntroon XC ski trip, so Bent, Gazette and I decided to drop cars at either end of the Humber Valley Heritage Trail, and run its entire length. Gazette coaches 10K clinics for the Running Room, and she is preparing for a half-marathon, so the running pace was a bit fast for me - which was great. She also had us take 8 one-minute fast walking breaks for food and drink, which made it less painful to run a bit faster in between. The terrain was difficult today - ice, goopy mud and water - and the usual bunch of steep hills along the river valley. Great workout - just what I needed in a week where I've been feeling like my running needs help bigtime.

Finally decided to invest a few frequent flyer points into a trip to Barebones. It'll be fun to orienteer in some new terrain. Boldly GHO! :-)

Decided to break up an all-day road trip by stopping at Hilton Falls West for a run. My poor ability to match map to terrain in this area has been bugging me since the training camp, so I wanted to take another shot at it.

I'd been planning a trail run, but the trails don't make a nice loop, so I ended up doing some cross-country travel and even a bit of dark green bushwhacking. All without a compass, although I had it in my pocket in case the map totally stopped resembling the real world. It was a dull, damp day near sunset with no one around, although there was plenty of evidence of human presence. In a few places, it felt kinda Blair Witch!

The map made somewhat more sense today, but I sure can't imagine running at top speed - even my top speed - while interpreting it. The lack of snow today made the rock features look more different from one another, which helped. All the same, I'm just not good at picking out 2.5 m contours, or distinguishing rocky dot knolls from hilltops on rock pavement, etc.

While the "Daily Show" dissected Bush's State of the Union Address

Around Palgrave West with ThunderDog. Snow was soft at +5C, so it was hard to get traction.

I think the groundhog predicted 6 more weeks of spring today. Sigh.

Wildlife report: 2 white-tailed deer.
(And I think they were laughing at my ABCs.)

Ran to Palgrave for my dental appointment. Not quite the pace I was aiming for, due to ThunderDog's off-trail explorations.

Dr. 'Bent did his best to fix my big adventure racing-induced cavity. He gave me 50/50 odds that it will flare up and need a root canal, possibly within the next few days. Those are better odds than what we had expected based on the X-ray, but still I'm sitting here feeling like a ticking bomb.

Traded dogs with Bent, so I ran home with BulletDog. Took an extra loop around Palgrave East, because I really need to do more running. Where traction was good, I tried extending my stride and using my new, improved calf muscles. It occurred to me that I feel strong when running these days, but not fast, so it's probably time for some speed intervals. If I really want running to feel easier, I should probably lose 1-2 kg, but what is the point of all this exercise if it doesn't allow me to eat chocolate??

More "Daily Show".

January training hours: 46:15

Thanks to our O training camp, I spent over 18 hrs orienteering this month. Running time was 6 hrs, which would be OK if we had enough snow to do my usual amount of skiing and snowshoeing, but I'm getting tired too quickly when I run, so I will need to do more. I'm happy to have managed 6 hours of core/leg strength exercises, plus a bit of yoga. That was one of my 2006 training goals, and it's already becoming a habit. What's really nice is that I can feel the difference.

Excitement is mounting in the Tree Hugger camp as one of our own team members, Brittany Webster, begins competing today in the Junior (under 23) World XC Ski Championships in Slovenia! Brittany has only been skiing for a few years, and had been overlooked by the folks in the skiing elite. Then, after a great finish in a recent race, she was whisked out of high school and over to Europe with the junior national team. In her first international race, she was leading at the 5 km point, then had a bad fall that knocked the wind out of her. She finished 4th, just after a Canadian woman who is going to the Olympics this year. Wow!

The funniest story so far was when they got off the plane in Europe, and she was watching huge ski bags coming off. When she asked, she was told that team members had been limited to 13 pairs each this season. Then her bag came off the plane, containing the only 3 pairs of skis that she has ever owned, and everyone laughed. And then they got concerned, and contacted the Fischer factory in Italy, which immediately sent her two new pairs of skis. Wow.

Her boyfriend Pate Neumann, a long time member of the Tree Huggers mountain bike team, has also raised some eyebrows in the XC ski community recently, and will hopefully be competing internationally next year as well. They are both 18, so they have a long time left in the under 23 category before they would compete at the senior level. In the meantime, we are making plans to go watch them in the 2010 Olympics!

Hard Core Conditioning DVD.
Ouch! But at least I'm able to make it all the way through now.